LGBTQ+ Love Affairs Throughout History
Why it is important to discuss “straight-washed” historical figures
By Ali Wagman, Contributing Writer
I always had a fascination with learning about history, especially when I began to develop a more nuanced picture of a world I thought I knew so much about. This perspective was enhanced when I started to consider famous love affairs throughout history and thought, where was the queer romance? With the stigma that being queer has had throughout time, historians may have believed they were improving historical figures’ legacies by not including the entirety of their identities. The answer to my question appeared when I began to discover how many people kept their queerness hidden through affairs. Taking a closer look at paintings, sonnets and letters, it is revealed that homosexuality was more common throughout history than textbooks could ever provide.
Michelangelo, the Italian sculptor responsible for works such as Pieta, David and the Sistine Chapel, had an affair with Tommaso de Calieri, a young Roman nobleman he met in the summer of 1532. He used to give Calieri many drawings. One of them was titled “The Fogg Ganymed,” which was a portrayal of a young shepherd swooning for an eagle. This has been linked with the first sonnet Michelangelo wrote to Calieri, when he said, “If one soul in two bodies is made eternal, raising both to heaven with a similar wing” (Garrard). Another work gifted to Calieri was “Tityus,” which portrays the famous story in Roman mythology of Jupiter’s eagle as a vulture preying on Tityus’s liver. According to art historian Mary D. Garrard, these two paintings represent Michelangelo’s tortured love (Garrard, 24).
Another well-known artist, Frida Kahlo, explored the idea of overlapping identities in many different respects, one of them being sexuality. She was mixed race, and she often explored gender fluidity. Her work uncovered how one person’s identity is derived from binary opposites that interact, as well as the idea of “betweenness” (Haynes, 1). For example, the painting, “The Two Fridas,” contains two different versions of herself, one of them containing a drop of blood. This is a representation of the idea of “mestizo” in Mexican culture, which states that someone with one drop of ‘negro blood’ is black (Haynes, 11). Haynes explains how for Frida, “mestizo” and bisexuality relate when considering social hierarchies, as those who are “between” two identities can pass for what is hegemonic. Kahlo’s sexuality is also depicted in her drawing “The ‘Exquisite Corpse,’” which is a satirical portrayal of her relationship with her husband Diego Riviera. Kahlo has a masculine expression, as well as male genitalia, and Diego has breasts and feminine legs. She also had many affairs with other men and women during her marriage, and she even wrote a love letter to French painter Jacqueline Lamba (Haynes, 11).
There are even some well-known people in American history who were rumored to have been bisexual,
including founding father Alexander Hamilton. Historian Ron Chernow discussed the many letters exchanged between soldier John Laurens and Hamilton. Chernow didn’t confirm that they had an affair, but he did explain how Hamilton had more open ideas about sexuality than many other founding fathers and may have had something resembling an adolescent crush on Laurens (Chernow, 95).
Eleanor Roosevelt is one American figure who had a confirmed affair with someone of the same gender. In her article, “The Love Affair That Shaped a First Lady,” Stacy Schiff wrote about Roosevelt’s relationship with Lorena Hickock, an award-winning political journalist. Roosevelt was impressed by Hickock’s wit and direct style of writing. A 1980 biography of Hickock once bypassed their correspondence as a “belated schoolgirl crush,” however, this was not the case. Roosevelt and Hickock (or as Roosevelt began to call her, Hick) exchanged 10-page to 15-page intimate letters for six years. In one letter Hick wrote, “I want to put my arms around you and kiss you at the corner of your mouth” (Schiff, 2016).
To me, the legacies of these figures are enhanced by their perspectives on sexuality, as they really showed how they were ahead of their time. Although the LGBTQ+ community is more accepted by society now, the idea of “coming out” is still so intimidating, and many people continue to deny their queerness. Heterosexual love seems to dominate history, but part of normalizing LGBTQ+ romance today is to look at history and acknowledge how queer people have always been there; they just weren’t visible.
Looking at these historical figures, we can consider all of their accomplishments and recognize how their sexuality was far from the most important thing about them. It is important to shed a light on queer figures of the past in order to make queer people today feel seen and to remind them that they are represented by people who have contributed so much to our culture.
Sources:
Garrard, M. D. (2014). Michelangelo in Love: Decoding the “Children’s Bacchanal.” The Art Bulletin. 96(1), 24–49.
Chernow, R. (2004). Alexander Hamilton. Penguin Press.
Haynes, A. (2006). Frida Kahlo: An Artist 'In Between'. Identity and Marginality, eSharp, 6(2).
Schiff, S. (2016). The Woman in Eleanor Roosevelt’s Life. The Washington Post.