RICHARD EASTON

Early in 1928 the surrealists organized a formal inquiry into
sexuality. The tone of the discussion strikingly resembles those excited gath-
erings of public-schoolboys, masturbating over their collective sexual expe-
riences and fantasies. Contrary to its canonical status as revolutionary and
transgressive, surrealism is defined and confined within contemporary tech-
nologies of sexuality: woman is center stage, in terms of different sexual
positions, and with considerable respect for masculine fears of feminine ini-
tiative; onanism and sodomy (of the female body) are considered quite accept-
able; but homosexuality, along with bestiality, is definitely "out." Surrealist
"research" into sexuality is an enunciation of the moralizing discourse of
heterosexual, masculine desire. The inquiry was signed by fifteen male mem-
bers of the group; women and gay men associated with surrealism were
absent from the proceedings. It is possible that René Crevel, the only openly
gay member of the group, was intentionally excluded. André Breton used this
debate to ban any future discussion of homosexuality: "I accuse pederasts of
a mental and moral deficiency . . . paralysing all enterprises that I respect"
("Recherches" 38).¹

Breton exemplifies the pervasive social attitude towards homosex-
uality in our culture, an attitude which violently suppresses and effaces homo-
sexuals. He was obsessively anti-homosexual, and refused to include the
subject of homosexuality in surrealist research, on the grounds of its moral
incorrectness. This paper will partially address itself to the problem of
Breton's homophobia, which will have wide reaching ramifications within a
much broader conception of modern art. But the main aim of my work will

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