Abstract

Like the male homosexual's body, Weimar Berlin's topography was politicized, criminalized, sexed, and gendered. Paragraph 175 outlawed male-male sex acts, thus relegating male homosexuals to the criminal realm. My essay examines how Weimar Berlin's homosexual spaces defined male homosexual identity. Magnus Hirschfeld's Geschlecht und Verbrechen (1930) and Friedrich Radszuweit's Männer zu verkaufen: Ein Wirklichkeitsroman aus der Welt der männlichen Erpresser und Prostituierten (1931) provide the point of departure for my textual and topographical analyses. I show how both authors delineate homosexual spaces to prove the male homosexual's innocence vis-à-vis the male prostitute's and the "new woman's" moral and criminal guilt. (DJP)

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