History and Sexual Orientation

[MrFun]

For my Historical Methods course (level 400), I am trying to decide between two topics for my thesis paper, and one of those is this:

Was President Buchanan homosexual?

It seems that no one knows what sexual orientation President Buchanan was.
Andrew Jackson teased him about his "preference" with a nickname (wish I remembered what that nickname was), Buchanan supposedly slept with a future vice president, and Buchanan maintained correspondence with another man over letters, that were much more intimate than usual between two men.

So I do not know what his sexual orientation was. Was he homosexual, heterosexual, or bisexual??
Maybe if I did more investigation, I can decide whether ot not, I can argue with confidence, that he was a homosexual.

And what about all other famous historical men and women who lived from the ancient era, owards, whose sexual orientation to this day, remains shrouded in mystery??
How could anyone ever find out, without letting political motivations lead them to argue without solid evidence, that the person was gay or straight?

[loinburger]

Don't do a paper on Buchanan, he was a flop for a president. If you could show that Tamerlane was a homosexual then you'd be on to something.

[Heresson]

Well, frederick the Great was probably gay...
I think that Stanis?aw August Poniatowski before He became
the lover of Katherine the Great had a very intimate relationship with one Englishmen...
Henry Valois, the king of Poland and France, liked young boys...
In Russia, recently there was an action against a book in which xxx scenes with Stalin and Chruszczow f.e. were
involved.... Complete fiction and cheap sensation, but
it may interest You then...

[DinoDoc]

1) Buchanan is hardly well known and wasn't that good of a President.

2) Aren't there more important people that you could waste time trying to out? It seems like that would be among the least important things about a person from a historical standpoint.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

An interesting one is Edward the Confessor, one of England's most famous kings and for a few centuries England's patron saint. His sexuality is queried- some link him to one of Earl Godwin's sons.

[Thucydides]

hmm, from what I understand there's fairly good evidence that Richard the Lion-Hearted was homosexual, if that's any help.

[Adalbertus]

MrFun, maybe more for language geeks, but you might try to filter out the suppresssed homosexuality from Karl May's (German writer) books.

[Ned]

Julius Ceasar was supposed to like boys as much as girls.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Drop the gay stuff and come at history, the White House, and sexuality from a different angle: Peter Lawford once famously said of Nancy Reagan that "she gave the best head in Hollywood." Was it true? Why not find out!

[Felch]

Alexander the Great

Edward the Confessor makes sense. Was he the king before Harold and William the Bastard?

[devilmunchkin]

to help you decide ask yourself this:
1) can your questions be answered
2) what significance does this have to..well....anything..how is this important?

[MrFun]

Originally posted by devilmunchkin
to help you decide ask yourself this:
1) can your questions be answered
2) what significance does this have to..well....anything..how is this important?

How is it important?
I just want to find out the truth -- was Buchanan heterosexual, homosexual, or bisexual?
After all, how can you get to know a historical figure more, if you don't know a part of their identity?
Not to mention that we need to start including homosexuals in world history.


In spite of Buchanan being a less-than medicore president, I chose him, because he seems to be the only past American president whose sexual orientation is seriously in question.

I will not venture into any topic choice outside of the United States, as my research will require access to primary sources.
Sorry Euro fanatics.

[loinburger]

After all, how can you get to know a historical figure more, if you don't know a part of their identity?

That may be, but why in blue blazes would you want to know more about Buchanan?

[MrFun]

Maybe for the same or similar reasons that other historians have researched and written about Buchanan.

Unless you can find a more prominent president, whose sexual orientation was/is in question.

[MrWhereItsAt]

Greek/Roman is a whole different idea altogether. It was less homosexual in the modern way (whilst still being it), and more about men/boys. This form of love was in some thought (can't remember whose though - Plato?) purer than man-woman love, since both were male in this case. It was also a social arrangement of sorts, where the man would up the boy's social status by introducing him to the privileged circles within which he circulated, and the boy would, um, reciprocate somehow.