‘My Father Sent a Closeted Child to the Army and Got a Homosexual Man Back’: Homosexuality in the South African Defence Force During ‘Apartheid’ from a Novel

Abstract

Drawing on Foucault’s discussion of subjectivation in modernity, this paper address the multiple aspects of sexual relationships between men in the South African Defence Force [SADF] described in the novel Moffie, by André Carl van der Merwe. Through an analysis of the book, I examine the role of social markers of difference in the apartheid national project, the armed forces' influence on masculinities conceptions, and the possibilities men had to experience non-heterosexual sexualities in the military.