ABSTRACT
This chapter offers an account of an emerging discourse of 'atonement' among British elites for the anti-sodomy laws in Commonwealth countries that are seen to be a legacy of British colonialism. Drawing on political theoretic, literary and psychoanalytic resources, it develops a critique of the forms in which this atonement is expressed, arguing that it is underpinned by a desire to avoid engaging with guilt. The chapter contrasts the 'imperious' atonement with a more equivocal discourse of atonement expressed in relation to the question of slavery. While a number of factors distinguish the apology to Turing from the non-apology for slavery, the former reinforces the impression that the British state appears more willing to atone for past sexual injustices in which it was complicit than for its racial crimes. Much of this is strikingly visible in the British discourse of 'atonement' for Commonwealth anti-sodomy laws.
