Guilt Gone Wilde

If Oscar Wilde had been a man of our time, he might have had rather mixed feelings about the LGBT liberation agenda. Though Wilde himself had homosexual tendencies and would probably have approved of the gay rights movement, he probably would not have been a public advocate. Decadent dandy though he was, Wilde considered his homosexuality his “pathology:” a guilty pleasure and predilection he indulged behind closed doors.

This double life was in accord with the Victorian era in which he lived, and also with a philosophy that pleasures are most pleasant when they are private. No sin is as seductive as the secret sin. There is reason to believe that Wilde would have recoiled at the tendency to wear one’s sexuality upon one’s sleeve—as many do today—instead of making such inner desires the substance of subtle, furtive gratifications. “Illusion,” as he famously quoted, “is the first of all pleasures.” Wilde was able to rationalize his temptations while enjoying the thrill of forbidden fruit—but in his heart of hearts, in his inmost conscience, what guilt lurked?  (more...)

Guilt Gone Wilde