Prostitution and Political Scandal as Constructive Forms of Male Homosexual Weimarian Identity: An Analysis Based on the Works of Christopher Isherwood (1939–1976)

Abstract

This article investigates how male homosexual identity in the German capital, Berlin, was shaped by the categories of prostitution and political scandal between the 1920s and 1930s. Based on the semi-autobiographical novels of the English homosexual writer Christopher Isherwood, “Goodbye to Berlin” (1939) and “Christopher and His Kind” (1976), as well as legal sources and the support of specialized bibliography, the study analyzes the commercialization of sex between men and its impact on public perception of homosexuality. Male prostitution was common between the fall of the Weimar Republic and the rise of the Nazis to power, and, with different political projects at stake, sectors of society exploited the ramifications of this trade to carry out their political maneuvers. This research highlights how these actions not only created and reinforced stereotypes, but also contributed to consolidate a specific male homosexual identity in a moment of radical transformation in Germany.