Matelotage was a gay marriage of sorts practiced by male pirat om the seventeenth century. Some of the most succsful pirat had relatnships wh ...
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THE GAY PIRAT
Matelotage was a gay marriage of sorts practiced by male pirat om the 17th century. Spartan boys were traed om a young age by other Spartan men, Roman soldiers were allowed to have same-sex relatnships wh slav or prostut, samurai practiced wakashudo (translated as "the way of the youth" and very siar to the Greek tradn of men trag boys), and "suatnal homosexualy" exists all-male prisons. Matelotage, as an stutn that veloped on ships full of men, is another one of the "homosocial" relatnships on the high seas were not unique to the 17th and 18th centuri eher.
There are acunts of the Heli, an ancient Germanic tribe, practicg homosexualy their warrr-based culture as mercenari and pirat of Europe was iologilly agast same-sex relatnships durg the 17th and 18th centuri, scribg them wh terms like "sodomy" and "buggery. " Homosexualy uld be punished by ath, although rarely was. Ironilly, homosexual relatnships European society were associated wh (and often tolerated, as a rult) the wealthy and ele, who were nsired to be above the law.
OUR FLAG MEANS DEATH MAK GAY PIRAT BOTH CASUAL AND IMPORTANT
In Sodomy and the Pirate Tradn: English Sea Rovers the Seventeenth Century Caribbean, Profsor Barry Richard Burg wr that matelotage was “an stutnalized lkg of bucneer and another male — most often a youth — a relatnship wh clearly homosexual characteristics. All but the wealthy ele uld be jailed or even killed for homosexualy.
Even the pirate world, homosexualy wasn’t que accepted as the norm. In terms of exactly how mon same-sex romance was among pirat, historians today generally believe that rat of homosexualy likely mirrored what would have been found the populatn at large. The progrsive story stands out as a landmark succs for gay reprentatn worthy of analysis s own right.