Proust and Penis Panic

The strongest presence in Proust's life at this juncture was Comte Robert de Montesquiou-Fezensac. Fifteen years older, he had everything Proust thought he wanted. The Count was descended from the model for D'Artagnan of The Three Musketeers and could claim most of European nobility as relatives by blood or marriage. Immense wealth enabled him to cultivate an aesthetic manner and way of life remarkable enough to have already inspired one notorious book, Huysmans' A rebours. He was also a published poet of some note and flaunted his homosexuality with enormous style. Proust fawned on him for several years before he could pull away, and the fascination never disappeared entirely. When Montesquiou mentioned his young friend once in print, Proust had to fight a pistol duel with a critic who seized the occasion to ridicule him as "one of those small-time fops in literary heat." No one was hurt.

Homosexuality was referred to as inversion in Proust's day, and Proust was both terrified by and fascinated with it. Proust's duel is a classic example of Westernized penis panic. The insecure jewish invert must duel to defend his honor (from the penis-snatching frenchie journalist).