by Julia Garro
Since the gay liberation movement came into its own late in the last century, there have been various attempts made to identify past homosexual figures and behaviours throughout human history. These attempts have been undertaken for various reasons: to establish the legitimacy and "naturalness" of homosexuality, to build a sense of collective history, to counter negative contemporary stereotypes and to provide positive role models where often none existed.
Oscar Wilde, Ludwig von Beethoven, Peter Tchaichovsky, Leonardo da Vinci, Emily Dickinson, Amelia Earhart, Florence Nightingale, Peter The Great, Catherine The Great, Eleanor Roosevelt, Bessie Smith, Leo Tolstoy, Rudolph Valentino, Walt Whitman; the list of historical figures we'd like to claim as our own goes on and on.
But part of the problem with trying to pull queers out of the past is that sexual identity as we understand it—and indeed sexuality itself—isn't a concept that has been universally understood over the centuries. Identities like bisexual, lesbian and gay are relatively new concepts, and the idea of sexual identity is one that is still evolving. So while one could say that particular figures had sexual or romantic affairs with both men and women, it wouldn't necessarily be correct to say that they were bisexual.
The other big problem is the lack of conclusive evidence, which complicates trying to identify prominent figures of the past as having had affections/attractions for both men and women. Not only does one have to show that the individual in question had relationships with both genders, there's the added question of how genuine those relationships were. Cole Porter, for example, is believed to have been exclusively attracted to men, despite his long-lived and marriage to Linda Thomas.
"They had an extremely symbiotic relationship," tells Raymond-Jean Frontain, a professor of Engish at the University Of Central Arkansas, "but there's no evidence that there was a sexual expression of that relationship."
Although it wouldn't be fair to call it a marriage of convenience—Cole showed genuine emotional attachment to Linda—it's doubtful that the two would have ever married had society been more accepting of homosexuality during their lifetimes.
But for bisexual folks looking for archival assurances of their multiple-gender preference, there are some historical figures who continue to speak to the bi experience. Here's a random sampling.
JAMES BALDWIN (1924 -1987)
"The truth about the past is not that it is too brief, or too superficial, but only that we, having turned our faces so resolutely away from it, have never demanded from it what it has to give," wrote US novelist James Baldwin in his essay A Question Of Identity.
Although known primarily for his vivid explorations of the black American experience, many of Baldwin's works explored the complexities of loving multiple genders. Both subjects reflected the truths of his own life.
"A lot of his work deals with characters who are bisexual," says Frontain. "The novel [Another Country] was just scandalous when it came out, and that was the text that defined him. Bisexual, interracial—it was really a kaleidoscope of sexual relations."
In addition to his fiction, Baldwin wrote numerous essays and cultural criticisms and was a persistent advocate of queer and civil rights. "He was fighting against societal preconceptions in terms of sexuality and race as well," says Frontain.
One of Baldwin's primary convictions was that homophobia is a fear of sex itself. "I doubt that Americans will ever be able to face the fact that the word 'homosexual' is not a noun," he wrote in the essay The Price Of A Ticket. "The root of this word, as Americans use it — or, as this word uses Americans_simply involves a terror of any human touch, since any human touch can change you.
Although he is thought to have been more strongly attracted to men than to women, Baldwin's chosen biographer and long-time friend David Leeming, recorded Baldwin's sexual relations with both women and men. Publicly, Baldwin didn't want to be confined by any particular label.
"I didn't have a word for it. The only one I had was 'homosexual' and that didn't quite cover whatever it was I was beginning to feel," Baldwin told the Village Voice in 1984. "Even when I began to realize things about myself, began to suspect who I was and what I was likely to become, it was still very personal, absolutely personal. It was really a matter between me and God. I would have to live the life he had made me to live."
ALEXANDER THE GREAT (356-323 BCE)
Alexander The Great, famed Macedonian king and conqueror of the ancient world, had two great loves in his life, both of them men. He also had three wives and at least one mistress.
"He's a pretty obvious case of someone who really did have affection for both men and women," says Gayle Gibson, an Egyptologist at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto.
Alexander's interest in men was established early on in his life. At that time it wasn't uncommon for teenaged, Greek males to have sexual relationships with other boys or older men. Hephaestion was a boyhood friend of Alexander's who went on to become his constant companion and a general in his army.
"The relationship wasn't ambiguous," says Gibson. "They were lovers when they were young and they were always the closest people in the others' lives."
The nature of their relationship was debated even during Alexander's lifetime, with the main question being who was the top and who was the bottom. Although it wasn't common for grown men of similar age and social status to be sexually intimate, it's likely that allowances were made for Alexander because of his unique position as a heroic and often God-like figure.
In addition, Alexander had a long-lasting affair with a Persian eunuch Named Bagoas. Although this caused more of a stir than his relationship to Hephaestion, it is thought that this is primarily because Bagoas was Persian, and not because he was male.
What's more difficult to prove is the truth of Alexander's relationships to the women in his life. As a young man his parents feared that he wasn't interested in women at all.
"His mother and father actually hired a very fancy courtesan to sleep with him and nothing happened. They were really worried about him," says Gibson.
The main source of their concern was that Alexander would not sire sons to carry on his royal line. After some external pressure, Alexander did eventually marry Roxane, Stateira and Parysatis. Although he sired two sons with his wives, it's unclear whether or not he was genuinely interested in any of them or whether these were strictly state marriages.
The strongest indication that Alexander was attracted to women was in his behaviour towards his mistress, Barsine.
"Alexander... sought no intimacy with any one of them," wrote the Roman historian Plutarch in 75ACE of Alexander's behaviour towards the women taken in his conquests as war prizes. "Nor indeed with any other women before marriage, except Barsine, Memnon's widow, who was taken prisoner at Damascus."
"She is a war prize. In a way she can't say no," says Gibson. "But that he chooses her and keeps her does seem to say there's some kind of affection. He didn't need to keep her for more than just a night."
VIRGINIA WOOLF (1882-1941)
Renowned English novelist and essayist, Virginia Woolf is a figure whose sexuality is simultaneously thought to have been flexible and nonexistent. While it is clear from her own letters and diaries that Woolf was romantically attracted to both men and women, it is somewhat less clear how sexually attracted she was to either gender.
Woolf, author of such transgressive literary works as Orlando and The Waves, was one of the central figures of London's Bloomsbury group — a social and intellectual circle that challenged artistic and sexual conventions of the day. As Woolf told the London Memoir Club in 1922, "Sex permeated our conversation. The word 'bugger' was never far from our lips." The circle, described by Richard Kaye in the anthology The Gay And Lesbian Literary Heritage as "a sun-dappled Brook Farm for bisexual transcendentalists," included the likes of novelist E. M. Forster, historian Lytton Strachey and economist John Maynard Keynes.
But while Woolf was intellectually open to the complexities of sex and sexuality and had numerous affairs of the heart with both men and women, she was tentative in her sexual relationships. Her biographer and nephew Quentin Bell told of her "deep aversion to lust," citing her childhood sexual abuse by her two half-brothers as the source of her apprehension towards sex as well as her intrinsic nature.
"I think that the erotic element in her personality was faint and tenuous," wrote Bell in Woolf's biography. "She regarded sex, not so much with horror, as with incomprehension."
Nevertheless, Virginia nee Stephens was married to Leonard Woolf in 1912. In her diaries and letters Virginia wrote of her great love and affection for Leonard, calling them "the happiest couple in England" and crediting him with "the greatest possible happiness." Although their sexual relationship was thought to have been somewhat lacking, there is no doubt as to the depth of Virginia's romantic feelings for her husband.
They remained dedicated to each other until her suicide in 1941. They were partners in both life and literature, founding the Hogarth press together in 1917 which published the bulk of her works.
Woolf was also known to have had several intense friendships with women, although her only sexual relationship with a woman is believed to have been with fellow novelist Vita Sackville-West, wife of British MP Harold Nicolson The two met in 1922, introduced by Woolf's brother-in-law Clive Bell.
"These Sapphists love women," wrote Woolf at the beginning of her affair with Sackville-West in 1925. "Friendship is never untinged with amorosity."
Sackville-West became the inspiration for Woolf's novel Orlando, the fictional biography of an English aristocrat who is transformed from male to female. Published in 1928, one of Sackville-West's sons, Nigel Nicolson described the novel as being "the longest and most charming love letter in literature."
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Julia Garro is the associate editor of Xtra Magazine, Toronto's leading gay publication.
