Shakespeare and Homosexuality

ON SHAKESPEARE - by G.L. Horton

GK writes: Do we? Personally, I have no idea how the Elizabethans reacted to homosexuality or bisexuality. Do you?

and PC replies: Yes. They reacted with horror. When a sailor was found in another's bunk, both were executed almost immediately. The type of reaction is entirely consistent with what we know of the reaction of almost all pre-modern western societies. There are plenty of countries in the world today with that standard reaction. Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, etc.

Haven't we been down this road before???

Check the library -- there are books by experts maintaining that homo or bisexuality was rampant in this period. They may be mistaken, or you may be: but they certainly marshall more evidence than this of yours! Men slept with other men all the time. Beds were built to hold more than one person, unheated rooms depended on shared body heat for warmth, and a personal bedroom was a rarity: from boyhood to marriage a man or woman shared beds with siblings, friends, servants, fellow pages or 'prentices... and as for what went on there, well, we have Iago's account of bunking with his fellow officer Cassio.

"Self-abuse" was a sin and a crime, sex outside of marriage was a sin and a crime, birth control was difficult or impossible, divorce or re-marriage after desertion was a sin and a crime, the recent overthrow of the Church of Rome had shaken up old notions of what was and what wasn't "natural' and sanctioned-- what do you think people DID, sexually?

Do you seriously contend that because some homosexuals have been executed in Egypt and Afghanistan, that there are no people who practice same-sex love, and no poets who praise it? Where do you get such an opinion? On whose authority? (04/01/02)

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