I can’t believe I have to do this again, but this is the internet, so I imagine this will not be the last time I do this. Fortunately, I had the foresight to save my response to the other post, so I’m just reposting it here, with a few changes for context.
The line “Love is a sacrament that should be taken kneeling” is from De Profundis, an extremely long letter Wilde wrote to his former lover Lord Alfred Douglas (Bosie) from Reading Gaol, which was not published in full until 1962. However, part of it, the part dedicated to a discussion of Christ in relation to art, love, and suffering was published in 1905. This section could more easily be read by a general audience because it is not about Oscar and Bosie’s personal lives, and is rather a continuation of Wilde’s theories about art, discussed in previous essays. This is the section that the line “Love is a sacrament that should be taken kneeling” comes from. It is not and never was a reference to oral sex. It is not even an eroticization of devotion to Christ. Here is a more complete quotation:
“Most people live for love and admiration. But it is by love and admiration that we should live. If any love is shown us we should recognise that we are quite unworthy of it. Nobody is worthy to be loved. The fact that God loves man shows us that in the divine order of ideal things it is written that eternal love is to be given to what is eternally unworthy. Or if that phrase seems to be a bitter one to bear, let us say that everyone is worthy of love, except him who thinks that he is. Love is a sacrament that should be taken kneeling, and Domine, non sum dignus should be on the lips and in the hearts of those who receive it.”
I am not going to explain De Profundis here; it’s a complex text and there have been differing interpretations. However, the 1905 version is on Project Gutenburg (the complete version is not in the public domain), if anyone wants to read it. I don’t want to say that it’s difficult to understand if you’re not familiar with Wilde’s other theoretical writing, because I know those kinds of comments annoy me (and often seem more fueled by the arrogance of the literary field than actual truth). I managed perfectly fine when I read De Profundis for the first time in high school, without having read anything else by Wilde except “The Ballad of Reading Gaol.” However, I will admit, that I understood De Profundis a lot better after reading some of Wilde’s essays, especially The Soul of Man Under Socialism. Just food for thought going into it.
Finally, the dedication to studying all of Oscar Wilde’s works in a queer context transformed at some point from a respectful discussion about an important figure in queer history into a disrespectful invasion of Wilde’s privacy and the reduction of his art to merely a cover for inside jokes about sex. Reclaim him. He’s ours. The straights can’t have him. But be respectful as well. Taking apart every detail of Oscar Wilde’s work to find references to his sex life is not respectful–it is exactly what the prosecution did during his trials. They were interested not only in proving Wilde had engaged in “gross indecency,” but also in destroying Wilde as an artist, and the whole of Aestheticism with him. They did not have to interrogate him about his art. But they did. It was traumatizing for him, and disastrous for artists as well as the queer community. Please be more respectful. And please note that this is not a condemnation of this tweet in particular, but rather a response to a general attitude toward Oscar Wilde that I see around the internet.
TL;DR: The line “Love is a sacrament that should be taken kneeling” is from De Profundis and is not a reference to oral sex. Oscar Wilde was a queer man who definitely had sex with men, and he is one of the most important figures in queer history, but this is disrespectful to his art, the trauma he suffered during his trials, and to his memory.
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