ABSTRACT
Chapter Five discusses the problematic reception of Pombo’s novels by Spanish gay critics, who have tended to label them as homophobic, and comments on the insights of Alfredo Martínez Expósito and Frederick Fajardo. The latter argues that Pombo explores homosexuality from a peculiar, philosophical perspective of phenomenology and existentialism. This sometimes causes Pombo to be misconstrued by queer critics. The chapter recognises Pombo as an original writer who aims to construct his own theory of homosexuality. Although Pombo writes against homophobic discourses which frame homosexuality as being against nature, a species of modern homophobia is also detectable in Pombo’s work due to his denunciation of redundancy and worthlessness of promiscuous behaviour as part of gay sexual liberation. Despite this, Pombo can be considered a queer writer, given that his most important gay-themed novel, Contra natura [Against Nature], criticises both hetero- and homonormativity and exposes the mechanisms at work in the system of sexual oppression. What is more, Pombo’s highly subversive and ironic mode of rewriting elements of homoerotic traditions in order to convey his own unorthodox ideas about sexuality mirrors Mazuf’s gesture of defiance.
