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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (May 20, 2005)
BOOKS ▼ The Intimate World off Abraham Lincoln Welcome home, Abe byC.A. Tripp; Free Press, 2004; $27.95 hardcover Kinsey researcher unearths compelling evidence that President Lincoln’s ax swung both ways he ill-named “right wing” didn’t like it when Thomas Jefferson was outed for sleep ing—and producing children—with one of his slaves. They also weren’t happy when lefty professor Martin Bernal made a strong case in Black Athena that the Greek ideal worshipped by the West had its ori gins in Africa. In the Jef ferson case, DNA nailed the case and silenced the 'Sri ; skeptics. In the Bernal case, reactionary scholars made fools of themselves trying to counter the apparently abhorrent idea that black Africans were the real source of Western culture. Now the right has a new worry—it turns out that “Honest” Abe Lin coln may have been queer. This isn’t actually a new idea. Even the standard worshipful biographies by rhe likes of Carl Sandburg mentioned Lincoln’s “streak of lavender and spots soft as May violets.” But C.A. Tripp, the Kinsey researcher known for his breakthrough 1975 book The Homo- sexual Matrix, spent 10 years researching rhe question from every angle. The results are documented in The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln, finished just before Tripp’s death. The evidence here, based on exhaus tive, focused research on the elusive topic of Lincoln’s “intimate life,” is com pelling. We’re not talking about a smok ing gun; it’s more a persuasive composite portrait that slides Abe comfortably toward the homo end of the Kinsey scale. (He had four children with Mary Todd, but of course we all know gay fathers.) Tripp demolishes much of the myth of Lincoln’s heterosexuality. Abe’s sup posed lifelong pining away for Ann Rutledge (who died early) is decisively proven to be a fabrication of Lincoln’s law partner, William Hemdon, that was happily perpetuated by later biographers. Abe’s marriage to the demented Mary This regal couple sat for Todd was a disaster he was constantly Wilkes in 1885. T THE INTIMATE WORLD OF . ABRAHAM I LINCOLN eatingout eatingout eatingout by G ary M orris trying to escape from—most intriguingly by bedding down with the captain of his body guards, David Derickson, when Mary was away. (This didn’t go unnoticed; Derick- son’s Anny captain mentioned it in his memoirs, shocked that Derickson was even “making use of his excellency’s night shirts!”) Even Lincoln’s stepmother weighed in on the subject after his death: “He was not very fond of girls.” We learn that Lincoln entered puberty early—in Kinsey terms a hint of future homosexuality. Abe apparent ly had no verifiable teen-age hetero romances and was apoplectic at the prospect of marriage (well documented in his letters). He scandalized listeners with dirty jokes, which often carried anal references. He even wrote a queer poem about two boys get ting married (“But Billy has married a boy”) that also contains a reference to a “low crotch”—in modem parlance, a big dick. More substantively, Tripp delves into the prez’s many “special friends” like Joshua Speed, who slept in Abe’s bed for four years. Hetero commentators have seized on this as “typical” queer overreaching, saying that two men in bed in the 1800s was not necessarily, or even usually, gay. But four years is a long time for two straight men to be snuggling up, and these two shared their most intimate secrets in pas sionate letters, with Abe signing off with “Yours forever.” Tripp also identifies a string of previously unidentified male companions, one of whom, Billy Greene, admired Abe’s ----- physique enthusiastically, telling Hem don that the president’s thighs “were as perfect as a human being could be.” Reactionaries and homophobes notwith standing, perhaps it’s time to say, “Welcome home, Abe.” Dear Friends: American Photographs off Men Together 1840-1918 by David Deitcher; Harry N. Abrams, 2005; $17.95 softcover avid Deitcher’s photographic study Dear Friends: American Photographs of Men Together, 1840-1918 makes a dandy com panion to Tripp’s Ixxsk. Deitcher, who adds a thoughtful text to the gallery, is not looking to prove anything—simply to tantalize contempo rary readers with images of men from a long- vanished era showing affection to each other. The men in these tintypes, daguerreotypes and other early photographic formats aren’t being presented in the book as gay, but as anonymous average joes whose sexuality isn’t known. They appear in various loving poses, hands on each other’s knees, arms inter twined, hold DEAR FRIENDS ing hands, cud dling, gazing affectionate ly—one might say romantical ly—at each other. These ph o- tos—which include a star tling image of a bunch of .. *«e cowpokes get - ting all inti mate at a “stag dance”—reveal an era appar ently much more hos pitable to male bonding and perhaps more than cliches of the “nigged frontier” and its rigid gender roles would have us believe. The fact that the identity of most of the subjects is unknown supports the book’s idea that loving male friendships were widespread and accepted at the time. Whether that translates into the i homoerotic is perhaps best decided by the beholder. & photographer D.J. eatingout “Just a foolish picture," reads the inscription on this 1907 image. eatingout eatingout G ary M orris spends his spare time trying to make his thighs look as fetching as Abe Lincoln’s. eatingout eatingout eatingout S pice up Y our N ights ! Dinner, Drinks and Everything Else Lunch. Dinner 8 After Hours Dining till 04:00 AM Happy Hour 3:00 PM-6:00 PM 8 11:00 PM-0l:00AM Casual dining - One of the largest outside seating areas in Portland Monday-Thursday 11:00 AM till 02:30 AM Friday-Saturday 11:00 AM till 04:00 AM III SW Ash St.. Portland. OR 97204 (503) 227-3764 4
