recently i read Fabulosa! The Story of Polari; Britainâs Secret Gay Language by Paul Baker, which i highly recommend for anyone interested in queer history (and coded language), but especially for fans of the charioteer who want to learn more about the gay culture of twentieth century britain.Â
of course, a lot of the time while reading i was thinking about the charioteer; ralph lanyon, how he fits into the gay scene, and his relationship with bunny.
one thing that piqued my interest is that most of the camp gay men (who were the most likely to speak polari) specifically desired and sought out masculine âstraightâ men as sexual partners, rather than other feminine men. the preference in the gay scene for âreal menâ is also spoken about in this documentary (link is timestamped, but the whole thing is worth a watch).Â
paul baker writes some interesting bits about the âtradeâ identity, as well as the butch/femme relationships common at the time:
â...for many Polari speakers the ideal partner would be a butch man who did not identify as gay, the Great Dark Man of Quentin Crispâs fantasies.â
âAs mentioned, another term for a sexual partner was trade, which had a range of slightly overlapping meanings. It could refer to a potential, past or current sexual partner, and usually indicated a temporary sexual relationship, sometimes a one-off. Trade sometimes, but not always, indicated a masculine man who might not have identified as gay and would have been likely to have taken the âinserterâ role in sex. Such men who were classed as trade did not usually speak Polari and probably would not have identified as trade or talked much about their sexuality⌠However, trade could also be a station on the way towards a more established gay identity.â
âInternalized homophobia or just plain nastiness might make the trade attack their sexual partner or demand money from them, hence the term rough trade, although this term could also refer more generally to working-class casual male partners.
âThere was a distinction between the camp men who identified as gay and more masculine men who did not claim a gay identity but would have taken a male partner. Prior to decriminalization and the subsequent Gay Liberation movement this kind of âtradeâ identity was pretty common. Drag queen Betty Bourne described one of the sea queens she knew, Big May: âSheâd been on the boats for years and years. Theyâd have a husband for the voyage⌠Seafood is the Polari word. They were all very married, they were in couples. There was the butch and the bitch, it was very aping the heterosexual thing. We called ourselves girls. Itâs to do with clinging to our youth, desperately and pathetically.ââ
â[in the 1970s] The old queen-trade or butch-femme relationships were seen as problematic through Liberationist eyes, and so clones were a kind of merging of queen and trade into a ânew, improvedâ identity, both masculine and gay â desirable and desired.â
ralph lanyon seems to fit with the general definition of âtradeâ: masculine, straight-passing (he had been with multiple women), dominant, and doesnât identify with the camp members of the community. regarding rough trade: i donât think he would have attacked a sexual partner unprovoked (as is bakerâs definition of rough trade), but i can definitely see any prospective hookups feeling like they might have been taking a risk with him, based on how heâs perceived by the other gay men:
He stood over the young man, quite quietly, with the kind of expression a captain uses on a tipsy passenger he has found exploring the bridge. âExcuse me,â he said. The young man flinched like a startled fawn, and hurried away.Â
âWhy the â canât you look where youâre â well going, you â?â If Laurie had imagined Ralph as a captain before, he now glimpsed him vividly as a first mate. The dancer said, âWell, really, Iâm sorry Iâm sure, but thereâs no need to speak to me like that.â Ralphâs only reply was to stare him out; Laurie could hear him working off his protests on his partner halfway around the room.
[The whole scene with Sandy.]
âI bet he handed you out some canings at school, didnât he?â âAbout the usual number,â said Laurie, rather coldly. Bunny put his head on one side and looked down at Ralph with an indulgent smile. âIt did something to him, you know. Scratch old Ralph after a couple of drinks, and youâll always find an unfrocked scoutmaster.â
âI suppose you wonât be able to run to Ralph fast enough with all this.â âYouâre afraid of him, really, arenât you?â âDonât make me laugh,â said Bunny shrilly. âHe never caned me at school.â
â[Toto Phelps]âs scared stiff of Ralph, so he came to me.â
âIf it is any satisfaction to you, I paid a call on Bunny just now and he has been taken to sick bay, with concussion and broken ribs as well as I could judge. He came round in time to agree it was the blackout once again.â
now, iâm making two assumptions about bunny: heâs attracted to the masculine âtradeâ type over others, and he wanted to cling to his relationship with ralph. now, for all we know, he would have done the same to any two-timing boyfriend and his lover what he did to ralph and laurie, and couldnât have cared less about the breakup. in my opinion, however, he genuinely wanted to keep ralph to himself, whether out of love, lust, infatuation, idk, but there was definitely some possessiveness there (how many times did he tell laurie how well he knew ralph inside and out?). in any case, a lovelorn, brokenhearted, revengeful bunny is way more fun to think about.Â
and i can see why bunny would have wanted to keep hold of ralph once he got him:Â
theyâre sexually compatible: based on the way the partyâs described, there doesnât seem to be many lanyon types there. of course, weâre seeing it through laurieâs eyes, and he would be inclined to pay the most attention to GASP! flamboyant queers and rent boys (the horror!). nevertheless, there doesnât seem to be many masculine, straight-passing men actually on the scene to choose from. (not to say bunny doesnât easily get around: he bagged toto as well as a little on the side almost immediately after breaking up with ralph. i imagine picking up sexual partners isnât the hard part. the hard part is picking up sexual partners heâs genuinely attracted to.)
theyâre in an actual relationship: nominally, at least. the answer to what this entails would probably differ depending on which of them you asked. whether or not theyâre both faithful to each other (highly doubt), instead of having to go through the trouble of cruising (or paying) for a hookup, bunny has everything he needs at home.Â
ralph is vetted: bunny doesnât have to worry about being attacked by rough trade after sex for no reason, an unfortunately common occurence in the world of queer hookups. (of course ralph does beat him up in ch.16, but not for no reason, and i donât think bunny wasnât expecting it, exactly. not that that justifies anything.)
ralphâs stuck in bridstow: for however long his course lasts at the very least. many of the men sought after as âtradeâ were soldiers, sailors, guardsman, and sex-workers. if bunny did manage to meet a guy who was not only his type but also desired a relationship, there was a chance he would have been unable to remain in the same place for long, due to the transient nature of his job or the war.Â
maybe ralphâs rough reputation even excited bunny. the âunfrocked scoutmasterâ comment with his âindulgent smileâ always gives me the vibe that he would intentionally âscratchâ ralph after a few drinks just to see what would happen. maybe he liked experimenting with how far he could push ralphâs self control, especially if he was afraid of him (i donât buy his âdonât make me laugh!). itâs clear ralph spent a lot of his time with bunny drunk:
âI just happen to know that the old dear practically never passes out flat, no matter what he has; and that hag downstairs would wake him at a pinch.â
âIf Iâd tried it on you, youâd have spotted it straight away. But with hard-drinking types like old Ralph, whoâve got one or two on board alreadyââ
[the fact that the water jug was already A Thing]
maybe bunny preferred him vulnerable that way, and delighted in finding out all the âfunny little kinksâ he could. maybe something he said while drunk set off the spark that made bunny want to read ralphâs diaries.Â
ralph and bunnyâs husband/housewife dynamic in ch.8 is so interesting. reading it back, when bunny first shows up, he tells them to come downstairs and drink the tea out of a proper set and ralph acquiesces. then, he tells ralph to get the kettle. his shock comes when ralph refuses (in so rude a manner). thatâs when laurie makes his comment about bunny not being familiar with ralphâs straight look. iâve always taken that as a suggestion that ralph had been playing a part in the relationship, and bunny had never seen the âhead prefect lanyonâ ralph that laurie is so familiar with. so was part of this act an easy acquiescence of orders from bunny? he did let bunny turn the flat into an ikea showroom from hellâŚ
maybe his shock is more so from ralphâs rudeness? maybe he expected ralph to have some amount of embarrassment or shame about being caught redhanded with that hussy, but the absolute unapologeticness and audacity came as a shock?Â
he gets the idea with the water jug fairly early on. when laurie and bunny are pouring out their tea, ralph refuses and pours himself a gin. he and laurie have a long talk about the war, while bunny sits there left out, then bunny refills ralphâs glass. surely he had been seething and scheming while they talked for so long, not acknowledging him. and at that point, he had only caught laurie in ralphâs bed, and ralph had told him to make the tea himself. not that those two things wouldnât piss off any significant other, but heâs got a whole evening ahead of ralph blatantly flirting with laurie in front of him and all their friends, and being insulted by both ralph AND his sidepiece, who has the audacity to call him a streetboy! i wouldnât blame him if he added a drink for every time he felt slighted that evening. no wonder he was able to bear it with such a saintly patience knowing what havoc he was wreaking on ralphâs liver lmao.Â
thereâs not really any point iâm trying to make here, but ralph and bunnyâs relationship is one of the most fascinating parts of the book for me to think about, and seeing it through the twentieth century butch/bitch dynamic is quite interesting.
germansingergirl
baratheonpilled
