誰有美國時間：男同性戀與1970年代台灣文學史

American Orientation: Historicizing Male Homosexuality in 1970s Taiwan Literature

本文指出，文學史看似一條向前行進的時間線，卻一再被「空間他者」阻撓。在1970年代本土文學中，「空間他者」往往就是「美國」：除了真實的美國，也包括台灣人妄想出來的美國人事物。在台灣口語的「美國時間」一語正是假託美國之名逃避台灣現實的荒唐時間。在本文研討的作品中，男同性戀角色經常藉著妄想美國時間，避免跟主流社會發生衝突。本文分為四節，各自關注讓文學角色遁入美國時間的四種空間：美國本土；作為美國流行文化窗口的野人咖啡室；同性戀者聚集的好萊塢電影院；灌輸美國版本通俗心理學的診所。這些地方匯集了三種另類：情慾他者（男同性戀）、國族他者、另類時間（跟主流社會進程脫節的時間，例如不可告人的性啟蒙記憶）。

This article contributes to theorization of literary history. It views literary historyas a seemingly linear temporal narrative which the spatial other interrupts. Focusing on1970s Taiwanese literature, I note that the spatial other is the actual or imagined US,which loomed large over Taiwan during the Cold War. Inspired by Sarah Ahmed’s QueerPhenomenology, I study the correspondence between spatial orientation (in this article,orientation toward the US) and sexual orientation. I adopt the term “American orientation”to refer to the fact that gay men as represented in 1970s literature are not onlyattracted to the US as a promised land but also defined by the allegedly all-Americanknowledge of male homosexuality, such as the pop psychology of perversion. This articleexamines not only male homosexual characters in texts but also those who supposedlyobserve homosexuality, namely narrators in the texts as well as commentators (suchas Yeh Shih-tao) on the texts. The article further suggests that this American orientationmobilizes not only the literary characters but also real-life critics. Both groups areobsessed with the tension-cum-cooperation between the actual or imagined US as anexporter of homosexuality and Taiwan as a recipient of the “vice” from abroad. Determinedby the US-Taiwan tension-cum-cooperation, the characters and critics encounterthree alterities: national alterity (such as a Taiwanese person in the US or an Americancommodity in Taiwan), sexual alterity (embodied by a homosexual person either in theUS or in Taiwan), and temporal alterity (such as a willful prospect of the future or anindulgence in the stigmatized past, all of which deviate from the linear time of heteronormativity).