Oscar Wilde Part II

Within a few years of Oscar’s marriage, however he had begun to find his wife unattractive.  They had 2 sons, Cyril and Vyvyan, and Oscar felt that Constance’s pregnancies made her ill and unbeautiful.  The two of them had had interests in common, liberal social views, an interest in decorating and clothes... but it wasn’t long before Oscar’s essential sexual nature began to assert itself.  He drew away from his wife and embarked on an affair with Robbie Ross.   

His plays were increasingly successful and he was making good money, but his private life was on a slide.  He wrote his only novel Portrait of Dorian Grey, which attracted critical attention.  
Reviewers immediately criticised the novel's decadence and homosexual allusions.  Oscar revised it and cut some of the more controversial bits.  But the theme was intriguing, a beautiful young man wishes to keep his youthful good looks and he finds that he does so, but that his portrait of himself as young and beautiful man, becomes uglier and uglier, the more decadent and outrageous his behaviour becomes.  Eventually he commits murder and it becomes truly hideous.   When he is killed, however his face and body become vilely ugly and his portrait reverts to the youthful image.

The book shows some of Oscar’s preoccupations - with youthful beauty in men, with sin, with art… and while his “decadent behaviour” is never spelled out, it is probable that it’s intended to include homosexuality.   It was in 1891 he met Lord Alfred Douglas, who was the son of the Marquis of Queensbury.  Queensbury was a maverick peer, an agnostic, who was interested in boxing, and enjoyed mixing with prize fighters. He was not a conventional conservative minded aristocrat... He was a supporter of unusual causes, such as divorce and was separated and eventually divorced from his first wife, Alfred’s mother.          

Alfred, his second son, called Bosie, was singularly good-looking and a spoilt selfish young man.  Oscar was now aware of that his sexual orientation was not heterosexual, and there had been other relationships.  But he fell violently in love with Douglas.  By 1893, they were sexually involved and it was a passionate affair.  Wilde spent money on the younger man and adored him.  But Bosie was spoiled and hot tempered and demanding.  He introduced Wilde to the world of gay prostitution, which Oscar later described as “feasting with panthers.” 
It was dangerous high-risk behaviour, consorting with young working class men, who sold their bodies, and who often blackmailed their middle and upper class clients. Since homosexual activity was illegal -men with “something to lose” their jobs, their social position etc -were vulnerable, if they engaged in paid sex with these young men.  
The law had changed in 1885, and now all homosexual activity, not just sodomy was criminalised. 
The young men (who would now be called “rent boys”) were called “renters”, and Oscar behaved very indiscreetly with them.  He not only engaged in sex... He took them to dinner, gave them expensive gifts and attracted attention by his behaviour, In a very class conscious world, he was acting as if these boys were his social equals.  
Bosie too had his affairs and the two men seemed to enjoy the descent into the world of “underground  Homosexuality”.  As Oscar called it -“feasting with panthers” for him at least -some of the attraction was in the danger.  He knew that the behaviour was illegal and carried a prison sentence... He knew that these boys were always on the lookout for more money and were capable of blackmail, and yet he wrote letters which could be used as proof of an illegal relationship.