That’s literally a joke in a scene in the film, Without a Paddle.
No links, because of the double whammy of homophobia and the use of an R Kelly song.
(That bit did NOT hold up well at all.)
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In public health circles they talk about “men who have sex with men” (MSM) rather than describing people as “gay”, “homosexual”, or whatever. For public health purposes, it’s more useful to describe an objectively-observable behavior than a subjective or self-assigned orientation or preference.
One woman I know scathingly described two of her colleagues as MSA – “men who’ll have sex with anything”. Lincoln might have been an MSA.
Or he might not. Sharing a bed with members of the same sex has been common throughout history. Some who were so inclined doubtless took advantage of the opportunity; others probably didn’t, nor ever imagined that they might want to.
All the possible combinations of desires for others have doubtless existed throughout history, in every age and every culture. I tend to assume that they probably existed in broadly the same proportions as today, i.e. if 10% of men today are specifically attracted to other men as sexual partners, then probably about that proportion experienced similar attractions at any other point in history. Societal attitudes might nudge the percentages a few points either way: if the society you live in strongly condemns homosexuality, not only are you much less likely to express your preference, but, in some cases, people may not even conceive of it as a possible option; conversely, in a more permissive society, not only will same-sex relationships and activity be more common, but more people may realize that that’s what they want.
The 10% figure comes from Kinsey (and has been subject to re-analysis and reinterpretation, so I don’t know if it’s still considered reliable). Kinsey found, however, that a large percentage of males had had experience of sexual relations with other men, even if they weren’t primarily attracted to men: orientation vs. behavior again.
Kinsey’s figure for men who had had participated in sexual contact to orgasm with other men was 37%, so – assuming consistent percentages – you have an immediate one-third chance that Lincoln had bumped uglies with one of his snugglebuddies at some point. I would suspect that, given that opportunities for MSM activity were greater (frequent bed-sharing with male partners) and opportunities for MSW activity were lower (societal policing of morals discouraging out-of-wedlock heterosexual activity), occasional MSM behavior might have been more common in Lincoln’s day than in ours.
It’s a pity that we don’t – as far as I know – have any really good historical data. I suspect that even people who kept diaries tended to leave those particular details out of their notes, either because it was No Big Deal (“Dear Diary, bedded down with Tom again, and we jerked each other off before going to sleep, as you do”) or because it was taboo (“Dear Diary, did the unmentionable deed with Tom once more, parson tells me I shall assuredly go to Hell”).
Anyway, it seems perfectly plausible that Lincoln had sexual experiences with other men (also plausible that he didn’t). What I don’t know is whether this would have made him an outlier, and whether it was something that he specifically desired, or something that he indulged in more opportunistically. I’m sure the documentary has a position on these questions, but I don’t know whether there’s enough evidence to be certain one way or another.
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I think Lincoln made his own choices and that Mary Todd never held him back or weighed him down. If anything, she pushed him constantly to be more ambitious. People are very complicated and having mental illness does not preclude immoral behavior, like embezzlement and theft.
Burlingame could not have possibly invented the quantity of primary sources he provides in his books, which are exhaustive. But I also wouldn’t describe him as petty or vindictive. Like, I don’t remember ever getting the sense that she was a bad mother. If anything it seemed like one of the things that she was good at. He talks about how attentive she was when William and his brother had typhoid, and her depthless grief when William died. And he investigates her family history of mental illness. Furthermore, he doesn’t pull any punches about Lincoln’s misdeeds early in his life (like his deeply racist anonymous editorials written in the voice of a former slave, or killing his father’s dog by sewing it into the fresh skin of animal he and his step* brother had hunted).
THAT SAID, I do apologize for being too insulting in my description of her. Maybe the narrator was doing a lot of work and it was a year ago. I would recommend reading it and drawing your own conclusions, but it’s a massive set of books.
And I’ve expressed my concerns about that, as a historian… Just because a primary source says a thing doesn’t prove a thing. Not taking into account the misogyny of the era seems a huge problem there.
But what if his sources are. Not like there wasn’t plenty of this kind of shit aimed at women in the 19th (and today).
That was one of this claims, though. Which I noted from that review. He seems to lean into all sort of traditional assumptions about men and women, without really questioning them.
Was never a problem from my 10 years of grad school…
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Seems like the opportunity for “Our Nation’s Tallest President Sleeps with Everyone” fanfic is…achem…very fertile indeed (if this fanfic exists and you have recommendations my DM line is open).
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I don’t think she seduced him; he seemed perfectly willing. At 33, he certainly understood how babies are made. That’s why I said, “he couldn’t help himself” which was meant to be fairly tongue in cheek.
I don’t personally believe women are capable of trapping men with pregnancies. But I believe Lincoln would (and did) have done the right thing under the circumstances (for his time, obviously). If he made a mistake here, it was simply in being involved with her in the first place. Although her behavior and character are more of a matter of debate than I realized, which I concede I am not really qualified to address.
I can’t do all the pull quotes comfortably on my phone, which makes it difficult to respond to them individually. I am seriously not trying to insult you.
I’m suggesting that the book reviewer themself may not be wholly fair to Burlingame’s scholarship, but that reading the book yourself just to develop your own impressions is probably unnecessary. As in, I am not that invested in defending the author. I am only offering my impressions in contrast to those you’ve shared with me.
I’m not equipped to evaluate all of Burlingame’s sources—if you want that to be your next thesis, that’s awesome. I’m an artist with crippling depression and anxiety and probably somewhere on AUDHD spectrum struggling to do daily shit. It’s why I gave up on my pursuit of linguistics and anthropology (and later college altogether when my anxiety became so extreme I stopped leaving my apartment for two months. I basically wasted the rest of my twenties hiding from the world). But hey, I’m also an extremely curious person, a rabid feminist, a skeptic, and a secular humanist. Just trying to exist in a space with people who are curious, decent, and reasonably intelligent because I’m stuck in rural Oregon without a whole lot of people to talk to. Someone once asked me if I’m a scientist because I knew about oak galls. 
But hey, no one owes me shit.
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I’m waiting for the Chuck Tingle treatment: “Pounded In The Butt During A Sleepover By The Great Emancipator, President Abraham Lincoln”.
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There still are not rigidly defined categories except as social constructs. I hate to bring up clouds and boxes again, but it has always been so, and always shall be. It’s all ln a continuum, and any attempt to turn that into a binary is hopeless.
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Lincoln’s Appalachian cousins refer to Lincoln’s biographer and law partner as “Darlin’ Billy”.
I’m not really sure how this turned into me being the asshole, but I guess that’s where we are… typical.
Have a good day.
Not sure WTF you’re on about.
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Tingled TFY
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The word “gay” didn’t have any homosexual connotations until the early-to-mid 20th century. I don’t doubt that Von Steuben was homosexual, but this isn’t evidence of it.
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I much appreciate that, too! Before I started transitioning, it was easy to mistake my nesting partner and I for a heterosexual couple. We have a home together, joint bank accounts, all that stuff. If that was the only observation some historian had of us 160 years from now they’d undoubtedly assign us straight, cis, monogamous, and married – none of which would be accurate for us! (And I know so many others who at a glance would be classified in much the same way.)
Add this onto the long history (please excuse the pun) of “they were close friends” for any possible non-het relationship and I start taking claims of the orientation of historical figures with a grain of salt. Yes, I do think Lincoln was likely queer (as we understand the term now) in some way, but there’s little to no evidence of how he would have classified himself or his relationships with these men.
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Absolutely!
First, I love the ‘describe the behavior, not the person’ that has already been mentioned. The only truly valid label is the one you give yourself. (One of my metamours is a cis woman who has been with my cis female partner longer than I have. As far as I know she still considers herself straight, just with one exception.)
Even there, I don’t think of them as labels, they are more like refrigerator magnets. I’m feeling “this” right now and I’m going to put it on and see how it fits, how I like it with the other magnets up there. It may stay for decades, I may eventually decide it doesn’t really work for me anymore, at which point I’m free to remove it. It was never wrong, it just doesn’t fit on me like it once did.
If I can throw in one more analogy – describing a personal identity is like telling someone where you live. To people with no knowledge of queer identities, I say I’m queer. (If they want more info, I’ll tell them, but it may be lost on them.) If I’m telling someone in Italy where I live, I’m usually just going to say the United States of America. The more knowledge they have of your situation, the more accurate you can be in your terms.
Edit: corrected to “has been with” – my nesting partner is still with that metamour!
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I think you should throw around demi-fae more, just on the basis of sheer fabulousness. But yes, in my mind, the only folks that your “category” should matter to is you and whomever you are attracted to. Other than these people, why does it matter? I’ve tols the story about my first “coming out” experience, but to recap:
Him: “I need to tell that I am gay.”
Me: (Chief resident, exhausted from finally finishing the schedule) “Are you in love with me?”
Him: (Startled) “No!”
Me: “Do your people have a special holiday you need off for?”
Him: “No!”
Me: “So, why does it matter to me?”
I was too tired to worry about being blunt, but have tried to use a similar approach in my following experiences. I usually do my best thinking when I am not thinking!
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(Couldn’t find a purple haired version!)
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This seems like a really nice analogy. Describing these things as labels or boxes can make it seem like they are inherently limiting, and it might be better not to have them, like with so many of the stupid generational labels. But I’ve seen that people also can sometimes get real value from them, because they describe different ways to be that they may not have realized they could do.
I’ve thought of them as kind of like Lego instructions. If you already know you want to build a spaceship then you might not want to follow them, but if all you see is a pile of pieces then they’re a wonderful place to start. Yours is…probably a simpler description.
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In Victorian England, “gay” was slang for “engaged in prostitution”. Hence the famous John Leech cartoon:
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