chrismear, your capacity for beer and near-encyclopaedic knowledge of tubgirl belie what a sensitive soul you really are.

chrismear, your capacity for beer

I daresay that my capacity for beer far exceeds his.

what a sensitive soul you really are.

but I'm about as sensitive as a toilet seat. chrismear wins.

Nicely written entry. This topic is often discussed in literature scholarship, because these expressions appear so often in diaries, memoirs, poetry, and fiction written before the 1890s or so.

When I was in college, it was fashionable to distribute lists of historical figures who were, supposedly, gay. What bothered me was that very often, the evidence suggested that they were not gay as we would use the term; they were involved in this sort of intimate friendship. It's a simple thing -- in the past, we constructed sexuality differently. For everybody. No doubt there were no fewer individuals in the past who actively preferred one gender over the other as sexual partners, but it's always seemed very unfair to me to read the letters of a poet or author to her friends and make assumptions about her sexuality. I applauded the sentiment behind raising awareness of the existence of different gender preferences, but extrapolating about people long dead, who didn't self-identify as one thing or the other, just didn't seem right.

When you think of how repressed and controlled overtures toward the opposite sex were in Victorian times, it's no wonder that romantic energies would become very noticeable in what were, indeed, your closest and most intimate relationships, sexual or not.

I'm conflicted about some of that.... What bothers me, I think, is that it would seem to be complete homophobia that allows same-sex relationships to be seen as just friendships... I mean, I guess I'm saying it goes both ways?

I just think about the men I knew in Italy, who were hugely physically affectionate with each other. And what allowed that to happen seemed to be a society so homophobic that it didn't even allow for the possiblity of gay attraction, which meant that all the hugging and kissing and butt-patting was "obviously" platonic. And from what I've read, it seems that young Italian men often have sex with their male friends, but it's not considered gay, just "playing around." But my gay (American) friend was terrified of coming out there, because the homophobia seemed much scarier there.

So... I'm not sure I have a point, really, at least not before I've had some coffee. I agree with Miko, but I also can see how exploding the idea of total heterosexuality is important.

Though ideally, I'd guess, we'd get to a point where we stopped thinking about it as such a binary.

Unfortunately, that is a bad Wikipedia article, due to the "original research" -- pasting together things that no secondary source has so grouped.

And what allowed that to happen seemed to be a society so homophobic that it didn't even allow for the possiblity of gay attraction, which meant that all the hugging and kissing and butt-patting was "obviously" platonic. And from what I've read, it seems that young Italian men often have sex with their male friends, but it's not considered gay, just "playing around."

Well, this is where it gets weird. Outlaw bikers, probably the most blatantly macho male society on earth, make it a custom to engage in flying tackle embraces and public tounge kissing. Apparently one FBI wiretap caught a notoriously hardcore Canadian bike club discussing a group buggery orgy.


I sometimes think that it's not so much homosexuality that people are phobic of but the idea of seeming weak and effeminate. These guys obviously don't seem to have a problem with the idea of man-on-man sexual contact, but the idea of seeming weak and passive is repellent to them. Of course this cultural lever could also be used in reverse, to make homosexuality seem manly and badass. or something. I had a point, i think. Carry on.

such a binary

Yeah, I think that's my objection. I actually believe that our construction of 'gay' is as temporal, limited, and culturally based as our construction of 'straight.' I tend to think societies organize the very wide spectrum of gender and relationships in ways that serve social ends and meet norms, rather than based on any innate qualities within people. So it's kind of impossible to judge the sexual/intimate expressions of another time (or culture) based on constructs that work only within our time (or culture).

So what I'm saying is that it's not really useful to talk about someone like Louisa May Alcott or Lord Byron as 'gay' or 'straight,' because the terms, the relationships, the very idea of organizing gender that way was not within their frame of reference.

and (I've mentioned this song before but this provides the perfect context) this could be the best rock and roll song about romantic friendship ever:

One soft infested summer me and Terry became friends
Trying in vain to breathe the fire we was born in
Catching rides to the outskirts tying faith between our teeth
Sleeping in that old abandoned beach house getting wasted in the heat
And hiding on the backstreets, hiding on the backstreets
With a love so hard and filled with defeat
Running for our lives at night on them backstreets

Slow dancing in the dark on the beach at Stockton's Wing
Where desperate lovers park we sat with the last of the Duke Street Kings
Huddled in our cars waiting for the bells that ring
In the deep heart of the night to set us loose from everything
to go running on the backstreets, running on the backstreets
We swore we'd live forever on the backstreets we take it together

Endless juke joints and Valentino drag where dancers scraped the tears
Up off the street dressed down in rags running into the darkness
Some hurt bad some really dying at night sometimes it seemed
You could hear the whole damn city crying blame it on the lies that killed us
Blame it on the truth that ran us down you can blame it all on me Terry
It don't matter to me now when the breakdown hit at midnight
There was nothing left to say but I hated him and I hated you when you went away

Laying here in the dark you're like an angel on my chest
Just another tramp of hearts crying tears of faithlessness
Remember all the movies, Terry, we'd go see
Trying to learn how to walk like heroes we thought we had to be
And after all this time to find we're just like all the rest
Stranded in the park and forced to confess
To hiding on the backstreets, hiding on the backstreets
We swore forever friends on the backstreets until the end
Hiding on the backstreets, hiding on the backstreets

Ah, they mention Lenny and Carl from The Simpsons. They were my bet for the gay couple that turned out to be Patty with some other character.

I'd nominate Dante and Randal from Clerks, and The Dude and Walter from The Big Lebowski as dysfunctional romantic friendships.

Reading the "Lenny and Carl" section, their relationship seems a bit one-sided. I mean, Lenny saw Carl's face in the stars, but I'm pretty sure Carl saw Carl's face in the stars...

Also, I think there was reference in one episode to Carl having a wife and children.

Also, I think there was reference in one episode to Carl having a wife and children.
That vaguely rings a bell, I think. But remember the episode where Lenny ends up in a burning circle of oil and wants to die? He changes his , exclaiming "Carl Carlson!" as Carl descends on a rope from the helicopter.

He changes his mind...

It was the episode where they all go to the Superbowl, it turns out Carl had a Superbowl ring but says he gave it to his wife.

Ah, the one where all the men let their belts out because they thought there'd be no women on the coach, only to find that there was, so they suck it all back in. I love that scene.