Newly Published Portras Document a Century of Gay Men's Relatnships | Smart News | Smhsonian Magaze

Contents:

• BUT WERE THEY GAY? THE MYSTERY OF SAME-SEX LOVE THE 19TH CENTURY
• NEWLY PUBLISHED PORTRAS DOCUMENT A CENTURY OF GAY MEN LOVE
• GAY COWBOYS? SURE, PARDNER.
• THE 200-YEAR-OLD DIARY THAT'S REWRG GAY HISTORY

BUT WERE THEY GAY? THE MYSTERY OF SAME-SEX LOVE THE 19TH CENTURY

"Walt Whman and Gay Liberatn are nearly synonymo for me, " wrote cultural historian Rictor Norton a 1999 say.

"It's hard to image any morn poet wrg about lyg another man's arms and then llg homosexualy "damnable.

NEWLY PUBLISHED PORTRAS DOCUMENT A CENTURY OF GAY MEN LOVE

""The thg we don't know about any of the people, " says Peggy Wishart, "is the qutn most morn people have: Were they gay?

" By 1911, there was enough awarens of homosexualy that when Fields pulled together a posthumo volume of Jewett's letters, edor Mark Antony DeWolfe Howe urged her to censor out the pet nam. But as Reynolds says, "It's absolutely wrong to impose today's versn of homosexualy on Whman or Jewett. Such adult men ed the pretext of a srcy of women to tablish enforced homosexual relatnships remote mps and ranch parable to the relatnships for which today's prisons are notor.

GAY COWBOYS? SURE, PARDNER.

The high cince of perasty and homosexual rape is the great dirty secret of the Old Wt ontier--and yet this is not om any lack of ntemporary acunts which document or ht at , cludg the famed woodcuts of men dancg wh boys, scriptns of the practic of multiple men sleepg sgle beds (as if there wasn't room enough out Wt for everyone to throw down his own bedroll), jok about turns the barrel, and the lyrics of certa Old Wt songs which young men seem to be given women's nam. Ask anyone who’s seen Brokeback Mounta (2005) to characterize the film three words, and you’re almost certa to hear some variatn of “gay wboy love-story.”  While many have ld the film, directed by Ang Lee, for s nuanced portrayal of two men’s plited love for each other, the film was subject to sthg cricism at the time of s release.

THE 200-YEAR-OLD DIARY THAT'S REWRG GAY HISTORY

Detractors, largely spearhead by right-wg and relig groups, quickly and fervently emed the film’s pictn of a homosexual uple immoral, evince of an attempt to femize men, and even anti-Amerin.