THE RETROSEXUAL
or, the sensuous resonance left by Time’s wake as it laps upon the shores of Civilization.

Methinks a being that is beautiful becometh more so as it looks on beauty, the eternal beauty of undying things. —Lord Byron

“He did not believe that happiness was to be found in a sensation experienced in the present moment, but rather in the recollection of a sensation, in the link between present and the past.” —Jean-Yves Tadie, “Marcel Proust: A Biography”

The true paradises are the lost paradises. —Marcel Proust


MANY OF US HAVE FELT IT: the breathless exhilaration of seeing, for the very first time, a face that had set countless hearts ablaze in a day gone by. Does the winsome gaze of Clara Bow or the smoldering charms of Kiki of Montparnasse bring a blush to your cheek? Could the sharp-featured Montesquiou or the windswept Lord Byron be the cause of your palpitations in the midnight hour? Or perchance, does a composed, immaculate society dame painted deftly by Sargent send you into rapture? Might a fiery Spanish condesa, daubed into the Ages by Goya, rouse your cravings? Or is it the myth and lore surrounding Sappho, Mata Hari, or Nefertiti that compels your hindquarters to tighten? Perhaps it’s an artifact that has you transfixed, such as an anonymous French daguerreotype that bears the face of an angel or prince whose name you shall never know. Have you fought without success to banish these remote, inscrutable totems from your mind’s eye? Then you may be what is known as a RETROSEXUAL.

You may exclaim, “My dear Whimsy—I fear for your very sanity! What new perversion have you laid before our feet?”

You may thank me later.

This is not a mere appetite of the flesh of which I speak: A Retrosexual is one who has rendered the yearning for that which is beautiful yet elusive into an art form. It may be said that a Retrosexual has had enough of the empty inclinations toward cheap gropery that passes for eroticism in our day. A retrosexual aches for the rarefied pleasures found within the confines of gilded frames, marble pedestals, and crumbling celluloid. To a Retrosexual, the dust of passing time is nothing less than the spice of desire.

The retrosexual seeks a state of endless courtship and flirtation without the unpleasantness and disillusionment of consummation; thus, the Retrosexual has bid farewell to the days of ruined curls, smeared makeup, and rumpled waistcoats. What remains is agape: utter bliss more akin to the sensuous than the sensual. A Retrosexual is an individual who wishes to commune with beings of rare beauty who—like iridescent, prehistoric insects forever frozen in amber—have attained their eternal, ideal form. In a sense, such personages have become, through the blessings of civilization, immortal.

One may speculate that deep within many Retrosexuals lies the vain hope that they might one day join the company of those for whom they have kept their ardent vigils. Indeed, it may be said that the life of a Retrosexual is but a preparation for the moment when they too might attain the ideal state of aloof poise and exquisite stillness found in those works of art which they faithfully emulate. Retrosexuals see their mortal lives as a delicate, pungent blossom, which all too soon falls from the springtime bough, leaving in its place a glorious gem, glistening forever in a perpetual twilight.

The Retrosexual haunts museums, galleries, and theaters, dressed in his or her finest attire before a portrait, sculpture, stage, or theater screen—reverent and still, even trancelike—but with flared nostrils and flushed cheeks. The paintings, photographs, and screens the Retrosexual peers into are nothing less than portals through which the Retrosexual may slowly imbibe and relish the gossamer essence left behind by those who are now only made manifest through contemplation and fancy.

It must be noted that the Retrosexual’s adoring gaze is not merely limited to those who have lived mortal lives. Artifacts also carry a charge of fetishistic reverie for the Retrosexual: the colorful collections of embroidered Chinese robes; the lush, drowsy perfumes of fin de siècle Paris; the delicately painted illuminations of India, or the erotic prints from Japan’s Edo period can evoke, in the mind of the imaginative viewer, potent visions of the distant past.

Some have even dared to call forth these visions: Pierre Louÿs, an eminent nineteenth-century Retrosexual and poet, wrote Songs of Bilitis, a fraudulent book of such scholarship and quality that even the experts were convinced of its authenticity. Claimed to have been found on a tomb wall in Cyprus, this collection of supposedly ancient sapphic verse is greatly revered today, despite the hoax which gave it birth. In fact, it may be said that Monsieur Louÿs’ retrosexuality was of such magnitude that he added to the canon of Greek verse centuries after its demise!

It is due to the potency of venerable artifacts that I, Whimsy, often bring a cane when visiting museums, for I know from experience that my legs shall require assistance afterward—as I am often quivering to my very soul after spending an afternoon sipping the sweet nectar of illumination. Why, my earlobes become so reddened and swollen from viewing such an array of lux et voluptas that I require a veritable turban of ice compresses for several hours; yet utter contentment descends upon me at such moments, for I am as a velvet bee laden with honey!

I believe that museums should offer litter bearers for those of my disposition, so that one’s languid frame may be given safe passage through the centuries that laze within these galleries. As one’s perfumed head rests upon a silken pillow, blissfully immobile, one is finally at liberty to swoon without fear of creasing one’s trousers.

Some may characterize the sensibility described in this essay as mere nostalgia, implying that one who harbors great affection for the past is embattled against the future. Claptrap! If we are not to fully avail ourselves of the treasures which have been bequeathed unto us by the Ages, then what, pray tell, is the point of culture—or the future, for that matter?

To those who have until now suppressed an appetite for engaging in such aesthetic frottage, I say this: Embrace your lust for Civilization, her offspring, and the gilded fruits she bears; for it is only through our intercourse with Civilization—that last, great bulwark against time—that we might be remembered, and perhaps, one day, craved.

~W