male-male sex acts in early U.S.

On July 25, author William Benemann was to discuss his new book,
" MALE-MALE INTIMACY IN EARLY AMERICA:
Beyond Romantic Friendships",
on homosexual activity (NOT orientation) in the lives of American men
in the colonial period and in the early years of the new republic.
....
Unfortunately, much of his talk concerned the process of writing the book, rewriting it,
and getting it published
-- topics of interest to writers and wannabee writers,
but irrelevant to most readers.
As a fan of social and sexual history,
I'm eager to read the book itself.
........

For now, despite my current ignorance of the book's contents,
let me flail away at "early America":

Like most of the July 25 audience ( almost all male, mostly past forty, presumably queer),
I like to IMAGINE that I can understand the Victorian Era (roughly 1837 to 1901 --
starring Lincoln, Twain, Darwin, Huxley, Marx, Freud, and the widowed Queen herself).
We speak of preserving "Victorian" houses (even if some of these may be technically Edwardian).
We know that the concept of "homosexuality", and the idea that each adult has a "sexual orientation",
was invented in Victorian times, as part of the "medical model" of queerness.
We read novels written in Victorian times; and pseudo-Victorian novels written later.
Victorians SEEM somewhat similar to people we know --
just more bigoted, repressed, snobbish and over-civilized.
......
And if you ask me to imagine colonial America, before 1776, I see it as part of the Middle Ages
-- symbolized by the Salem "witch" trials, and the Puritans preaching hellfire. One imagines the death penality for male-male sex acts.
Yuck! Only the Quakers, and the future revolutionists, look like heroes to me.
My prejudiced stereotype may not match reality, but it's firmly fixed.
......

But in between 1776 and the Victorian Era, there's a transition known as
"the early Republic", or the young Republic, which is neither colonial nor Victorian.
Starring Washington, Franklin, Paine, Hamilton, Jefferson, and Adams,
this period has been a blank space in queer history,
until the publication of Benemann's book.
The most famous queer in America seems to be Baron von Steuben (1730- 1794),
a German-born general in the American Revolution, who leaves his estate to two men.

Politically, it begins with the American Revolution, and ends with the inauguration of Andrew Jackson as President (1829). During this period, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights are accepted,
the national republic becomes permanent (instead of turning into a monarchy, or splitting into several small countries), and the new nation becomes much larger -- all under elite leaders of the Revolution.
The first six presidents are, on average, more aristocratic, better educated, and LESS religious (!)
than the average male citizen. At first, deism and Unitarianism seem to be tolerated, among the educated elite; while the ignorant masses flock to evangelistic "revivals" of Protestantism.
................................

Benemann's NEXT book will be about same-sex behavior (not "orientation") in the 1830s and 1840s. In these Jacksonian decades, most whites focus on making money ( by capitalism in the North, and by feudalism in the South), and on stealing land from Native American "Indian" tribes.
Yet, dissenting and/or deviating, "bohemians" appear in New York City, along with places for queer men to meet; while "transcendentalist" progressives and utopians -- starring Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry Thoreau -- promote culture and demand freedom; etc.
At the very end of the 1840s, San Francisco will be colonized by adventurers, European progressives, bohemians, whores and queers (including Richard Heny Stoddard, 1825-1903, a friend of Twain).
. ..................................

I wanted to blogiverate at length about queer behaviors (acts)
versus "orientations".


But, after 11PM,
I'm too tired.
So make it up yourself!

-- Tortuga Bi LIBERTY,
in San Franhattan

25 July 2006
......