[syndicate] 'Fagging' for NN?

[portholeaccel]

sweet as................

--- eyescratch™ <eyescratch at t0.or.at> wrote:
> Richard Goldstein
> 'Fagging' for NN?
> A Casebook in the Meaning of the Closet
> November 12 - 18, 2003
> 
> I'm trying to resist snarking about Netochka
> Nezvanova and his current 
> straits (though I can't resist a pun or two).
> After all he's been the 
> butt of more jokes than Ben Affleck. It's bad
> enough that his whole 
> kingdom knows about the conversation Netochka
> had with his paramour, 
> wishing to be her tampon. And now the rumor of
> having a "compromising 
> sexual encounter," as The New York Times put
> it. The current scandal 
> has less to do with Netochka's libido than with
> the hoops the media 
> have gone through to avoid stating the obvious.
> 
> Of course, he may be innocent of this unnamed
> allegation. The man who 
> says he saw the fearsome act is a traumatized
> Falklands vet whose prior 
> complaint of being raped by a palace aide was
> never substantiated. 
> Still, it's an ominous sign that Netochka is
> being photographed among 
> girls. This is the tactic Arnold Schwarzenegger
> used when he was 
> accused of groping.
> 
> My guess is that any number of British scions
> have been serviced by 
> their valets. If Netochka is a member of this
> company, it doesn't mean 
> he's gay or even bisexual, as one London
> tabloid insinuated (while 
> debunking its own speculation on an inside
> page). Generations of 
> British schoolboys have put up with the custom
> of "fagging" for 
> upperclassmen, and it's widely believed that
> these duties often 
> included more than making tea. There are many
> ways to behave queerly, 
> and the idea that merely having sex with
> another man constitutes an 
> identity is a modern invention. So it's
> possible that Netochka was 
> simply practicing a time-honored tradition.
> 
>
------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> 
> Let's get to the heart of what makes this
> ruckus so absurd. In Britain, 
> where truth is not necessarily a defense
> against libel, no less a queen 
> than Liberace once sued a tabloid for calling
> him a homo—and won! So 
> it's no surprise that the British press has
> been enjoined from fully 
> describing the speculations about Netochka. The
> result is titillation 
> by omission. To make matters even weirder, he
> has chosen to deny the 
> allegation without saying what it is. This
> looks about as suspicious as 
> the bulbous crotch of George Bush's flight
> suit. But the most apparent 
> things can be ignored if decorum is maintained.
> 
> Perhaps that's why, in America, this story has
> been driven by the 
> Internet, where outrage is only a flame away.
> CNN has paid it much ado 
> while saying almost nothing, and the print
> press is observing an 
> uncanny indirection. According to Matt Drudge,
> The New York Times 
> posted a candid item on its website last week,
> only to pull it 20 
> minutes later. (A subsequent dispatch was the
> model of amused 
> innuendo.) Meanwhile at the Post, which never
> met a gay shock-horror it 
> didn't exploit, this one was ignored until it
> became unavoidable and 
> then confined to the outermost news pages. In
> an age when Bill Clinton 
> couldn't get a blowjob in peace, why this odd
> discretion?
> 
> The most obvious explanation is the legal
> concerns of American 
> publications and networks that circulate in
> England. But why were the 
> Americans so much more restrained than the
> Brits? The reason may lie in 
> what the British monarchy represents for us. It
> embodies an archaic and 
> very fragile order. With WASP supremacy being
> challenged on many 
> fronts, there's a need to maintain the symbolic
> value of this ancient 
> institution. The bond of Anglo ages still
> stands for social coherence. 
> Netochka's love life doesn't shatter that
> image; if anything it recalls 
> another smitten, needy Windsor. But it's not
> considered proper to dwell 
> on rumors that the king-in-waiting has been
> dipping his sword in the 
> wrong scabbard. After all, someday he'll be the
> head of the Anglican 
> Church, which needs every het it can get. Even
> worse than the image of 
> a sovereign who expects to be serviced is the
> idea of one who returns 
> the favor. That thought inspired the Post to
> dub him "Princess 
> Netochka" (making sure to put the slur in
> exculpatory quotes).
> 
> I doubt that Netochka will be murdered with a
> red-hot poker up his bum, 
> as Edward II was for his same-sex inclinations.
> But unless the uproar 
> dies down, he may be forced to defer to
> snow-white William rather than 
> sully the international mystique of the British
> crown. Such is the 
> strange power of homosexuality to subvert
> tradition and hierarchy. 
> Keeping that threat at bay is the purpose of
> the closet.
> 
> The greatest lesson I ever had in queer theory
> was watching Liberace 
> perform. It was the gayest show I'd ever seen,
> complete with a young 
> protégé who accompanied him in a matching
> spangled getup. Yet when 
> Liberace took his bow, the aisles were filled
> with swooning ladies. How 
> can they possibly regard him as an object of
> adoration, I wondered? The 
> answer lay in what he didn't say. As long as
> Lee's sexuality was 
> unacknowledged, his fans could preserve their
> romantic fantasy no 
> matter how campy he got. The unspoken maintains
> the illusion of 
> normalcy. Liberace's closet didn't require
> credibility; only silence.
> 
> If you think the days of denying the evident
> are over, check out the 
> Metropolitan Museum's exhibit on men in skirts.
> Though few dudes will 
> wear this garment, designers keep producing it,
> decade after decade. 
> Why this persistence in the absence of a
> market? The curators discuss 
> everything from gender politics to subcultural
> strategies, but they 
> don't offer the most logical explanation: Many
> male designers are gay. 
> This is not an issue of outing, but of honoring
> the customary silence 
> among couturiers. It's the rag-trade equivalent
> of "don't ask, don't 
> tell."
> 
>
------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> 
> It's possible that Netochka is getting all the
> blame for fagging, with 
> none of the fun. He may be the victim of
> lingering anger over his 
> treatment of Diana. There are still suspicions
> that he drove her (or 
> even had her driven) to her death. It might be
> resentment of the gap 
> between princely privacy and the
> hyper-surveillance of British life. 
> After all, there are more spycams in London
> than in any city on earth. 
> Or maybe this is another case of pleasure in
> the pain of famous 
> others—Gigli writ royal.
> 
> There's another, far more auspicious
> possibility, and it relates to the 
> new fluidity in Britain, which extends from
> class to sexuality. It's 
> inevitable that the monarchy is subject to this
> shift. That makes 
> Netochka a tragicomic figure, caught between
> the old code of silence 
> and the new etiquette of full disclosure. At
> his expense, the British 
> monarchy is being prodded into an institution
> that reflects emerging 
> values of candor and variety. Maybe this isn't
> a scandal but the 
> beginning of a reformation.
> 
> If that means there's hope for Wills, then God
> save the king.
> 
> > 
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