Gore Vidal is Gay?

[Placebo]

This is news to me. :)

Although the grandson of a United States Senator, Vidal felt uncomfortable in America because of his sexuality and has lived mostly in Italy since the mid-1960s, sharing his life with his companion Howard Austen.

source: http://www.glbtq.com/literature/vidal_g.html

[CatWoman]

1. I learned that tidbit on the Simpsons

Lisa made a comment that he had kissed more boys than she :D

[JohnKleeb]

15. oh yeah

and thats how I felt out who he was.

[muchacho]

2. yes

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

3. That, and his criticisms of American social and political culture...

While usually scathingly accurate, have made him a bete' noire of the right.

As if they need more bete' noires...:eyes:

[Placebo]

5. Bête Noire...

one of my favourite words.

[barb162]

4. I knew he's gay. What I find more interesting is his living in Italy

I have heard he hates American politics so much, he moved away.

[jonnyblitz]

7. he has moved back to the U.S. since his partner died. n/t

[Robeson]

17. Of interesting note, he and his partner never had a sexual...

...relationship throughout their time together. They cohabitated. Vidal always described himself as homoerotic, and his partner as heteroerotic. He does describe an experience in his autobiography in which he and his partner mutually enjoyed the charms of girls while living in Rome.

[izzie]

6. Can we still read his books?

Thought maybe the value police were out.

[jonnyblitz]

8. he wrote the first gay novel in 1948, "the city and the pillar"

it caused quite the scandal apparently.

read more...

(snip)
The City and the Pillar
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

The City and the Pillar is the third novel by American writer and essayist Gore Vidal. First published in 1948, it sparked a public scandal for being the first book by an American author to deal quite openly with homosexuality. Twenty years later, Vidal changed the ending to what he had originally in mind, no longer having to defer to the wishes of his publisher, in The City and the Pillar Revised.
(snip)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_City_and_the_Pillar

[Spinzonner]

9. Then there was the famous exchange

between Vidal and William F Buckley when serving a commentators for ABC at the Democratic Convention in 1968:

...

When many Americans were vocally opposing the Vietnam War, journalists and pundits often accused them of failing to adhere to the straight-and-narrow. During the 1968 Democratic National Convention, while police beat up anti-war protesters in the streets of Chicago, the conservative icon William F. Buckley could not contain his rage. Buckley was not angry at the police (whose violence he fully supported) but at fellow ABC television commentator Gore Vidal, who had responded to Buckley's defense of the cops by calling him a "pro crypto Nazi."

Buckley, the great right-wing intellectual, replied on the air: "Now listen, you queer. Stop calling me a 'pro crypto Nazi' or I'll sock you in the goddamn face."

...

http://issuesandalibis.00freehost.com/page177.html

[indigobusiness]

10. Wm. F. Buckley seems a little light in the loafers,himself, if you ask me.

Not that there's anything wrong with that...until you begin using pejorative, homosexual epithets.

Buckley is one of the lizard people. That is beyond question.

[CatWoman]

11. didn't Buckley's son get caught up in some weird sex scandal?

[Hand]

12. And a big om mani peme hum to you, too, indigobusiness! nt

[indigobusiness]

14. Om ah hum...

...let's eat.

[barb162]

22. what does this mean, never heard it: little light in the loafers

[MisterP]

27. yesterday was his birthday

I hope he chokes on his bile and perishes on a mountain of large bills, his own vaporous outgassings in print form, panties, and Margaret Thatcher wigs.

[MrScorpio]

13. Yep, Already knew it

BTW, He's Al Gore's cousin too.

[Robeson]

16. Actually, he describes himself as homoerotic, in that his preference...

...is male. However, he has had sexual relationships with women throughout his life, along with many encounters with males. He goes into it in his autobiography "Palimpsest".

[terrya]

18. Vidal has maintained that there is no such thing as homosexuals or...

heterosexuals. Only homosexual and heterosexual acts, both of which are perfectly normal. He hasn't, unless I've read differently, labelled himself as gay.

[Robeson]

20. You are correct.

He defines them as acts. He has engaged in those "acts", with both men and women - innumerably so - and has stated that his erotic preference is male, i.e. homoeroticism, though he has not shied away from amorous adventures with women. When it comes to sexual relations, he would probably define himself as a hedonist in the ancient classical sense.

[scarletlib]

19. yes There was a documentary made about gay actors

in Hollywood that came out a few years ago called (I think) "The Celluloid Closet". It goes pretty far back to beginnings of Hollywood and discussing gay actors who were of course in the closet.

In one scene, Gore Vidal is discussing the movie Ben Hur. He was working on the screen play and it was very boring--the screen play itself. So he decided along with Stephen Boyd who played Ben-Hur's best friend Messala to have Stephen play the part gay. Of course Ben-Hur was played by Charlton Heston who did the entire movie not realizing that Stephen Boyd was playing Messala as a gay man. Neither of them told Heston.

Changes one's entire perspective when watching Ben-Hur anymore.

(edit title )

[peekaloo]

21. I find him rather droll.

:P

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

23. Only since I was born....

I read Myra as soon as it came out as to a chronological point.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

24. I can't remember NOT knowing about Vidal's orientation

:shrug:

But then, I've been around for a long time.

[brentspeak]

25. Aren't he and Norman Mailer mortal enemies?

As he is with William F.Buckley?

(A bit off topic, I know).

[barb162]

26. that is what I recall