DO THE CHARLESTON – CHEEK TO CHIC!

Imagine England stripped of Sexual Royalty – AKA queens. A shocking prospect? Beyond doubt, but once, dear boys and girls, fabulous creatures of both sexes shivered in civil fright. Why, in the wake of Oscar Wilde’s 1895 criminal conviction, a climate of fear froze even the most blatant queens into deep, almost permanent, hibernation.

 

Imagine the scene. Like Putin’s Russia today, fear of secret denunciation paralysed any prospects of nightlife, everyday social flamboyance, and most definitely, private, same-sex dancing to decadent jazz.

Mercifully, scattered oases of artistic – and sexual – enlightenment still existed, including, most pivotally, Lady Ottoline Morrell’s Bloomsbury group. But even with luminaries of the calibre of D.H. Lawrence and Virginia Woolf, discretion still prevailed – in London, at least.

Ah, but there was another, secret Bloomsbury beyond the dreams of bigots traumatised by male suede shoes, supposedly a flaming sign of homosexuality, and this polysexual paradise. Charleston House, near Lewes, flourished in the properly remote, unspoiled depths of East Sussex.

Originally established by mutually bisexual artists Duncan Grant and Vanessa Bell, Charleston became a legendary, if discrete haven for Queer Britannia. Artist Dora Carrington embarked on a desperate, if unrequited, lavender marriage of the soul with relentlessly homosexual writer Lytton Strachey, finally shooting herself years later as life seemed pointless with no prospect of his physical intimacy.

But fatalism hardly coloured every Charleston liaison; forget ménage a trois conventions and think ménage a neufs, in a constantly shifting pattern of stellar talents. Among them, bisexual author David Garnett, writer of the stunningly erotic fable Lady Into Fox, which predated black urban slang by decades, and whose Aspects Of Love was tepidly and pointlessly adapted into an Andrew Lloyd-Webber farcical.

But Charleston, even now, boasts a physical loveliness and isolation that positively encourages transgression. Forget savage BPMs driving you (lady) gaga; there’s an unbroken, submarine country silence sure to provoke introspection, desire, and its enactment. With no distractions except oneself and the frisson of like-minded others, sublimated sexuality seethed like snakes in a sauna.

That’s beautifully obvious in the art decorating every available surface in the house. It’s a sprawling, non-stop growth of seductive elan, an urbane, English echo of Tennessee Williams’ or Jean Genet’s queerest raptures.

Still wonderfully preserved by the marvellously efficient, if sadly financially struggling Charleston Trust, Charleston House epitomises the sexual courage and artistic brilliance individuals needed before gay life became just another marketing demographic.

In a word, it’s essential visiting, and charming café manager Barry –a gay ex-pat from Soho – is simply the icing on the cultural cake, so chow down on Charleston’s erudite elegance ASAP!

 

• More information on Charleston house at www.charleston.org.uk

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