COULD what we call “camp” turn out to be, like aqueducts and concrete, an invention of the ancient Romans? Roman poets such as Catullus, Martial, and Juvenal are notorious for their ridicule of freeborn Roman males who submit to sexual penetration. These poets regularly label their male peers with Latin terms such as cinaedus, pathicus, impudicus, and mollis, none of which has a precise English equivalent, but all of which are pejorative words that mark men as effeminate and sexually submissive. I ask you to consider here the possibility that some Roman poems that use this kind of language are not earnest homophobic ridicule at all, but a very early instance of what we in the 20th century came to call “camp.” This is a controversial claim for at least two reasons. For one thing, many experts question whether we can apply such a contemporary cultural category to ancient poetry. Others chafe at the idea that there might be something subversively “homophilic” going on in what we generally consider to be forthrightly homophobic verse.
Camp has been defined in various ways, but the best working definition is the one suggested by sociologist Esther Newton in her 1972 book Mother Camp, a study of female impersonators in America. Newton argues that camp is a kind of performance, whether onstage or in everyday life, that embraces the stigma of homosexual identity by calling attention to incongruous juxtapositions in a manner that is both theatrical and humorous. By incongruous juxtapositions, she means any pairing of things that seem not to belong together: a beauty in love with a beast, an old woman living in a shoe, or a man wearing a dress. She argues that by fully embracing the stigmatized identity, camp can “neutralize the sting and make it laughable.” She continues: “Not all references to the stigma are campy, however. Only if it is pointed out as a joke is it camp, although there is no requirement that the jokes be gentle or friendly. A lot of camping is extremely hostile; it is almost always sarcastic. But its intent is humorous as well.”
Hostile, sarcastic humor about men acting like women is precisely what the homophobic invective of Catullus, Martial, and Juvenal is all about. Let us consider one of the most famous examples, Catullus’ Poem 16. This poem is addressed to two fellow Romans, Aurelius and Furius, who figure prominently in a number of other poems having to do with Catullus’ love affairs, both hetero- and homosexual. In Poem 11, Catullus calls Aurelius and Furius his “friends” and asks them to deliver a bitter reproach on his behalf to his faithless girlfriend, Lesbia. In Poems 15 and 21, he warns Aurelius to keep his hands off his boyfriend, Juventius. In Poem 24, he begs Juventius to steer clear of Furius, who has designs on the boy. So keep the shifting relationships among Catullus, Aurelius, and Furius in mind as you read the opening lines of Poem 16 (the speaker is Catullus):
I shall butt-fuck you and skull-fuck you,
Aurelius, you pussy-boy, and Furius, you cocksucker,
both of whom think that I am unmanly,
because my little verses are a little soft.
When Aurelius and Furius call Catullus’ verses “soft,” they are using the Latin word mollis, one of the terms used to call Roman men out as effeminate or sexually submissive. Catullus is claiming, in effect, that Aurelius and Furius accuse him of being unmanly because he writes unmanly verse. By “unmanly verse,” he means poetry in which the poet paints a verbal picture of unmanly behavior. For the Romans, “manly” equated to sexually dominant behavior, and “unmanly” equated to sexually submissive behavior, regardless of whether a man’s sexual partner was female (like Lesbia) or male (like Juventius). Catullus will enlighten us about his own sexually submissive behavior later in the poem. First, however, he defends himself against this charge by arguing that (male) poets may write unmanly poetry without compromising their own masculinity:
For while it is fitting for a morally upright poet to be manly
himself, his little verses need not be so at all.
In fact, verses have wit and charm
if they are a little soft and somewhat unmanly,
and can get a rise,
not out of boys perhaps, but these hairy men
who can barely get it up.
Not only can a manly man write unmanly poetry, but it also turns out that unmanly poetry—poetry about men behaving in a sexually submissive manner—is witty, charming, and sexually stimulating for men who need a little boost in the bedroom (homoerotic poetry as ancient Roman Viagra?).
In the penultimate two lines of the poem, Catullus sheds more light on the accusation: “Just because you have read of my many thousands of kisses, / you think that I am not quite a man?” The unmanly verse, Catullus reveals, consists of passages in his poems where he begs a lover for “many thousands of kisses.” Catullus does not mention a specific lover here, but readers familiar with his poems will be aware that he pleads for such kisses both from his girlfriend Lesbia (in Poems 5 and 7) and from his boyfriend Juventius (in Poem 48). Moreover, in Poem 99, Catullus “steals” a single kiss from Juventius, who proceeds to wash his lips clean, a gesture that Catullus interprets as a devastating rejection.
You may wonder what is so “unmanly” about asking your girlfriend or boyfriend for kisses, even for thousands of them. Remember, however, that manliness for the Romans meant dominance. A manly Catullus would not beg Lesbia or Juventius for kisses, nor would he feel the need to surreptitiously steal a kiss from Juventius, or sulk when his sexual overture was rejected. On the contrary, he would throw Lesbia down on the bed, or perhaps slam Juventius up against the wall, and take what he wanted. At least, that is the caricature of Roman masculinity that lies behind the charge of unmanly “softness” that Aurelius and Furius have lodged against Catullus in the scenario imagined by Poem 16. Finally, in the last line of the poem, Catullus reiterates his initial threat against Aurelius and Furius: “I shall butt-fuck you and skull-fuck you.”
Traditionally, Catullus’s Poem 16 has been cited as an example of homophobic invective that provides evidence of the rigid sex and gender morality of the ancient Romans. From this poem, the usual argument goes, we learn that it was okay for a Roman man to mount other men, but not okay for a man to be so mounted. While that description of Roman sex and gender norms may be true enough as far as it goes, it does not adequately account for everything going on in this remarkable little poem. What it doesn’t account for, I would argue, is the element of camp—the use of hostile, sarcastic humor to put on display the denigration of sex and gender deviance and to embrace the stigma, thereby neutralizing its sting.
Catullus insists that, despite his erotic submission to Lesbia and Juventius, he is man enough to sexually dominate Aurelius and Furius. He challenges the traditional Roman assumption that submission is unmanly: he can assume a submissive role or a dominant role as he pleases; his manliness is independent of the rigid sex and gender roles that traditionally define Roman masculinity. Catullus is, in effect, putting on a dress and daring all comers to call him a faggot. In a 1973 essay called “The Role of Women in Roman Elegy: Counter-Cultural Feminism,” pioneering feminist classicist Judith Hallett argued that Roman love poets like Catullus, Ovid, Propertius, and Tibullus, by eagerly confessing their erotic submissiveness vis-à-vis their mistresses, were defining an egalitarian subjectivity that was both counter-normative and proto-feminist. Unfortunately, Hallett’s perspective was pushed aside in the 1990’s by scholars who resisted the gender bending that was on display in poems like Catullus 16. They insisted on reading these poems as evidence only for a sex and gender system based on masculine dominance and feminine submission. In effect, they underscored the fact that Catullus uses pejorative, stigmatizing language to mock his enemies as effeminate and sexually submissive, but virtually ignored the fact that Catullus himself embraced his own stigmatized effeminate gender identity.
So far, we have seen how Catullus uses witty and sarcastic sexual humor to embrace an ancient Roman stigma of sexual submissiveness and gender deviance that is analogous to the stigma associated with modern homosexuality. A final way in which Catullus’ Poem 16 exemplifies camp is in its feigned adherence to moral standards that it actually rejects. Catullus does not take the position of a modern gay rights advocate and say, “I am effeminate and sexually submissive and I have every right to be so.” Instead, he says, “A poet can be manly even though his verse is unmanly.” This suggests that Catullus accepts traditional Roman standards of masculine comportment, and that his poetic persona is merely a fictive pose. But why should we believe this, and why should we not believe that it’s precisely the other way around? How do we know that Catullus was not rejecting traditional Roman standards of masculinity, and that his abject, effeminate persona was not the “real” Catullus?
The fact is, we don’t know for sure which is real and which is pretend, and that is exactly how camp works, at least in the classic post-war, pre-Stonewall form that Esther Newton described in Mother Camp. The “straight” men and women attending the drag show can believe that the man onstage in a dress is merely a “female impersonator” who, in his offstage life, shares their own heteronormative value system; the “camp” audience members, by contrast, share the inside knowledge that the female impersonator is in fact a drag queen who rejects traditional gender roles and has sex with other men—perhaps even gets fucked by them. Similarly, Catullus’ “outside” readers can believe that Catullus himself is a manly man who writes unmanly verse to be witty, charming, and titillating, while his “inside” readers understand that Catullus rejects rigid sex and gender roles and embraces his unmanly submission to male and female lovers alike.
For years, gay readers have been told that we should despise this kind of poetry because it devalues us and has historically contributed to our stigmatization and marginalization. And yet, much of this poetry can be great fun if we approach it as camp frivolity rather than morally earnest homophobic ridicule. What’s more, reading these poems in this spirit makes a lot of sense: how morally serious do we really think Catullus can be when he goes around threatening to sexually assault those who assail his manhood? If gay readers approach this poetry as camp, we are reclaiming it for ourselves, making it a part of our history, and re-inscribing ourselves into a part of the Western literary tradition from which we have long been excluded.
Michael Broder teaches classical cultures and world literature with a focus on deviant forms of sex, gender, and kinship in historical context.
