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78 THE POLITICS AND POETICS OF CAMP
posing sodomite, not only did Queensberry intimate that it was Wilde who was
being inscribed, thus removing the social protections enjoyed by the inscriptor,
but it acted as an insult to Wilde’s self-defined class standing, reminding him of
the more common heritage he had labored to overcome during his rise to the top.
Queensberry knew exactly what he was doing when he charged Wilde with
sodomitical posing. In fact, he had begun formulating this strategy as much as two
years prior in March of 1893 (Ellmann 1988: 437). Queensberry has usually been
depicted as an unthinking, often idiotic bully. Yet his conscious deployment of
the concept of the pose indicates a more sophisticated mind. In a letter to his son
of April 1894, Queensberry stated that “to pose as a thing is as bad as to be it” (in
Ellmann 1988:417). He proceeded to castigate Alfred Douglas for posing as a
sodomite based on an analysis of gestures, bodily attitudes, and proxemics which
he observed displayed by Alfred and Oscar in a public place. This was an extremely
conscious analysis which he would repeat as evidence against Wilde in court. He
was not only aware of the relationship between interiority and its exterior
signification, he was also keen enough to understand that Wilde was flaunting
his sexual activities under cover of a clever, transgressive reinscription of the
bourgeois male. That Wilde responded to the label just as Queensberry had
predicted indicates first, that Queensberry had called Wilde’s bluff through a
successful identification of his reinscriptive strategy and, second, that there was a
philosophy of “posing” commonly understood and shared that provided the
normative standard against which Queensberry could analyze Wilde’s actions.
This philosophy can be outlined by looking at the ways in which the word
“posing” was deployed in Wilde’s libel suit.
Queensberry pleaded that the card was indeed intended to outrage Wilde, but
only to goad him into a face-to-face confrontation. A libel suit was unexpected.
He claimed that his only miscalculation was in underestimating the degree of
anger in Wilde’s response. Yet one must wonder at Queensberry’s explanation.
He knew that the label “posing sodomite” would enrage Wilde. He knew it was a
serious charge, serious enough to deploy only as a strategy of last resort, and one
that he had held as the trump for over two years. Certainly it was serious enough
to disown. For when Queensberry repeated the charge in court, he subjected it to
a subtle change. Instead of “posing sodomite,” he stated that the scribbled and
almost illegible card actually said “posing as a sodomite,” a different charge
altogether (Ellmann 1988:438). The difference between “posing sodomite” and
“posing as a sodomite” is an important one. If Queensberry had maintained the
former, he would have been accusing Wilde of an illegal sexual act and would
have had to prove that Wilde had played the “passive” role in sodomy. But the
latter charge was confined to a signifying practice. He needed prove only that
Wilde signified the sodomite. No evidence of actual sexual activity would be
required. This helps explain the logic behind the use of Wilde’s writings,
especially Dorian Gray, as primary evidence for the defense: what was on trial
was Wilde’s signifying practices, thus both his everyday life actions and his
textual strategies were relevant to Queensberry’s revised allegation.