ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses two cultural trajectories, one material and the other metaphorical. It explores the history of the closet as a physical space in homes since the early modern period and considers the links between physical space and sexual secrets as conceptualized in the ‘homosexual closet’. A closet in the sense of a small room came into use in the early modern period in Britain, but it is often employed today to refer to those who are secretive about their same-sex desires. The contemporary use of the term ‘the closet’ to refer to sexual secrets means that it is often assumed that the physical closet in the home of a man such as Wladziu Valentino Liberace would immediately reveal truths about his life. It is, therefore, fascinating to note that when a picture was posted online that purported to be of Liberace’s closet in his sometime mansion in Las Vegas it elicited a set of disappointed comments.
