A Terrible Uncertainty: The Atlantic Erases the Gay Past

Here we go again. Atlantic senior editor Jennie Rothenberg Gritz posts a short, hetero-centric essay reinforcing the false premise that because it's impossible to know what historical figures did in bed it's impossible to consider them gay. Whitman, Lincoln & Speed, Sarah Orne Jewett, James Garfield -- all are tarred with this terrible uncertainty.

The article confuses a lack of gay identity with an absence of gay sex. Its most illogical implication is that the big shift from platonic same-sex friendships to gay romantic partnerships came about as a result of two events: 1) Wilde's trials and 2) Freud. These points are framed in relation to the general public's awareness of queer coupling, but they are presented chronologically to suggest a divide between the 19th century's innocent friends and the 20th century's passionate lovers.

Although the writer acknowledges Wilde, Symonds, and Stein, she gets new quotes only from two experts, neither of whom know the word "queer" and both of whom refuse to allow "gay."

Says Jewett House manager Peggy Wishart: 

"The thing we don't know about any of these people, is the question most modern people have: Were they gay?.. Women were perceived as being non-sexual to begin with, and most people assumed that if they didn't have husbands, they wouldn't have any interest in sex."

After her own headscratching, the writer gives the final word to NYU graduate school professor David S. Reynolds:

Today, it's hard to know just how to read those letters. But as Reynolds says, "It's absolutely wrong to impose today's version of homosexuality on Whitman or Jewett. That's done much too often." Instead, he suggests we appreciate the rich humanity of the 19th century. "Lincoln was a very, very human guy," Reynolds says. "He saw himself as a comrade, as someone who loved men and women. A lot of other people also saw themselves that way. It was a much less institutional world than we live in today -- a much more personal world."

The writer chose not to speak with any of hundreds of scholars of LGBT history who would have balanced her article and obliterated these quotes. To regain your sanity, read Gary Schmidgall's Walt Whitman: A Gay Life. Or Michael Bronski's A Queer History of the United States.

Comments

[Laurent]

Here we go again, the same issue we faced with Boswell's history, while staring us in the face (for all its kaleidoscopically glittering reconfigurations through the centuries) is the seamless reality of homoeroticism, irrespective of "practices." Does anyone care what the author of Michelangelo's sonnets "practiced"? Has it ever been anyone's vaguest curiosity, whether Whitman would have gone to bed with Frank O'Hara? The question is starkly, and rather tiresomely consciously illegitimate.

[Matthew Gallaway]

Unbelievable, but a good example of the homophobia that is more the rule than the exception in the literary/"intellectual" establishment circa 2012.

[Elliott Mackle]

Fluidity then, labels now. I'm surprised my buddy Herman Melville didn't make an appearance in this shameful screed. HM told his soulmate Hawthorne (who ultimately spurned him) that he had written a "wicked book" (Moby-Dick) and felt "spotless as a lamb." It's well established that the m/m sex coursing through that novel is based on Melville's own experiences as a sailor; that "sodomy" was a legal no-no aboard most ships but that other forms of taking care of business necessarily accepted; that readers and critics "got" his quite radical message in MD and didn't like it; that Melville married and had children, and that he wrestled with m/m themes (e.g. Billy Budd) until the end of his life. He was neither "gay" nor "heterosexual" because those labels did not exist. For his age and accomplishments he was, dare I say, a "man in full." (with thanks to my Melville & Hawthorne seminar in grad school 40 years ago)

[RTF]

This is my first visit to Band of Thebes, and what a post to see! Like Mackle was surprised Herman Melville wasn't among the salacious throng, I'm surprised Dickinson isn't here. (She's become one of the "was she or wasn't she?" elite now.) It's amazing and so laughable to have all my hunts 19th century lesbian writers completely discredited by lame intelligentsia. I also encountered this cover-up issue when it came to reading the poet Hart Crane, who was apparently so homosexual that no one had to write about it anymore (to paraphrase the introduction to one of his poetry collections). Later, I found out that he wasn't homosexual but bisexual, which seems to be even more risque these days. It's easy for those in a position of literary clout to write estimations of someone dead. It allows them freedom from troublesome activities, like legitimate bibliographic research. - Thank you for talking about these subjects.

[Bob Smith]

This essay is moronic. It's like she's saying testosterone and estrogme were invented in the 20th century.

[Bob Smith]

That's estrogen.