As queer theory presents literary and cultural criticism of all social norms such as gender, oppositions like male-female, heterosexual-homosexual, it is itself difficult to define, resisting rigid, precise definitions. Keeping in mind the feminist stance that the personal is also political, the question of different, non-normative identities, primarily referring here to homosexual identity, must be defined and made public so that everything related to it can be problematized. This is what queer theory attempts to do because "if people are made to feel guilty about an essential part of their identity, they will, it seems, experience great psychological pressures" (Altman 2010: 20). The only way to prevent the sexual other from becoming the same as the sexual first, i.e., for what is internal to become public, external, is because every identity is based on personal or collective relations to another individual or group. To define something as an identity, it must become visible. In this way, the internal must become external, so that the external can then define and determine the internal. Therefore, Diana Fuss writes: "The model of internal/external functions both as a marking figure and as a mechanism for producing meaning. It is indispensable in all structures of alienation, splitting, and identification, which together produce self and other, subject and object, unconscious and conscious, interiority and exteriority. [...] However, the same figure of internal/external, which represents the paradigm of the structure of language, repression, and subjectivity, also marks the structure of exclusion, oppression, and deprivation" (Fuss 2003: 13). In short, when something is marked as such, when it is named and determined, then "it" becomes one "of" which can further carry labels, but also be labeled, suffer violence, but also inflict violence.

Queer theory is inseparable from identity politics, and in that, "it is less identity and more a critique of identity" (Jagouz 2010: 139). Michel Foucault's words resonate widely: "Sodomy - from the old civil or ecclesiastical codes - was a category of forbidden acts; those who committed them were judicial subjects only. The homosexual of the 19th century became a person: a past, a history, a childhood, a character, a lifestyle; a morphology with an indiscreet anatomy and perhaps a mysterious physiology. Nothing that went into his total composition was unaffected by his sexuality. It was everywhere present in him: at the root of all his actions because it was their insidious and indefinitely active principle; written immodestly on his face and body because it was a secret that always gave itself away. It was consubstantial with him, less as a habitual sin than as a singular nature. The sodomite had been a temporary aberration; the homosexual was now a species" (Foucault 1982: 41–42). Since becoming a species, the homosexual has been in a constant struggle to discover and assert their own identity. One of the better scholars of Michel Foucault's work, David Halperin, in his work "Gay Identity According to Foucault," highlighted the positive and negative aspects of that identity. As politically necessary, gay identity is important because it is endangered and constantly at risk of disappearing. As politically catastrophic, even dangerous gay identity, Halperin, notes that it "allows society to quietly manage sexual differences and effectively functions as a means of stabilizing and consolidating heterosexual identity itself (which would be much more fluid, unstable, and insecure if there were no gay identity to support it)" (Halperin 2010: 202). This means that when this identity is accepted, it loses much of its internal characteristics because it automatically becomes one of the others, and the same, because accepting a definition, as well as self-definition as such, causes the individual, a member of a sexual minority group, to be classified into the identity that is externally imposed on them. Queer identity, therefore, can serve as a kind of corrective, an "umbrella term" under which all those identities that are not heteronormative can be conditionally classified.

From a feminist perspective, gay identity has never been a problem in itself for the heterosexual majority but rather from positions of misogyny, which in a man revealed feminine traits, thus undermining the heterosexual (macho) identity, by the presence of homosexual men: "Homophobia actually strengthens the fragile homosexual identity of numerous men (according to the principle that one's own 'innocence' is proven by accusing others of 'guilt'). The fag is a shameful denial of a real man because it reveals to them and to women the possibility of humiliating degradation of a man into something resembling a woman. Therefore, he is hated as a 'traitor to the male gender.' He is living proof that every man can become a woman, and therefore he must be destroyed because the secret must be preserved. This means that every man, even the most masculine one, can be a closeted homosexual (gay khitman). This causes fear of the invisible and subversive presence of homosexuals 'in our ranks'" (Mršević 2000: 19).

If we somehow had to define queer, it could be like this: queer is everything that is not standard, not in line with established, generally accepted norms, and therefore queer does not necessarily have to be tied to sexualities, although it is the basis, but to all those boundary concepts and phenomena. Therefore, these novels, which are the primary subject of our work, conditionally speaking, can be defined as queer because they are something else, something non-normative, in relation to the mainstream of Serbian literature. On the other hand, being queer today is completely the same as being anything else but Other/Different, so in attempting to define queer, we would use the refrain of a well-known rock song, which goes, "to be the same, to be special, to be free." To be the same in rights, and to be special in otherness, so that both enjoy absolute freedom.

At the end of this introductory part of the paper, and based on the theme itself, or its first part in the title, we would only mention some of the most significant works, both monographs and journals and collections, which in the previous period dealt with the theorization and popularization of this direction of literary and cultural theory: Gayto anthology of texts, edited by Zorica Mršević, Dejan Nebrigić, and Dušan Maljković (1999/2000); Genero, a journal for feminist theory and culture studies, edited by Katarina Lončarević (2002-); Theories and Policies of Gender, a collection of papers edited by Tatjana Rosić and Marija Grujić (2008); QT Journal of Queer Theory and Culture, edited by Dušan Maljković (2010–2011); Knjiženstvo, an electronic journal for literary, gender, and cultural studies, edited by Biljana Dojčinović (2011-); Among Us - Untold Stories of Gay and Lesbian Lives, a collection of papers, edited by Jelisaveta Blagojević and Olga Dimitrijević (2014); Introduction to Gender Theories, a collection of papers, edited by Ivana Milojević and Slobodanka Markov (2011); books: Marija Grujić, Gender and the Culture of Fragmentation (2015); Saša Kesić, So Queer... in Contemporary Eastern European Art and Culture (2020); Igor Perišić, Serbian (O)Queer (2020). Also, here mention should be made of the website Gay-Serbia.com, which from various aspects follows gay life in Serbia, including through the popularization of queer theory.

Love Story by Puriša Đorđević

The novel Love Story by Puriša Đorđević was published in 1986 as a special issue of the magazine Gradac. This remains the only edition of this work by the celebrated author, who, due to this, remains largely unknown to the wider reading public, especially considering the themes it addresses, which have not been revisited by others later on. The novel primarily focuses on the state official Marko, who is homosexual, and his romantic failures, while on a broader level, it tells the story of the disintegration of communism facing new phenomena, without the strength or ability to resolve them. The system is "eroded" by destructiveness and inevitably rushes towards economic, moral, and every other form of downfall. When the first adviser Marko, who had been proposed as an ambassador to Washington, is exposed to the Minister of Foreign Affairs out of fear that the CIA would discredit him because of his sexuality, the minister remains calm but bewildered. Their dialogue boils down to amazement, revealing the minister's prejudices about homosexuals, who says: "I would have never said that about you" (Đorđević 1986: 5), and then tries to ease the situation by telling a story about how his acquaintance, a psychiatrist, was cheated on by her husband with the best man at their wedding. Later on, he is again astonished by Marko's confession, focusing on Marko's outward appearance: "- Who would have said that about you? Look at what a strong man you are" (Đorđević 1986: 5), and a little later towards the end of their conversation again: "- Who would have said that about you?" the minister exclaimed. "- You're like Burt Lancaster. The first advisor chuckled. "- Isn't he, too?" the minister asked. "- Rumors say so, comrade minister." "- That man who kissed that woman with green eyes like that?" (Đorđević 1986: 6). In the minister's eyes, Marko's resemblance to a real man has created an image of a hidden enemy, because, according to this, anyone could be homosexual. On the other hand, Marko's father criticizes Marko's unmanly or insufficiently manly attitude and behavior: "I'd like something to eat, Mom - Marko asked. - Eat - father ordered. - How are you sitting? - father asked. - How are you holding the knife? - father asked. - How do you wipe with the napkin? - father asked. - How are you standing up? Sit! - father ordered" (Đorđević 1986: 7). Later on, when Marko goes to the village of Planina to escape the scandal, we encounter another play on the gender of the main character of this novel: "In the bedroom, holding the transistor as if practicing stone lifting from the shoulder, stood the bus driver. - Who are you? - Marko shouted in fear. - I'm the one who drinks until he shits, dear teacher" (Đorđević 1986: 38–39, emphasis mine). In a scene that unfolds later, we encounter a new play on normative gender traits, the driver on the floor waits for Marko and begs him to be with him while he refuses, because he is in love with his student Jovan, for whom it is known in the village that he surrenders to a certain German for money and expensive gifts.

Marko's exposure reveals a completely different, alternative world, which functions parallelly, people who are on two sides, one socially normative and the other, those whose own being and nature dictate: "Homosexuality is something hidden within us. I saw a boy in the wind with his hair in disarray. He was trying to tidy that hair up. What that boy didn't yet know was hidden within him, in his slender fingers until he defeated the wind and tied his hair into a long ponytail. Then he smiled, but he still didn't know that now he was one more girl on the street. [...] There's something touching in our nature struggling, at least in Serbia, to be one hundred percent male. But, nothing is final" (Đorđević 1986: 32). Alongside the depiction of self-aware gay individuals in Belgrade, who meet in nightclubs, debate about their sexuality, but also satisfy their needs, Đorđević occasionally offers excerpts from the lives of those others who are on the margins of society, who satisfy their "vice" of same-sex love in a different way. These sexually other, are actually doubly other, because they are both on the margins of society and existence: "The nightlife of Belgrade had no idea, just like the 'Gay Guide' from London, that from the railway station to the port of Belgrade, along the folds of the Sava river, walked another army that knew nothing about Socrates and Andersen, that didn't drink whiskey, a troop of people whose professions were gravediggers, railway workers, retired non-commissioned officers, idlers, farmers, boatmen. On that crowd smelling of onions and cheese, a group of boys waited at each lamppost. Two troops of people, as in military occupation, quickly surrounded the dark places, occupied them, entered into an embrace as if into a trench. They exchanged excitement and money and after a few minutes, parted without a word. Ashamed, gravediggers and peasants swore they would hang themselves if they ever came here again, and rushed back to their families" (Đorđević 1986: 32–33). Also, within the pages of this novel, we will find those who are triply other and different, such as the scene with the boy and the older man, Albanians: "While they were chattering, on the banks of the river a small group of Albanians, dressed in scout uniforms as if searching for medicinal herbs, collected lost watches, lighters, necklaces. - Serbia is a cheerful country - said the older Albanian and stroked the boy's buttocks, who, bent over, picked up golden women's shoes from the bushes. - What are you doing? - the boy angrily shouted at the older Albanian. - Stay like that - the older Albanian asked. - Pay first - ordered the boy" (Đorđević 1986: 27). This shading of sexually, nationally, and class other influences the creation of an image of the socio-political climate of that time, as well as the upcoming crises, due to the "collision of worlds" that are mutually close but do not communicate with each other.

After Marko's exposure and career collapse, he also faces a loss on the romantic front. His lover Angelo, who is an obvious example of a guy in search of a strong and wealthy partner, finding out that there is no hope for a trip and life in Washington, leaves Marko, who then goes to the remote village of Planina, where he will be confronted with people who understand and experience human nature much better, because they themselves live in accordance with it, with just a few extreme cases. In that village, Marko becomes a teacher, works on the village's recovery, renovates the school, and falls in love with his student Jovan. Just before being appointed as a village teacher, Marko undergoes a kind of sexual test, namely, the mistress of the president of the local committee, Bogdan Megdandzija, tries to seduce him to keep him in the village, but unsuccessfully, because he does not smell like a man: "Didn't you appeal to him? The girl nodded. - So what's wrong? The girl approached Bogdan and smelled him. - He doesn't have my scent - Bogdan rejoiced" (Đorđević 1986: 35–36).

The novel by Puriša Đorđević is interesting as a kind of parodic discourse on the idyllic novel of rural life that emerged in realism. The characters are stripped down, their characters are not discussed, they are all reduced to an image and perhaps a few lines they utter quite unmotivatedly. However, like a realistic novel, this novel also has similarities in unfulfilled or shattered ideals, a man constrained by various influences and expectations of the environment. Marko, losing one love, loses another. These are the most pathetic parts of this novel: "Leave your eyes and return with words - why should a peasant kill me, and that a German! What did that pain in my heart want? To stop playing with life? To change? To write to my parents, maybe even to Ana? ... That's right ... Ana. Angelo appears alongside Ana. Okay, I ran to the village to heal because of his betrayal. Pain struck him. Okay - Marko admitted - I sought a cure. Why didn't you look for that cure in yourself but in Jovan - Pain hit him briefly, like an injection. Then he added - you threw yourself at Jovan, as if you were sending him back to school, but you were only thinking how to drown him in your embrace. I won't hurt you anymore - he said. Pain. I love the brave and I don't torment them, I mow them down immediately" (Đorđević 1986: 45). Marko's exposure to the president of the local committee, Bogdan, is just confirmation of what was suspected, and it passes without any consequences. Marko, who rebuilt the school in the village of Planina, became a hero, his merits are highlighted on television in a report about this village, which again makes it possible for him to be forgiven for this "sin". After all, as Bogdan says: "I didn't find a single word about it in the statute of the League of Communists ... If it's not in the statute, then it's not in the League of Communists" (Đorđević 1986: 50).

The ending of the novel is particularly unmotivated and insufficiently thought out, in which Marko, during his grand return to Belgrade, in a nightclub, is killed by his father, who, in a fit of jealousy that his son will snatch Angelo away from him, shoots him with a gun and kills him, speaks of Marko, but also all those like him, as complete outsiders. Someone who is unable to fulfill himself, to find love, but in the system tries to find a kind of self-sufficiency and self-forgetfulness. In the novel, there is one sentence, uttered by Ana, Marko's public partner before the exposure, and it can best describe all the chaos found in the novel: "God, where did Marko's substitution of a wife with a man lead us" (Đorđević 1986: 75).

Paris – New York by Dejan Nebrigić

The novel "Paris – New York," by perhaps the most famous and tragically most significant Serbian gay activist, Dejan Nebrigić, subtitled "Family Analysis," is a specific work that could be called a novel-essay, but also a kind of autobiographical novel, considering that Dejan, as noted by Dušan Maljković, is "the subject or author as much as the object of the narrative constructed in the first person" (Maljković 2001: 114). For Maljković, Nebrigić's novel "represents a specific socially engaged performative, in which the symbolism of otherness assumes the sign, the stigma of homosexuality, narrated through one's own experience" (Maljković 2001: 114). If we reflect on the subtitle of this novel, we will notice that at the core of all problems lies the family, that is, relationships within the family. This is indicated by the subtext of this novel, such as Wilde's "De Profundis," Mann's "Diaries," Hamlet, Kiš's "Early Sorrows"... Misunderstanding by the family, which carries traces of incest or its beginnings: "I call my parents' home, ask if someone was looking for me there, and among those who did, I don't hear his name. Well, I say to my father, and I end the conversation before it becomes unpleasant. It's always unpleasant talking to parents. Especially from a foreign country. Today I realize that I have been a victim all this time of sexual problems that my parents have. Now I understand why H. D. kept telling me that Deleuze's and Guattari's ANTI-OEDIPUS is the most important book of the 20th century" (Nebrigić 2001: 66). According to Nebrigić's understanding, the family is solely responsible for why a homosexual cannot come out, why his personality remains deeply suppressed, hidden, often denied, leading to a breakdown of personality, which often leads to tragedy: "People like F, who are incapable of realizing their - theoretical, latent, or whatever you want to call it - homosexuality, are dangerous for humanity. That is, along with, of course, the Oedipus complex, the most common cause of mass psychoses and wars. Many have written about this, but Klaus Thewelit in MALE FANTASIES did it best. That's why fascism and national socialism emerged. That's what Klaus Mann - in TURNING POINTS - called Hitler, just as I called F a homosexual Barbarossa" (Nebrigić 2001: 74). A little later, Nebrigić will say that it is a pure utopia to believe that one can escape from archetypes: "I don't believe it's possible to reconcile with oneself. I don't think it's possible to reconcile with the archetype, with our ancestors" (Nebrigić 2001: 75), because that is the "age of the soil," a gene of behavior formed over centuries. That's why the novel is titled Paris – New York, as the eternal opposite of one another, old and new, past and future, Europe and America. Everything Paris is not, New York is, and vice versa: "Europe is generally nihilistic, America, of course, positivistic. And it's not just about its 'political pragmatism.' There really is no global necrophilic aesthetics here, as in Europe. There is actually no aesthetics here in the classical sense of the word - no aesthetics at all. And if something is aesthetics for Americans, it's - health. Quite inappropriate for someone who always feels like they're hearing the slogan 'a healthy mind in a healthy body' directly from the mouth of Adolf Hitler. Health is, indeed, still a fascist concept in the modern world. But New York is, of course, not a fascist city. Nowhere is there a trace of that painful xenophobia I found in Paris" (Nebrigić 2001: 45–46).

In America, Nebrigić only feels like he's not at home; Europe is burdened with its own memory, its old age, tradition, thousand-year history, everything he fled from the war-torn country, which is no longer called Yugoslavia, where only divisions and fascism are progressing. It seems that the only place where every person is special and unique, primarily because of the freedom of sexuality, is America: "There is no that terrible Catholic morality here that produces unbearable guilt, that sense of guilt and repentance in me. How many times have I entered the church of St. Roko - that cursed saint - in Subotica, how many times have I confessed in small churches on the island of Korčula. Here no one even thinks about it - not even me, who still considers myself a good Catholic - to confess, to feel guilt and sin after sex. Here sex is liberated from all our - European - metaphysical, even emotional connotations; it is equal to going to the toilet or drinking water and eating" (Nebrigić 2001: 56). America not only represents a dream of the future but also a place free from memories of itself, memories of death, of everything that largely burdens and complicates the life of an ordinary person in Europe, especially in the Balkans, particularly if that person is homosexual, whose life is defined by eternal hiding, withdrawal from oneself and others, leading to sadness and self-forgetfulness: "Tonight I dreamed a painful dream. That dream is a paradigm of my overall feeling of continuous emptiness and hopeless sadness. I dreamed that Z. and I were traveling on the Trans-Siberian Railway - like in Wim Wenders' film UNTIL THE END OF THE WORLD - that we were traveling through the endless expanses of Russia, to another continent, to Asia, to China. Unlike the trains we usually traveled on in reality - mostly it was the Subotica - Novi Sad - Belgrade business train - this was a huge train. But my problem was not to find Z., as the Wenders' heroine had a problem finding the one she was chasing after. My problem was to establish contact with him, to really - in that dream, as well as in life - talk to him" (Nebrigić 2001: 44–45). The impossibility of emotional and/or sexual interaction with Z. becomes a burden for the protagonist of this novel, because reality offers him only humiliation and rejection, while the dream leads him to thoughts of death in which he will be with Z.: "Oh, how much I long for such a death, to disappear as soon as possible, to forget the sufferings I feel every second, that emptiness, that constant feeling that I always miss Z. Always, absolutely always. But, in New York, I don't think about death at all. At home, I am obsessed with death. As Jean Baudrillard would say: I am obsessed with disappearance, with my disappearance" (Nebrigić 2001: 45).

Therefore, America is the only place that offers comfort, an escape from death, but fleeing from death is futile, as is fleeing from archetypes: "And again, on the plane, which I don't notice, and again with the kind steward of Air-France, whom I look at like air, and again with airplane food, whose taste I don't feel - tears again. Eternal tears, like Juhasz's Eternal Anna, like my eternal F, like eternal Z, like my Eternal Love" (Nebrigić 2001: 109). Traveling is like escaping from fate: "and I myself am afraid of the country I fled from, which is no longer Austria-Hungary, but no longer Yugoslavia either" (Nebrigić 2001: 98) while returning to reality, returning to wandering again, searching for the banished being, for the beloved, in solitude, in misery and the indelible hope that "the snow will cover the traces of their horses" (Nebrigić 2001: 43). And only love could heal the scars and cover them like snow covering the dirt of our lives.

Glasshouse by Uroš Filipović

Most of the attention regarding Uroš Filipović's novel "Glasshouse," subtitled "Notes from an Underground Passage" and "Diary of a Different Seducer," was focused on criticism rather than praise. This criticism targeted both the structure and content of the book, including its thematic and narrative clumsiness, as well as the author's perspective on sex. Igor Perišić writes: "Aside from the fact that pornography contradicts literature in some purely technical aspects – as is the case with Filipović's book – due to its lack of skill in shaping (material errors, plot errors, motivational or ideological clumsiness), it can represent, if self-aware and thus subconsciously aware, an interesting deviation from pure art. [...] In 'Glasshouse,' however, although love is almost silenced in the moments from which the narrative is told, it still appears in reminiscences. Secondly, pornography should depict 'successful' and 'good' sex, which is rare in Filipović's work, diverging from the genre by pointing out the bitter realization of the secret and rare frequency of 'successful' and 'good' sex" (Perišić 2008: 393–394). Dušan Maljković wondered if this novel is irreparable trash (Maljković 2014: 264). While Kevin Moss, and to some extent Igor Perišić, criticize the gender unethicality, or Filipović's "presentation of homosexual identity from a heteronormative and masculinocentric focus" (Perišić 2008: 398), or "heteronormative equating of gender and sexual orientation" (Moss 2006: 301). However, it seems that Uroš Filipović's novel should not be read in the context of pornographic literature, which is quite clumsily imposed by the foreword written by Miljenko Jergović. Although it's a diary of sex, or sexual experiences, recurring from chapter to chapter, with additions about the first discoveries of one's own otherness at the beginning and experiences from travels at the end of the book, this is not a book to be read for self-gratification. Because for Filipović, sex is just an attempt to fill the inner emptiness, which grows with each act of sex. Therefore, towards the end of the book, he writes: "sex and literature made me think of a diary, and overcoming and flight to disappearance. My key words, therefore, were Diary and Disappearance! Diary of Disappearance!" (Filipović 2002: 288). If we experience every orgasm as a "little death," with it dies a part of us, our desires, hopes, hence this is truly a diary of disappearance, because with each page the author witnesses disappearance, losing oneself in the fog of illusions, until the final departure from the war-torn country: "Farewell, heavenly Serbia" (Filipović 2002: 292). After all, "Glasshouse" is also a diary of the disintegration of a state, the disintegration of communism, the rise of nationalisms, to the escalation of fascism, with one unknown minority at its center, not even known to exist, the homosexual minority, living parallel on all sides and persecuted by all ideologies. That's why Dušan Maljković is right when he writes how "Glasshouse can also be read as a study of prison, or rather an analysis of the ghetto, into which a minority has been placed as much by homophobic social prejudices and repressions, as by the very consent of the population that is marginalized" (Maljković 2014: 263). The entire social system and its understandings are visible through these notes, but also through the author's understanding of these notes. He almost always accepts clearly defined gender roles, what Kevin Moss calls gender separatism, and "according to which the most natural thing in the world is for persons of the same gender to connect, both socially and sexually. Homosexuals should be hyper-masculine and less similar to women, since they prefer men to women" (Moss 2006: 288). However, this is actually a reflection of the heteronormative majority's attitude towards the attitude of the homosexual minority, but also a kind of defense mechanism, because one's own safety should not be endangered by accepting and practicing any kind of behavior that the majority community does not accept, such as feminized behavior, as evidenced by a scene from the diary describing the death of such a homosexual, who displayed his fem behavior on the street, and who was killed by being thrown from Branko's bridge onto the concrete (Filipović 2002: 244). There is also something of a psychological connection between the victim and the perpetrator in this, but also personal exhibitionism and exploration, for example when describing engaging in sexual intercourse with a man he knows to be a war criminal and a participant in the most brutal killings on the war fronts in Bosnia: "I was not particularly sexually attracted to him despite his strong body and masculine appearance. He was too bulky for my taste. The main motive for going with him was curiosity. I wanted to try sex with a multiple killer, a butcher, and a war criminal. I am a victim of superficial belief that a successful and fulfilling life consists of numerous interesting, exciting, pleasant, but also unpleasant situations" (Filipović 2002: 259).

When we speak about the mapping of the socio-political image onto the sexual behavior in the diary notes of the described actors, we primarily think of some of the following situations. The author says that sex helped him not to be a nationalist, because he had sex with everyone equally, then scenes in which it is described that someone had to prove their origin precisely because of circumcision, and also almost came to harm because of it, a scene of sex with a young Frenchman in front of the television where the nation was mourning Tito's death, and finally a scene in which he follows a man whom he thinks is homosexual, but who notices he is being followed and somewhere halfway it turns out to be some criminal who fears being spied on, from which the actor of this note somehow escaped.

The scene where the author of these notes with a young policeman in the park searches for a baton is perhaps the most interesting, for several reasons. First, it plays with gender roles, second, he outs himself to the policeman, third, because the policeman outs himself to him, fourth because the policeman is in the park on a mission to persecute those who are like him, but also to find those similar to him: "'Baton! I hit him with the baton. It fell somewhere here, in the bushes. Do you want to look for it together? You search here, and I'll go there.' I found it funny, so I could barely refrain from laughing. The cop lost his baton, a phallic symbol of power and authority. I searched for it in the spot he pointed to. I soon saw it shining in the grass under the light coming from the street" (Filipović 2002: 72–73). When he meets that policeman again after all that, the erotic desire will weaken, because the policeman is not in uniform, so he no longer represents anything, he is equal to everyone else, so to the author, accustomed to revenge and small victories in which he avenges heteronormative customs and models, it produces no excitement, he is then just another homosexual in search of sexual pleasure. Through these notes, we see that besides sexual desire, which is the basis of the search for sexual partners, the author longs for revenge, for "moral diversions" (Filipović 2002: 63) like the one in the hospital, when he has sex with a partner where the stronger pleasure is the place where the sexual act takes place, rather than the act of sex itself. This should be added to the following excerpt: "Once again, for the umpteenth time, I enjoyed my role as a 'avenger' who forces rascals and macho men to suck him or fuck them for a little money. I humiliated that husband and father, he sucked my dick and swallowed sperm. I am ridiculous and already boring to myself with these infantile symbolic revenges on men, the establishment, and society as a whole. I wonder to what extent my erotic excitement stems from other, non-erotic spheres?" (Filipović 2002: 151). This desire for revenge, which heterosexual men put in the position they usually put their wives, is just another form of desire for power, although here in the role of criticizing heterosexual norms. After all, isn't that then a kind of performative gender transgression: "They are in my eyes symbols of the heterosexual cult of the real man, and I watch them crouching or kneeling in front of me with their mouths open, while my python enters their short-cut heads. I enjoy watching them trot, prance, or lift their legs up high, waiting for me to penetrate their tender womb" (Filipović 2002: 177).

Epilogue

All three novels we analyzed, as much as we were allowed for this occasion, talk about the outsider status of their protagonists, both because of their sexual affiliation and because of political situations. Emerging in specific socio-political upheavals, they immediately became a picture of that time, because all the protagonists of these novels, besides their sexuality, also struggle with these external conditions, embodied in crises of political and value systems imposed by the broader social community to which neither Marko, nor Dejan, nor Uroš belong. Marko dies by his father, Dejan by his partner, and Uroš leaves the country and moves to London. These novels were created in difficult conditions, imposed from outside, but they depicted everything that happens within a sexually different individual, out of the need to accept, enable, explain that a whole group of people exists, lives, and works together, and should remain so even when uncovered.

REFERENCES

Đorđević 1986: P. Đorđević, Love Story, Čačak: Gradac.
Nebrigić 2001: D. Nebrigić, Paris – New York, Belgrade: Rende.
Filipović 2002: U. Filipović, Glasshouse, Belgrade: Rende.

LITERATURE

Altman 2010: D. Altman, "Guilt and the Internalization of Oppression," trans. A. Filipović, Belgrade: QT 1–2, 17–25.
Maljković 2014: D. Maljković, "A Skewed History of Gay Literature in Serbia – the Possibility of a Draft," in: J. Blagojević and O. Dimitrijević (eds.), Among Us, Untold Gay and Lesbian Stories, Belgrade: Hartefakt fond, 252–266.
Mos 2006: K. Moss, "I'm Not a Real Woman: Gender and Sexuality in Two Memoirs from Belgrade," in: A. Hodžić and J. Postić (eds.), Gender Transgression: Gender Equality Means More Than Binarity, Zagreb: CESI, Ženska soba, 286–302.
Mršević 2000: Z. Mršević, "Let Them Know We Are Here and That We Exist – or How and Why Theorize Homosexuality," Belgrade: Gayto, 16–22.
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