BONUS NUMBER 89: BACK TO THE FUTURE...for A SPASH OF 19TH CENTURY TRIPLE XXX
(Did You Sleep With the Models?)
A funny thing happened on the way to an Arthur Tress showcase.
A few days ago, I began organizing a retrospective of all his photographs that appeared in Mandate, Honcho, and Playguy during my years as editor-in-chief. The one on this page was to be the first of many. And then I began reading the text. (Not to worry — that showcase is still in the works. Meanwhile, I urge you to visit Arthur’s website: arthurtress.com. While you’re there, take a look at the list of museums that have his work in their collections.)
As you know, Leigh W. Rutledge was a frequent contributor to the magazines: fiction, non-fiction, photographs, excerpts from his forthcoming books. But I didn’t remember this feature as a standout. Certainly it was an unusual article owing to its exposure of a segment of buried gay history — triple XXX ficiton from the 19th century, a time when homosexuality in many countries was punishable by ostracism, imprisonment, or worse. Leigh knew, as did all my regulars, that I was always on the lookout for content that editors of other gay magazines considered not of interest to their readers. (That’s perhaps why we outsold them throughout my tenure.)
I believe you’ll find these excerpts from Teleny not only quaint but also surprising in their veiled explicitness. Which proves, no doubt, what we’ve guessed all along: gay men from the start of Time have chosen, more or less, from the same sexual menu.
Rereading the excerpts, I realized that by changing a few words and phrases, substituting our unashamed four-letter words for dainty Victorian euphemisms, I could turn it into 2024 j/o porn. For example:
TELENY: “Priapus unhooded itself and lifted up its head violently so that all the tangled web of veins in its body seemed ready to burst.”
2024: “His uncut dick, so hard that every throbbing vein stood out, was ready to fuck me without let-up.”
Editing those three magazines left little time for the fine points, and that’s no doubt why I didn’t ask Leigh at the time a question I posed while preparing this post: Is there a connection between Teleny’s protagonist, Des Grieux, and that of the Chevalier Des Grieux in the eighteenth-century novel by Antoine François Prévost, which is the basis for two famous operas, Manon by Jules Massenet (1882) and Puccini’s Manon Lescaut (1892).
Leigh’s response: “I don't know the answer to your question. When I wrote the article, Teleny was not known of at all except to a few erotica collectors, and there was very little information about it. (I even spoke by phone to Member of Parliament and Wilde biographer H. Montgomery Hyde, but he had no further insights.) I presumed that the name Des Grieux was taken from the book. Both novels — Manon Lescaut and Teleny — end somewhat similarly, with Des Grieux as a bitter witness to the death of his beloved in both instances.”
H. Montgomery Hyde, incidentally, is well worth reading about on Wikipedia. Presumably heterosexual — he was married three times — he campaigned tirelessly in Britain for the decriminalization of homosexuality, and met with fierce opposition for doing so. He was also a secret intelligence agent in World War II, and a prolific author.
Two words from the Teleny excerpt that might be unfamiliar: In earlier centuries, a Spahi was a soldier in the Turkish and the Algerian cavalry. In Greek mythology, Priapus is a minor fertility god, the protector of livestock, gardens, and male genitals. Priapus is noted for his oversized penis, which is permanently erect. The Temple of Priapus (a.k.a. St. Priapus Church) is a North American pagan religion, founded in Montreal in 1979 by followers of the godlet. The denomination’s largest membership, as one might expect, is in San Francisco.
