![]() Bosie’s father, Lord Queensbury, was a brute, a two-dimensional antagonist, whose escalating harassment of Wilde and Bosie renders them easily sympathetic. LGBT culture was unfixed and undefined, and therefore Wilde should be given a little more leeway in how we assess his behavior. ![]() Since homosexuality scarcely existed in Wilde’s time as a category to be reviled, they argue, there were no rules or legal standards of behavior for consent. Some make a historical relativist argument, cautioning against taking things out of context and judging Wilde’s actions by our own standards. He has often, quite fairly, been judged a victim of Victorian hypocrisy. To a great extent, Wilde has been shielded from criticism. We’re Re-Evaluating Everyone, and It’s Oscar Wilde’s Turn In the age of the Me Too movement, and with the dust having settled after the downfall of Kevin Spacey, Wilde is overdue for a re-evaluation. This icon, at the height of his fame, took advantage of his wealth and status to solicit, groom, and harass young men and teenage boys, whose willingness as sexual partners was ambiguous at best. ![]() What most people don’t know about is Wilde’s pattern of sexual behavior in middle age. Most people are generally aware that Wilde fell in love with the young undergraduate Lord Alfred “Bosie” Douglas, and that the pair maintained a relationship until Wilde’s trial and eventual imprisonment for homosexual offences. ![]()
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