Jennifer Parker
Bristol, England

Introduction

“The man in my book is, roughly speaking, good, but Society nearly destroys him,” E.M. Forster wrote in 1915 when describing the eponymous character in his novel Maurice.^1,2 Anti-homosexual sentiment saturated British society in the twentieth century, overseen by intertwined medical and legal institutions that both constructed and constricted homosexuality on behalf of wider society. Homosexuality evolved from a moral vice into an illness beginning with the advent of the field of sexology in the nineteenth century. This led to the conceptual isolation of sexual orientation as a distinct component of personhood, thus allowing for the construction of a binary between heterosexuality and homosexuality. Key texts that positioned psychiatry as chief experts included Krafft-Ebing’s Psychopathia Sexualis (1892),³ which comprehensively describes sexual transgressions as mental disorders, and Ellis and Symonds’ Sexual Inversion (1897),⁴ which explains non-normative sexual identity as psychiatric woe. Dominant etiological hypotheses included genetic predisposition, endocrinological dysfunction, and psychological factors. These persisted in the medical evidence put forward for the Wolfenden Committee in 1957.⁵

Because of such stigma, although Forster wrote Maurice between 1913 and 1914, it remained unpublished until after his death in 1971. He allowed an intimate group of associates to read it, but as late as 1963, Forster expressed reluctance to publish it because of “the millions of beasts and idiots who still prowl in the darkness, ready to jibber and devour.”⁶ In 1960, Forster wrote a “terminal note” that serves as an epilogue to the text, in which he reflects that “science lent her aid” to the rendering of homosexuals as figures of contempt. This was an overt acknowledgement of the flawed role of psychiatrists as experts on the subject.⁷ More than a novel, Maurice is a literary response to the medicalization of homosexuality and a critical condemnation of the pathologization of same-sex desire in twentieth-century Britain. Specifically, the text illustrates the inaccuracies, ineptitudes, and injustices innate in the construction and maintenance of homosexuality as mental illness.

Maurice and homosexuality

In Maurice, the eponymous character is grappling with his homosexuality and seeks a consultation with psychiatrist Lasker Jones. Within moments of meeting, Maurice is diagnosed with “congenital homosexuality,” with all its implications of innateness.² Maurice seeks clarification, asking, “Congenital how much?” to which no answer is forthcoming.² Lasker Jones states his intention to “experiment to see how deeply the tendency is rooted,” which Maurice likens to the idea of dental extraction, as though the psychiatrist is trying to remove something rigidly embedded within him.² This genetic model that the psychiatrist hangs his practice upon—but does not seem to truly understand—shows a lack of theoretical sophistication. The suggestion is that the psychiatrist is regurgitating ideas without having appraised how robust they are.

Before meeting Lasker Jones, Maurice seeks a consultation with a retired general practitioner, Dr. Barry. Maurice’s disclosure of same-sex attraction is met with religious contempt, with Dr. Barry advising Maurice to “never let that evil hallucination, that temptation from the devil, occur to you again.”² This anti-homosexual hostility is not refracted through the prism of psychiatry, but rather falls back on theological and moral arguments that predate homosexuality’s medicalization. Belonging to an older generation of medical professionals, Dr. Barry is not au fait with emerging medical literature on homosexuality: he “had read no scientific works…None had existed when he walked the hospitals, and any published since were in German, and therefore suspect.”² This references the output of Krafft-Ebing, and implies that the medical theories put forward by psychiatrists of the day are dubious and worthy of suspicion.

Later in the text, Maurice reflects on the issue of inborn causation of sexual orientation when he asks his lover, Alec Scudder, “Why do you think it’s ‘natural’ to care both for women and men?” adding that, “It isn’t natural for me. I have really got to think that ‘natural’ only means oneself.”² Here, it is suggested that the role of one’s nature is irrelevant to sexual orientation, and to align them is to create a logical fallacy. The biomedical theories underpinning such ideas are to be viewed with suspicion if not derision. Maurice responds to and quashes the burgeoning theorization of homosexuality as a genetically informed illness. In doing so, the text serves as a critical response to the logically flawed foundations on which psychiatric concepts of homosexuality were constructed. Through raising and then delightedly belittling biomedical theories in the text, Maurice provides a normative view of homosexuality, but it is not indebted to a purely natural view of it, and it is critical of pathological views.

Psychiatrists as fallible figures

Twentieth-century British psychiatrists were unified by a single professional organization: The Medico-Psychological Association, now known as the Royal College of Psychiatrists. Through the authority and prestige this afforded, psychiatrists could safely act as a unified body, deliver a performance of expertise, and use institutional trickery to put forth the idea of homosexuality as illness. To critique the profession, even from within, was to face the force and scrutiny of authority.⁸ So, psychiatrists were afforded protection, even if their individual or collective practice was despicable. The theme of unreliability of psychiatric professionals in Maurice serves as a critique of the profession and its role in the medicalization of homosexuality.

Lasker Jones is characterized as a “quack” who is falsely playing the role of “what an advanced Scientific man ought to be.”² He is never afforded his correct medical title of “Dr.” and this conveys a lack of respect for his work. In the text, psychiatry is held in low regard, even amongst other medical professionals. Maurice’s acquaintance Jowitt, a physician, is quick to distance himself from psychiatry’s treatment of homosexuality and refuses to even offer an opinion on it, saying “that’s in the asylum work, thank God.”² Lasker Jones’ treatment medium of choice is hypnotherapy, an intentionally sensationalist and provocative modality that had long been met with disregard and even frank opposition amongst the public and medical profession.⁹ Despite the superficiality and outdatedness of his work, Lasker Jones is positioned as an expert in the field of homosexuality, and his treatment, which relies on obtuse, anecdotal evidence, positions him as something of a guru. The specific treatment for homosexuality he provides is the mainstay of his income, and as with Maurice, payment is made whether Lasker Jones provides help, hindrance, or neither.

Curing the incurable

Twentieth-century psychiatric literature reveals a focus on the idea of a return to heterosexuality.¹⁰ This idea is aligned with what the poet Adrienne Rich (1980) termed “compulsory heterosexuality,” and is predicated on the notion of a binary whereby attraction to the opposite sex was healthy, and same-sex attraction an undesirable deviancy from the norm in need of fixing.¹¹ Treatment modalities focused on shunting people away from homosexuality and back to heterosexuality.

Maurice portrays a great deal of skepticism as to the possibility of such transformative realignment. After being jilted by his former lover, Clive, Maurice feels “miserable and misunderstood…and increasingly lonely”—so much so that he has been considering ending his life by suicide.² He longs for a sense of intimacy on which his “soul can exist,” and this is his rationale for seeking psychiatric intervention.² On meeting Lasker Jones, he is in “a fury to be cured,” and yet there is a sense that the promise of transformation is an empty one, that there is nothing to return to.² This fallacy is highlighted by Maurice’s consideration that “One could be absolutely transformed… provided one didn’t care a damn for the past.”² As he undergoes hypnotherapy, the idea of the malleability of homosexuality becomes ever more precarious. When Maurice is not susceptible to treatment, the psychiatrist admits that “there has been, is and always will be every conceivable type of person,” essentially delegitimatizing the very premise of his treatment.² This portrays a sense that the profession is acting on behalf of society’s hopes for heteronormativity, rather than in the real interests of individuals, or because of a wealth of scientific evidence. Indeed, entering an intimate relationship with Scudder is what offers Maurice lasting fulfilment. This juxtaposition of ineffective psychiatric intervention with the effectiveness of embracing homosexual relationships without societal sanctions illustrates the flawed nature of psychiatry’s desire for a return to heterosexuality.

Conclusion

The fashioning of homosexuality as a psychiatric malady in twentieth-century Britain reflected an appetite within wider society for a scientific understanding of widespread anti-homosexual sentiment. Soldering homosexuality to mental illness allowed for a kind of institutional silencing of same-sex desire, whereby dissenting voices could not readily be heard. Maurice is more than just a novel; it provides a lasting literary response to the construction of homosexual personhood as mental illness at a time when the discourse was dominated by authoritative medical and scientific expertise.