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Archiver > GEN-MEDIEVAL > 2002-03 > 1016998230


From: "Todd A. Farmerie" <>
Subject: Re: Phillip and Richard
Date: Sun, 24 Mar 2002 12:30:30 -0700
References: <d3.104d29f4.27b5e0b3@aol.com> <016a01c095d0$e5ce1b80$84e8dcc2@alex> <a7ivjn$fj5$1@aristotelis.cytanet.com.cy> <3.0.6.32.20020324085832.008dfbd0@ishipress.com>


Sam Sloan wrote:

> At 11:59 PM 3/23/2002 -0700, Todd A. Farmerie wrote:
>
>>They still were
>>children, husbands, wives, parents and ancestors of the same
>>people, so no purpose is served by discussing it in this group.
>
> I agree with everything TAF says except for the last clause.
>
> I think that knowing that "Richard the Lion Hearted" may have been
> homosexual helps us at least to remember these events of history and
> genealogy, just as does knowing that his brother King John had many
> mistresses and children, which I did not know before I joined this group.


Except the presence of known and recognized illegitimate children
demonstrates this. There is no document that demonstrates
Richard was homosexual, and all arguments will be based on modern
concepts of sexuality, which were not the same at that time.
Thus you can't possibly know that Richard was or wasn't
homosexual, if the term can even be applied - all you can know is
that some modern righter has thrown together the data to appear
consistent with a modern version of homosexuality (usually by
ignoring, intentionally or otherwise, the obvious medieval
alternative interpretations).

> Also, outing him eight hundred years after he died hardly hurts his
> reputation.


How will you feel when someone 'outs' you 800 years from now as,
say, a technosexual (one that has sex with computers)? (probably
happy just to be noticed 800 years from now, but you get the
idea) In a hypothetical future world 800 years from now, the
concept of human-computer intercourse may be part of the range of
human sexuality, the act being called interfacing This would in
turn lead those with an interest in the history of the practice
to identify 20th and 21st century 'interfacers', including you
and I, while such arguments would be refuted by talk of the use
of "power supplies". This very post will turn up, and it will be
used confirm your lifestyle choice by those who think you were,
and used to refute it by those who think you weren't.

The point is not that his reputation will be harmed, but that
identifying someone as a homosexual or not is a modern
phenomenon, and applies modern assumptions to medieval texts that
probably had entirely different meanings, or represented the
loose or slanderous talk of contemporaries. Both sides of the
argument do this, and we know no more about Richard's sexuality
than when the whole thing started.

That is why it is pointless, in addition to being off-topic.
(Finally, I won't deny that I am trying to head of the rolling
thread of which historical personages were and were not gay, to
which I don't think anyone here, myself included, can contribute
intellegently. Typically, certain posters take advantage of such
a thread to push their own disruptive agendas, either by
crossposting or just posting something obnoxious.)

taf


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