In Sailors and Sexual Inty, thor Steven Zeeland talks wh young male sailors--both gay- and straight-intified--about ways which their social and
Contents:
“I DID FOR THE UPLIFT OF HUMANY AND THE NAVY”: FDR'S GAY SEX-ENTRAPMENT STG
* sailors and homosexuality *
By referencg the nearly accintal act of 'sodomy, ' Cleland taps to the popular imprsn that sailors engaged homosexualy. Rictor Norton, at his webse Homosexualy Eighteenth-Century England, has llected an imprsive number of primary sourc, though few reference sailors.
Somethg that be clear Norton's work is that there was ltle or no legal distctn at the time between those who engaged a sgle same-sex act, those who were exclively homosexual, and anyone who fell between. In his A Queer History of the Uned Stat, Michael Bronski pots out that the very term 'homosexual' wasn't vented until 1869 'to help nstct a narrative around a person fed by his or her same-sex sexual sir and actns. We nnot say that sailors who engaged homosexual acts intified as homosexual, nor n we say that others fed them as such before they were nvicted.
When gays had to be closeted, ships were the only plac where homosexual men uld not only be out but also mp. And on some lers to the sun and the New Wor * sailors and homosexuality *
Here I ed the term 'homosexual' to refer to clatns and acts, rather than as fg the sailors themselv. Brish society believed that a lack of accs to women gave rise to homosexualy, and there was perhaps no place the eighteenth century so exclively male as the navy. The legal notn that one is eher exclively homosexual or heterosexual n be seen the se of William Bailey.
' Today we would regnize the facts as irrelevant to the act self, but eighteenth century law, a sgle homosexual act was equated wh beg exclively homosexual. Rodger argued his book The Woon World: An Anatomy of the Geian Navy that acts of homosexualy were not as mon the mid-eighteenth century Royal Navy as many assume:. Consirg that the navy oped up thoands of young men for months on end whout accs to women, is surprisg how few homosexual cints rulted prosecutn.
Earle agreed that 'the crowd ndns of shipboard life ma difficult to nceal homosexual relatns om other members of the crew. Wh the threat of ath hangg over their heads, the unlikelihood of fdg a man wh the same sexual clatns, and the very real chance of tectn, even those men wh homosexual leangs faced many obstacl to actually engagg the act.