Speculation over historical figures who might have been gay/bi.

I'm not a history-fan but more like a physics-fan, and some times when learning about historical figures that made a certain theory, I like to know what happened in their mind so I can understand their theory the same as they did.
So ye its interesting to know as much as possible about them, which helps me learn about the present
About wether they were gay or not is less important to me but some stories are really interesting like Alan Turing .. also a sad story ..

And I don't think its bad, if you enjoy it especially as a history-fan then by all means you should do it!

 

David and Jonathan from the bible. It says David loved Jonathan. There's been a lot of disagreement over the word translated as love. Is it brotherly love or something deeper.

 

What about Abe Lincoln? Isn't there some speculation or probable cause he was having a gay fling with someone? 0.0

 

Alexander The Great was gay, he had a male lover in his military and when he died Alexander was apparently very grief stricken.

 

Walt Whitman is often thought to have been gay or bisexual. Anne Frank, too.
I really don't see a problem with speculations about their sexual orientations--no one would care if we just assumed they were all straight, so why can't we assume some of them weren't?

 

I sometimes suspect William Shakespeare.

 

There's even something in the bible that talks about two gay lovers, no joke i think it is in the samuel books

---------- Post added 6th Jan 2014 at 11:44 AM ----------

Oh and Simon Cowell considering he is a hard ass judge anyway

 

Leanardo da viche was gay he had a worker that BARROWED money to by cloths also was his model for the paintinf john the babtist and when he did he left the monolisa to his lover we learnd this i history. I thank his name was pailo

 

I don't think it's relevant whether a historical figure was gay or whatever, unless that figure's actions are related to LGBT history. Even then, I don't think it's all that relevant. What it comes down to is whether the information adds to the understanding of the person's actions, or the related events. Or I could be talking out my ass and I'm not as educated as I like to think.

 

Homosexuality wasn't really a sexual orientation till relatively recently, before it was more along the lines of a fetish, perversion or interest.

Even to Greeks and Romans who were known to engage in same sex relationships, there wasn't an apparent understanding of homosexuality that we have today. Sexuality in general I guess was much more fluid, and since heterosexuality was the only "productive" sexuality it was just considered the de facto of all people. Anyone that grew astray were engaging in an "act" either labelled "alright" depending on the time and place but most likely perversion after Christianity came into swing.

I don't know much Eastern history, so I can't speak for that majority half of the world.

This makes speculation hard because most historical figures that were gay wouldn't have even really "known" they were gay, and were most likely deluded that they were straight but had a "fetish" or were "perverted" since there was no real alternative to call their feelings; we have an extra word in our language now called homosexuality.

As well most figures are known for things other than their sexuality, and since sex wasn't as culturally embedded as it is now, a lot of documents most likely don't bother to mention sex.

I'd say a lot designers and poets were most likely gay, but that's all based on stereotypes.