Sunday, January 02, 2005
Corrupting the young
[Via Michael Brooke] The office of the Director for Public Prosecutions has, over 75 years after the fact, released papers disclosing that Stanley Baldwin's government wanted to put Radclyffe Hall in prison for the novel The Well Of Loneliness. Good on them. It's appalling stuff.
One of the classic reviews at the time declared that "I would rather put a phial of prussic acid in the hands of a healthy girl or boy than the book in question", and the government's fear was that it would corrupt the young. I've no idea why, since the book is basically a several hundred page attempt to say how miserable it is to be homosexual (or transsexual, really, since the main character seems to be more that than gay), how most 'inverts' end up alcoholic druggies, and how they are ultimately likely to commit suicide from guilt for corrupting others. Seems like the best anti-homosexual propaganda possible.
But Hall should certainly have been imprisoned for forcing generations of lesbians to 'find themselves' in that drivel. That's really corrupting the young. I'm with Baldwin all the way on this one...
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