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osprey_archer) wrote2021-05-04 12:58 pm
osprey_archer) wrote2021-05-04 12:58 pm
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Book Review: Love Story: Sex Between Men before Homosexuality
Although the title sounds more general, Love Stories: Sex between Men before Homosexuality is specifically about man-sex in 19th century America, and if you are wondering if I cackled wildly with glee when I found it the answer is emphatically YES. Exactly what I need for my Sleeping Beauty story! Thank you, Jonathan Ned Katz!
This is an excellent book if you're interested in the topic (I particularly enjoyed the chapter about journalist Charles Warren Stoddard and artist Francis David Millet's Venetian sojourn), and particularly useful to me because there's a whole chapter about sex in the Civil War, plus a fairly clear timeline of what you might call "How Socially Acceptable Was It To Really Really Really Love Your Best Friend in the 19th Century."
In the 1830s you have Albert Dodd enthusing about his BFF Anthony Halsey in his diary: "how sweet to sleep with him, to hold his beloved form in my embrace, to have his arms about my neck, to imprint upon his face sweet kisses!... Dear, dearest Anthony! Thou art mine own friend. My most beloved of all! To see thee again! What rapture it would be, thou sweet, lovely, dear, beloved, beautiful, adored Anthony!"
(Side note: Katz suggests that Dodd's use of the word "friend" here suggests a cultural vocabulary not quite equal to the task of defining male-male intimacy, but it's worth noting that during the Civil War, soldiers would often start their letters "Esteemed Friend" when writing to their wives. Clearly, in a nineteenth century, "friend" could be used for sexual as well as non-sexual relationships.)
The 1880s seem to constitute a turning point. Frederick Shelley Ryman writes similarly about his relationship with his own dearest friend, carefully recording every time they share a bed, every embrace, every kiss, etc. - but he adds, "Now in all this I am certain there was no sexual sentiment on the part of either of us... & yet I do love him & loved to hug & kiss him because of the goodness & genius I find in his mind."
Ryman is not so concerned about it that he's going to, God forbid, actually stop kissing his friend. But this marks the beginning of a shift: Dodd rattles on rapturously and without guilt, while Ryman has a nagging feeling that his behavior might suggest "unmanly & abnormal passion." And, of course, moving into the twentieth century, that does become the dominant interpretation of men kissing and embracing and sharing beds and walking arm in arm and having super intense feelings for each other. Earlier in the nineteenth century, these behaviors were seen as sexless and socially acceptable, even charming; going into the twentieth century, they come to be seen as inherently sexual and therefore bad.
There's a sort of "Schrodinger's sexuality" problem about the Albert Dodds of the past: if the participants didn't see lying in bed passionately kissing each other's faces as sexual, even though it seems obviously sexual to most modern readers, was it sexual? Is it somehow sexual and not-sexual at the same time?
This is an excellent book if you're interested in the topic (I particularly enjoyed the chapter about journalist Charles Warren Stoddard and artist Francis David Millet's Venetian sojourn), and particularly useful to me because there's a whole chapter about sex in the Civil War, plus a fairly clear timeline of what you might call "How Socially Acceptable Was It To Really Really Really Love Your Best Friend in the 19th Century."
In the 1830s you have Albert Dodd enthusing about his BFF Anthony Halsey in his diary: "how sweet to sleep with him, to hold his beloved form in my embrace, to have his arms about my neck, to imprint upon his face sweet kisses!... Dear, dearest Anthony! Thou art mine own friend. My most beloved of all! To see thee again! What rapture it would be, thou sweet, lovely, dear, beloved, beautiful, adored Anthony!"
(Side note: Katz suggests that Dodd's use of the word "friend" here suggests a cultural vocabulary not quite equal to the task of defining male-male intimacy, but it's worth noting that during the Civil War, soldiers would often start their letters "Esteemed Friend" when writing to their wives. Clearly, in a nineteenth century, "friend" could be used for sexual as well as non-sexual relationships.)
The 1880s seem to constitute a turning point. Frederick Shelley Ryman writes similarly about his relationship with his own dearest friend, carefully recording every time they share a bed, every embrace, every kiss, etc. - but he adds, "Now in all this I am certain there was no sexual sentiment on the part of either of us... & yet I do love him & loved to hug & kiss him because of the goodness & genius I find in his mind."
Ryman is not so concerned about it that he's going to, God forbid, actually stop kissing his friend. But this marks the beginning of a shift: Dodd rattles on rapturously and without guilt, while Ryman has a nagging feeling that his behavior might suggest "unmanly & abnormal passion." And, of course, moving into the twentieth century, that does become the dominant interpretation of men kissing and embracing and sharing beds and walking arm in arm and having super intense feelings for each other. Earlier in the nineteenth century, these behaviors were seen as sexless and socially acceptable, even charming; going into the twentieth century, they come to be seen as inherently sexual and therefore bad.
There's a sort of "Schrodinger's sexuality" problem about the Albert Dodds of the past: if the participants didn't see lying in bed passionately kissing each other's faces as sexual, even though it seems obviously sexual to most modern readers, was it sexual? Is it somehow sexual and not-sexual at the same time?
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