Queering the Fairy-Tale: Bathhouse Sex and the Little Devil of Money in the Periphery of the Russian Empire

• In Event: Gender and Sexuality Representations in (Post)Soviet Space: Celebrating Dan Healey's Work on Queer History

Abstract

The authors read the Latvian literary fairy tale by Kārlis Skalbe, "The Tale of the Coin" (1912), and its interpretation in an animation movie for adult audiences (1969) through Healey's research into the historical sources of the subculture of commercial sex in metropolitan tsarist Russia's men's bathhouses. In this perspective, the tale, traditionally considered an allegorical celebration of modesty, becomes a hidden drama of sexuality in which the protagonist, pursued by the devilish power of money, abandons sex work in favor of autoeroticism, thus becoming what Lee Edelman labeled 'sinthomosexual.'

Authors

• Janis Ozolins, University of Latvia (Latvia)

• Karlis Verdins, Art Academy of Latvia (Latvia)