Alexander Hamilton Gay? Who knew?

Not sure if he was gay or not. But I do remember reading that men used to be much more forthcoming showing affection, even among straight men. The current restrain between bros is a relatively new development from the second half of the last century. Maybe a fellow DLer has more/better info on this.

[quote]Maybe a fellow DLer has more/better info on this.

Ya think?

I'm about 60% through Ron Chernow's biography of Alexander Hamilton. Chernow notes Hamilton was pretty fey and feminine. Hamilton sounds he was prone to man crushes. Chernow brings it up but doesn't go as far as to confirm if Hamilton was gay or bi. Chernow also notes Hamilton had a womanizer reputation and he was caught in America's first big politico sex scandal. It was with a young woman.

Maybe Hamilton was just a drama queen. He seemed to revel in kicking up dust. He was an extraordinary personality. Maybe normal conventions cannot define him.

Male culture where women are owned broodmares keeping the home fires burning results in the bulk of one's close social relationships being with other men.

Other men you'd just fought a successful revolution with and were busy planning a continent-spanning empire of moneymaking opportunities with.

Times with women were likely pretty dull.

[quote]Maybe Hamilton was just a drama queen. He seemed to revel in kicking up dust. He was an extraordinary personality. Maybe normal conventions cannot define him.

Then again, maybe they can!

Before the age of women in the workplace, a certain breed of men chose professions ie. the military, firefighters, and policemen where their lives were spent almost entirely in the company of other men. Sure, they returned home to fuck their women folk but their deep and profound love was for the men they worked alongside and in some cases were willing to die for. Who knows or cares if they actually fucked. It might have been that both men and women were given permission by society and the church to conduct deeply affectionate affairs without the sex part mucking it up.

The founding fathers thought so. It was a bone of contention for some.

How come Alexander Hamilton was chose to be in that noisy new shouty musical that I've been trying hard to avoid?

If you look at early old Americana photos (1850s+) especially military, you can see the men are very affectionate with each other, hanging close, Arms and hands entwined, Heads resting on shoulders, it was just a different time with basic human affection, brotherly feelings, the genuine closeness,, they were away from their families, you can feel the love and caring commaradie among them, See it in their faces, there was just something so natural about it, no weirdness or freaking out or accusations or labeling like today, the apparent man to man human affection is very natural...

The relationship was very intimate, for sure. Whether they had sex is another question.

He did seem to love this man more than he did his wife, according to the letters

President Buchanan, the bachelor president, lived with a man for 16 years!

It was accepted that they were lovers. The opposing party tried to use it against him but it didn’t stick

My name is Alexander Hamilton.

Not 'Alex.' It's 'Alexander.'

Yes sir, he's gay.

Just bros doing bro things, bro.

[quote] commaradie

Camaraderie

Carmindy!

I'm not throwin away my shot!

Oops, I misspelled Camaraderie, I apologize for the mutilated infraction. :-)

He put the piggy in Ham-ilton

Excellent podcast episode of what it was like for gays throughout American history, from colonial times forward—and especially how the government dealt with gays.

This is in the same vein as "Lincoln was gay because he slept in the same bed as his friend"

Things were different 250 years ago.

Things were different 50 years ago too, only just not on Datalounge.

R20, things weren’t THAT different 200 years ago.

Hamilton’s letters are very different when they are to this guy than when he writes to anyone else, even his wife.

Families slept in the same bed. Families all shared one bathroom. Sometimes a couple of families shared one bathroom. Though there was more decorum there was also more intimacy.

Women were ALWAYS in the workplace. Who do you think was doing all the drudge work if there weren’t any actual slaves? Fifty-one percent of the population was just sitting at home, pregnant and cooking big pots of stew? Especially during times of war, women were running shit. They weren’t famous and biographied, but they were there, making things and deciding things and participating in the economy and society in every way.

^^ and so were all kinds of other people. Children and black people and native people.

It’s disappointing to see modern enlightened gay men STILL characterizing women as boring brood mares. Just like Republicans.

Martha Jefferson had that sexy husband and all she could say about him was “He plays the violin.” Sounds gay to me.

Meh.

Hamilton had eight children. But he loved Laurens. Bi-baby, bi.

A stooge for the owners of the Bank of England, she finally got what she deserved.

[Quote] Families slept in the same bed.

So did fuckbuddies that commented on each other’s body parts in letters

Gay?!? Someone should write a big splashy Broadway MUSICAL about him!!!

Theater queen. Thespian. Big Bush avoider.

[quote] So did fuckbuddies that commented on each other’s body parts in letters

What letters?

Letter between Lincoln and his lover

"Especially during times of war, women were running shit. They weren’t famous and biographied, but they were there, making things and deciding things and participating in the economy and society in every way."

Not in every way, R24, women were excluded from anything involving government, power, and big money.

Unless they married into power or money, but even then they were kept on the periphery. But most women were left to do society's thankless gruntwork.

r25 go take a women studies course... you'll find it's the bulk of modern feminism that paints the past as women suffering in corseted bondage

You’ll also find emancipation promised and then relegated to the back burner again and again.

Hamilton was a sybarite.

But was he a sycophant?

Some of us are complaining about Hamilton's use of ambiguous language while some Dataloungers are using language like this

[quote] during times of war, women were running shit.

^Everywhere, in every thread, all the time.

[quote] during times of war, women were running shit.

That last word could be an adverb criticising the manner in which women were running things.

But on the other hand, it could be a noun used by someone with a poor vocabulary unable to name those things that the women were running.

But there's a third scenario that I won't describe.