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phantomtomatoMounsey, Chris. Being the Body of Christ : Towards a Twenty-First Century Homosexual Theology for the Anglican Church, Taylor & Francis Group, 2014.
I read the four chapters in this related to David Blaize, wanting to see what the scholarly establishment had to say about the novel. This is by far the longest citation that seems to focus on Blaize; there’s two journal articles which I have not sought out, both exploring some facet of homoeroticism and desire in the trilogy, which absolutely everyone can agree is central to reading these books. I think that’s very fun.
But: I was curious what an academic with expertise in a related area would say, and especially how it might compare to what I’ve picked up from fic/fandom. I could quote at length from Mounsey’s writing—I am tempted to—but I’ll try to categorize and summarize.
Mounsey describes a progression of sexuality across the three novels:
a sex-life that maintains virginity by moving from inviolable innocence, to knowing innocence, to solo masturbation, and ending in asexual marriage.
This involves some allegorical reading of the text which I am only half sold on, at points, includes references to Freud, and thoroughly persuades me not to spend time on David Blaize and the Blue Door, which even in a scant ten-page chapter manages to sound unappealing to what I’m reading this series for. Ah, well.
What I find striking about this progression isn’t its endpoint or any of its middle stages, which align pretty closely with how David often gets written—asexual David seems like a common enough interpretation of the character even in shipfic—but just how thoroughly sad it is for Frank. Take this quote from Mounsey:
Frank… must decide whether a life of sexual abstinence with David can be happy. He knows that he will continue to desire to have sex with David, and if he wants to remain with David he has to be happy with the thought that it will remain an impossibility.
It is the thoroughness of this abstinence, and the consistent acknowledgment that this would be a permanent battle for Frank (at one point, Mounsey says that David will “demand asexuality from his lover [Frank],” emphasis mine), which is so hard to read. From a shipping perspective, this interpretation of the canon really turns me off of the David/Frank pairing, seeing Frank’s wants and needs in a relationship subsumed by David’s. If that is canon, then I want fic to provide Frank with an alternative where he can find fulfillment with a partner who matches his sexual desire.
It’s not all bad in the realm of Mounsey’s commentary on sexual allegory, though. I had never thought of reading the meerschaum pipe Perpetua as a metaphor for masturbation, but I’m very sold, after seeing the argument. It makes for an interesting version of David’s father’s visit during King’s, which ends with him breaking the pipe/David’s habit of masturbation, I suppose? But also lends itself to a very sexy re-interpretation of all of those pipe-smoking scenes. See:
... you must never smoke fast and get it over, because that fevered the delicate creature; but you must never smoke so slowly that it went out, because then it had to be relit, which was bad for it, and tasted disgusting, which was bad for you. (David of King’s)
Or the one where David smokes with his trousers off in front of Frank. Hot.
Mounsey is not talking about Blaize in a fannish way, but I think he would have quite strong shipping opinions if asked! He’s full of all sorts of fantastically different reads, which were very enjoyable to contemplate. For example:
Hughes is a peripheral character, who will return later in the narrative as a practicing homosexual, but for the present, the vehemence with which Maddox chases him away from David suggests that Maddox is already at least a knowing innocent
He does not necessarily read Hughes/Frank as having happened! His phrasing leaves room for the possibility, but in the chapter where this shows up he spends a lot of space on the idea that Frank is at the “knowing innocent” tier of sexual maturity, from the progression discussed above, and therefore has not experienced sexual activity with another person (and perhaps not even with himself). Whereas nearly every fic I’ve read which mentions Hughes takes it as a given that he and Frank were kissing, at a minimum, and somewhere around trading oral sex, at the high end of things. It’s so baked into the fandom! But Frank as a complete virgin by the end of Marchester, and perhaps even through Cambridge, is a radically new read to me.
I don’t like it more than I like Hughes/Frank, because I like the idea of Hughes/Frank. I ship it, in other words. But I would be very down for the AU where Frank has all of his big, tortured feelings despite not having so much as kissed Hughes, only perhaps engaged in a bit of dubious bathtime horseplay.
Oh, on kissing—Mounsey asserts that Benson initially had Frank and David kiss in the bath scene, but doesn’t provide a citation for this, only mentions that this was revised after some sort of discussion with his brother, A. C. Benson. I desperately want to read the scene where Frank and David kiss. It throws a wrench in all of this perfectly chaste asexuality, of course, but a kiss would have been lovely. That very much solidified the Charioteer connection for me.
Two couples I’d never thought about are suggested as possible to read into the gaps in the narrative, in contrast with Hughes/Frank being possible to read out of it: David/Jevons, which Mounsey compares to Frank/David, and David/A. G.!! I had not remotely picked up on either, and still view them as tenuous, but A. G. is wild and I can buy the “missing scene” fic wherein David does go back to A. G.’s room that night in first year. Mounsey suggests oral sex, but this is fic, it could be anything—goodness, that would be an unpleasant one to contemplate, just because I find A. G. so personally repugnant. David’s fascination with older men is noted, though, so even if I don’t quite rise to the level of “Benson intentionally implied sex between these characters,” it’s not so difficult to revisit the first part of King’s and see David as flirting a bit, and perhaps pleased at the attention he receives from A. G., until it becomes annoying.
Oh, and there’s this very funny diversion in the first of the David chapters in which Mounsey tells us that A. C. Benson wrote a book where a character named after him lusts after a boy with the initials E. B., like his own younger brother E. F. Benson, thus implying that perhaps the Bensons engaged in homosexual incest. Which he calls “a speculative reading, and as such no more convincing than the idea that E.F.B. was a practising homosexual because he associated with Lord Alfred Douglas,” and yet he did not edit out that speculation. I think he ships it.
Overall, the book chapters were an enjoyable read and a good companion to David Blaize, and I feel as though I’ve come away with both a broader perspective on the series and new avenues for fic ideas, so it’s a win.
I read the four chapters in this related to David Blaize, wanting to see what the scholarly establishment had to say about the novel. This is by far the longest citation that seems to focus on Blaize; there’s two journal articles which I have not sought out, both exploring some facet of homoeroticism and desire in the trilogy, which absolutely everyone can agree is central to reading these books. I think that’s very fun.
But: I was curious what an academic with expertise in a related area would say, and especially how it might compare to what I’ve picked up from fic/fandom. I could quote at length from Mounsey’s writing—I am tempted to—but I’ll try to categorize and summarize.
Mounsey describes a progression of sexuality across the three novels:
a sex-life that maintains virginity by moving from inviolable innocence, to knowing innocence, to solo masturbation, and ending in asexual marriage.
This involves some allegorical reading of the text which I am only half sold on, at points, includes references to Freud, and thoroughly persuades me not to spend time on David Blaize and the Blue Door, which even in a scant ten-page chapter manages to sound unappealing to what I’m reading this series for. Ah, well.
What I find striking about this progression isn’t its endpoint or any of its middle stages, which align pretty closely with how David often gets written—asexual David seems like a common enough interpretation of the character even in shipfic—but just how thoroughly sad it is for Frank. Take this quote from Mounsey:
Frank… must decide whether a life of sexual abstinence with David can be happy. He knows that he will continue to desire to have sex with David, and if he wants to remain with David he has to be happy with the thought that it will remain an impossibility.
It is the thoroughness of this abstinence, and the consistent acknowledgment that this would be a permanent battle for Frank (at one point, Mounsey says that David will “demand asexuality from his lover [Frank],” emphasis mine), which is so hard to read. From a shipping perspective, this interpretation of the canon really turns me off of the David/Frank pairing, seeing Frank’s wants and needs in a relationship subsumed by David’s. If that is canon, then I want fic to provide Frank with an alternative where he can find fulfillment with a partner who matches his sexual desire.
It’s not all bad in the realm of Mounsey’s commentary on sexual allegory, though. I had never thought of reading the meerschaum pipe Perpetua as a metaphor for masturbation, but I’m very sold, after seeing the argument. It makes for an interesting version of David’s father’s visit during King’s, which ends with him breaking the pipe/David’s habit of masturbation, I suppose? But also lends itself to a very sexy re-interpretation of all of those pipe-smoking scenes. See:
... you must never smoke fast and get it over, because that fevered the delicate creature; but you must never smoke so slowly that it went out, because then it had to be relit, which was bad for it, and tasted disgusting, which was bad for you. (David of King’s)
Or the one where David smokes with his trousers off in front of Frank. Hot.
Mounsey is not talking about Blaize in a fannish way, but I think he would have quite strong shipping opinions if asked! He’s full of all sorts of fantastically different reads, which were very enjoyable to contemplate. For example:
Hughes is a peripheral character, who will return later in the narrative as a practicing homosexual, but for the present, the vehemence with which Maddox chases him away from David suggests that Maddox is already at least a knowing innocent
He does not necessarily read Hughes/Frank as having happened! His phrasing leaves room for the possibility, but in the chapter where this shows up he spends a lot of space on the idea that Frank is at the “knowing innocent” tier of sexual maturity, from the progression discussed above, and therefore has not experienced sexual activity with another person (and perhaps not even with himself). Whereas nearly every fic I’ve read which mentions Hughes takes it as a given that he and Frank were kissing, at a minimum, and somewhere around trading oral sex, at the high end of things. It’s so baked into the fandom! But Frank as a complete virgin by the end of Marchester, and perhaps even through Cambridge, is a radically new read to me.
I don’t like it more than I like Hughes/Frank, because I like the idea of Hughes/Frank. I ship it, in other words. But I would be very down for the AU where Frank has all of his big, tortured feelings despite not having so much as kissed Hughes, only perhaps engaged in a bit of dubious bathtime horseplay.
Oh, on kissing—Mounsey asserts that Benson initially had Frank and David kiss in the bath scene, but doesn’t provide a citation for this, only mentions that this was revised after some sort of discussion with his brother, A. C. Benson. I desperately want to read the scene where Frank and David kiss. It throws a wrench in all of this perfectly chaste asexuality, of course, but a kiss would have been lovely. That very much solidified the Charioteer connection for me.
Two couples I’d never thought about are suggested as possible to read into the gaps in the narrative, in contrast with Hughes/Frank being possible to read out of it: David/Jevons, which Mounsey compares to Frank/David, and David/A. G.!! I had not remotely picked up on either, and still view them as tenuous, but A. G. is wild and I can buy the “missing scene” fic wherein David does go back to A. G.’s room that night in first year. Mounsey suggests oral sex, but this is fic, it could be anything—goodness, that would be an unpleasant one to contemplate, just because I find A. G. so personally repugnant. David’s fascination with older men is noted, though, so even if I don’t quite rise to the level of “Benson intentionally implied sex between these characters,” it’s not so difficult to revisit the first part of King’s and see David as flirting a bit, and perhaps pleased at the attention he receives from A. G., until it becomes annoying.
Oh, and there’s this very funny diversion in the first of the David chapters in which Mounsey tells us that A. C. Benson wrote a book where a character named after him lusts after a boy with the initials E. B., like his own younger brother E. F. Benson, thus implying that perhaps the Bensons engaged in homosexual incest. Which he calls “a speculative reading, and as such no more convincing than the idea that E.F.B. was a practising homosexual because he associated with Lord Alfred Douglas,” and yet he did not edit out that speculation. I think he ships it.
Overall, the book chapters were an enjoyable read and a good companion to David Blaize, and I feel as though I’ve come away with both a broader perspective on the series and new avenues for fic ideas, so it’s a win.
no subject
Date: 2024-08-24 05:57 pm (UTC)Not wanting to get ranty, but I take issue with some of the assumptions that Mounsey makes about Benson’s life and his intentions in writing the book, particularly his assumption that Benson never acted on his homosexual feelings, and also the way he appears to gloss over the moral implications of the fully dressed Head Boy leering at a naked (?) younger boy, as though it is only about sexuality. What really interests me is that Benson could have written the boys as equal in age and desire, but he didn’t.
But I completely agree, the thought of Frank never getting over David is horrific. And yet…….I see no sign of that in the books. My reading of their ‘big conversation’ at the end is that both of them understand their lives and relationships will change. I get the impression that Fred did successfully navigate his schoolboy crushes/romances and made life-long friends which he greatly valued.
I must have another look at David/AG – I’ve got a horrible feeling that there is a very heavy hint there for those who want to take it up, or anyway at the very least David is being employed to use his ‘charms’ to smooth things over – gulp! Oh and thank you for the pipe quotes because they are just wonderful! Fred, you naughty boy!
no subject
Date: 2024-08-24 10:18 pm (UTC)My interest in the DB series is fannish, not biographical, so that shades all of my reactions. I don’t find it totally believable that Benson was celibate all his life, but neither does it really matter to me whether he was, because I’m here for the characters that he created and not him. I do still find it funny that Mounsey implies AC wrote Memoirs as incest smarm, though.
As for Frank and David, I mostly go along with Mounsey’s discussion of their fundamental disconnect and the, yes, tragedy of it. Frank’s perspective is just so dreary, especially through DB but also at moments in King’s, and David really never quite lets Frank off for that one ill-timed proposition. Which, I always come back to, showed us Frank respecting David’s ‘no’ without question. In the context of their world, I don’t find it inappropriate for Frank to have asked! And so all of his disappointment in himself that follows reads as the huge, tragic weight of internalized homophobia and externalized, societal prejudice. He took his shot and was turned down and it was all respectful, but still he beats himself up for the remaining duration of the series. It’s just so much for an adolescent to handle, and it’s sad to see that he continues to struggle with it as an adult, and yes, I find David quite mean when he jabs at Frank with it years later. That’s clearly not the sum total of David’s character, but he is, not inconsequentially, a bit of a prig.
So in the fandom context, where there’s lots of (very earnest, well-written, interesting!) takes on a post-canon David/Frank, especially asexual David paired with Frank, I often find the stories too sad for me. My own reading of their dynamic precludes me enjoying the ship. I think someone could manage it if they wrote David decades on and demonstrated a lot of personal development/sold it as him needing to deal with his own sexual repression, but I’m just more invested in getting Frank a lovely boyfriend who is not David, and letting their friendship become less significant/all-encompassing over time (as you say).
David/AG was the great surprise of Mounsey’s book. I am still fascinated by it! I think it’s such a compelling reading of that scene in King’s when AG invites David back to his rooms. It certainly fits into the atmosphere of Edwardian or late-Victorian schooling, and I think it helps make David’s skittishness around sex especially sympathetic and more complex. I like David as flirtatious but gunshy, and I like the idea that that has placed him in uncomfortable situations which he must navigate. That’s interesting!
no subject
Date: 2024-08-24 11:06 pm (UTC)