Something about Cy Twombly being gay

Two weeks ago Lee Siegel wrote: "You cannot fully understand Twombly's art unless you know that he is gay." What was he talking about? What does that mean?

For several weeks no one has challenged Siegel on this argument, which he makes in his review of the Whitney's Cy Twombly show. I can explain that: No one takes Siegel seriously as an art critic, so when he writes something ridiculous it gets ignored. But it's one of the most outrageous lines of alleged art criticism I've seen in a long time, and it needs to be examined. 

(By the way, you cannot fully understand this blog unless you know that I am heterosexual.)

Here is the entire passage on why it (allegedly) matters that Twombly is gay. It is from slide four in Siegel's review:

You cannot fully understand Twombly's art unless you know that he is gay. It's often fatuous to reduce an artist to his or her sexuality, but Twombly is working in a tradition that associates homosexuality with an ideal human freedom. This tradition strives for an art unfettered by purpose, function, or meaning. You find such a style in Frank O'Hara's casual aimlessness and in John Ashbery's aimless obscurity—both poets think in the strokes of a subtle crayon. Such a sensibility derives from Walter Pater, the gay Victorian aesthetician who prized in art the quality he called "diaphaneite," a crystalline transparency that "crosses rather than follows the main currents of the world's life"—a "happy, unperplexed dexterity." Update Pater's notion with the brash off-handedness of so much postwar American art—think Pop art and cool jazz—and you arrive at the doodle. I have no idea if Twombly knew about Pater's ideas or cared for them if he did. But his art, distractedly crossing rather than following the main currents of the world fits Pater's values to a T.

Huh? Siegel's argument, which I have quoted in its entirety, boils down to this: Abstract art -- or any art "unfettered by purpose, function, or meaning" is, somehow 'gay art.' Then is a Pink Floyd laser light show 'gay art?' Is all counter-cultural expression, anything that "crosses rather than follows the main currents of the world's life" necessarily 'gay art?' (And does Twombly know that his art apparently lacks meaning?)

To put it more directly: Siegel argues that art that is decorative is 'gay art.' Siegel goes on to write that all gay men have limp wrists and love show tunes. (OK, I made up that last sentence. Or did I...)

So Siegel thinks it's 1951. But what's Slate's excuse for running this? How did this get by an editor? (As noted here previously, Slate is completely clueless when it comes to the visual arts. But this isn't about art writing -- this is about a silly false sterotype.)

Related on MAN: Siegel on women artists too?

Related: Greg Allen, towleroad, Houndstooth, Wasters of Cinema.