Was Lincoln Gay?

OK guys, here's some light reading for you. I suspect it's in the same category as the so-called histories about the Chinese warship making it to London in the 15th Century and last year's stocking-stuffer about Queen Victoria having an affair - and a child - at the age of fifteen, but you never know, maybe he's on to something.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/11/were-lincoln-nixon-gay-history-book...

Well, for the first two hundred years in the USA it was WASPs writing the history they wanted, why not let other groups have some fun? There has been chatter about Lincoln for decades, this is nothing new. If he found some evidence, that would be new. Has any president been more thoroughly researched than Lincoln? Still no evidence of anything beyond a loveless marriage. The same with Nixon, he was a public figure is some of the most homophobic times this country has had. Unless there is a cache of Hoovers files waiting to be declassified I doubt we are going to find any evidence that he was anything but a crook.

Why not look at less well researched figures that are more likely to have been part of LGBT history?

Like Cecil Rhodes?

Is this the old canard that he once slept in a bed (in a boarding house) with other men? Which, sure, happened -- but it was common practice in boarding houses for large beds to accommodate multiple people, and it's only our modern projection of assumptions that turns that into "gay."

There was that, too, Nathaniel, as Lincoln traveled the court circuit with other lawyers, who usually shared the same room (sleeping on the floor), if not in the same bed.

According to various sources, when he lived in New Salem after 1830, Lincoln slept in a narrow bed with a man named Billy Greene, but apparently they were both too poor to afford better lodgings.

Lincoln moved to Springfield, Illinois in 1835, and while single, he slept in the same bed with good friend Joshua Fry Speed for four years, though both were prosperous enough to afford separate beds, and lodgings. Evidently Lincoln had a mental breakdown when Speed left Springfield to be married.

As President, when Mary wasn't with him, Lincoln usually slept in the same bed with one of the men who served as his bodyguard.

Of course none of this says anything except that Lincoln obviously didn't worry about same-sex relationships (whatever their extent may have been), as people do now, when many men and boys are so fearful of being seen naked that they cannot bring it upon themselves to shower with other men.

We seem to be raising a nation of men who are terrified of other men, if not of themselves.

http://www.washingtonblade.com/2011/10/25/Abraham-Lincoln-a-life-in-the-closet

Lets face it, in Lincoln's time central heating was not what it is today.

The Scottish verdict 'Not Proven', is applicable in this case. Is it possible that Lincoln was gay? Yes. But it's speculation, and most likely always will be.

It probably says more about the speculators; that they would like one of the pre-eminent men in American history to be gay.

>8 BruceCoulson: Is it possible that Lincoln was gay? Yes. But it's speculation, and most likely always will be.

Since homosexuality was (is?) a dangerous and taboo subject, speculation based on indirect references is all anyone has to go on. Documentation is likely to be utterly absent. But I'd think that there are more people invested in the heterosexuality of historical figures than in their homosexuality.

#8 I have to agree that the speculation says more about the people doing the speculating. It is more political than historical, they never mention undesirable historical figures. Adolph Hitler? Never married except at the end to save his image. Dressed well. I am sure that there are more stereotypes we could hang on him if we cared but I don't think anyone does. He would not be a proper role model.

Lets just agree that roughly one out of ten humans are attracted to persons of the same sex and it has likely been that way since the dawn of time.

10> The Kinsey Scale suggests otherwise ... that few of us are primarily one or the other, so just as your 10% (or maybe 3 or 4%) prefer only same sex relationships, another 10% or so prefers relationships only with members of the opposite sex. The rest of humanity, then, some 80%, more or less, drift somewhere between the two extremes, which is, I presume, where Lincoln might place himself, had he ever been required to be brutally honest about the subject.

C.A. Tripp, the author of the accusatory book on Lincoln, has a great deal to say about marriage and heterosexual relationships in his book: The Homosexual Matrix, c. 1975. Every member of a family knows well how the sexes separate themselves in family gatherings. Tripp suggests these same-sex groupings are not only normal, but a necessary ingredient of nearly every happy marriage between a man and a woman.

Two invalid assumptions probably drive a lot of the speculation concerning Lincoln's sexuality.

1. We assume that our categories of "homosexual," "hetero-," and "bi-" are valid for all times and places, and that the categories would make intuitive sense to Americans in Lincoln's lifetime. While there was certainly a rigid consensus for condemning the act of homosexual intercourse as "sodomy," there was far less interest in categorizing people by what we call sexual preference. There was far more scope for men to express intimate friendship with other men. The cited passages in Lincoln's letters to Speed suggest that they had thoroughly talked over their sexual urges, and how they each repressed or gratified them, with far less inhibition than most male friends would feel free to do today.

Please note that this kind of emotional intimacy does not imply sexual desire. For a good history on this subject (but one I have not yet read), see The Friend by Alan Bray.

2. During Lincoln's lifetime, if men were suspected of having sex, then if it was discussed at all, it was not taken as a sign of deficient or deviant masculinity. Reverence for the ancient Greeks had much to do with this. Upper-class men were still liable to be forced to read Greek at school, and military men studied the classical Greek military literature (sometimes to the exclusion of more recent, relevant literature). This exposed them to archetypal heroes and role models who preferred the love of men to that of women.

The present-day stereotype of gay men as effeminate, and vice versa, has not always been with us. Freud's sexual theory, in its influential popular form, probably had a lot to do with it, as people's personalities came to be seen as shaped by unconscious sexual desires. But my sense is that gay-bashing gained most of its momentum with the Cold War, when homosexuality was associated with Communism, or with "fellow travelers" allegedly hiding within the bowels of government waiting to bring down our wholesome, red-blooded American way of life. Only then do we find male society in the anticommunist West patroling itself for signs of deviant sexuality, and prepared to use shame and violence, if deemed necessary, to get rid of the perceived threat.

This is why I believe it was far more difficult to grow up as a homosexual male in the U.S. of the 1950s and '60s than in the 1860s and earlier.

#12 great comments

>12 Muscogulus:

This is why I believe it was far more difficult to grow up as a homosexual male in the U.S. of the 1950s and '60s than in the 1860s and earlier.

(I don't understand this. Are you saying there were fewer homosexuals then than now?

ETA: Never mind, somehow I transposed the dates, I get it now.)

I'm not interested in Lincoln or his sexuality enough to care to proclaim him this or that. I'd just echo what someone already mentioned above--that heterosexuality is taken as the default and any questioning of that default seen immediately as some attack, when it's usually merely pointing out the bias that blinds us to difference.

The present-day stereotype of gay men as effeminate, and vice versa, has not always been with us.

Actually, it has, at least if we're talking about the West. Insofar as "gayness" was recognised as a condition of some individuals (mostly men because who ever gave a fuck about women's desires), constitutive, preferential homosexuality was seen as the hallmark of effeminate men, "bottoms", men with female nature, men who were really, "essentially", women etc. Homosexual behaviour of the dominants wasn't seen in the same light, as part of their nature, but as part of their situation, status. It was something they did, not something they were.

>14 LolaWalser: Homosexual behaviour of the dominants wasn't seen in the same light, as part of their nature, but as part of their situation, status. It was something they did, not something they were.

There's an interesting discussion about this in relation to Walt Whitman in the book Now the Drum of War, which has a long section on the attachments Whitman made with wounded soldiers when he volunteered at the various hospitals while he was in Washington.

>15 southernbooklady:

I haven't read that and my memory of Whitman's biography isn't the greatest, but I always recall that he was perceived by many as a feminine, shy, gentle, even girlish man--whatever his physique, especially captured in static photos, may lead one to assume. There's a reason why "beard" is a term for protective display of faux heterosexuality.

>14 LolaWalser:

I was suggesting that speaking of "sexual identity" (or "gayness") is an anachronism when referring to any period before the 20th century — probably the 1920s or later. As you put it, homosexuality was "something they did, not something they were."

You were speaking only of the "dominant" partner in homosexual intercourse, because you find that "dominants" tended to be more masculine in their social personas, while their partners were often seen as "men with female nature." But it's a fallacy (namely, begging the question) to construe effeminacy in men to be a sign of homosexual identity. If 19th-century people really did presume that effeminate men participated in homosexual intercourse more often than their peers, that does not prove that they were considered "gay," much less that they thought of themselves that way.

"Sexual identity" may turn out to be an artifact of our own time. That's why I believe that trying to categorize Lincoln (or other pre-1920 historic figures) as "homo-", "hetero-", or "bi-" is as anachronistic as trying to categorize present-day U.S. politicians and voters as "Wide Awakes," "Unionists," "Sesesh," or "Copperheads." The concept of sexual identity, though comprehensible in theory, probably wouldn't have seemed relevant to Lincoln and his contemporaries.

It's always intriguing to get historical perspective on one's own culture. "The past is a foreign country," according to the aphorism. I was strongly impressed by a review of The Friend when it first came out in 2003, and I suppose I'm going to have to check it out. It focuses narrowly on England, but over a long span of time, ca. 1000 to present.

Our presentist assumptions about sexuality and sexual identity can get in the way of interpreting many past practices. Another example that comes to mind is the use of kissing on the mouth in the creation of vassals by lords during part of the Middle Ages. Despite its erotic potential, the kiss was a characteristic greeting between Christians, recommended by Jesus, and incorporated into early church services as the "kiss of peace." Kissing to seal agreements or mark reconciliation also may have been an old custom among Germanic tribes. By the 13th century, though, church hierarchs started to eliminate kisses while vassals began to object both to being kissed and to kneeling. (A classic article by J. Russell Major: "Bastard Feudalism and the Kiss: Changing Social Mores in Late Medieval and Early Modern France," Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 1987)

>17 Muscogulus:

I was suggesting that speaking of "sexual identity" (or "gayness") is an anachronism when referring to any period before the 20th century — probably the 1920s or later.

I disagree--largely. Granted that the expression of sexual identity is a complex result of nature and nurture (and let's not get into the wider debate there), insofar it has a genetic component, "sexual identity" is a heritable and recurring human trait. At this point no one knows when this trait evolved, but it was absolutely not cca 1920.

That said, I put "gayness" above in quotation marks precisely because the behavioural component of homosexual (or non-straight, queer) identity definitely depends in part on the environment. As "gay" is a fairly modern term, applying it to, say, Hadrian or Lincoln may be seen as anachronistic--if we consider only the behaviour. But of course, behaviour interests us as an indicator of nature--in this case, genetic identity as homosexuals.

You were speaking only of the "dominant" partner in homosexual intercourse, because you find that "dominants" tended to be more masculine in their social personas, while their partners were often seen as "men with female nature." But it's a fallacy (namely, begging the question) to construe effeminacy in men to be a sign of homosexual identity.

Not in the least, I wasn't talking about some personal opinion at all, but historical evidence. You ought to look up some of the many studies of Greek and Roman homosexuality. Ancient writers recognised that some men and women were innately "bent", quite apart from the cultural tradition that allowed some men sexual use of young males.

If 19th-century people really did presume that effeminate men participated in homosexual intercourse more often than their peers, that does not prove that they were considered "gay," much less that they thought of themselves that way.

First, "effeminacy" and "masculinity" are themselves changeable constructs--let's compare, say, the florid male fashions of past centuries to today's drabness. Same goes for mannerisms (as the kissing that you mention), or the many cultural differences still present (the much more effusive Mediterraneans vs. Northerners etc.) I can't say I heard that whatever was considered an "effeminate" man was expected to have sex with men--rather, I am saying that men who are known for making advances to/sleeping with other men were expected to be effeminate in some way--but not necessarily visibly. See Whitman, going for the lumberjack look. Like I said above, they were seen as having--somehow--a "woman's nature" etc. but not necessarily physically resembling women.

The concept of sexual identity, though comprehensible in theory, probably wouldn't have seemed relevant to Lincoln and his contemporaries.

This is just a supposition, about as valid as deciding that Jane Austen didn't know the meaning of "shit" because the word doesn't appear in her novels. I'm supposing that, on the contrary, the notion of "unnatural" sexual relations--as old as the Bible--would have formed enough of a basis for understanding that some people may be predisposed exactly to such relations.

Our presentist assumptions about sexuality and sexual identity can get in the way of interpreting many past practices.

So can ignoring or obliterating minoritarian realities. We remain of necessity largely ignorant of the past, especially personal opinion on matters, and especially personal opinion on matters in the form we have given them. But I don't see why we should mystify human nature within the paltry period of written history.

>18 LolaWalser:

I don't think we're really that far apart. I'm at fault if I seemed to imply that having a sexual preference for members of one's one sex is not a real personality trait, or that it only manifests where culture permits it to.

We're in agreement that the expression of homosexual desire (like all sexual desire) takes different forms in different cultures and eras. Neither of us is being presentist about that.

I'll also concede that men attracted to men (or women attracted to women) have been very frequently interpreted as sharing in the nature of the opposite sex. IOW, gay men are explained as womanish, gay women as mannish. This even takes on a spiritual or magic component in some traditional indigenous cultures. A 20th-century American Indian coinage for traditional attitudes toward homosexuality is Two-Spirit, meaning a person with both male and female attributes. In at least one southeastern culture (Timucua), such people were probably believed to have an innate talent for healing the sick.

I do believe there are exceptions, most notably the misogynistic homosexuality of some Greeks — including the married misogynist Socrates. But you've read more on the subject than I have.

>19 Muscogulus:

Yes, I think I understand you better now, partly we were talking at cross-purposes. I wish I had expressed myself with more care, as the problem of sex, gender and sexual orientation is sufficiently complicated without sloppy language (of which I'm very guilty), but then, semantics too can take forever.

Suffice it to say that the minimum that seems to me reasonable to suppose is that anyone in history who had a sexual appetite (i.e. was not asexual), whether acted upon or not, whether permanent or changeable over life, felt that appetite to be directed in some way--whether to the opposite sex, the same sex, or both/any. This direction (orientation) may or may not be expressed, in any degree, in behaviour, and behaviour itself may reflect more of the constraints of period, culture, and individual situation than of this "innate" element.

It may be futile (I believe it usually is) to expect a firm answer to the question of what was some inaccessible, poorly documented X's sexual orientation, but the question itself is no more exceptional than that concerning any other characteristic.