Gertrude Stein, one of the first lesbian celebrities

IN THE following passage sent by a reader, Gertrude Stein, the famously unreadable lesbian writer and art collector who had a few memorable lines, most notably, “There’s no there there,” discusses lesbianism with Ernest Hemingway, the famously readable writer and macho adventurer. What a strange pair. Stein was the godmother of Hemingway’s son.

“You know nothing about any of this, really, Hemingway,” she said. “You’ve met known criminals and sick people and vicious people. The main thing is that the act male homosexuals commit is ugly and repugnant and afterwards they are disgusted with themselves. They drink and take drugs, to palliate this, but they are disgusted with the act and they are always changing partners and cannot be really happy.”

“I see.”

“In women it is the opposite. They do nothing that they are disgusted by and nothing that is repulsive and afterwards they are happy and they can lead happy lives together.”

“I see,” I said. “But what about so and so?”

“She’s vicious,” Miss Stein said. “She’s truly vicious, so she can never be happy except with new people. She corrupts people.”

“I understand.”

“You’re sure you understand?”

There were so many things to understand in those days, and I was glad when we talked about something else. The park was closed so I had to walk down along it to the rue de Vaugirard and around the lower end of the park. It was sad when the park was closed and locked and I was sad walking around it instead of through it and in a hurry to get home to the rue Cardinal Lemoine. The day had started out so brightly too. I would have to work hard tomorrow. Work could cure almost anything, I believed then, and I believe now. Then all I had to be cured of, I decided Miss Stein felt, was youth and loving my wife.”

~ Ernest Hemingway in “A Moveable Feast” (1964, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, NY), pp. 20-21)

—- Comments —-

Michael S. writes:

I am appalled that a woman can be so physically ugly, and so utterly lacking in any feminine charm whatsoever.

 Dan R. writes:

She was what she was what she was, but what would the PC enforcers do with Gertrude Stein today? Her quote, as recounted by Hemingway, rings all too true, but it is a truth I could not repeat among my dearly beloved Facebook friends without risking ugly abuse from them. It is a private truth which needs to find its way to the surface again. The romance with all things “gay” has become a form of mass delirium, especially when you get to the bottom (sorry) of it. The worst offenders in this regard, perhaps not surprisingly, are the women, those of who, at one time, would simply have been dismissed as fag hags. The world has been turned upside down, but reading the font of wisdom that are the Yahoo Comments one sees a goodly portion of commenters who are not drinking the Kool-Aid. More so, at least, than the elites and milquetoasts like Senator Rob Portman.

Laura writes:

Gertrude Stein is a problematic modern celebrity. On the one hand, she gives the correct line on lesbianism. But she is an embarrassment in her (truthful) comments on male homosexuality.

Mrs. H. writes:

“They do nothing that they are disgusted by and nothing that is repulsive and afterwards they are happy.” This may be true, which is why I agree with Anthony Esolen that “lesbianism is the more dangerous of the two, involving a far more radical rejection of the opposite sex” (see his article “Ten Arguments for Sanity“). I think messiness and brokenness is less apparent in lesbian relationships (but no less present), so it is not as clearly wrong and disordered.  Plus the necessary use of various synthetic replacements for a penis, or just absence of any penetration at all, makes lesbianism extremely misanthropic–hating the flesh, and its sweat and fluids.

I believe there is a hierarchy within the sexually deviant community, resulting in LGBT often replacing GLBT, since lesbians are (morally?) superior, and the transgender are the least powerful.  There is feminist agression and desire to dominate even within these radical groups, which is why in their own circles lesbians may agree with Stein. The lesbian/homosexual alliance is purely political.  Someone please correct me if I am mistaken.

Laura writes:

Very good points.

Wheeler MacPherson, who sent the above passage, writes:

Mrs. H does indeed make some good points, notably her observation about the LGBT hierarchy among the sexual deviants, and her statement that the lesbian/homosexual alliance is purely political.

I don’t believe it’s coincidence that St.Paul, when describing the awful effects of sexual degradation among mankind, lists a progression of perversion, starting with the women:“That is why God has abandoned them to degrading passions. Their women have exchanged their natural function for one that is unnatural, and men too in the same way have disregarded the natural function of women and been consumed with passion for one another, men for men, acting indecently, and experiencing in their own persons the inevitable penalty of what they have done…” [Romans 1:26-27].

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