A Very Gay History of Sailors Pop Culture

Contents:

• PHOTOS: SEXY GAY SAILORS TAKE OVER THE MOSHULU
• GAY SAILOR
• GAY FURRY HACKERS ARE TARGETG US STAT FOR PASSG ANTI-TRANS LEGISLATN
• WHAT TO EXPECT OM YOUR GAY SAILG HOLIDAY?

PHOTOS: SEXY GAY SAILORS TAKE OVER THE MOSHULU

Philly gay boys donned sailor threads for the Boys of Summer 2013 kickoff jam. Before "don't ask, don't tell" was officially repealed for gay, lbian, and bisexual ary personnel 2011, a photo of a male Mare drag uld have land him hot water. "Lbian, gay, and bisexual ary personnel had been servg our untry for s whout receivg equal protectn, while transgenr troops are still prohibed om servg openly.

"As a gay man, I n relate to what is still the opprsive stigma of homosexualy. Enuraged to form strong homosocial bonds to migate the strs of bat, troops would olic wh their "buddi" away om the ontle. 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.

GAY SAILOR

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.

GAY FURRY HACKERS ARE TARGETG US STAT FOR PASSG ANTI-TRANS LEGISLATN

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.

WHAT TO EXPECT OM YOUR GAY SAILG HOLIDAY?

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. Early the eighteenth century, the famo Puranil preacher Cotton Mather ma the nnectn between an terveng God and homosexual acts among sailors:. Though rare, homosexual acts did occur.