The Great Queers of History

August 21, 2005 4:11 AM

The Great Queers of History- I am sometimes asked, ‘But does it really matter that some historical figure, for example Tchaikovsky, was gay? ... But I like to pose some questions of my own in response: ‘If it doesn't really matter, why has society taken such great pains to conceal Tchaikovsky’s sexuality, maybe even murder him for it? from Lists of famous homosexuals ( ... and a prior related post by anastasiav, Homosexuality in 18th Century England)
posted by madamjujujive (87 comments total)

This is Armenian Radio! Our listeners are asking, "Is it true, Tchaikovsky was a homosexual?"
We are answering, "Yes, but we love him not only for this."
posted by Wolfdog at 5:09 AM on August 21, 2005

As a queer, the postmodernist "historical outing" phenomenon makes me really uncomfortable. Yes, we need historical role models, a history of our own, but in no way did most of these supposedly gay historical figures actually impact gay rights, or gay culture. Are we calling them gay because they crossed our manufactured gay or straight for life, no-changing-teams Queer-Power modern line? Most cultures didn't think that way, at least not up until after WW2 or so. Plus it really does nothing to furthur our cause(s). I doubt some conservative music lover is now going to question his thinking on gays because of this info on Tchaikovsky - it'll just annoy him and he'll doubt the veracity anyway, then dismiss it.
posted by pomegranate at 5:31 AM on August 21, 2005

Tchaikovsky wrote some of the most striking, beautiful melodies I've ever heard. So he liked guys? Pfft, big fat hairy deal.
posted by alumshubby at 8:04 AM on August 21, 2005

I hate discussions which revolve around questions like does it really matter that some historical figure ... was gay? This is meaningless. Matter to whom? Matter for what purpose? Does Tchaikovsky's sexual preference matter in terms of my enjoyment of his music? Of course not. Did it matter in his life (or does it matter if I'm interested in his biography?)? Of course. Does it matter to gay history? Possibly.

There's no such thing as something that just "matters." Matter only makes sense in a context. I hate questions like this, because they can lead to hours of meangless debate:

Fred (secretly thinking of biography): it matters.
Mary (secretly thinking of music): no it doesn't.

Fred and mary are not talking about the same thing. They just think they are.
posted by grumblebee at 8:24 AM on August 21, 2005

Actually, pomegranate, they do impact -- even now, just by the very spreading of the news about them. By posthumously outing them, we tell ourselves (most especially those just coming out), and the world, that we've always been here and we've had an impact on human cultures and societies forever--in all walks of life. It's for us that they're compiled and disseminated first of all--by us, for us: ... But the use of the list to demand greater respect from society is a secondary result, not the primary purpose of the list, which is to banish a sense of alienation by rediscovering our own cultural traditions. The list of the great queers of history is compiled by queers in order to find a place for themselves in a historical tradition, to celebrate that they are part of a cultural unity. ...

They've been used for a very very long time as well, as also noted in the second link: ...non-book-length lists of the great queers of history go back much further than the nineteenth century. These lists are by no means limited to the modern period, nor are they found only in homophobic contexts (both of which would be required by the social constructionist premise). ... Such a list is prima facie evidence of the existence of queer identity during the early seventeenth century: de Viau clearly uses here the conceptual framework of members of a group of people with something in common. Any argument that this establishes a group of sodomites rather than a group of queers quite misses the point: it is a group of persons rather than acts. ...
The list of the great queers of history is aimed primarily at and read primarily by queers themselves, rather than being aimed at straights; it has the essentialist purpose of establishing for queers themselves that they are not unique. Cultural unity comes first; from this comes the strength for the defence against society, which is secondary ...
posted by amberglow at 8:29 AM on August 21, 2005

I can get why recording a lineage of famous homosexuals is important to demonstrate that it's a normal lifestyle. I can get why on occasion, knowing that someone was homosexual helps better understand their artistic output. But I've always felt a little uneasy about those who are very quick to offer up hearsay or piecemeal evidence (whether about historical or latterday famous people; or even just in their social network, including on metafilter) in an attempt to subscribe a new member to the club. Those endeavours are puzzling and somehow tainted or something...or what pomegranate said.
posted by peacay at 8:31 AM on August 21, 2005

If Tchaikovsky's homosexuality is such a secret, how did I know about it four decades ago while growing up in a small, conservative town? *rolleyes* He did suffer because of his orientation, and that's the story - not this nonsense about a secret court ordering him to kill himself, or whatever.

[And actually I am bothered by his relationship with a servant, which began when the boy was quite young. An imbalance of power there, of the kind that bothers me whether it's PIT, Jefferson/Hemmings or Michael Jackson and his young friends.]

I have used the "famous gays" argument at times. For instance, when the monstrously ignorant "no gay teachers" crap would arise, I'd ask if someone would deny having their kid taught by DaVinci or Michaelangelo because of their sexual orientation? (And yeah, I know, some of those mindless bigots would indeed pass up the chance.)

And I think a list of historical gay figures serves a (limited) purpose within a greater history homosexuality. But I don't even know if that list is accurate - it's difficult to even document whether some of the people were gay.
posted by NorthernLite at 8:38 AM on August 21, 2005

Even if it's difficult to document or prove, it's still better than assuming everyone everywhere was always straight. All people reinterpret history and historical figures for their own era--ours is one in which we're interested in the person behind the facade (of great artist, great hero, great leader, etc). It's normal for us to dig into the stuff that was excised from previous accounts of their lives or just ignored. Bowdlerization is what we've had for ages, and now things don't have to be skipped or glossed over or hidden.
posted by amberglow at 8:46 AM on August 21, 2005

Any word on Rip Taylor?
posted by dhoyt at 9:03 AM on August 21, 2005

"By posthumously outing them, we tell ourselves (most especially those just coming out), and the world, that we've always been here and we've had an impact on human cultures and societies forever--in all walks of life."

But doesn't everybody already know this? The Greeks, et cetera... there have always been homosexuals, and it's harder to deny it now than ever. What's more, nobody does deny it; it's just that some people seem to count the presence of homosexuals as unfortunate, and others count it as a welcome fact of life.

There have been times when most of us in the latter category had the grace and subtlety to realize that we'd never be in the majority, and that a certain amount of dignity and discretion in our affairs was better than loud evangelizing. Now is not one of those times. Hence, the 'community' (which insists on trumpeting itself as such to any and all who will listen) finds it necessary to boldly proclaim the sexual orientation of every person on the planet, as if, by doing so, they were bringing about freedom and equality. In fact, 'evangelical' is the best way to describe this phenomenon.

There have been better times to be gay. Maybe if we really looked at the homosexuals of the past, we could see that our society is shit compared to others. So maybe this isn't so bad.
posted by koeselitz at 9:10 AM on August 21, 2005

I think there's a lot more person to be found in the facade than is considered. All the stinky stuff or contradictions, or layers of privacy, all that which you would say, that's the person, making these different perspectives fit together while not working, while not creating, I dunno. Taking the example, Tchaikovsky is dead, so in no way is anyone finding the person behind the legacy of great music they are just adding a different dimension to his posthumous fame, I dunno if I would want to be famous for my sex life. No, I really wouldn't.

Fred (secretly thinking of biography): it matters.
Mary (secretly thinking of music): no it doesn't.

Fred and mary are not talking about the same thing. They just think they are.

That's great, chuckle chuckle
posted by nervousfritz at 9:14 AM on August 21, 2005

When I see Sappho (about whose life we know nothing) and Socrates (who is essentially a fictional character created by Plato) on such a list, I roll my eyes and expect the worst. Then I scroll down and find Shakespeare. Yup. I ignore the rest of the list.

I'd love to see a carefully researched, cautious list of historical figures known or reasonably surmised to be gay in some sensible meaning of the word. These endless lists of "famous people who maybe once said something nice about somebody of their own sex" are just silly, and I don't see the point. Is it impossible to be queer and proud unless Shakespeare was gay?
posted by languagehat at 9:17 AM on August 21, 2005

Is it impossible to be queer and proud unless Shakespeare was gay?

I dunno, but if Michelagelo had been heterosexual, the Sistine Chapel would have been wood paneled.
posted by jonmc at 9:23 AM on August 21, 2005

I tend to agree languagehat. However, this one I found fascinating:

"Dong Xian (1st cent. BC) Chinese favorite Powerful male concubine of Emperor Ai (r. 6 BC-AD 1), who one day cut off his sleeve rather than wake up Dong Xian, who lay sleeping across it, giving rise to "the passion of the cut sleeve" as the Chinese term for gay love."

Neat stuff. However, why is Dong Xian, the concubine, listed, whereas the Emperor himself isn't?
posted by brundlefly at 9:27 AM on August 21, 2005

I found it fascinating to see how many people were on that list whom I'd never really thought about in that fashion. It gives more depth to them, as people, rather than merely "historical personages".
posted by nightchrome at 9:29 AM on August 21, 2005

This list was pretty poorly researched, I must say. Some of the figures I go "What's gay about that?" -- I mean, even assuming Socrates existed, which is questionable, they imply that "corrupting the youth of Athens" meant having sex with them, I think, which is clearly untrue (having sex would have been fine, teaching them to question authority wasn't).

The inclusion of Sappho was interesting for a different reason -- of course, we know very little factual of her life -- but despite this whole "She's from Lesbos! She's a lesbian!" thing, she wrote love poems for both men and women and was probably married. And she probably wasn't a teacher, that was invented to claim she WASN'T homosexual.

They also tended to list anyone who had a close male friend or wrote about male friendship, which seems questionable at least. I mean, a lot of people have "best friends" that are more important to them, emotionally, than their lovers, but that's obviously different than being a homosexual.

Sure, it matters who was homosexual, but it also matters that the first of these people to be considered "a homosexual" instead of "someone who has homosexual sex" was Oscar Wilde. And that some of them weren't gay or didn't exist.
posted by dagnyscott at 9:38 AM on August 21, 2005

I found it fascinating to see how many people were on that list whom I'd never really thought about in that fashion.

But maybe the reason you never really thought about in that fashion is that there's no actual reason to think about them in that fashion. It's like the whole "Columbus was a Jew!" thing; it's possible that Columbus was of Jewish origin, even though there's no evidence, but nobody at the time seems to have thought so, and it doesn't seem to have made any difference to his life or historical impact, so what's the point of hyping it? Are there so few historical figures who were gay, or Jewish, or black, that we have to go desperately trawling through the records for possibilities: "Well, this guy looks a little swarthy, and his great-great-grandmother once visited a plantation, so..."
posted by languagehat at 9:45 AM on August 21, 2005

What pomegranate said.

The notion of a "queer" or "gay" identity is a cultural construct which didn't exist in Tchaikovsky's day. Had he been alive now, who knows what identity he would have lived out?

On the other hand, the fact that people (and animals, for that matter) in every culture throughout history have enjoyed homosexual relationships should certainly be taught in schools. Over and over again until even the dumbest kids get the point.

I'd love to never again have to hear an ignorant homophobe abusing the word 'unnatural'.

I now find myself wondering about the symbolism of the cannons in the 1812 overture...
posted by cleardawn at 9:54 AM on August 21, 2005

brundlefly: whereas the Emperor himself isn't?

Presumably the Emperor was bi. The most famous gay in ancient China was 龙阳君, (Long Yang Jun), and I'm a bit surprised to see a wiki entry for him. The modern day slang for gays is ' 同志', or 'comrades'.

(Didn't know Humboldt was a gay.)
posted by of strange foe at 9:55 AM on August 21, 2005

But maybe the reason you never really thought about in that fashion is that there's no actual reason to think about them in that fashion. ...so what's the point of hyping it? ...

No actual reason for you to think about them, but more than enough reason for us, who make these lists. If aspects of these people's lives had not been excised for centuries and known all along, there wouldn't be a reason--they were, and there is a reason--it's for us--now. And making a list is not "hyping" anything. Why such loaded language?
posted by amberglow at 10:02 AM on August 21, 2005

One of the more devo conversations I had in college:
Me: You know, I never really liked Tschaikovsky that much.
Him: DUDE, did you know Tschaikovsky was a FAG!! Now what do you think of him!?
Me:..... I... still don't really care for his music?
posted by Rev. Syung Myung Me at 10:44 AM on August 21, 2005

off topic, but what's questionable about Socrates' existence?
posted by the cuban at 10:45 AM on August 21, 2005

Y'know, I can't say I've been interested in the sexuality of any historical figure, with the possible exception of a few famous prostitutes who sidelined as spies.
posted by five fresh fish at 10:49 AM on August 21, 2005

I did not know Langston Hughes was gay, Navratilova has always been a hottie, and Cardinal Newman? I had no idea, and I went to a Kansas college named after him.
Knowing that someone is gay changes the way I would read/interpret their works. More of an insight, but nothing to either laud or dismiss over.
posted by buzzman at 11:00 AM on August 21, 2005

They're really reaching in some cases. There's absolutely no proof to suggest whether some of these people were gay or straight. And putting quotation marks around a word or phrase about a person to insinuate they were homsexual is sort of laughable: He "loved" his friend nudge nudge wink wink.
posted by Devils Slide at 11:10 AM on August 21, 2005

i think lists like this are interesting, though i tend to find them suspect because, as has been mentioned here, it is difficult to retrospectively label someone as homosexual given that homosexuality implies something different here and now than it has at varying points in history, and i don't know if these people would have labeled themselves homosexual whether their culture frowned on it or not...

i can kind of see both sides on whether it is beneficial or not...on the gay side, yeah, it's nice to not feel alone over the expanse of history, as if being gay were some recent mutation--at least among respectable people...feeling more proud of who you are because you are in good company...but also, on the gay side, i've always had a problem, for instance, with the push to define gayness as genetic--not in the science of it, because truth is truth, and bring it on--but more in the underlying idea that if science says it's genetic, gays' existence is somehow legitimized. i think it undercuts the argument that, whatever its origins, the rights of gays to live as we please should not even be questioned in a free society. with the lists, similarly, i guess that if i'm going to hitch my gay wagon to any star, it will be to that of respect for human rights rather than to some kind of historical celebrity status.

on a more sentimental note, the expanse of history represented in these lists of presumed homosexuals makes me feel incredibly lucky that in the relatively very short period of my lifetime there has been such a change as to allow me to live homosexually care-free in my own 13-year relationship...in that respect, these great people might envy us our age (as i do, just a little, those who are teenagers today--one can argue good and bad aspects overall, but i would imagine that the feelings of gay isolation i had growing up would have been greatly ameliorated by what the internet has become)....of course, there's no guarantee this good fortune will hold out over the long course (and if the US takes one step closer to jesus, i'm moving to denmark), but at least now we can glimpse the possibilities in a way that our predecessors could not...
posted by troybob at 11:11 AM on August 21, 2005

Then I scroll down and find Shakespeare. Yup. I ignore the rest of the list. I'd love to see a carefully researched, cautious list of historical figures known or reasonably surmised to be gay in some sensible meaning of the word. These endless lists of "famous people who maybe once said something nice about somebody of their own sex" are just silly, and I don't see the point.

I have to agree with languagehat.

For example:

Henry James (1843-1916) American novelist
Sophisticated prose style minutely delineating the nuances of character, often of Americans living in Europe (as he himself did, mainly in England). Gay theme in The Turn of the Screw. Infatuated with the sculptor Hendrik Andersen.

And? Is this it? This seems more like innuendo (and perhaps wishful thinking) than research.

There can be little doubt about Wilde, but it took more than the Portrait of Dorian Grey to convict him even in Victorian times.
posted by three blind mice at 11:15 AM on August 21, 2005

Ah, the ranks of the historically gay.

Moe, Larry and Curly Fine were long known to live in "boarding houses" and associate almost exclusively with other men. In addition, their antics were the precedent for much of "camp" culture today (as cited by Susan Sontag), and "Moe" is a common reference to gay men, from the "homo" part of "homosexual."

Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson lived together for years, and Holmes had nothing but contempt for the female gender. He once described his love for Watson as being "greater than any other" in his life. Obviously, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was a flamer.

Who else can we out? I hear that Harry Truman once turned down a prostitute. And Matt Groening's obviously autobiographical character Homer has had multiple flirtations with homosexuality, along with the upfront signifier of his name (Greek, close to "homo").

This is easier than picking witches out of drowning women.
posted by klangklangston at 11:23 AM on August 21, 2005

issues much, klang?
posted by amberglow at 11:34 AM on August 21, 2005

MetaFilter
Easier than picking witches out of drowning women
posted by jepler at 11:38 AM on August 21, 2005

...Professor Stanley Wells, chairman of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust and editor of the Oxford Complete Works of William Shakespeare, said: "What Mr Patrick says about the sonnets is absolutely true and I don't think any Shakespeare scholar would disagree. If school teachers were teaching the sonnets then they would be obliged to raise the question of Shakespeare's sexuality." ...
posted by amberglow at 11:38 AM on August 21, 2005

I am a bit interested in the sex lives of famous people, at least of the famous people in whom I'm already interested apart from their sexuality. I like to read about Shakespeare, for instance, and to hear plausible theories about how his life (including his romantic life) might be reflected in his works.

But these lists of supposedly gay great people seem like, well, I don't know, like ammunition to use when anti-gay folk need to be told that gay people can be great people, or like self-affirmation notes for gays. And fine, if that's how they're used, they might do some good, but they would be better if they were better documented and more evenhandedly explained.

If you're trying to convince people that, for example, Emily Dickinson was a lesbian, then quote the letters that might indicate an interest in women, quote counterexamples that might indicate an interest in men, and admit that it's all speculation and that, as far as we know, she never had sex with anyone. Maybe explain a little about how people wrote about and to friends in those days (what would sound gay today may have been a declaration of deep friendship then) and then let people decide.

Also, if this is supposed to be a list of possibly gay great people in history, why is Jesus not on this list? He seems to have had a lot of unmarried male friends, he never himself married, and... wasn't there a certain disciple whom Jesus loved? Was the compiler of the list afraid of scaring away Christians?
posted by pracowity at 11:43 AM on August 21, 2005

I wish people would stop making such a big deal about the whole gay/straight thing - its 2005, isnt' there anything better to do?

Let people love who they want; more power to them. I'd hope that they wouldn't be judged based upon who gives them a hug and asks "how was your day" when they get home from work.

What purpose does speculating that some historical figures might have been homosexual serve?
posted by mrbill at 12:05 PM on August 21, 2005

If aspects of these people's lives had not been excised for centuries and known all along, there wouldn't be a reason... And making a list is not "hyping" anything. Why such loaded language?

You haven't been reading my comments very carefully. I have no problem with making lists of historic figures whose homosexuality is known; in fact, as I specifically said, I'd love to see one. What I refer to as "hyping" is trawling through history looking for people who might possibly, if you only look at certain facts and ignore everything that might interfere with the idea, be considered to have had same-sex relationships of an intensity that might come under today's "gay" category. As I said before, that seems silly to me. It's true that I'm not gay, but even if I were, I wouldn't be pretending that Henry James (of all asexual people) was some kind of predecessor/role model.

Also, what pracowity and mrbill said.
posted by languagehat at 12:13 PM on August 21, 2005

I don't have anything weighty to add to this fine discussion and post, but when I was 12, I first read a list of "famous homosexuals" and fell in love with the name Dag Hammarskjöld.

Whether or not this influenced me to come out of the closet at 13, I don't know. I just loved the name.
posted by WolfDaddy at 12:28 PM on August 21, 2005

dagnyscott: They also tended to list anyone who had a close male friend or wrote about male friendship, which seems questionable at least. I mean, a lot of people have "best friends" that are more important to them, emotionally, than their lovers, but that's obviously different than being a homosexual.

True. By this standard, many of John Woo's Hong Kong flicks could be considered homosexual... That's why Hollywood filmmakers considered making the assassin a woman in a (now-dead) remake of The Killer. The close relationship between the two leads just seemed too gay for American action movie audiences.

Close male friendship seems to be often misinterpreted by us Yankees.
posted by brundlefly at 12:35 PM on August 21, 2005

the cuban: I think it was meant less that Socrates' existence was questionable, than that so much of what we have on the guy comes through Plato. Socrates could have been a jive-talkin' street musician from the projects, but if Plato chose to hide that facet of the man from us, then we'd never know it.

Back on topic:
There are indeed serious problems with this list. Homosexuality is thought common in ancient Greece, so how then could Socrates be considered gay for "corrupting the youth?" There may be some well-substantiated entries on the list, but including even one likely-false or unknowable entry casts the whole list in doubt. It omits at least one person who was famous for homosexual relations (John Wilmot, the Earl of Rochester), but in "proving" Shakespeare's homosexuality, it offers using crossdressing in his plays as proof, while offering nary a peep about the Earl of Southampton.

The especially bad thing about it is that is serves to give fuel to people who, for one reason or another, hate the idea of destigmatizing homosexuality in our culture and fight tooth and nail against it. They would look at this list and say, "Well, that one's so obviously false. Look at what they're trying to do to make their deviant lifestyle seem common throughout history!" When in fact it likely was common throughout history... we just have no proof that most historical figures were, in fact, gay. Writing a homoerotic sonnet is not proof. Speaking admiringly of someone of your sex in terms ordinarily reserved for cross-gendered descriptions is also not proof. Lying in service of a cause does no one any favors.

Plus, by stamping GAY across the foreheads of any historical figure they could find who ever spoke admiringly or approvingly of a same-sexed person, the makers of this list are actually serving the cause of furthering homophobia, and are even in a strange way participating in it. These days, you can't speak too well of one your same-sexed peers, or do anything with a single one of them in a public setting, without some people (on both sides of the fence) frantically trying to label you as being gay, and such snap decisions are made more often because two groups' interests are served by it being made. It's another version of the man date issue discussed not too long ago in these halls.
posted by JHarris at 12:45 PM on August 21, 2005

I agree that some entries are a bit flaky, but I loved this bit about Alan Turing:

Forced to have hormone therapy for a gay offence, he ate an apple dipped in cyanide

Which on further research turns out to be TRUE(tm), whereas rumors that the Apple logo (the rainbow-colored one, that is) was an attempt to immortalize his untimely death are certifiably FALSE.
posted by sour cream at 1:20 PM on August 21, 2005

Poor Turing. He got robbed by a man he had picked up, and, when he reported it to the police, along with an admission that he was gay (which he didn't think was an issue), was himself prosecuted. Voila, the inventor of the Turing Device, which may have done as much to win World War II as any single invention, is now a suicide.
posted by maxsparber at 1:45 PM on August 21, 2005

Homosexuality is thought common in ancient Greece, so how then could Socrates be considered gay for "corrupting the youth?"

Actually, as Kenneth Dover and other scholars have repeatedly noted, "Greek homosexuality" doesn't have much to do with the modern version: it has its own set of rules (age differences, acceptable and unacceptable modes of intercourse, etc.) and prejudices (being an adult "passive" partner was a Really Bad Thing, etc.). Simon Goldhill has recently argued that using "Greek love" as a precedent for contemporary gay rights is probably not such a good idea.
posted by thomas j wise at 1:47 PM on August 21, 2005

Socrates certainly existed, we've got accounts from Xenophon and Aristophanes to put against Plato's. Plato was trying to write poetry as well as philosophy - at at the time in Greece the accepted poetic form seems to have been homoerotic. Both Plato and Socrates may well have just been playing along.

Which is interesting in itself. Classical Greece appears unique in human history in promoting a strange form of homosexuality as something proper, approved and encouraged. It was certainly the way to get ahead - the education system of its time. The charge against Socrates of corrupting the youth had nothing to do with sex and everything to do with frustration at lawyerly quibbling (sophistry), irreligion and military defeat (by Sparta).

This weird upside-down democracy would be small footnote in sexual history, were it not for the fact that the Ancient Greek age was characterised by a genius that we haven't really seen since, a genius that makes it the foundational culture of Western Civilization. Connected? Who knows.
posted by grahamwell at 2:49 PM on August 21, 2005

I can't believe everyone doesn't already know that we're all at least a little gay. It's just a matter of degree, people.
posted by bairey at 2:53 PM on August 21, 2005

I can't believe everyone doesn't already know that we're all at least a little gay. It's just a matter of degree, people.

Perhaps the most insightful thing ever said on South Park.
posted by JHarris at 3:23 PM on August 21, 2005

Well, except for:

But Stan, don't you know, it's always between a giant douche and a turd sandwich. Nearly every election since the beginning of time has been between some douche and some turd.

posted by languagehat at 3:35 PM on August 21, 2005

You know I have never thought of people as gay or straight I have just considered them fellow human beings. I don't think of politics or color differences either. I was brought up in a very open household. I had friends of all ages, colors and lifestyles.
posted by bjgeiger at 3:41 PM on August 21, 2005

But does it really matter that some historical figure, for example Tchaikovsky, was gay?

What if, like, it really doesn't matter.

If love is universal, any distinction should be a footnote.

Waving a flag from a time machine is a little exploitive, if not manipulative.
posted by The Jesse Helms at 3:59 PM on August 21, 2005

If love is universal, ...

...under his bill, public school libraries could no longer buy new copies of plays or books by gay authors, or about gay characters.
"I don't look at it as censorship," says State Representative Gerald Allen. "I look at it as protecting the hearts and souls and minds of our children."
Books by any gay author would have to go: Tennessee Williams, Truman Capote and Gore Vidal. Alice Walker's novel "The Color Purple" has lesbian characters.
Allen originally wanted to ban even some Shakespeare. After criticism, he narrowed his bill to exempt the classics, ...
posted by amberglow at 6:00 PM on August 21, 2005

My favourite is the argument that Robin Hood must have been gay ("merry men" anyone?).
posted by Krrrlson at 6:34 PM on August 21, 2005

What bugs me about this sort of list is this: people's sexual proclivities are inconsequential. What they do is their own business, not ours.

So long as it's between consenting adults, it is of no concern.

Frightfully intrusive, impolite, and obnoxious to care one way or the other, much less go about publicising others' sex lives.
posted by five fresh fish at 6:39 PM on August 21, 2005

inconsequential, to the rest of us.

Part of "ain't nobodies business if you do" should be "ain't your business if somebody else does."
posted by five fresh fish at 6:40 PM on August 21, 2005

So he liked guys? Pfft, big fat hairy deal.

So he liked big fat hairy guys? Pfft, deal.

Classical Greece appears unique in human history in promoting a strange form of homosexuality as something proper, approved and encouraged.

It was more institutionalized and overt in Greece than most other instances, but there's plenty of evidence it wasn't unique.
posted by dhartung at 7:05 PM on August 21, 2005

I think the point is that it doesn't matter because of the effect it has on the person themselves or their reputation, but it does matter because of the effect it has on GBLTW people who can feel a little better about not being quite so alienated from the vast expanse of history. Lots of people, lots of historically important people, means there were even more historically unimportant people. Some people take solace in the knowledge that there are lots of others like them out there, I reckon they would take solace in knowing there were lots of others like them all throughout history.

The W stands for "whatever".
posted by nightchrome at 7:08 PM on August 21, 2005

hrm, font size "small" works in preview but not on post. Crapola.
posted by nightchrome at 7:09 PM on August 21, 2005

small works just fine on post
posted by five fresh fish at 8:05 PM on August 21, 2005

Huh, I didn't know Thom Gunn had died.
posted by Toecutter at 8:23 PM on August 21, 2005

fff, well then I dunno what went wrong between preview and post.
posted by nightchrome at 8:26 PM on August 21, 2005

Amberglow: Not nearly as many as you have, my wounded dove.

Who else can be tossed into the stewpot of the historically gay? King Arthur? There's about as much solid biography on him as there was on Sappho, and since Christopher Marlowe was married yet still made the list...

The reason why I object is because this is dumb. It's dumb to try to look at the history of sexuality through our current paradigm. It's dumb to speculate on thin evidence. It's dumb to exagerate a case for homosexuality in order to please an ideological drive.
That's what this is: stumping for a political goal, not scholarship. It's the same as distorting intelligence reports to make it appear that Iraq had WMDs (though, obviously, much more benign in outcome). It's dishonist activism.

And, as a side note, one argument that I saw touched on in a class I had was that the evidence for Greek (specifically Athenian) homosexuality is pretty thin, especially from anything considered primary in source. One theory is that since most of the allegations of homosexuality were levied by writers with obvious grudges against the Athenians and other Greeks, that this undermines the historical confidence we can place in these claims. But I have to say that I don't know enough about the primary sources to judge the strength of the claims one way or the other, and Greek homosexuality certainly seems like something that's generally accepted in the classical history field of study.
posted by klangklangston at 9:28 PM on August 21, 2005

Well, silly as that list is, GLBT people have been largely erased from history over the years. The fact that we have to resort to speculation about such a large part of the lives of the people on the list is a testament to the erasure.

It reminds me of how for years transgressive gender and orientation were to be found only in the human population (only people being capable of sin). But now, all of the sudden, GLBT animal behavior appears to be rampant. The behavior had been there all along, but no scientist wanted to admit that their animal was sometimes queer.
posted by cytherea at 9:41 PM on August 21, 2005

One of the few traditional Lincolnists to describe (however obliquely) the lifelong Lincoln-Speed relationship as homosexual was the Illinois poet Carl Sandburg, in his masterful, six-volume Lincoln biography. In the tome titled The Prairie Years (1926), Sandburg wrote that both Lincoln and Speed had "a streak of lavender, and spots soft as May violets." "I do not feel my own sorrows more keenly than I do yours," Lincoln wrote Speed in one letter. And again, "You know my desire to befriend you is everlasting." In a detailed retelling of the Lincoln-Speed love story — including the "lust at first sight" encounter between the two young men, when Lincoln readily accepted Speed’s eager invitation to share his narrow bed — Tripp notes that Speed was the only human being to whom the president ever signed his letters with the unusually tender (for Lincoln) "yours forever" — a salutation Lincoln never even used to his wife. Speed himself acknowledged that "No two men were ever so intimate." And Tripp credibly describes Lincoln’s near nervous breakdown following Speed’s decision to end their four-year affair by returning to his native Kentucky.

Abraham Lincoln?
posted by geekyguy at 10:22 PM on August 21, 2005

Huh.

I don't suppose Lincoln's legacy would be in the sorts of freedoms and securities that the current Republican party of social conservative religionists is now actively destroying?

That would be the sort of vindictiveness which would have me wholly believing statements like "GLBT people have been largely erased from history over the years."

Hell, most of the great ones seem to have been quite sexually liberal. It's part of the privilege of being great.
posted by five fresh fish at 11:06 PM on August 21, 2005

Great redheads of history. Finally those redheads get the recognition they deserve!
posted by canned polar bear at 12:43 AM on August 22, 2005

Was Jesus gay?
posted by biffa at 2:46 AM on August 22, 2005

the evidence for Greek (specifically Athenian) homosexuality is pretty thin.
Not really, there's quite a lot through poetry, art and literature. This seems to be a pretty fair account. If you don't believe it, skip-read the first part of the Phaedrus.

OK it may be silly but it is reassuring to be part of a tradition that includes Plato, Leonardo and Turing. Just as a tiny bit of carbon turns iron into steel, it's possible that a tiny bit of gayness is good for the culture as a whole. Reassuring when both the God Squad and the Darwinists think that you shouldn't exist.
posted by grahamwell at 3:06 AM on August 22, 2005

the Darwinists think that you shouldn't exist.

Can you explain this please?
posted by biffa at 3:10 AM on August 22, 2005

OK it may be silly but it is reassuring to be part of a tradition that includes Plato, Leonardo and Turing.

cool, you're a famous philosopher/inventor/artist? where can we view your achievements?
posted by canned polar bear at 3:15 AM on August 22, 2005

Sorry canned polar bear, I think you're too young to view such acheivements. Only for adults, you know?
posted by Goofyy at 4:15 AM on August 22, 2005

My achievements, why, they're right alongside yours! Biffa, a pleasure, but look it's been done. (Jeez, tough crowd).
posted by grahamwell at 4:37 AM on August 22, 2005

well the point i was trying to make was that one can always create arbitrary groups of people and then find within that group some who where special. who really cares if plato, leonardo and turing where gay? maybe they all had beards too? since i have a beard, am i allowed to feel special? is it justified that i feel connected to these geniuses? they operated on a completely different intellectual level and all i have is my beard....
posted by canned polar bear at 4:50 AM on August 22, 2005

That's perfectly fair and your point is taken. Nevertheless, Gay or Straight, Black or White, it's nice to have a broad range of positive role-models - not just tv comedians and basketball stars.
posted by grahamwell at 5:03 AM on August 22, 2005

Biffa, a pleasure, but look it's been done. (Jeez, tough crowd).

A link to a MeFi thread with a link to some gibberish is hardly representative of Darwinists in general.
posted by biffa at 5:22 AM on August 22, 2005

That thread is worth reading, there are some interesting comments and the whole debate is on view, but sadly the best of the linked articles (from the Atlantic - not the one linked in the title, which is pretty poor) seems to have passed into subscription land. Homosexuality (as a non-reproductive condition) is something of a puzzle to natural selection, common sense would suggest that it would be selected against very quickly and statistical studies back that up, nevertheless, it seems to be everywhere. There are lots of solutions and you'll find plenty referenced in the thread, but you might find that they have a somewhat 'after the fact' feel about them and are at present impossible to prove or disprove. You are free to take the answer that you like. If you can help me out with a link that is representative of Darwinists in general (if there could be such a thing) then please post it.
posted by grahamwell at 5:55 AM on August 22, 2005

I can't help but find the "love is universal" comments in this thread naive at best and hypocritical at worst. If you have "friends of all ages, colors and lifestyles", well, good for you, but that doesn't exactly change matters for gays and lesbians who still feel discriminated against in significant aspects of their life.

If the way you live your life is the universal norm, it's easy for you to say "but why can't we all just get along", whereas you're in a different position altogether if your lifestyle is still widely regarded as icky and wrong.
posted by mumble at 8:34 AM on August 22, 2005

Just as a tiny bit of carbon turns iron into steel,

Or if you took, you know, a flimsy stick, but tied it together in a bundle with a bunch of others...
posted by cytherea at 9:22 AM on August 22, 2005

Those of you who are asking, "So what?" are overlooking a fundamental piece of information.

Learning this biographical information is NOT irrelevant. Considering the fact that context and motivation are crucial keys to understanding art, poetry, philosophy, and history, knowing personal details about famous artists, philosophers, and history-makers helps us, in retrospect, to gain a clearer picture of their accomplishments.
Also, buy understanding the actions of these people, we can also gain a clearer picture of the societies in which they lived.

It's not imposing a manipulative agenda on historical figures NOR is it some sort of chest thumping along the lines of "I'm gay and these famous people are gay too. Horray for us and you all suck." In depth biographies are crucial aspects of fully understanding history and the figures who perpetrate it. If a historical figure was gay, it allows us find out about how their sexuality may have influenced their work as well as how they were received by their society. Maybe their work comments on their social situation. If so, their commentary is a relevant perspective on a society and, therefore, increases our understanding and helps complete our picture of the past.
posted by Jon-o at 9:24 AM on August 22, 2005

"Omit: a reference to the unspeakable vice of the Greeks," a Cambridge don cautions his students in E. M. Forster's 1914 novel Maurice, as they read Plato's Symposium aloud.

- from this paper, makes an interesting read.

I'm a little ambivalent on this lists thing, especially when there's more speculation than actual biography and well-known facts - like this bit, from the same site, in a paper on Caravaggio:

In the absence of clear biographical evidence concerning Caravaggio's sexuality, the decisive evidence must be his work. The female body is rarely eroticized in Caravaggio's paintings, whereas the male body invariably is. Teenaged boys and young men are represented with luscious curls, vibrant skin tones, and muscular legs and buttocks; their gaze directly engages the (presumably male) viewer.

There's a lot of problems with that argument, not least that the way we think of erotic female bodies today is very different from that of centuries ago, more than with the male body, and there's almost this expectation that female bodies in representation should be sexualised, like it's the default, so when male bodies are, it stands out and calls for assumptions of homoeroticism between artist and subjects... and then there's a tendency to conflate nudity and eroticism when it's not necessarily so. It's more in the eye of the beholder really. Besides, traditional notions of classical perfection and beauty were mainly about the male form rather than the female one, so while Caravaggio's style was innovative in its realism, it really wasn't so in focusing on the male body. There's centuries of art before to show that.

It's the biographical details alone that count, we can't extrapolate sexual orientation from the work of an artist (ie. the way we today see the work of an artist...). There are indeed biographical clues that Caravaggio had sexual relations with men, as well as with women, and it is likely, it wasn't uncommon especially in artist circles. But it had nothing much to do with modern notions of homosexuality. We have to be aware we always see the past through the eyes of the present.

In other words:

when we draw conclusions on the basis of the paintings, they are subjective and biased, not only by our own sexual orientation but also by the great distance in time. Saying Caravaggio was gay is more or less like claiming he was a pop-artist. The concept simply did not exist.

That said, gay or not, aside from actual claims, I don't think there's anything wrong in 'appropriating' a past cultural figure as an icon, it's a testament to their appeal, even if it says more about the beholder than the artist... after all, that's what art does.
posted by funambulist at 9:53 AM on August 22, 2005

Jon-o: Also, buy understanding the actions of these people, we can also gain a clearer picture of the societies in which they lived.

Exactly, I completely agree, but that is more about in-depth biography, like you say, than a simplified list that mixes figures whose homosexuality was well-known with those for whom it is only speculation and projection (and so there isn't even that social insight factor). I think it's the character of the list itself that gives that impression of "look at all these gay geniuses isn't that cool" (personally I have no problem with that either, and I think some may be protesting too much, but it is simplistic).
posted by funambulist at 10:02 AM on August 22, 2005

Homosexuality (as a non-reproductive condition) is something of a puzzle to natural selection

Biologically, homosexuality would die out if families tended to have all homosexuals or none, but that isn't the case. Gay Gary goes into the priesthood to get his parents off his back, but his hetero siblings Harry and Hanna and Homer and Hilda get married and have ten or fifteen kids. If there's a genetic cause of homosexual tendencies, some recessive gene, they will pass it on to some of their kids if they happen to mate with people who are also carriers of the gene, but most of their kids will be heterosexual.

Societally, as long as homosexuals are productive (if not reproductive) members of their tribe, they will help the tribe to thrive and (if they don't come out in an unaccepting group) they will always be valued for other things. Societies may be better off having 10 percent (to pull a number out of my hat) of their people unburdened by children, as long as the 90 percent keep reproducing in sufficient quantities. The unchildrened can be busier doing work that might indirectly raise and protect a few kids while everyone else is home changing diapers and scraping shit off the ceiling.

At least, that's my theory. And it's mine. Anne Elk.
posted by pracowity at 10:07 AM on August 22, 2005

I had no idea Tom of Finland looked like that.
posted by maxsparber at 10:24 AM on August 22, 2005

I think this issue also speaks to what we assume to be true. similar lists pop up in the mental illness community, with which I have some contact.

If we write a biography about person X and we omit the fact that he was gay most people assume he is straight. Likewise with any non socially approved characteristic. So if sexuality is left out completely from what we learn about historical figures most people then make the broad speculation that homosexuality does not exist at all in these people, or if it does it is such a small % it doesn't matter. Or they just don't think about it.

Now many of those commenting above have stated something to the effect that gay/straight doesn't matter you like the individual independent of that fact, and ideally this is how everyone should act. But many people make value judgements based on these issues. And there are communities that coalesce around being gay. Any community, any group of people need their heroes, those that they can identify with. by passively assuming people are straight you write an important aspect of them out of history.

In a ideal world it should not matter the sexual orientation of a given person, but this is a far cry from an ideal world. This is a world where members of minority groups are persecuted in different manners, some active and easy to identify and combat, some passive and insidious. Saying sexual orientation doesn't matter can be pretty dismissive.

Should we overlook matters of race, gender, disability...? They all are parts of history. If we grew up without learning George Washington Carver was black we would assume him to be white. IMO there is a dominance in the way we think that should be challenged continuously. It should be accurate in it's fact (which may be where this list suffers). We are nowhere near a single unified culture where social/medical/physiological differences in individuals don't matter, so embrace the differences and recognize that they can be a source of power for some.
posted by edgeways at 10:50 AM on August 22, 2005

At least, that's my theory. And it's mine. Anne Elk.

Good thing you added that, pracowity, for a moment you almost sounded like you meant it!
posted by funambulist at 12:11 PM on August 22, 2005

> you almost sounded like you meant it!

Well, I do, mostly. Sort of. This is fresh from the half-bakery.

If something exists in humans, generation after generation, with no sign of going away, then it is not a "non-reproductive condition" at all, no matter what intuition might lead one to expect. Typically an individual who is homosexual does not reproduce directly, but that does not wipe out that person's family line because it is, I think, uncommon for all siblings to turn out homosexual. (And the nonreproducing aunts and uncles can help support the family, so they may actually make the odds better in some ways that the family will continue.)

If homosexuality is caused by non-genetic factors (social or environmental), these factors do not affect enough people to diminish the species or even the family (perhaps the reproducing members of the tribe automatically step up [re]production to consume the available resources).

If homosexuality is caused by genetic factors, these factors must be compatible with continuation of the family line and therefore of the gene, or the gene would not exist. And that sounds like a recessive gene, doesn't it?

(My second theory states that fire brigade choirs seldom sing songs about Marcel Proust.)
posted by pracowity at 1:55 PM on August 22, 2005

what edgeways and jon-o said. I wish people who say it doesn't matter would spend a week in a world where another orientation/color/etc was the overwhelming norm and they were invisible unless they spoke up, and that when they spoke or did things like discover who in the past shared their orientation/color/etc, it was derided as "hyping" or just speculation.

Don't discount what does not apply to you. Your experience is different from others. It's basic. These lists are a help to some, and were a great help to me when i was younger and felt alone. They still serve the same purpose, and are now disseminated more widely thanks to the net. I bet this very thread helped some teen somewhere feel less alone or weird or sinful.
posted by amberglow at 4:28 PM on August 22, 2005

pracowity: If homosexuality is caused by genetic factors, these factors must be compatible with continuation of the family line and therefore of the gene, or the gene would not exist. And that sounds like a recessive gene, doesn't it?

1: I don't think you can eliminate environmental influences from the picture.
2: Recessive genes are not the only mechanism possibly involved. It is quite possible that homosexuality sticks in the population for the same reason that there have always been people more than two standard deviations taller than everyone else. It could be due to a combination of genes rather than a specific gene.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 4:32 PM on August 22, 2005

I like lists and I do think it is interesting/useful/meaningful/etc. to know, for instance, definitively that John Cheever had male and female lovers. But, as languagehat has said well, let's not make stuff up or take huge leaps. Emily Dickinson and Isaac Newton are on my list of famous celibates. No fair stealing them!
posted by Cassford at 10:04 PM on August 22, 2005

pracowity: oh, ooops, ok then... well, I didn't think you'd meant it seriously because you are forgetting the remarkable fact that there's many people who are not gay and do not have children and then there's gay people who do, and that's not even the main reason your 'theory' makes no sense, no offense meant but it is just more of the usual improvised pop evo-psych-genetics twisting darwinist notions to fit a simplistic view of human sexuality, like it all depends on reproduction (and then even outside of the complexities of human behaviour, what about homosexual behaviour in the animal kindgom?) Whatever floats your boat, if you like that sort of thing, I just find it ridiculous.
posted by funambulist at 1:05 AM on August 23, 2005

funambulist: My comment was only in answer to the earlier comment that homosexuality is a "non-reproductive condition" because gays would not breed. I said that, genetic or not (the two if statements in my previous comment), homosexuals could continue to thrive, so it's not "something of a puzzle." I wasn't forgetting about the other combinations.

I don't know (or much care) what determines people's sexuality. I assume it's nature and nurture, natch, like most other human behavioral characteristics. Whatever the cause or causes, the results are what we have now, and what we have now is fine.
posted by pracowity at 7:13 AM on August 23, 2005

pracowity: ok I understand what you meant now, sorry if my comment came off a bit snippy. I'm not a big fan of attempts at explaining sexuality only in reproductive terms but I realise that's what you were replying to. I don't much care for specific theories either so yeah I wholeheartedly agree with you on that.
posted by funambulist at 8:04 AM on August 23, 2005