Escape of a Half-Naked Sailor 
P.N. Furbank
- Three Queer Lives: An Alternative Biography of Fred Barnes, Naomi Jacob and Arthur Marshall by Paul Bailey
I used to have a homosexual friend who puzzled over the phenomenon of the homosexual ‘queen’. The performance – screams, limp wrists, hand on hip etc – was a very familiar one, many of one’s friends would occasionally indulge in it: the puzzle was that it was reputed to suggest a woman, whereas one never saw women behave in the least like it. The impersonation, though a deliberate breaking of the rules of orthodox ‘masculine’ behaviour, engendered a freak, a monster, unknown to the species or to ordinary human society.
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From the LRB letters page: [ 3 January 2002 ] Andrew Ross.
P.N. Furbank is general editor, with W.R. Owens, of The Works of Daniel Defoe. His other books include Unholy Pleasure, E.M. Forster: A Life and Behalf.
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