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LATVIJAS VĒSTURES INSTITŪTA ŽURNĀLS ◆ 2022 Nr. 1 (115)
https://doi.org/10.22364/lviz.115.04
OBSERVING AND PERFORMING MALE
SAMESEX DESIRE: APPROPRIATION
OF PUBLIC SPACE IN LATVIA
DURINGTHE SECOND WORLD WAR
AND LATE STALINISM 19401953
Ineta Lipša
Dr. hist., Institute of Literature, Folklore, and Art, University of Latvia, acting
senior researcher.
Research interests: social history of the 20th century, history of sexuality and
social control.
The article focuses on male same-sex subculture in public space in Riga dur-
ing the Second World War and late Stalinism. It analyses the performance of
same-sex desire through which the public space was appropriated for male
same-sex purposes. The article argues that during the period under discus-
sion, same-sex loving men, who socialised in Riga, perceived themselves as
recognisable and positive agents in urban life, thus creating the vibrant male
same-sex subculture of the public sex culture. The key source of the article is
a diary, whose author both observed his contemporaries performing same-
sex desire in public space and practiced it himself.
Key words: homosexuality, performativity, Soviet Latvia, Second World War,
late Stalinism.
In the increasing range of studies on the role of space in sex-
ual sociality, space is perceived as a symbolic tool to map the
socially sexual variation or as a cultural or historical artefact, for
example, as a safe shelter for non-conformist sexual sociation.1
With the help of the means of gender performativity same-sex
desiring people continued to subvert the Soviet system, same as
1 Green, Follert, et al. 2010, 7.
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they had done in the 19th – early 20th century with regard to the
system in the Russian Empire and in the 1920s–1930s with re-
gard to the Republic of Latvia.2 Consequently, male same-sex
subculture maintained certain practices of performing desire,
which were understood by those who belonged to the subcul-
ture, while the rest – those who were not involved – mostly did
not notice the obvious. New York’s same-sex loving men subcul-
ture was characterised by double life and camp epistemology, as
argued by historian George Chauncey.3 Similarly, the homo-
sexual subjectivities of the late Soviet period were characterised
by shared laughter, language, and solidarity, as well as the inter-
nalisation of self-censorship as constituting “secrecy ethos” that
historian Arthur Clech names as “specifically Soviet”.4 The same
features in fact also characterised Latvian male queer subjectivi-
ties before the Soviet occupation and during the Second World
War and late Stalinism.5
For “cruising and socialising”, same-sex loving men used
various popular centrally located urban sites, which originally
had not been intended for sex. However, after they were appro-
priated by the subculture, they functioned like the Pleshka in
Moscow.6 In male same-sex public sex subculture, “cottaging”
and the sexual culture of the park (“the bushes”) were important
practices. These practices were observed in the early 20th cen-
tury (until the 1940s) in New York, London, Toronto, and other
cities. During the Second World War, they were especially
broadly spread in London.7 Studies by anthropologists and
2 Healey 2001, 144–173; Lipša 2014, 66–71, 247–275.
3 Chauncey 1994, 179–205, 271–299.
4 Clech 2018, 29.
5 Lipša 2021, 415–442.
6 Healey 1999, 38–60; Essig 1999, 87–89; Schluter 2002, 89–94; Fiks 2013;
Healey 2014, 95–117; 100–106; Clech 2017; 91–110; Healey 2018, 99–100;
Aripova 2020, 102–105.
7 Vickers 2010, 58–73; Maynard 1994, 207–242; Chauncey, 1994; Houlbrook
2005, 133–156; Sibalis 1999, 15–23.
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sociologists show how individuals implemented in real life the
“rights to the city” formulated by sociologist Henri Lefebvre
(and had easily accessible, quick sex without social
consequences).8 Namely, if the existing commercial and cultural
infrastructures do not provide a space for the needs of queers,
they redefine the existing public spaces. Thus, they preserve
their agency, appropriating the public places as spaces for the
acquisition of same-sex encounters, transforming the city into a
centre of sexually alternative behaviour. Recent studies on the
relevant aspects in Riga in the late socialism show that there,
too, queers subverted the existing social order and replaced it
with an alternative order, constructing private networks to
gather and speak about their sexuality and adapting various pri-
vate and public visibility strategies.9
The experiences of the public sex subcultures in Soviet Lat-
via have not been studied due to the lack of historical sources.
However, the task of a social historian is to identify places and
activities, which so far have been abstracted in historiography
and public discourses of the time as dark and marginal, and to
construct the experiences of the insiders.10 Thus, diary as a his-
torical source became necessary, as literature on the studies of
Soviet subjectivities demonstrates. First, researchers were inter-
ested in examining how in the 1920s and 1930s the Soviet Union
implemented its ideological project of creating “New Soviet Per-
son”. Anna Krylova and Jochen Helbeck focused their research
on the first generation of Soviet subjects in Russia in that
pe riod.11 At that time, many residents tried to transform them-
selves into “New Soviet Person” by “speaking Bolshevik” and in-
ternalising the Soviet ideology and its values by constructing
8 Lopes 2020, 13–29; Green, Follert, et al. 2010, 7–27; Flowers, Marriott, et al.
2000, 75.
9 Aripova 2020, 101.
10 Mayne 2000, 252.
11 Krylova 2002, 243–263; Hellbeck 2006; Krylova 2007, 101–121.
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themselves in their diaries.12 Rustam Alexander recently has
added a new aspect to the Soviet project of creating a “New
Soviet Person”, suggesting that the eradication of homosexuality
was also part of this project, “discussed mostly behind closed
d o o r s ”. 13
Researchers have conceptualised Stalinist subject and the
Soviet person with the “Soviet man” category, thus juxtaposing
the “autonomous” liberal self to its constituent other.14 However,
there were innumerable variations between these opposite
models of subjectivities. As Dan Healey notes, “many had a ‘rev-
olution on their mind’ and explored the revolution’s meaning for
themselves in their journals, but numerous others refused to
‘speak Bolshevik.’”15 He makes a point that “no collection of dia-
ries written by particular types of citizens could reflect the broad
swathe of responses to life in the USSR.”16 To trace the diversity
of these experiences, Russian social and cultural anthropologist
Natalya Kozlova has applied the inside-out interpretative ap-
proach.17 She has characterised her methodology as reading
human documents. Through writing letters, diaries, and other
life-writing documents, individuals sought to localise them-
selves in the network of social relations and discursive practices
offered by the system, thus engaging in the construction of
social identities.18 The realities of this network, reflected in life-
writing documents, involved a polyphony of voices worth of
study. Rustam Alexander has demonstrated it by examining the
autobiography of Pavel Krotov, written in the late 1970s while
undergoing treatment for homosexuality in Gorky under
12 On the diary as a source in Soviet history see:
Healey 2020,
196–211.
13 Alexander 2021, 5. On Soviet legal discussions about decriminalization of
homosexuality, see: Alexander 2019, 1–28.
14 Sharafutdinova 2019, 174.
15 Healey 2020, 196.
16 Ibid., 207.
17 Kozlova 2005.
18 Sharafutdinova 2019, 185.
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psychiatrist-sexopathologist Yan Goland.19 Arthur Clech, in
turn, studying in-depth interviews, gives a vivid scene of the
connection between the outing of male homosexuals in public
spaces and the culture of suspicion-fearing informants of police
in towns of Soviet Georgia in the 1970s and 1980s.20 Diaries are
an essential historical source to explore male same-sex sub-
cultures in the Soviet Union after the Second World War. How-
ever, it is only recently that scholars have started to use it in re-
search to understand the subjectivities of homosexuals.
Historian Dan Healey has written pioneering studies in the
field.21 He has examined the diary written in 1955 and 1956 by
Soviet singer Vadim Kozin (1903–1994), convicted of homosex-
uality, who served his sentence in the Gulag. Healey has bril-
liantly used the approach of recognising complex and multiple
voices in his analysis of Kozin’s diary. I will apply the method as
the interpretive lenses in my reading of Kaspars Aleksandrs Irbe
(1906–1996), a resident of Jūrmala, a seaside resort town near
Riga22 which serves as a primary historical source for my article.
IRBE’S DIARY AND SELFCENSORSHIP
In Latvia, the process of self-fashioning into the “New Soviet
Person” through “speaking Bolshevik” and internalising the
Soviet ideology and its values mostly could happen during the
post war Stalinism in the late 1940s–1950s: during the Second
World War, the Soviet occupation regime established in 1940
was replaced by the Nazi rule (1941–1945). Thus, the imposition
of the Soviet rule resumed in Latvia after the war. For this pur-
pose, the Soviet Union sent tens of thousands of functionaries of
19 Alexander 2021, 391–414.
20 Clech 2021, 367–390.
21
Healey 2020,
203–207;
Healey 2018, 73–89.
22 Irbe. Dienasgrāmata [Diaries of Kaspars Irbe] (henceforth, only the date of
the entry will be given.)
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different ethnic origins to Latvia,23 among them, most likely
those who had forged themselves as “Soviet people” in the way
Helbeck described. Now the locals had the opportunity of fol-
lowing their example. Kaspars Aleksandrs Irbe also tried to do
so in the first months of the Soviet occupation.
The earliest surviving entry of his diary is dated 24 February
1927. It was followed by twelve entries in 1928 and six entries in
1929. His writings from the late 1935 up to the late 1938 and
from the beginning of 1940 have survived in a more significant
number (34 entries). Regular records have been preserved start-
ing from 1 June 1940. Thus, Irbe’s diary, written regularly for
56years, from 1940 to 1996 and filling 72 volumes,24 becomes
of particular importance, as it documents his life through the
whole era of the Latvian SSR and beyond.25
During the entire Soviet era, Irbe lived alone in his private
house in Dubulti district of Jūrmala inherited from his parents
and had a legal so-called out-of-office income: in summers he
let rooms. He did not establish his own family. Thus, he was free
from both the disciplinary power of relatives and family and the
watchful eyes of neighbours.
Irbe prioritised his romantic adventures over work and chose
his jobs accordingly. He did not work for pay in 1940, when the
Soviet Union occupied Latvia. He did not work during the Nazi
occupation (1941–1944) either but made a living from what he
earned on the black market and by transcribing books in Braille
on behalf of the Institute for the Blind. Irbe worked as the bailiff
at Jūrmala People’s Court from the summer of 1945 to 1948 and
at the People’s Courts in Riga from 1952 to 1956 and from 1961
23 On Sovietisation see: Bleiere 2018,
593–629.
24 During the Stalinist era, the most significant chronological lacuna in the
diary is the absent volume from August to December 1949. There were also
months with no entries at all, for example, April 1941, February, March, and
May 1951, as well as March and May 1952, April and June 1953. Starting
from 1955, he wrote his diary every month.
25 More details on diary see: Lipša 2021.
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to 1968. In the late 1940s and 1950s, he worked only as much as
to avoid the attention of authorities, which were combatting the
so-called parasitic lifestyle. E.g., in 1957, 1958, and 1959, he
worked only in summers– as a forest-guard in Jūrmala forest
district so he could dedicate himself to voyeurism.
Irbe’s formative years fell in the 1920s–1930s. He did not
support the authoritarian regime created by the coup d’etat in
1934 and rather favourably treated the Soviet occupation in
1940 because he hoped that the new rule would restore demo-
cracy. A few months after the Soviet occupation, in an effort to
understand the ideology of the Soviet regime, Irbe read litera-
ture on dialectical materialism. He found the worldview it pro-
moted acceptable. However, after the Second World War, his at-
Fig. 1. The 30 June 1951 entry in Irbe’s diary
1. att. 1951. gada 30. jūnija ieraksts Irbes dienasgrāmatā
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titude towards the Soviets changed within a few months. In
December 1944, he accepted a house manager position in
Majori district of Jūrmala because this status exempted him
from mobilisation in the Soviet army. In March 1945, as soon as
the mobilisation threat ended, Irbe quit the job. During these
months, Soviet soldiers seized and occupied townhouses owned
by private individuals and stole their belongings. The Soviet rule
turned the houses into offices of Soviet institutions or sold their
belongings for personal profit. As a house manager, Irbe wit-
nessed it all. Therefore, he deliberately avoided joining the
Communist Party or having an administrative position.
Fig. 2. Kaspars Aleksandrs
Irbe (1906–1996) in 1934
2. att. Kaspars Aleksandrs
Irbe (1906–1996)
1934.gadā
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Similarly, in Soviet Georgia, in the late 1980s, homosexual
Shota F. abstained from becoming a member of the Communist
Party and refused promotions because he believed it would at-
tract attention to his private life.26 In contrast, Irbe made his
choice in the late Stalinism and his motivation was political:
hewanted to avoid participating in the Sovietisation of the
population.
During the Second World War and late Stalinism, Irbe wrote
a diary only for private use. However, in the late 1960s, he
started to think that his diary would be a valuable study mate-
rial to a writer or a psychologist. His writing was shaped by the
political realities of the Stalinist regime. His ideological self-cen-
sorship is more evident than his sexual self-censorship. It is only
from an entry made in 1992 that the reader finds out that in the
winter of 1948/1949, Irbe was hiding a friend in his house who
was persecuted for political reasons.27 He kept in mind the 1941
and 1949 repressions when Soviet authorities deported more
than 57 thousand Latvian citizens to remote areas of the USSR.
He lived in constant fear of deportation.
The late 1940s through the 1950s was the most intensive
period in his same-sex affairs in the culture of public sex. Never-
theless, the idea of being found out or prosecuted for sodomy
was never his concern in his written self-reflection (similarly, as
Clech writes, Shota F. did not directly fear the application of
anti-sodomy articles28). Instead, he considered his ownership of
real estate as the main cause of such danger. In the late 1960s,
Irbe began noting in his diary that he was keeping silent about
many things that he had observed in order to avoid potential
repressions from the Committee for State Security (KGB).29 He
writes: “I would have liked to present an accurate picture of the
26 Clech 2021, 372, 376.
27 21.10.1992.
28 Clech 2021, 385.
29 03.04.1968.
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past times; however, I am writing very carefully, cautiously,
passing over in silence many things.”30 By this he meant his
views on the realities caused by the Soviet policies on migration,
ethnic issues, and the Latvian language. However, from the
1960s, Irbe’s self-censorship regarding critical assessment of the
regime started to soften. Now he began to describe events of the
1940s–1950s in more detail than he had back then; but only one
such event is related to the male same-sex subculture of public
sex. In the summer of 1945, a Red Army officer perceived Irbe’s
refusal to engage in a sexual encounter with him as ideologically
motivated (as a result of negative attitude from the part of the
locals towards the new Soviet rule). Right after the incident,
Irbe described it in his diary as follows:
“This evening, a brutal officer spoke to me near the Vesta
Temple. [...] The brutal officer told me: “Moloden’kaia artistka!
[Young actress!]” He wanted to come to my house and used filthy
language.”31
In the 1940s, Irbe was cautious about what he wrote in his
diary about his experience with an influential representative of
the occupation power. In the mid-1990s, he finally revealed the
Nazi versus Soviet ideological context hidden under the euphe-
mism of “filthy language”:
“On my way to the train station, I sat down on the bench at the
end of Rainis Boulevard opposite the [railway] station. […] Many
lonely men were sitting on the benches at the end of Rainis Bou-
levard. While I was sitting there, I saw a Russian army major of
mighty bodybuilding with many medals on his chest. He exami-
ned the men who were sitting on the benches. Finally, he stopped
opposite me and, without any introduction, asked: “Tu daesh v
zhopu ebat’? Ia khochu ebat’!” [Do you give a butt-fuck? I want a
butt-fuck!] I was shocked and got up to leave. I crossed the street
to go to the station, but the major started to curse: “Fashistam ty
30 20.10.1969.
31 29.06.1945.
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dal, a sovetskomu ofitseru ne daesh!” [You gave the butt-fuck to
fascists, but you don’t give the butt-fuck to a Soviet officer!],
etc.”32
The criminalisation of male homosexuality also necessitated
self-censorship in written self-reflection. Irbe uses aliases and
abbreviations of words and names when writing about his
Queer self and events in the male same-sex subculture to make
sure that only he alone could understand the respective details.33
For example, he designates his homosexual acquaintances with
“hms” and/or “colleagues”. Thus, his diary does not allow identi-
fying other individuals from male same-sex subculture (with a
few exceptions). Nevertheless, his description of his own and his
counterparts’ activities in the subculture are surprisingly frank.
Irbe’s self-censorship in regard to his observations of male same-
sex subculture changed only a little over the whole Soviet
period.
It seems that it was the Soviet anti-sodomy statute that con-
tributed to Irbe’s choice to confine himself primarily to one-
time casual same-sex encounters offered by the culture of public
sex. Thus, he kept his sexual affairs anonymous. He never re-
vealed his identity to his sex partners or invited them to his
home. He did not have a regular partner. However, he longed
for such a person, especially in the late 1940s and 1950s. In
Irbe’s case such a strategy paid off. Although he lived in the
male same-sex subculture of public sex for five decades, police
never detained Irbe for performing his same-sex desires.
Irbe expressed contempt for men who realised their same-
sex desires in public restrooms regarding them as uncultured
individuals. However, he became a regular in the toilets himself.
At the same time, Irbe’s disdain for men who engaged in the
sexual culture of public toilets may have been an expression of
32 29.01.1995.
33 11.08.1976.
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his attitude towards the fact that, by criminalising same-sex re-
lationships, the authorities forced same-sex desiring men to
confine their relations to encounters in toilets. In this sense, the
sexual subculture of toilets probably carried an enforced charac-
ter. Similarly, some other queer men in different periods were
disgusted by the observed culture of public sex in toilets. Rus-
sian engineer Pavel Krotov felt that way about Moscow’s homo-
sexual subculture in the 1970s, and Georgian physician Shota F.
about that of Tbilisi in the late 1980s.34 However, as Arthur
Clech shows, Shota F. avoided the sexual culture of toilets not
only because of the sense of superiority stemming from his be-
longing to the intellectual circles and the notion of how he
should behave as a representative of those circles. His second
concern was that the visibility of cruising and engaging in the
sexual culture practiced in public toilets could threaten its
agents’ safety and put them at risk of being made police inform-
ants.35 Irbe had never faced such risk.
Irbe’s observations allow us to trace the construction of the
queer subculture in Soviet Latvia. His main focus of interest was
sexuality. Thus, he documented the events, texts, and observa-
tions that he contextualised with sexuality.
CRUISING FLIRTING SELFPRESENTATION
During the Second World War, the public sex culture was
influenced by the dislocation of soldiers. Artist Tom of Finland
also remembers how there were desiring hands on each corner
in the darkened city of Helsinki during the war, pulling him in
little sideways where he had public sex.36 The war granted simi-
lar opportunities to British soldiers in London.37 In Latvia,
34 Alexander 2021, 408–409; Clech 2021, 377.
35 Clech, 2021, 380–385.
36 Arell, Mustola 2006, 20–23.
37 Vickers 2010, 58–73.
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during the Nazi occupation, sex was as easily available as it had
been before. A Nazi soldier whom Irbe met in a park said that,
“no such things were possible” in Germany while “here [in
Latvia] soldiers are allowed to do everything”.38 Namely, in Ger-
many, the socialising of soldiers at the sites frequented by ho-
mosexuals would be penalised, whereas, in the general district
of occupied Latvia, such behaviour was ignored. In 1942, Irbe,
who knew by face the same-sex desiring men who had fre-
quented the cruising sites before the war, remarked that there
were “many unfamiliar faces because there’s a great movement
in Riga now”.39 He made a similar conclusion after the war in
1948, mentioning that few of the old acquaintances remained in
the “current circles” because there were “a lot of ‘newcomers’”.40
Thousands of newcomers from different regions of the Soviet
Union continuously kept arriving in occupied Latvia. From
1946 to 1950, around 272 thousand newcomers settled in Latvia,
mostly from Soviet Russia and Belarus. About 50 thousand of
them had chosen Latvia as a place of residence when demobilis-
ing from the Red Army.41
The newcomers behaved in a reserved manner until they
understood the specific local norms of the subculture. Irbe has
noted only two situations when the newcomers did not observe
these rules. In both cases high-ranking Red Army officers were
involved.
The first case was the already mentioned event in the sum-
mer of 1945 when a Soviet officer addressed Irbe near the
temple of Vesta in obscene, dirty language, voicing his sexual
desires directly and loudly and thus ignoring the norms ac-
cepted in the subculture. In contrast, a representative of the
local subculture would have expressed his wishes in the language
38 04.06.1944.
39 24.06.1942.
40 22.08.1948; 03.09.1948.
41 Eglīte, Mežs 2002, 417.
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of facial expressions, gestures, and body movements. This case
perhaps demonstrated a typical behaviour of high-ranking
Soviet officers during the Second World War.
The second case, in turn, suggests that overtime officers, too,
had to adapt to the codes of the local subculture. In 1946, some
still lacked patience to follow these codes. Irbe was sitting on a
bench in a park in the city centre (Vērmane’s Park) on a Sep-
tember evening. An officer sat down next to him “after some
walking and looking”.42 Irbe hesitated to start a conversation;
after some time, the officer grew angry, threw away his cigarette
and left (yet he did it without verbal articulation), whereas Irbe
regretted his hesitation.
Irbe always associated cruising with flirting. He explained it
as a “language of eyes”, adding that he knew how to use it very
well.43 Exchange of glances between same-sex desiring men
were an essential indicator of interaction, a manifestation of to-
getherness and connection. The potential partners recognised
each other “by their appearance, glances, etc.” and could “signal
attention for unmistakable purposes” while passing by.44
In Irbe’s interpretation, “the language of eyes” involved one
man consistently gazing at another one, sending him invita-
tional signals. The addressee would reply without words with
the help of a facial expression, winking, and walking away. The
former man would follow him.
“He looked at me closely. He sent me invitational signals by his
gaze. I returned his gaze. He followed me.”45
Places mentioned by Irbe were among the famous cruising
sites in Riga. In the 1930s–1950s, one of the Latvian-language
counterparts for “cruising” was “flirting” (“we went to flirt”, “we
42 03.09.1946.
43 13.09.1948.
44 02.08.1950.
45 13.04.1952.
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started flirting”46), the essence of which could also be worded
differently, e.g., “I went out looking for adventures”, “he stared
closely and relentlessly because he wanted to get acquainted”47.
Such behaviour suggests that those involved in same-sex loving
men subculture had knowledge of its codes and tactics. Irbe did
not use any specific Latvian counterpart for the English term
“camp”, an informal version of “ostentatiously and extravagantly
effeminate” man, as well as a man “deliberately exaggerated and
theatrical in style”.48 In 1964, Susan Sontag suggested that the
camp’s essence is its love of artifice and exaggeration; the camp
is “something of a private code, a badge of identity even, among
small urban cliques”.49 She argued that “[t]o perceive camp in
objects and persons is to understand Being-as-Playing-a-Role. It
is the farthest extension, in sensibility, of the metaphor of life as
theatre”.50 Historian Georg Chauncey has brilliantly historicised
camp practice in New York’s male same-sex subculture from the
1890s to the 1940s as both a cultural style and a cultural strategy
that helped homosexuals understand the social categories of
gender and sexuality and served to exclude them, respond
tothem, and undermine them.51 Referring to anthropologist
Esther Newton’s study of female impersonators in the 1960s, he
recalls that camp was a style of interaction and display that used
irony, inconsistency, theatricalism, and humour to highlight that
social convention is artificial. Camp manifested itself in any
verbal game that challenged gender categories.52
The subculture codes and self-identification described by
Irbe were characteristic of the camp style. In the 1980s, Irbe
explained in more detail that this style included the ability to
46 13.09.1948.
47 09.08.1948.
48 Soanes 2001, 168.
49 Sontag 1966, 191–202.
50 Ibid., 193.
51 Chauncey 1994, 290.
52 For recent treatment of camp see: Halberstam 2020.
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negotiate in a “flirtatious, flattering, humorous way”.53 He de-
scribed it as a “theatrical style of speech-behaviour”, in which
“everything is accompanied by [a certain] facial expression, ge-
stures, etc.”54 However, one’s facial expression is not exaggerated.
The entire “performance” is marked by one’s efforts to imbue
the process with “heightened naturalness, seriousness”.
The command of these skills served as a source of knowl-
edge in cruising, the essence of which was based on the partici-
pant’s sexual interest but not always on his sexual identity.55 The
purpose of flirting was sexual intercourse, not relationship-
building.
Before commencing flirting (cruising), same-sex loving men
socialised within their community. To an outsider, this form of
socialising could resemble performative self-presentation. On
an evening in October 1950, this socialising evolved in the fol-
lowing way:
“After 7 o’clock, I arrived in Riga. I had an entertaining night.
First, I had fun with my date – a young soldier. Then in Vērm.
[ane’s] Park with my friends. It was a beautiful warm night. The
yellow leaves of maples glistened in the electric light. We had a
good time. A tipsy young guy stood in the pavilion. […] We held
each other’s hands and walked along the pavilion. Then I danced
to entertain my friends. I joked with Čuru Līze [the Piss Liz] and
Briļļu Dore [Dore with specs], who was with a young navy sailor.
It is impossible to write about everything, but I will keep it in my
memory. I felt very light, fit, funny – witty. Everyone laughed.
Later I walked holding hands with Kuzņec. and joked. On Satur-
day evening near the opera, I met a gypsy colleague (Van), who
passed by with two boys. He asked me why I was walking with-
out a number etc. It is so nice to wander around in beautiful
evenings and nights, along the boulevards, looking for adventu-
res, meeting mates, observing many things, etc.”56
53 14.03.1981.
54 21.12.1985.
55 Lopes 2020, 22.
56 09.10.1950.
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Joking was an essential element of the communication
among same-sex loving men. Irbe mentions it in nearly all of his
descriptions of the pastime activities in the cruising circles. E.g.,
he writes that “there were spicy conversations as it is common
in our circles”57.
In the cited episode, the men’s self-presentation created a
fun atmosphere – bantering, witty jokes, frolicking, holding
hands, dancing, chasing each other, “making a high ballet jump
with one’s legs spread”58, pretending to be prostitutes. These
self-presentation practices are part of the tradition of shared
laughter.
Gender performativity was critical in the communication
among same-sex loving men. The remark “why are you walking
without a number” that was addressed to Irbe was a hint about
sex, drawing on an analogy with prostitutes, who in Latvia in
the interwar period had to register themselves at a police station
to receive a booklet of medical and sanitary control to be al-
lowed to legally practice prostitution. Same-sex loving men were
self-ironical and joked about the topic of prostitution using it as
a kind of a pretext for discussing the sexuality of others, while
in fact speaking about that of their own. In the autumn of 1940,
Irbe described an episode in Vērmane’s Park. A tipsy same-sex
desiring man was sitting on a bench next to an ugly homo-
sexual. Irbe sat down pretending to be a prostitute and asked for
money. The drunk said: “What a handsome boy, but how spoilt.”
The comment on immorality (on him being spoilt) insulted
Irbe. He explained in the diary that he pretended to be a rather
brutal person when imitating a prostitute because this was his
usual style of bantering. “Brutal” in this situation means some-
body who speaks directly about the issues of sex. He argued that
he did not care what the others thought of such a behaviour and
57 06.09.1948.
58 Idem.
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that his “real personality should not be manifested to such
p e o p l e ”. 59 Irbe perceived the drunk man’s remark not as a
demon stration of irony typical for camping but as an earnest
statement. It signalised that the author of the statement did not
want to involve in camping or did not even understand the
Being-as-Playing-a-Role played by Irbe. He was probably one of
same-sex desiring men whose presence in the cruising was de-
termined not by his sexual identity but rather by preference for
same-sex erotic and sexual acts with men. He probably belonged
to those same-sex desiring men who were ignorant of or con-
sciously avoided camp style. Irbe, on the other hand, perceived
cruising as a theatre performance, in which one should not re-
veal one’s real identity of a serious, intelligent, and culturally
educated individual. Somehow it reveals that Irbe separated his
sexuality from his actual personality, hinting at the double life
he lived.
In this diary entry Irbe emphasises the performative situa-
tion, in which he embodied some imagined fictitious personal-
ity, because he did not want others to see his authentic subjec-
tivity. In his diary Irbe mentions “girls”, “the street girls” (this is
how prostitutes were casually called in pre-war Latvia), “sisters”.
A group of young homosexuals self-ironically referred to them-
selves by these names, and Irbe identified himself with these
homo sexuals. They called another group “aunts”. Such use of
irony, the application of the idiom of kinship, created a delicate
balance between violating the customs of the dominant culture
and reaffirming it.60 They used women’s pronouns and nick-
names, just like same-sex loving men in New York, Berlin, and
elsewhere.61 In this role, Irbe had two nicknames – Cleopatra
and Mermaid Sea Rose.62 In general, this indicates using a
59 01.10.1940.
60 Chauncey 1994, 291.
61 Ibid., 181, 286–187; Beachy 2014, 58.
62 Lipša 2021.
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particular language specific to the group; this cultural strategy
helped to maintain the sense of collective identity among the
men in the group.63
A few times during the first months of the Soviet occupa-
tion, Irbe transgressed gender, imitating a woman who wanted
to meet men in the dusk of a summer evening at the seashore.
Being cross-dressed as a woman, he accidentally met a prosti-
tute he knew. Together, they walked and amused themselves at
the unusual situation, flirting with men who did not recognise
Irbe as a man.
“We both walked together through the peaceful night. She was
very amused by the whole thing. I told a lot of jokes and joked
around with men. I danced a few steps for one suitor with my
skirt raised high and so on. It was wonderful.”64
Before the Second World War, the locations where prosti-
tutes offered sex coincided with the “cruising’” (by same-sex
loving men) and “flirting” sites.
An essential factor in the establishment of sexual encounters
was one’s outer appearance. Irbe was convinced that it was be-
cause of his youthful and handsome looks that intelligent and
elegant men wanted to spend time with him. However, he
thought that the charisma and charm radiated by intelligence,
culture, personality, and decent clothing65 that was difficult to
obtain in the Soviet system after the war, was also necessary. To
create a specific image, the men used any means at their dis-
posal. Irbe and several other homosexuals of his generation
used flowers as tools to aestheticize their looks. Irbe used to
carry a bouquet and wear a sad facial expression, thus inten-
tionally constructing an image of a romantic. He writes that he
went to Riga with a beautiful bouquet of dahlias. He looked
63 Chauncey 1994, 289.
64 12.07.1940.
65 30.08.1948.
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exquisite – fatigue made him serious and slightly sad; this emo-
tional state made him look especially lovely.66
The suffering caused by break-ups and separation from one’s
object of love had to be manifested in one’s outer appearance.
Besides, such a state had to look beautiful:
“After the break-up, I went to the boulevard, heavily suffering.
[…] Tears were falling from my black lashes, and they looked
beautiful in the mirror. However, despite it, I flirted with some-
one who followed me to the greenery of the opera. After that, I
got on a train. I had a very hard time in the train. I went through
extreme suffering; there were tears in my eyes.”67
Irbe described these experiences in his diary creating in the
reader associations with a staged performance.
George Chauncey has demonstrated in a study of New York’s
history of homosexuals from 1890 to 1940 that same-sex loving
men described their situation not with a closet metaphor (which
came into circulation only in the 1960s68) but with that of camp
and the epistemology of double life.69 Steven Maynard argues
that “[W]hile living a double life necessitated some of the se-
crecy and hiding we associate with the closet, for many men it
did not mean the isolation and invisibility with which we also
think of the closet.”70 In Riga, during the interwar period, the
Second World War, and post-war Stalinism, same-sex loving
men did not isolate themselves and were seen in the public
space. Thus, the closet concept did not define same-sex loving
men community.
66 05.09.1950.
67 20.09.1948.
68 Even in 1961, when the concept of the closet emerged, it was not meant to
describe the space occupied by homosexuals (or described themselves as oc-
cupying them), but to refer to the space to which they had been expelled by
heterosexual society. See: Dumančić 2014, 200.
69
Maynard 1999, 71.
70 Idem
.
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Same-sex erotic activities described by Irbe took place where
the passers-by could not see them. However, during the Stalin-
ism period, same-sex loving men also ventured such an expres-
sion of intimacy as walking hand in hand.71 In 1950, Irbe met
his “blonde, handsome, long-term jerk-off” at dusk, and to-
gether they walked to the biggest shopping mall of Riga “hand
in hand”.72 In the evening dusk, they dared to caress each other
while sitting on the park bench – hug each other, fondle and
press their faces against each other, stroking each other’s bodies
as if by accident.73 In the post-war Stalinism period, the park
sexual subculture meant sexual encounter without commitment.
However, it did not always provide “immediate sex” and “easy
access”.74
TEMPLES AND MAUSOLEUMS: SEXUAL CULTURE
OF COTTAGING
In addition to parks, cottaging was also practiced in men’s
public toilets. In relevant English-language literature, public
rest rooms are called “bogs” and “tea-rooms”, but sexual en-
counters in these places – “cottaging”. Two terms that referred
to this spatialised sexual practice in Latvian were a “temple”
and “mausoleum”. It was in the summer of 1941, a month after
the Nazi occupation, that Irbe used the term “temple” for the
first time. By this term he referred to the already mentioned
public toilet (the temple of Vesta) next to the railway station75.
In 1941, the temple of Venus (in Vērmanes Park) became a
cruising site76, but in 1950, “mausoleum” was mentioned for the
first time – it was a public toilet behind the Opera building in
71 30.08.1948, 06.09.1948, 02.08.1950, 06.10.1950, 16.10.1951, 03.02.1952.
72 05.06.1950.
73 06.09.1948.
74 Flowers, Marriott et al. 2000, 75.
75 11.08.1945.
76 29.08.1941.
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Krišjāņa Barona Street77 (in 1946, Irbe referred to this toilet as a
“Temple”78).
Irbe sometimes poetised same-sex loving men’s erotic activi-
ties, writing, e.g., that he or someone else “sacrificed on the
‘altar of Venus’”.79 He described same-sex sexual encounters,
using proper nouns such as Cupid, Venus, Vesta80 and referred
to the bushes of Vērmane’s Park, where usually oral sex took
place, as the Cupid’s grove.81
Appropriation of mythological concepts for the queer sub-
culture was characteristic also for other countries where homo-
sexuality was illegal. British writer George Ives (1867–1950) in
his journal in 122 volumes, which he kept for 64 years, made
“acultural reverence for Hellenic which Ives and other homo-
phile writers shared and deployed in their arguments for the le-
gitimacy of homosexual relations”.82 For British painter Keith
Vaughan (1912–1977), “the opportunity to associate oneself and
one’s tastes with the homosocial heyday of ancient Greece and
its rich intellectual and aesthetic legacy must have had great
a p p e a l ”. 83 In 1864, the German lawyer Karl Heinrich Ulrichs
(1825–1895), the pioneer of the movement of homosexuals’
rights, named same-sex loving men Uranians (Urning – in Ger-
man) after Uranus, the Greek god of the heavens, “whose soli-
tary parentage of Aphrodite, the goddess of Eros or sexual love,
symbolised same-sex eroticism in Plato’s “Symposium””.84 Histo-
rian Dan Healey has generalised that nostalgia for classical
Athens was “a common sentiment in modern European male
homosexual mentalities”.
77 01.08.1950.
78 10.08.1946.
79 18.09.1951.
80 Lipša 2021.
81 24.08.1946, 27.09.1946, 03.09.1946.
82 Cook, Matt 2006, 201.
83 Belsey 2020, 48.
84 Beachy 2014, 17–18, 103–104.
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Consequently, the Latvian male same-sex subculture sub-
verted the temple concept to refer to a location where “cottag-
ing” took place; however, there was no specific term in Latvian
that would serve as a counterpart for “cottaging”. The metaphor
about sacrificing on the altar is self-ironical, it is part of the
camp style and the tradition of shared laughter.
Irbe had mixed in the circles of same-sex loving men since
1935, but it was only in the autumn of 1940 (the third month of
the Soviet occupation) that he discovered cottaging. He had
heard stories about such things happening in Arkādijas Park,
which was located further from the centre – on the other side of
the Daugava River – and decided to check it himself.85
Irbe was confident that in the first year of Soviet occupation
(1940/1941), Arkādijas Park was the only place in Riga where
there were holes in toilet partition walls as a feature of the cot-
taging subculture.86 He was disgusted by what he saw there:
“I saw a disgusting scene yesterday. The toilet was full of per-
verts – they jerked themselves off, touched each other’s organs
[rubbed their penises], etc. There was an unbearable stench in
the air. It was so disgusting! I ridiculed them. Someone started
cursing me.”87
Irbe’s surprise about the discovery of this sexual subculture
leads one to an assumption that drifting from one layer of the
subculture to another and back again was not popular among
same-sex loving men, i.e. there were those who practiced the
park sexual culture, and those, who preferred cottaging, as was
the case also, for example, in Toronto, Canada in the early
20thcentury.88 Otherwise, in the course of the five years, Irbe
would have heard of it.
85 15.09.1940.
86 15.05.1941.
87 03.11.1940.
88 Maynard 1994, 209.
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The dynamics of the cottaging subculture in a concrete site
was also impacted by whether the toilet was functioning or
closed. In the summer of 1945, Irbe anticipated that “liveliness
will return [to Strēlnieku Park] because the temple has been re-
opened there”.89 In September 1951, he noted that cottaging was
not taking place there because the holes in the toilet partition
walls that same-sex loving men had made were nailed over with
boards.90
The main feature of the cottaging sexual subculture was
silence – functioning not as a barrier, but as something that
gives agency.91 Avoidance of verbalisation demanded that this
part of the men’s lives should remain strictly within the subcul-
ture. Anthropologist Maycon Lopes in his study on the meaning
of silence in male same-sex encounters in public toilets draws
the conclusion that same-sex loving men understood the inter-
ests of the entrant based on the criteria of temporality and at-
tention.92 Slower than necessary movements in a stinking space
signalled the entrant’s readiness to stay there longer. Still, active
engagement of the gaze meant that the entrant had been in-
volved in identifying the intentions of the men present. Gestures
(for example, touching one’s crotch) were evidence of motiva-
tion.
The norms of sexual interaction in the toilet generally
comply with the rules of behaviour in men’s restrooms, where
visitors rarely share personal information and do not expect in-
timacy.93 As a result, toilet sex is mostly silent. Communication
takes place through looks, signals, and certain gestures.
Cottaging practices were determined by the architecture of
the space – the arrangement of the toilet, design (the space
89 05.06.1945.
90 27.09.1951.
91 Lopes 2020, 20–21.
92 Ibid., p. 21.
93 Green, Follert, et al. 2010, 17.
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shapes the sexual practices), e.g., the cubicles, which are in-
tended to ensure privacy in the public space. However, cottagers
adapted the space to their own needs. E.g., holes made in the
partition walls of the toilets provided an opportunity for sexual
interaction that was as anonymous and impersonal as possible.94
So far, I have not found documents or photographs that
would allow me to understand the spatial arrangement of the
Riga “temples” from 1940 to 1953. However, studies provide
evidence that the structure had influenced the models and polic-
ing of subculture in Toronto, Canada in the first decades of the
20th century. There police officers used the architecture of the
toilet building (a little skylight window) to catch same-sex loving
men.95 In post-war Riga, same-sex loving men used the window
made at the roof level to observe sexual encounters in the toilet.
In 1950, Irbe wrote that he had observed others having sex in
toilet cubicles through the tiny window of the mausoleum (near
the Opera house), and the observees did not know that they
could be seen.96 Often he watched same-sex erotic activities with
some acquaintances with whom he later would share a joke and
have a laugh about the “dudes at the opera temple of Cupid”97,
thus creating a playful and joyful atmosphere.
Twenty years later, Irbe regarded public toilets as sites of
male same-sex public sexual subculture filled with memories.
When these buildings were demolished, Irbe felt sad and nostal-
gic. In 1974, seeing that “the ancient temple of Venus” in Vies-
tura Garden had been torn down, he commented with nostalgia
and regret that all the events that he had witnessed in his long
life – even the most unthinkable ones – would perish together
with this building.98
94 Ibid., p. 20.
95 Maynard 1994, 225.
96 19.11.1950, 14.09.1950, 29.09.1950, 04.10.1950.
97 05.06.1950.
98 18.03.1974.
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Irbe often referred to cottaging as “dirt”, “obscenities”99,
“depravity”,100 and characterised the respective sites and the ac-
tivities taking place there as “disgusting”.101 “Dirt” was synony-
mous with mature manure in the interwar Latvian language.102
A toilet is a physical space and cultural construction that plays
a particular role in socialising sexual exchange. Researchers
who have analysed the role of space in sexual sociality state that
“as an object in the cultural imaginary associated with defeca-
tion, anonymity, the non-verbal negotiation of space, bodily re-
lease, dirt and expedience, tearooms – as a particular instance
of place– communicate a symbolic context that shapes and in-
cites the kinds of meanings actors will attach to sexual inter-
actions and the subsequent script of sexual exchange within the
physical parameters of the toilet”.103 Consequently, because of
the stench in toilets, Irbe associated sexual exchange in these
spaces with obscenity. Furthermore, the toilet as a space outside
the boundaries of the polite in social and sexual exchange
generates additional symbolic meanings. For example, associat-
ing the dirt with public restrooms connects the toilet with an
idea of fast, highly erotic, and dirty sexual exchange.104 Thus,
bathrooms give shelter to erotic practices and feelings and shape
them.
CONCLUSIONS
The Second World War and post-war Stalinism were charac-
terised by the vibrancy of male same-sex and opposite-sex
subcultures of the public sex culture in Latvia. Individuals
99 27.09.1951.
100 02.02.1950.
101 21.07.1949, 02.02.1950.
102 Briedis 1932, 494, 496.
103 Green, Follert, et al. 2010, 11.
104 Ibid., 20, 22.
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in terested in performing and observing desire in the public
space successfully appropriated the spaces of specific places for
their own needs.
In general, the change of ruling regimes did not influence
Irbe and his circle’s practices of observing and performing
queerness. However, the Second World War with the Soviet oc-
cupation and the Nazi occupation brought unprecedented
masses of people to Riga. It increased the number of men with
various cultural backgrounds involved in same-sex practices. It
also intensified communication between male same-sex loving
people who favoured different public sex practices. Thus, it was
only in the first months of the Soviet occupation in 1940 that
Irbe, who had a five-year experience in cruising, discovered the
practice of cottaging.
However, it did not change Irbe and his circle’s understand-
ing of “their” public spaces as they continued to use the cruising
sites that had been in use already before the Second World War.
Homosexual practices performed in public space were based on
camp style and were characterised by irony, absence of serious-
ness, playfulness, desire to maintain youthfulness. They were
performed in the public spaces of cruising, proving that Irbe
and his circles did not live in isolation but perceived themselves
as a recognisable and positive presence in urban life.
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VĪRIEŠU VIENDZIMUMA SEKSUĀLO VĒLMJU
PERFORMANCE PUBLISKAJĀ TELPĀ RĪGĀ OTRAJĀ
PASAULES KARĀ UN VĒLĪNAJĀ STAĻINISMĀ (1940–1953)
Ineta Lipša
Dr. hist., vadošās pētnieces p. i., Latvijas Universitātes Literatūras, folkloras
un mākslas institūts.
Zinātniskās intereses: 20. gadsimta sociālā vēsture, seksualitātes un sociālās
kontroles vēsture.
Rakstā ir pētīta vīriešu viendzimuma seksuālo kontaktu subkultūra Rīgas
publiskajā telpā Otrā pasaules kara laikā un vēlīnajā staļinismā, fokusējot iz-
pēti uz viendzimuma seksuālo vēlmju performanci, kuras procesā homosek-
suāļi piesavināja pilsētas publisko telpu savām vajadzībām. Raksts pamato
tēzi, ka pētāmajā periodā homoseksuāļi, kuri socializējās Rīgā, uztvēra sevi
kā pamanāmus un pašapzinīgus dalībniekus pilsētas ikdienas dzīvē, tādējādi
veidojot dzīvīgu vīriešu viendzimuma subkultūru. Raksta galvenais avots ir
Kaspara Aleksandra Irbes (1906–1996) dienasgrāmata, kuras autors ne tikai
ir novērojis subkultūras dalībniekus, bet no 1935. līdz 1996. gadam arī pats
pie tās piederējis.
Atslēgas vārdi: vīriešu homoseksualitāte, performativitāte, Padomju Latvija,
Otrais pasaules karš, vēlīnais staļinisms.
Kopsavilkums
Telpai seksuālajā socializācijā piemīt metaforiska rīka loma. Ar to var
kartēt sociāli seksuālo variāciju, vai to var izprast kā kulturālu vai vēstu-
risku artefaktu, piemēram, kā patvērumu nekonformistiskai seksuālai
Ineta Lipša
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socializācijai. Tā telpu ir izmantojuši viendzimuma seksu mīloši vīrieši
19. gadsimtā un 20. gadsimta sākumā Rīgā Krievijas impērijā un 20. gad-
simta 20.–30. gados Latvijas Republikā. Izmantojot dzimumu kā perfor-
mativitātes līdzekli, viņi arī padomju sistēmu piemēroja savām vaja-
dzībām, uzturot konkrētas performatīvās prakses, ar kuru palīdzību
subkultūras piederīgajiem publiskajā telpā pauda savas seksuālās vēlmes,
vienlaikus paliekot ārpus šai subkultūrai nepiederošo uzmanības loka.
Subkultūru Padomju Latvijā raksturoja dubultās dzīves un “kempa”
(angļu camp) epistemoloģija, tāpat kā 20. gadsimta pirmajā pusē Ņujorkā.
Kopīga humora izpratne, valoda un savstarpējā solidaritāte, kā arī in-
ternalizēta pašcenzūra veidoja tā saukto “slepenības etosu”, kas raksturoja
homoseksuālās subjektivitātes Latvijā jau starpkaru periodā, un tāpēc nav
pamata Latvijā šo subkultūru dēvēt par “specifisku padomju etosu”. Tas ir
pastāvējis no vismaz 19. gadsimta beigām, un Otrā pasaules kara laikā un
pēckara staļinisma gados minētais etoss tikai turpināja attīstīties.
Viendzimuma seksu mīlošie vīrieši Rīgā socializējās, “kreisējot”
(angļu cruising), potenciālo seksuālo partneru meklēšanā izmantojot da-
žādas vietas pilsētas centrā, kas sākotnēji nebija paredzētas seksam. Krei-
sēšanas būtība sakņojās dalībnieka seksuālajā interesē, bet ne vienmēr
seksuālajā identitātē. Tās mērķis bija seksuāls kontakts, nevis attiecību
veidošana. 20. gadsimta 30.–50. gados homoseksuāļi Rīgā izmantoja sub-
kultūras kodus un taktikas, kuru vidū būtiskākās bija savstarpēja skatienu
apmaiņa un teatrālisms kempa stilā, kas dažkārt varēja šķist pārdrošs,
ņemot vērā kriminalizējošo un stigmatizējošo ietvaru, ko homoseksua-
litātei piemēroja visas Latvijas teritorijā 20. gadsimtā valdošās varas.
Piemēram, staļinisma gados homoseksuāļi atļāvās publiski pastaigāties,
sadevušies rokās.
Viendzimuma erotiskās darbības notika publiskajā telpā, pārsvarā
garāmgājēju skatieniem nepieejamās vietās parkos. Par sabiedriskajās
tua letēs notiekošo seksu jeb kotedžingu (angļu cottaging), kam atbilstošu
precīzu jēdzienu latviešu valodā autorei nav izdevies atrast, signalizēja
vārdu “templis” un “mauzolejs” attiecināšana uz tualetēm. Padomju oku-
pācijas pirmajos mēnešos homoseksuāļi to Rīgā praktizēja nomaļajā Ar-
kādijas parkā. Šķiet, vīrieši, kuri iesaistījās publiskā seksā parkos, un tie,
kuri deva priekšroku kotedžingam, līdz padomju okupācijai socializējās
atšķirīgos subkultūras slāņos.
Kopumā valdošo režīmu maiņa neietekmēja prakses, ko Irbe un
viņa subkultūras līdzgaitnieki izmantoja viendzimuma seksualitātes
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performancē. Tomēr Otrais pasaules karš, kam sekoja padomju–nacistu–
padomju okupācijas, atveda uz Rīgu milzīgas cilvēku masas. Tas palieli-
nāja arī to vīriešu skaitu, kuri iesaistījās viendzimuma seksuālajās prak-
sēs, turklāt viņi nāca ar dažādu kulturālo bagāžu. Iedzīvotāju skaita
pieaugums arī intensificēja komunikāciju starp viendzimuma seksu mīlo-
šiem cilvēkiem, kuri deva priekšroku dažādām publiskā seksa praksēm.
Pirmajā padomju okupācijas gadā tika novērots kotedžings. Tas nostipri-
nājās nacistu režīma laikā un turpināja pastāvēt pēckara staļinismā. Val-
došo režīmu maiņa neietekmēja arī Irbes un viņa aprindu priekšstatus
par “viņu” vietām publiskajā telpā – viņi turpināja lietot tās pašas kreisē-
šanas vietas, ko bija izmantojuši jau pirms kara. Homoseksuālās prakses
norisa kempa stilā ar tam piemītošo ironiju, nopietnības noraidījumu,
rotaļīgumu, jauneklības garu. Tās demonstrējot Rīgas centra ielās un par-
kos, homoseksuāļi savu klātbūtni pilsētas dzīvē izdzīvoja nevis kā kaut ko
anonīmu, bet atpazīstamu, nevis kā marginālu, bet centrālu, nevis kā
deviantu, bet normālu.
This article was written with the financial support of the Latvian Council of
Science, project lzp-2018/1-0073.
Saņemts/Submitted 07.12.2020.
© 2022 Ineta Lipša.
Latvijas Universitāte
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saskaņā ar Creative Commons
Attiecinājuma-Nekomerciāls 4.0 Starptautisko
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under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
International License (CC BY-NC 4.0)
(https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).
Ineta Lipša
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