Dostoevsky's Comely Boy: Homoerotic Desire and Aesthetic Strategies in A Raw Youth [Note 1. Research for this article was supported by a grant ...]

In his 1862 pseudo-autobiography Votesfrom the House of the Dead, based on his experiences in a Siberian prison, Dostoevsky explains how prisoners deal with their sexual needs. I One method is to bribe guards to take the prisoner not to his work site but to a secluded hut for a tryst with a prostitute. But such expeditions, since they are expensive and risky, are extremely rare; as the narrator tells us, "lovers of the fair sex resort to other means, which are completely safe."2 In what seems to be a digression but really is not, the narrator goes on to describe the prisoner Sirotkin, whom he calls "pretty boy" (khoroshen 'k/imal'chik) twice in the space of one paragraph (4:38, 39). Sirotkin does not ply any of the prisoners' moneymaking trades, but he always seems to have sums of ready cash and new clothes, gifts from other prisoners. One can only conclude that Sirotkin represents that "other means" of satisfying sexual desire-male prostitution. Our narrator is curious about Sirotkin and his "comrades," and promises to describe them more extensively: "If circumstances permit, I will say something in more detail about this whole gang."3