Panopticon in the Urinal? the Stockholm homo-sex Commission C. 1950–1965

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article examines the records of the so-called homo-sex commission—a part of the municipal Stockholm police force dedicated to the policing of male same-sex practices—as a case study of the role of policing in shaping historical understandings of homosexuality. Building on a series of documents left by the commission and high-ranking police officers, from memoranda describing the nature of homosexuality to descriptive records of individual suspects and cruising sites, I argue that anti-homosexual policing in Stockholm served three key functions: producing knowledge about homosexual identities and practices, rendering the homosexual population and social spaces visible, and regulating the perceived homosexual use of the urban landscape. While historians have carried out important work on the policing of homosexuality in Anglo-American cities, issues pertaining to other national contexts remain largely unexplored in an international setting. Thus, this article is an effort to bridge geographic gaps in the international historiography of sexuality. It is also an effort to enrich the history of sexuality with a theoretical framework from governmentality studies, examining how sexual categories are produced, made legible and thus becomes possible objects of regulation and management.