Are gays overrepresented among horror story creators and if so why?

[Razgovory]

Bill Shakespeare, President Buchanan, Izzy Newton, Ned Lawrence, Bill 2 of England.  They are often suspected of being homosexual, though there isn't a lot of evidence for that.  Mostly just circumstantial evidence and conjecture. Often the evidence that is used is that people at the time thought they might be gay, often because they weren't married.  I don't see any reason to view homosexuality from any other sexual taboos.  It simply became more acceptable, while something like pedophilia has not.  There is no reason not to see pedophilia as a series of attractions and relationships.  It's portrayed as predatory today, but homosexuality was often portrayed as predatory in the past.  There is no reason a pedophile might not love the objects of desire.  And in cultures where this is considered normal or common the love may be returned, such as in Ancient Greece.

Let us take for instance Leonardo da Vinci.  It is not uncommon to claim that Leo was gay, however the most common cited lovers are his pupils who would be underage by our standards.  Yet people don't say that da Vinci was a pedophile.

[CountDeMoney]

I think that, ironically, even though back then gay sex was ostracized and hush-hushed, as opposed to now, more men were freely doing it. Maybe cause women, at a young age, were so hard to get into.

The classical concepts of medieval beauty and love, from the Greeks to the medieval ages, simply didn't involve women as much.  It wasn't until John Dunne finally smelled some pussy juice that women figured prominently in romantic literature and art, because they were, as usual, marginalized.

[Neil]

The other thing I'd add is that gayness isn't necessarily to do with sex but as much to do with love.  I see no reason to suggest that Cardinal Newman was shagging Ambrose St. John.  But they wrote incredibly loving letters to one another, they lived together for around 40 years, on St. John's death, Newman said he thought his grief was greater than that of a husband or a wife and, on his death, said that his imperative desire in his will was to be buried with St. John.  He was until he was exhumed after beatification.

I think if you raise the possibility that he was gay (and in Newman's case that possibility was raised very early in the 20th century) then you're suggesting that, regardless of sex, he lived fulfilled with the man he loved for 40 years.  That seems plausible on the facts and compassionate. 

The same goes for Hallam and Tennyson, or Newton and that Swiss kid.  We can't say whether they had sex or not, but based on their own words our understanding of homosexuality offers the best model for that level of love.

Newton wasn't gay.  You people see that shit everywhere.  It validates you.

Trying to jam ancient people into modern identities is silly and gay.

[Sheilbh]

Bill Shakespeare, President Buchanan, Izzy Newton, Ned Lawrence, Bill 2 of England.

You know I actually think the problem is there's a lot of scholarship going on, 90% of it doesn't get noticed but any mention of sexuality does and will get reported in the mainstream press.

I can't talk about all of them.  I know nothing of Buchanan or William Rufus - I would however note that their inclusion hardly suggests the gays are picking history's greatest to retrospectively claim.

Newton I know little about.  From what I gather he exchanged rather intense letters with that Swiss kid that suggested they loved one another.

Lawrence is an odd case.  The biography I've read of him does mention homosexuality.  There are curious mentions of it in his work, he refers to sodomy as 'perfect love' at one point and in the foreward to the Seven Pillars of Wisdom mentions male Arab 'friends quivering together in the yielding sand with intimate hot limbs in supreme embrace'.  The language doesn't indicate repulsion or disgust, but if anything a sort of admiration (I seem to remember him describing it as 'pure' and it's somehow desert-like).  However the biography I've read thought his sexuality was far more fucked up than just gay or straight and that he had a deep masochist streak.  Different biographers have found different records more or less credible, but he referred to the beating in Deraa in terms of a 'delicious warmth', and, he paid people to beat him up.  I don't think you could say he was gay or straight.  He was certainly not sexually normal though.

Shakespeare's a more interesting case.  There's no way of knowing, of course, and there's a strand of gay fiction writers (including Wilde) who have written fiction based on Shakespeare's possible homosexuality.  That's interesting but doesn't matter any more than, say Carol Ann Duffy's wonderful poem about his love with Anne Hathaway (though both are nice explanations of bits of his life).  It's also worth remembering that homosexuality is deeply anachronistic when you're talking about that period, so I just mean attraction to the same sex, not an identity or a life, or, as I say, acts.

The suspicion that Shakespeare was possibly a bit gay is based on two things within his work.  The first is in the plays.  There are very credible interpretations of both Romeo and Juliet and Merchant of Venice that include homosexuality.  They're coherent and good readings of Mercutio and Antonio (and to an extent Bassanio - Harold Bloom's big on this) - so much so in the latter case that I think a gay reading of that character is now relatively standard.  Again I think the interpretation of Antonio is hardly flattering to the gays.

The second bit is the Sonnets.  There are, I think, 154 sonnets and around 125 of them are addressed to the 'fair youth' who is male.  The Sonnets were a bit of a blotch on Shakespeare's reputation.  As he begins to become the great national writer, during the 17th century, the Sonnets are edited to make the pronouns gender appropriate - so the 'fair youth' becomes female and many editions get changed so that those addressed to the 'fair youth' that make no sense addressed to a woman are removed.  The true Sonnets are, like sexual Classical literature, reserved for wealthy, well-educated men.  That shifts in the late 18th and early 19th century when the pronouns are allowed to return to their original.  But a faint suspicion of them lingers.  So Tennyson is warned by well-meaning friends that he should be less open in his admiration of the Sonnets because they're so dangerously 'Hellenistic'.  In the late 19th century you have writers like Wilde effectively writing slash fiction based on the Sonnets.  So from publication until the period when the word and concept of 'homosexual' was invented the Sonnets cause suspicion.

But this aspect of the Sonnets is more important in understanding Shakespeare than the plays, because the general academic consensus has always been that the Sonnets are the most personal and autobiographical of Shakespeare's works.  He could have been attracted to boys and girls.  What we can definitively say is that he wrote characters that make far more sense in a queer reading than otherwise - which isn't true of his contemporaries.  He wrote the biggest and greatest corpus of love poetry from one man addressed to another, but he also wrote some love poetry to a woman though the 'dark lady' poems are more equivocal than the 'fair youth'.  Though I'm perfectly happy saying this is another example of Shakespeare being special and containing everything, but the gay is in the work.

Shakespeare married, Lawrence and Newton didn't.  But I hope you can see that in all cases there is more than their marital status that's led to comment. 

Mostly just circumstantial evidence and conjecture.

Generally that's true of most biography and literary interpretation.  You're generally left with what people wanted the world to know and occasional bits of gossip.  From that you try and form a real personality, complete with flaws, foibles and, yeah, sexuality.

I don't see any reason to view homosexuality from any other sexual taboos.  It simply became more acceptable, while something like pedophilia has not.  There is no reason not to see pedophilia as a series of attractions and relationships.

Because it's not a taboo.  There's no moral judgement in an academic nowadays saying 'there's evidence here that x may have been a bit gay', there is a moral judgement in saying they were a paedophile.

I take your point about paedophilia, but I think Britten as an example where that does exist based on the evidence we have.  Similarly Nabokov's being looked at again by academics because I think 'The Original of Laura' is maybe one nymph too far.  Martin Amis wrote a bit about this.  There are now six Nabokov novels that features the 'sexual despoilation' of young girls.  Three of them are masterpieces but we've got to acknowledge this troubling recurring concern in Nabokov's fiction (Amis ultimately argues it's aesthetically, not morally problematic).

So homosexuality isn't the only subject brought up.  It's more easy to deal with as just a theory because there's no moral condemnation involved and it's picked up in the popular press.

Let us take for instance Leonardo da Vinci.  It is not uncommon to claim that Leo was gay, however the most common cited lovers are his pupils who would be underage by our standards.  Yet people don't say that da Vinci was a pedophile.

But by that standard almost everyone in the Renaissance world was a paedophile.  Marriage to and between 13-14 year olds was standard.

The classical concepts of medieval beauty and love, from the Greeks to the medieval ages, simply didn't involve women as much.  It wasn't until John Dunne finally smelled some pussy juice that women figured prominently in romantic literature and art, because they were, as usual, marginalized.

This is pretty true.  There's a big theory among many feminist and queer critics of Medieval literature that it's all about homosocial bonding.  The female characters in Medieval literature are often unimportant and superfluous, their purpose within the text is to do with the relationship of the men associated with them.  I think the Morte d'Arthur's normally an example of this.  The important relationship is Arthur-Lancelot.  That relationship is defined and they relate to one another with reference to Guinevere, but that's all her role is in the text. 

Edit:  To develop the academic vs popular line I remember discussing in a tutorial the strange sexuality of Wilfred Owen's poems.  They're interesting because he's poetically inspired by the Decadents and so they're written in a very 'gay' way and a lot of his lesser known poems linger over the beautiful lips of a beautifully dead boy.  There's no saying that he was gay, far less necrophiliac but that's certainly present in his work and if nothing else hints towards an unusual sexuality.

[katmai]

Bros before hoes Shelf.

[garbon]

Why is this thread continuing?

[katmai]

Because you homos always have to have the spotlight on you.

[garbon]

Because you homos always have to have the spotlight on you.

I'm not even participating.

[Eddie Teach]

I take your point about paedophilia, but I think Britten as an example where that does exist based on the evidence we have.  Similarly Nabokov's being looked at again by academics because I think 'The Original of Laura' is maybe one nymph too far.  Martin Amis wrote a bit about this.  There are now six Nabokov novels that features the 'sexual despoilation' of young girls.  Three of them are masterpieces but we've got to acknowledge this troubling recurring concern in Nabokov's fiction (Amis ultimately argues it's aesthetically, not morally problematic).

Interesting. Course, Pale Fire was about a homo.

[Razgovory]

I think Shelf is bring up good points.  That's a decent enough reason to continue.  I think his point that it gets picked up by the media is pretty good.  The press loves good old gossip.

I admit I'm rehashing two of my pet peeves.  The attempt to draw a bright line between homosexuality and other paraphilic disorders and compulsion to diagnose historical figures with a variety of personality disorders or whatever.

When I was in the mental hospital last, there was poster that showed pictures of various important historical figures had the caption that they all had mental illness.  The idea seemed to be to empower people who suffered from mental illness.  These people are like you, they had severe mental problems and look what they accomplished.  I see the attempts to put historical figures in the "gay" category as similar or perhaps in Marty's case to put them in the "us" catergory.  Marty frequently goes on about how "We" as gays feel about something, something I find absurd.

[crazy canuck]

Why is it important to identify sexuality of historical figures?

In the context of the political reality of Vancouver and Canada probably not at all.  We have gotten to the point that nobody looks twice if they see a gay or lesbian couple on the street and our laws now recognize those unions.

But then again we still have crimes where people still get beat up simply because they are gay.  We still have kids getting bullied in school because they are gay and we still have professional sports which must have gay athletes who are still in the closet.

So why is it important to identify the sexuality of historical figures?  So that one day it wont matter at all.

[Sheilbh]

So why is it important to identify the sexuality of historical figures?  So that one day it wont matter at all.

It's not in itself - this is where I think Raz is wrong.  There's not a series of crack gays combing through history trying to out people - like doctors look for people who perhaps suffered mental illness.

But, if you're writing a biography of a person you have to be able to present a credible and coherent person.  Generally that requires sexuality and sometimes in the evidence it looks like it could be homosexuality.  In the example of Shakespeare Coleridge went out of his way to explicitly say Shakespeare wasn't a sodomite - based on the Sonnets - given that our society lacks that shame I think the current trend of saying 'maybe he was' is more accurate and fairer.

I only know from studying literature that unless you're interested in biography it doesn't matter.  Biographical readings are pretty unfashionable and there are many texts by resolutely straight authors that do contain credible gay readings ('Jane Austen and the masturbating girl' is a magnificent piece of queer criticism).  But occasionally it can be useful or interesting, for example I do think that if you consider it likely that Tennyson was romantically in love with Hallam then that changes the way you read In Memoriam.

[crazy canuck]

That is a literary approach.  I had in mind the normalizing effect that idenfitying historical figures are varying sexuality can have.

Now it may be that gays today do not want to be identified as normal - iirc that was a theme that arose during the same sex marriage debate - but that is a separate issue.

[Valmy]

I think the main point that troubles me about it is that people then have a tendency to project backwards and assume modern gay culture applied to people back then once they get classifed. 

Same thing with standards of heterosexual society.  For example that part in one of Plato's where all the Greek dudes are falling over themselves to sit by the pretty guy was slapstick comedy and regarded as what a "normal" man would do at the time.  And doubtlessly some of those guys would identify as heterosexual today but no such catagory existed at the time.

But I find things like 'Braveheart's' portrayal of Edward II and his lover as effeminate gays stereotypes pretty annoying.  Because both men absolutely conformed to their time's standards of masculinity.

But generally things like identity are really problematic in general.  Nationalism has a similar annoying impact.

[CountDeMoney]

So why is it important to identify the sexuality of historical figures?  So that one day it wont matter at all.

It's not in itself - this is where I think Raz is wrong.  There's not a series of crack gays combing through history trying to out people - like doctors look for people who perhaps suffered mental illness.

Yeah, there is.  You're doing it now.

But, if you're writing a biography of a person you have to be able to present a credible and coherent person.  Generally that requires sexuality and sometimes in the evidence it looks like it could be homosexuality.  In the example of Shakespeare Coleridge went out of his way to explicitly say Shakespeare wasn't a sodomite - based on the Sonnets - given that our society lacks that shame I think the current trend of saying 'maybe he was' is more accurate and fairer.

I only know from studying literature that unless you're interested in biography it doesn't matter.  Biographical readings are pretty unfashionable and there are many texts by resolutely straight authors that do contain credible gay readings ('Jane Austen and the masturbating girl' is a magnificent piece of queer criticism).  But occasionally it can be useful or interesting, for example I do think that if you consider it likely that Tennyson was romantically in love with Hallam then that changes the way you read In Memoriam.

Like I said before, you gays want to see gayed-up gayness in everything.  It's due to your relentless pursuit of validation in a world that doesn't validate your gayed-up gayness, even though most of the world really doesn't give a shit what you put in your mouth.