From Oscar Wilde to David Bowie, Glamour Brings End to Persecution

In 1895, Oscar Wilde, author of "The Importance of Being Earnest" and "The Picture of Dorian Gray," was sentenced to two years hard labor for "gross indecency."

"People who can do these things must be dead to all sense of shame," said the judge before delivering Wilde's sentence. "It is the worst case I have ever tried."

The "indecency" that sent Wilde to prison was, in this case, a euphemism for the commission of homosexual acts.

That was 113 years ago.

Were this case brought to court in the modern U.K., it seems more likely that Wilde's accusers would be the ones pilloried.

One might find it regrettable that a talent like Wilde was forced to live under the shadow of arcane prejudices and put into early retirement.

One might wonder what sort of literary career he would have led in a society influenced by an additional 149 years of gay rights campaigning.

Would Wilde's body of work be twice as lengthy and vibrant if he'd been born in the 20th century rather than the 19th?

Daydreams aside, it seems to me that, if not for the Oscar Wildes of the past - the Jean Genets who wrote in a world that abhorred them - our relatively rosy current state might not have come about at all.

In Victorian England, there was an increasing association between dandyism and homosexuality.

Later, writers like William Burroughs and Truman Capote would further move the gay archetype out of the gutter and into a spotlight of sophistication and glamour.

The early 1970s brought glam rock to the world, with artists taking sexual ambiguity to new extremes.

English musician David Bowie scandalized and mesmerized the public to equal degree as he fell to his knees onstage and simulated fellatio on bandmate Mick Ronson by playing Ronson's guitar with his tongue.

What would once have earned a sentence of two years hard labor was now selling Bowie and others millions of records. Soon, the style was picked up by those who did not comprehend it, and by the '80s, Bowie's Ziggy Stardust act had been replaced by Mötley Crüe.

The revolutionary had become generic.

The 2000s have seen a resurgence of bisexual chic. Certain corners of the Internet are swarming with "bisexual" teenage boys in eyeliner and pyramid belts desperately looking for girls with whom they can explore their heterosexual sides.

And, as frightfully obnoxious as this is, it's a good thing.

There is no way that two fundamentally divided groups of human beings can coexist on even footing. "Separate but equal" is fiction.

It is because of the glittering torch carried by Wilde and passed from Genet to artist Andy Warhol to Bowie that homosexuality has become part of a glamorous fad.

It is because of the poseurs and the media's constant playing of gay flamboyance for humor that the public is becoming indifferent to this "gross indecency."

Even the Vatican, which usually seems to be about 50 years behind on everything, is beginning to realize that railing against same-sex affection is no longer worth it.

Boredom with a particular brand of scandal will render it decent.

A century after Wilde, indifference brings equality.