The men behd the man: Abraham Lln's gay lovers - Page 3 of 7 - LGBTQ Natn

Contents:

• WAS ABRAHAM LLN OUR FIRST GAY PRINT?
• FURTHER PROOF THAT LLN WAS GAY
• WAS ABRAHAM LLN GAY?
• A FAY HISTORY PROVIS MORE EVINCE THAT LLN WAS GAY
• PETE BUTTIGIEG SAYS THERE HAVE PROBABLY BEEN GAY PRINTS. HERE'S WHY THAT THEORY IS COMPLITED
• WAS LLN GAY?
• THE MEN BEHD THE MAN: ABRAHAM LLN’S GAY LOVERS

WAS ABRAHAM LLN OUR FIRST GAY PRINT?

It's a persistent mor, and one that has some basis historil fact: was Abraham Lln gay?

Scholars have bated whether Lln suffered om a host of physil ailments, whether or not he was clilly prsed, and — perhaps most trigugly to some — if Abraham Lln was gay.

An accatn of this sort uld even lead to ser prison time, so ’s no surprise that the historil rerd om the 19th century is sparse openly gay public figur. He also wrote this b of ic verse, which turns on – of all thgs – gay marriage:. For many years, a kd of gay-revisnist history has been wrten, which this or that historil figure is held up to tense scholarly scty and clared by one activist historian or another to have been gay, transgenred, or bisexual.

FURTHER PROOF THAT LLN WAS GAY

It’s evable that virtually all of the proment homosexuals of the Victorian Age would go to extreme lengths to keep their affairs as private as possible, and this mak hont scholarship on the subject challengg at bt. Today, an vatn om one man to another to live and sleep together would almost evably be assumed to be homosexual nature.

From the mixed rerds we do have, an distct picture n be drawn that pats the 16th print as anythg om a eply closeted homosexual to an enthiastic heterosexual. After readg about the evince about whether or not Abraham Lln was gay, vis our post on the fotten story of the Lln assassatn and tertg facts about Lln you’ve probably never heard before.

WAS ABRAHAM LLN GAY?

Scholars and historians are bld to Lln's same-sex clatns part bee of a personal aversn to male homosexualy, but more importantly bee they fail to perceive the vast differenc between the sexual culture of antebellum Ameri and that of our own time, pecially regard to male-male physil and emotnal timacy. Rponse to Michael Fergon's "Was Abraham Lln Gay? Lln, ” he imag a sensive story about two men who were the bt of iends and maybe Lln was gay or bisexual has never been substantiated, and the evince is weak.

A FAY HISTORY PROVIS MORE EVINCE THAT LLN WAS GAY

At about that time I met Tripp, whose posthumo The Intimate World of Abraham Lln has at last been published by Free the Ksey and I had mon so long ago was the knowledge that homosexual and heterosexual behavr are natural to all mammals, and that what differs om dividual to dividual is the balance between the two plementary but not necsarily nflicted driv. But not Jonathan Ned Katz; 2001 this relentls scholar wrote a study of their “love affair” as an example of sex between men before the ventn of homosexualy; a word and generic ncept that dat back only to the late 19th century, while “heterosexualy, ” prevly popularly known as “jt sex, ” is now the name for a new admirable team whose first appearance public prt was a 1924 edn of, I fear, the New York Tim. His ground-breakg book The Homosexual Matrix (1975) firmly “disvered” that homosexualy is born, not acquired.

What Tripp learned om Ksey and associat is a way of ggg the hetero-homo balance men.

“Ksey’s figur on the pervasivens of the homosexual experienc of men dazzled the ever quisive Tripp, ” as historian Jean Baker wr her troductn to his study of Lln. One fdg that Tripp evaluatg Lln: Ksey’s rearch showed that those mal who entered puberty early were more apt to seek homosexual outlets if only bee girls were out of reach.

PETE BUTTIGIEG SAYS THERE HAVE PROBABLY BEEN GAY PRINTS. HERE'S WHY THAT THEORY IS COMPLITED

Incintally, the one thg that the Ksey report, Tripp’s The Homosexual Matrix, and my The Cy and the Pillar had mon, asi om the unwele ndor about our human tate, was the hysteria we created at The New York Tim. "Many historians are quick to say that men shared beds due to a bed shortage and that surely Lln, the savr of the Unn, uld not have been gay. The studied impulse to make Lln absolutely heterosexual reflects a discernible societal disfort wh the plexi of human sexualy and sexual orientatn, as well as eply embedd streaks of homophobia.

As a sexologist, I pos that Lln was a Ksey 4 -- homosexual wh more than cintal oppose-sex ntact.

WAS LLN GAY?

"But I am puzzled about one thg: William Herndon has not mentned or wrten anythg that would dite that Lln was gay. William Herndon was my great-great-uncle, and he was gay, and he was Lln's lover. I believe that Lln was gay, and I see that as simply the sweet icg on the ke of the life story of our greatt print.

Pete Buttigieg believ he probably won’t be the first gay print if he’s elected 2020. Mayor was asked how he’d rpond to crics who ll him too young, too liberal and too gay.

THE MEN BEHD THE MAN: ABRAHAM LLN’S GAY LOVERS

I would image we’ve probably had excellent prints who were gay — we jt didn’t know which on, ” Buttigeig said. Some of the most popular theori about whether there has ever been a gay print surround Print Jam Buchanan, one-term print om 1857-1861.

“It might be more accurate to say that there may have been prints the past who sired men, or had sexual experienc wh men… they wouldn’t have necsarily intified as gay a 21st century sense. For Buttigieg to say that another print may have been gay the way that ’s unrstood the 21st century, “’s jt farcil, ” Balcerski says.

Even if the two had some sort of attractn to other men, they wouldn’t have intified as gay bee that notn of livg as an out gay man didn’t exist, both historians say. The term homosexual, for stance, didn’t exist until 1868.