The Impossible Object of Queer Desire

The late British writer Quentin Crisp, despite being one of the first openly homosexual men in England, was lambasted as “homophobic” and “misogynistic” for his self-deprecatory quips about the “perversity” of homosexuality. His lament that gay men are incapable of caring about the well-being of others—a weakness he attributes to their narcissism and “feminine minds”—aroused the ire of LGBT activists like Peter Tatchell.