DaVinci, Shakespeare, and Eleanor Roosevelt were gay?

[underpants]

In the "Where have YOU been?" file

In our company break room I was getting some snacks and I see the posters from yesterday's GLBT Diversity lunch and learn (this place needs "diversity training" like Iraq needs rubble)....Anyway-I see a poster for both DaVinci ("had relationships with several men"), Shakespeare ("several of his sonnets were written about male lovers"), and Eleanor Roosevelt. I know that *wink**wink* Eleanor "looked gay" but I didn't know that this had been completely established as the truth.

Is this true or was, perhaps, this a matter of over inclusion?

[terrya]

1. Supposedly, a lot of Shakespeare's sonnets were directed towards men.

Or, specifically, a man.

Leonardo Da Vinci...yes.

And Eleanor Roosevelt had an intimate affair with Lorena Hickok, a journalist at the time the Roosevelts were in the White House. Some letters between the two still survive.

[Reverend_Smitty]

2. I never heard about DaVinci...

but I knew that it was possible that Shakespeare was gay, we discussed it in my HS lit class. As for Eleanor I know she had a female "companion" for many years

[Hugin]

3. I'd heard due to his ribald humor...

They weren't quite sure about Shakespeare.

[sui generis]

4. there is anecdotal evidence supporting all three assertions

however, "gay" is a modern term for a modern cultural idea centered on being exclusively (and openly) dedicated to same sex orientation and a community of the same.

It's historically wrong and simpleminded to use that term referring to those lives. People had their nudge-nudge-wink-winks on the side, but it just wasn't an "out" phenomena or what we call a "lifestyle" today, and probably had more in common with companionship than torrid sex. "Gay" doesn't really fit. If we're looking for "heroes" and groundbreakers and cultural role models, then we have to stop looking at we suspect of their sex lives, and realize that we ARE that generation ourselves.

Also, they didn't go to "gay bars" or "gay" parades, or hang out with their "gay" friends and have "gay" bumper stickers / lawn ornaments / etc.

[underpants]

7. Also listed

Sappho
Alexander the Great

I would assume that DaVinci is with these two as it is a cultural thing to do (to this day from friends I know who have been to Afghanistan).

[sui generis]

13. "gay" is square peg

round hole, no pun intended.

Sappho was certainly "gay" by my earlier definition and what we know of her historically. Eleanor Roosevelt had a male husband and a female lover. Does that make her "gay"? I have my serious doubts. Oscar Wilde had a wife and children.

Alexander had a male companion but also female conquests. I'm not trying to be in denial about famous historical figures who had same-sex affairs, but I'm just saying our contemporary definition of "gay" is probably more accurately construed as "bi" sexuality in most cases.

Anyway, I just don't like the idea of "gay" as the first attribute we associate with someone who is foremost an artist or a conqueror or a political figure and feminist, as if who they diddled was supposed to mean something. We also shouldn't run around saying, "George Washington was straight! Did you know that? Oh the scandal!"

[underpants]

18. I agree

Totally. I was just offering a parallel description of what you did.

[sui generis]

19. heh

just sui being didactic and rambling and (yawn) what was I saying?

I would have been a tyrant of a professor - the fact that I'm not proves the universe is merciful after all.

And I'll do it again! }(

[Bridget Burke]

22. All we know about Sappho is in her poetry.

And that is mostly fragmentary. Most of the "stories" about her are of doubtful veracity.

She did, indeed, write about loving a young woman. But she also referred to her daughter.

I agree that it's hard to define historical people as "gay." Some did this, some did that, some did everything & others did nothing at all.

[sui generis]

28. I like that last sentence

I know you get the point ;)

anyway, "gay" even today probably has a dozen different definitions, depending who you ask and what time of day you ask it.

In my mind even though the sex has been around as long as we've had bodies, "gay" is a pretty modern concept. Victorians to Elizabethans just said you weren't the marrying kind or a "lifetime bachelor" if you were a man, spinster or old maid if you were a woman, and exclusively oriented.

We were a dowered society all the way up to the 20th century, so you could also say that marriages were designed to preserve assets or influence as often as possible first and foremost before "love" and that was pretty much widely understood.

In rural and agrarian societies you are a lot closer to the mechanics of procreation and birth - sex isn't "moral" and "sacred" and all that other crap until you start applying modern religion. Anyway, it's not a big leap for anyone who has ever masturbated to leap to the idea of mutual masturbation without labeling themselves as "gay" along with all the other baggage that entails. Those are just our modern notions, and the connotations are kind of limiting when you apply them to the past, and most especially to non-christian civilizations.

[Zuni]

39. holy shit

I have a friend who is in the service and when he was in Afghanistan he was shocked to find so many openly gay men. It was a real shocker, especially considering that Islamic fundamentalism was so dominant in that country.

[assclown_bush]

10. I went to a gay bar in Amsterdam that was opened in the 17th century.

Of course, It's possible that because I had been eating a "magic" brownie I imagined the whole thing. But I'm pretty sure that's what the bartender told me at the time. :rofl:

ASSCLOWN BUSH

[terrya]

14. Same thing with referring to Abraham Lincoln as "gay"

There most certainly is compelling evidence that Lincoln had same-sex attractions (please...you don't share a bed with another man for 4 years because of "economic conditions" as some modern day historians are spinning Lincoln's living situation with Joshua Speed, his law partner) but because of the reasons you mentioned, it might indeed be a bit of a misnomer to refer to the 16th President as "gay"

[TrogL]

40. "gay" lawn ornaments????

:wtf:

[sui generis]

41. I don't care who you sleep with

but concrete geese with polka dot bikinis - pretty gay.

I'm just sayin' :shrug:

:evilgrin:

They stole Gerti off my porch, the bastards. All I have left to remember her by is her pocahontas thanksgiving outfit and her Brunhilde thing with the spear, horned helmet and titanium breast- hubcaps.

I hope she's well dressed, wherever she is.

[Lannes]

5. At some point almost everyone famous is accused of being gay

Its not a mark of shame but too many people throw it out to push their own agenda.

[sui generis]

17. not to push an agenda

It's because people in the gay community want better role models than Liberace.

That's not an "agenda" - we all want people we can relate to and look up to who have something in common with us.

It's just that being "gay" is such a huge element of our self-identity (and it should be the least, most insignificant) because it's so difficult to live a "gay" life, even today, that we automatically assume it would have the same weight of "identity" in the life of a historical figure.

[Lannes]

21. You are assuming that this is about only gays

The right has been known to imply someone is gay for fear mongering and as for some gays not having an agenda I disagree.

Some do,and out closeted gays or accuse others without any hard facts for what they believe is in the best interest of the gay community.

I understand the gay communtiy wanting to have good role models but there are plenty of them out there besides Liberace.Outing somoene who may in fact may not be gay or chooses not to have that known isnt the way to garner respect.

[sonicx]

25. The 3 people in the OP have some evidence.

it's not out of the blue.

[Lannes]

27. I believe something like a person's sexual identity

Is their own business.I would make an exception with people that persecute gays that are in fact gay themselves.

If historians want to look back at people long since dead and offer some anecdotal evidence as part of the historical record then fine.I was refering more to people that are living.

[mitchum]

42. Liberace was gay???!!!

WTF???!!!

Seriously, I do think that your post is a very good analysis

[Magrittes Pipe]

6. What else can I say?

Everyone is gay.

[LynneSin]

8. anonymous sources told Ed Klein that her and Hillary were in cahoots

during their years at Wellseley together

[MissMillie]

9. Is there not a distinction

between people who have had relationships w/ member of the same sex, and those that are homosexual?

(I mean, there are bi-sexuals, obviously, but are there not also people who are heterosexual that have had same-sex (what's the word I want here...?) instances?

[assclown_bush]

11. Would "dalliance" read too fey??? n/t

[MissMillie]

12. that's a good word

Thanks! :thumbsup:

[sui generis]

15. that's the point I'm trying to make

"gay" is a contemporary idea, involving participating in an entire culture and community. And I suspect there are many more "dalliances" that happen than get written about; that doesn't automatically confer a label on one.

Certainly I'm not Chinese just because I slept with some Asian guy once.

[sonicx]

24. You can be gay and not "act gay"

[sui generis]

26. by "acting" I think you mean mannerisms

not associations.

I slept with a straight guy once. That doesn't make me straight.

[sonicx]

32. Your sex was gay.

If you have gay sex and enjoy it, you are somewhat gay.

[sui generis]

35. I can't tell how serious you are

I was making a funny.

I think you are whatever you think of yourself as. Everything else is information gathering. Blanket rules regarding sexuality are probably pretty subjective. Anyway, "straight" and "gay" are polar, so saying someone is somewhat gay is like saying they're somewhat pregnant or somewhat dead - it's actually a sliding scale, varies by user.

I had sex with my girlfriend for two years in college and lived in a five way relationship for a year after college - three guys & two gals, and I enjoyed it, but I really don't think of myself as straight or even particularly bi. Skilled, talented perhaps, and I may be unanimous in this! B-)

But I know what I prefer, all other things being equal, and that's what defines me.

[Bridget Burke]

23. "Homosexual" is a fairly new word....

Not that people didn't DO all that stuff. Oscar Wilde didn't invent it. Human sexuality is complex & changeable.

[mitchum]

43. Lenny Bruce said that you can't be a little bit pregnant or homosexual

[assclown_bush]

16. Tallulah Bankhead's response to the query of Monty Clift's homosexuality:

"How should I know dahhhhling, He's never sucked MY dick."

ASSCLOWN BUSH

[mitchum]

45. Another example of why she was the funniest woman who ever...

walked the earth.

[mr blur]

20. Over here back in Shakespeare's time,

people weren't quite so hung up on the sexual boundaries thing. There is the theory that the "Dark Lady" of Will's sonnets was a man. So what - doesn't hurt the poetry. But then they didn't have Bush and his bunch of emotional cripples spying on them.

[sui generis]

29. well said

"not as hung up on" really does about sum it up.

[chaska]

30. There are some who believe that Shakespeare was really....

fronting for a member of the gentry (nobleman or some such) by the name of Edward Deveer (I believe that was his name), that Shakespeare didn't really write any of that stuff. The reason for the ruse was that it was apparently not okay for one of Deveer's station to work in such a lowly capacity as playwright. It's actually a very interesting controversy.

Oh, Deveer was decidedly gay.

[Shakespeare]

47. They're not taken very seriously in the academic community.

They're referred to as Oxfordians, and I've been to many literary conferences where somebody (there's always one in every crowd) will pipe up with some outlandish question at the end of the reading of a paper. The eye-rolling of a room full of Shakespeare scholars is hilarious to behold (and I roll mine right along with them....)

[BiggJawn]

31. AND Wilde, AND Tchaikovsky, AND Earhardt...

And I read somewhere that purportedly Hank Thoreau liked to walk on the Wilde Side when he wasn't entertaining the local ladies with his wit (and sampling the dishes they brought him) at the cabin...

[6000eliot]

33. I believe I read somewhere years ago

That Thoreau had a gay incestuous thing with his brother.

[Kraklen]

34. OK, OK, they just all enjoyed frequent gay sex.

I'd be perfectly happy just putting that in the history books.

[Lilith Velkor]

55. What if they enjoyed occasional gay sex?

I do, and I don't consider myself gay.

[Felix Mala]

36. Gay by association: Shakespeare contemporary, Christopher Marlowe

a supposed heretic, was murdered after his roommate, Thomas Kyd, was tortured into giving "secret" evidence about him.

Michaelangelo, a contemporary of DaVinci, was the gay one... You can't look at David's ass without thinking that was carved by someone who loved ass...

Eleanor Roosevelt entertained dozens of free thinkers both at Hyde Park and in her private residence, Val Kill Cottage. Many of these were women and I'm sure many were in the vanguard of the women's rights movement and were gay. I'm not convinced Eleanor was, although any kind of relationship with a woman was bound to be more emotionally rewarding than her marriage.

[mitchum]

46. Actually, contemporary research points to the evidence that Marlowe...

was making a schoolyard level "fag" joke at the expense of Raleigh with his infamous "boys and tobacco" comment.
Marlowe was murdered by the Crown after serving them well in France. His usefulness was over. But the work lives on.

[barb162]

37. nobody really knows about the first two; no historical evidence

There is some indication Eleanor might have been gay-leaning toward the latter part of her life

[benny05]

38. Fun things to ponder

1) Some folks believe Shakespeare was the pen-name for the Earl of Oxford, who never married. Whether the Earl was gay or not hasn't been up for much large scholarly-wide discussion, as far as I know. (I personally think Shakespeare was from Stratford.)

2) Eleanor Roosevelt had several lesbian friends and has been accused as such many times to be one herself. One of the books written about ER tried to prove that she was (My Dearest Friend), but I don't think the arguments were that salient. Her daughter and sons never thought so and neither did her friends who wrote books about her (Joe Lash, for example).

3) I cannot speak to Leonardo. Just because he had many male friends doesn't speak to whether or not he was gay because men tended to hang out with one another more and had more intimate (meaning meaningful, emotional, not necessarily sexual) relationships.

[Misunderestimator]

44. Well yes...

Where have YOU been?

[Shakespeare]

48. But--I'm not gay!

Not that there's anything wrong with that...

:P

[sui generis]

49. it's okay dorothy

just click your fabulous Ferragamo heels three times and say "there's no place like Nordstroms, there's no place like Nordstroms"

[assclown_bush]

51. Nordstroms??? How CONSERVATIVE!!!

:rofl: I prefer Barney's New York.

ASSCLOWN BUSH

[truthbetold]

50. Woohoo!

That's hot. We need more famous gay icons.

[lumberingbear]

52. Elliott Roosevelt,

FDR and Eleanor's son, wrote a "Eleanor Roosevelt Mystery" series. It was fiction, but in it he had his mother day dreaming about the women she loved and taking baths with women. If she wasn't gay, why would he write these things?

[bertha katzenengel]

53. that ER was a lesbian has actually NOT "been completely established

as the truth." She and Hick were dear friends. I think Hick was probably a lesbian. But I've read two bios of ER (and one of her and FDR during the war years - it is relevant) and I'm not convinced.

[MrSlayer]

54. Being that they are all dead, we'll never know.

I do know that Shakespeare smoked Hash, I do not know that he was gay nor do I think anyone can prove it. It's all speculation.

[Guy Fawkes]

56. I knew about Shakespeare and DaVinci...

But Eleanor Roosevelt?

->And yes, Shakespeare wrote many love letters and sonnets to men. DaVinci wrote love letters to a number of his young male apprentices.