The Enemy of the New Man: Homosexuality in Fascist Italy

5. Madmen or Criminals

185 5 Madmen or Criminals Homosexuals and homosexuality are seen as kinds of “evil”: but an evil that has been removed and transferred to a place where it is “something else.” That is, where it becomes monstrous, devilish and degrading.   , Il carcere e la fraternità dell’amore omosessuale Prostitution and Delinquency: Homosexuals on Trial Institutions such as jails and insane asylums were also used to repress homosexuality . As we have seen, despite the lack of any specific article against homosexual relationships, one could be condemned for indecent behavior or solicitation, two crimes that had acquired a very broad meaning during the dictatorship, including, of course, any violation of the Fascist standard of virility. Consequently, an analysis of the legal proceedings gives us an official idea of what was sexually unacceptable and helps us delineate the model of masculinity that Fascism sought to defend, as well as society’s perception of “normal” sexuality. Through their sentences, courtrooms condemned homosexuality and delineated proper sexual conduct, creating a standard of virility. Trials established The Boundaries of Eros,1 defining the borders of sexual practices: what was licit or illicit, normal or abnormal, usual or transgressive. With the criminalization of homosexuality, sexual behavior in general was subjected to legal control; masculinity was disciplined and heterosexuality defended. The sentences delivered in the courts were closely connected to social norms and evoked an unwritten code of virility that reinforced a standard of manliness. Angus McLaren wrote, “The trials of those men who were considered transgressive or homosexual are precious sources of information because they explicate the nuances, though often variable, which were inherent in the injunction of these men.”2 These sources can be applied to the case of Fascist Italy as well. During the twenty years of Fascism there were still many homosexuals condemned for indecent behavior and solicitation, although it appears from legal statistics, especially after the implementation of the Rocco Code, that there was a notable decrease in offenses against public morality.3 An analysis of the sentences delivered in the courts of Rome shows how legal action did not limit itself to protecting the community from those who offended public morality, but rather worked to repress various kinds of “scandalous” behavior, regardless of whether they represented an offense to public morality or not. Homosexuality was blameworthy and to be condemned, and even if a homosexual was not discovered in wanton behavior, he was a disturbing factor for morality. He was considered a degenerate, a threat to society. By analyzing his behavior and lifestyle, medical reports served as proof of his crime. Judgments hinged, then, more on an investigation of the accused’s nature rather than the actual crime committed. As Foucault rightly pointed out, “expert psychiatric opinions allowed one to pass from action to conduct, from an offense to a way of being, and to make this way of being appear as nothing other than the offense itself,” to punishing the criminal instead of the crime.4 The homosexuals were judged more for their irregular behavior than for any infringement of the law. Sexual practices that represented transgressions of “normality” and did not have procreation as their aim were to be repressed and punished because they defiled respectability and the dominating standard of virility. Sentences, medical reports, and trials were all important instruments for the implementation of an “apparatus of normalization,” which would individuate and repress every anomaly. The completely abstract concept of decency and the lack of specific definitions for obscenity and public morality made it possible for each court to determine which sexual behaviors were transgressive. Canosa wrote, “The courts transferred the inevitable prejudices of their members to there legal activity, prejudices that were mostly identical to those of the average citizen, full of prudery in everything concerning sex and little inclined to justify ‘public’ displays related to it.”5 The magistrates’ courts and the different sections of Rome’s criminal courts sentenced homosexuals accused of indecent behavior or solicitation for licentious purposes to light punishments, usually limited to a few months of imprisonment. The Fascist regime criticized judges for being too lenient toward those guilty of sexual offenses and urged them to support “the Regime’s efforts to foster an increase in the Nation’s birthrate, its moral soundness, and fruitful development.”6 186 Madmen or Criminals Of greater curiosity than the severity of the actual sentences inflicted on homosexuals is the fact that many sentences were...