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LORD BYRON HOMOSEXUAL - Second part

Posted by: gayprojectforum - 09-24-2017, 01:19 AM - Forum: Homosexuality in history and literature - No Replies

[Go to the first part: http://gayprojectforum.altervista.org/T-...first-part]

Return to England

Byron returns to England on July 14, 1811. The first of August his mother dies. He lives in London at St Jame’s Street no. 8. Edleston’s sister, the sister of the boy who had been the poet’s first youth love, told him that his brother died in May of that same year. It is a terrible blow for Byron. Edleston was only twenty-one years old when he was worn out by illness. Byron, deeply touched by Edleston’s death, produces at least seven moving elegies in his memory, including “To Thyrza”, “Away, away, ye are notes of woe!”, “One fight more, and I am free.” They are dead, as young and fair”, “On a Cornelian Heart Which Was Broken” and a Latin elegy recently discovered and published in 1974, the only poem that uses masculine gender “You, you, care puer!”. Although Byron dedicates to the death of Edlaston several poetic texts, we will limit ourselves to examining three of them. Let’s begin with “A Thyrza”.

Byron takes the name Thyrza from the poem by Solomon Gessner: “Abel’s death,” in which Thyrza is Abele’s wife. This is obviously a female name, but that does not mean anything. Byron was repeatedly required to reveal who was the person whose death his poem talked about but never answered this question. It is interesting to note that here (as in other poems, dedicated to Edleston), the poet strictly avoids any gender connotation of the character in question; in the text there are never personal pronouns like he, she, him, her, instead of the pronouns the word “form” is used, and the text is almost always in second person. It is significant to note that the Italian translation by Carlo Rusconi, published in 1853, takes on the assumption that it is about the death of a woman. At that time, a text without gender connotations was automatically read to the feminine (George Gordon Byron. Opere complete – Volume V. Traduzione di Carlo Rusconi. Torino, Giunti Pombe e comp. Editori, 1853, pp. 238-240).

A THYRZA

Without a stone to mark the spot,

And say, what Truth might well have said,

By all, save one, perchance forgot,

Ah ! Wherefore art thou lowly laid?

By many a shore and many a sea

Divided, yet beloved in vain;

The Past, the Future fled to thee,

To bid us meet — no — ne’er again !

Could this have been — a word, a look,

That softly said, “We part in peace,”

Had taught my bosom how to brook,

With fainter sighs, thy soul’s release.

And didst thou not, since Death for thee

Prepared a light and pangless dart,

Once long for him thou ne’er shall see

Who held, and holds thee in his heart?

Oh ! Who like him had watch’d thee here?

Or sadly mark’d thy glazing eye,

In that dread hour ere death appear,

When silent sorrow fears to sigh,

Till all was past? But when no more

“Twas thine to reck of human woe

Affection’s heart-drops, gushing o’er

Had flow’d as fast — as now they flow.

Shall they not flow, when many a day

In these, to me, deserted towers,

Ere call’d but for a time away,

Affection’s mingling tears were ours?

Ours too the glance none saw beside;

The smile none else might understand;

The whisper’d thought of hearts allied,

The pressure of the thrilling hand.

The kiss, so guiltless and refined,

That Love each warmer wish forbore;

Those eyes proclaim’d so pure a mind

Even Passion blush’d to plead for more.

The tone, that taught me to rejoice,

When prone, unlike thee, to repine;

The song, celestial from thy voice,

But sweet to me from none but thine;

The pledge we wore — I wear it still,

But where is thine? — Ah ! Where art thou?

Oft have I borne the weight of ill,

But never bent beneath till now !

Well hast thou left in life’s best bloom

The cup of woe for me to drain.

If rest alone be in the tomb,

I would not wish thee here again..

But if in worlds more blest than this

Thy virtues seek a fitter sphere,

Impart some portion of thy bliss,

To wean me from mine anguish here.

Teach me — too early taught by thee !

To bear, forgiving and forgiven:

On earth thy love was such to me;

It fain would form my hope in heaven !

The short Latin Elegy “Te, te, care puer” (You, you dear boy) entitled “Edleston”, shows a deep pain, though enclosed in classical forms:

Me miserum! Frustra pro te vixisse precatum,

Cur frustra volui te moriente mori? –

Heu, quanto minus est iam serta, unguanta, puellas

Carpere con reliquis quam meminisse tui?

Oh woe! I prayed in vain for having lived for you

Why did I want to die in vain at your own death?

Alas, how is less important to enjoy the laurel wreaths,

the scents and the girls, than to remember you!

Byron sadly communicates Edleston’s death to friends who knew him.

Byron to John Cam Hobhouse, from Newstead Abbey, October 13th 1811: (Source: NLS Ms.43438 f.35; BLJ II 113-14) Another letter filling four sides. It’s clear that Byron knows Greece and Albania better than Hobhouse does. Byron alludes casually to the death of Edleston. Newstead Abbey. Octr . 13th. 1811.

At present I am rather low, & dont know how to tell you the reason – you remember E at Cambridge – he is dead – last May – his Sister sent me the account lately – now though I never should have seen him again, (& it is very proper that I should not)107 I have been more affected than I should care to own elsewhere; Death has been lately so occupied with every thing that was mine, that the dissolution of the most remote connection is like taking a crown from a Miser’s last Guinea. – – – – – –

Byron to John Cam Hobhouse, from King’s College Cambridge, October 22nd 1811: (Source: NLS Ms.43438 f.37; BLJ II 117-18) [Cambridge October twenty third 1811 / Capt . Hobhouse / Royal Miners / Enniscorthy / Ireland // Byron]

… The event(a) I mentioned in my last has had an effect on me, I am ashamed to think of, but there is no arguing on these points. I could “have better spared a better being.”(b) – Wherever I turn, particularly in this place, the idea goes with me, I say all this at the risk of incurring your contempt, but you cannot despise me more than I do myself. – I am indeed very wretched, & like all complaining persons I can’t help telling you so. – – …

(a) The Death of Edleston.

(b) Shakespeare, Henry IV I V iv 104 (adapted).

Byron, who, before departing for the Grnad Tour, had entrusted to Miss Pigot the heart of red cornelian that Edleston had given him, he now feels the need to have that object back again and writes to Mrs. Pigot asking her to solicit her daughter to send it. It is interesting to note that in the letter there is no gender connotation that can make it clear whether the dead person is a man or a woman. Byron speaks of “a person” or “the giver”.

Byron to Mrs Pigot, from Cambridge, October 28th 1811: (Source: text from Newstead Abbey Collection NA 48(n); BLJ II 119-20) Cambridge, Octr . 28th 1811 Dear Madam, – I am about to write to you on a silly subject & yet I cannot well do otherwise. – You may remember a cornelian which some years ago I consigned to Miss Pigot, indeed gave to her, & now I am going to make the most selfish & rude of requests. – – The person who gave it to me, when I was very young, is dead, & though a long time has elapsed since we ever met, as it was the only memorial (almost) I possessed of that person (in whom I was once much interested) it has acquired a value by this event, I could have wished it never 1:2 to have borne in my eyes. – If therefore Miss P should have preserved it, I must under these circumstances beg her to excuse my requesting it to be transmitted to me at No. 8 St . James’s Street London & I will replace it by something she may remember me by equally well. – – As she was always so kind as to feel interested in the fate of [those?] that formed the subject of our conversations, you may tell her, that the Giver of that Cornelian died in May last of a consumption at the age of twenty one, making the sixth within four months of friends & relatives that I have lost between May & the end of August! – Believe [me] Dear Madam yrs. very sincerely BYRON

P.S. – I go to London tomorrow.

In the last months of 1811, the references, obviously covered, to Edleston’s death appear several times in Byron’s poems and with heartfelt accents. I just quote two texts.

AWAY, AWAY, YE NOTES OF WOE!

Away, away, ye notes of Woe!

Be silent, thou once soothing Strain,

Or I must flee from hence—for, oh!

I dare not trust those sounds again.

To me they speak of brighter days—

But lull the chords, for now, alas!

I must not think, I may not gaze,

On what I am—on what I was.

The voice that made those sounds more sweet

Is hushed, and all their charms are fled;

And now their softest notes repeat

A dirge, an anthem o’er the dead!

Yes, Thyrza! yes, they breathe of thee,

dust! since dust thou art;

And all that once was Harmony

Is worse than discord to my heart!

‘Tis silent all!—but on my ear

The well remembered Echoes thrill;

I hear a voice I would not hear,

A voice that now might well be still:

Yet oft my doubting Soul ’twill shake;

Ev’n Slumber owns its gentle tone,

Till Consciousness will vainly wake

To listen, though the dream be flown.

Sweet Thyrza! waking as in sleep,

Thou art but now a lovely dream;

A Star that trembled o’er the deep,

Then turned from earth its tender beam.

But he who through Life’s dreary way

Must pass, when Heaven is veiled in wrath,

Will long lament the vanished ray

That scattered gladness o’er his path.

December 8, 1811.

[First published, Childe Harold, 1812 (4to).]

ONE STRUGGLE MORE, AND I AM FREE.

One struggle more, and I am free

From pangs that rend my heart in twain;

One last long sigh to Love and thee,

Then back to busy life again.

It suits me well to mingle now

With things that never pleased before:

Though every joy is fled below,

What future grief can touch me more?

Then bring me wine, the banquet bring;

Man was not formed to live alone;

I’ll be that light unmeaning thing

That smiles with all, and weeps with none.

It was not thus in days more dear,

It never would have been, but thou

Hast fled, and left me lonely here;

Thou’rt nothing,—all are nothing now.

In vain my lyre would lightly breathe!

The smile that Sorrow fain would wear

But mocks the woe that lurks beneath,

Like roses o’er a sepulchre.

Though gay companions o’er the bowl

Dispel awhile the sense of ill;

Though Pleasure fires the maddening soul,

The Heart,—the Heart is lonely still!

On many a lone and lovely night

It soothed to gaze upon the sky;

For then I deemed the heavenly light

Shone sweetly on thy pensive eye:

And oft I thought at Cynthia’s noon,

When sailing o’er the Ægean wave,

“Now Thyrza gazes on that moon”—

Alas, it gleamed upon her grave!

When stretched on Fever’s sleepless bed,

And sickness shrunk my throbbing veins,

“‘Tis comfort still,” I faintly said,

“That Thyrza cannot know my pains:”

Like freedom to the time-worn slave—

A boon ’tis idle then to give—

Relenting Nature vainly gave

My life, when Thyrza ceased to live!

My Thyrza’s pledge in better days,

When Love and Life alike were new!

How different now thou meet’st my gaze!

How tinged by time with Sorrow’s hue!

The heart that gave itself with thee

Is silent—ah, were mine as still!

Though cold as e’en the dead can be,

It feels, it sickens with the chill.

Thou bitter pledge! thou mournful token!

Though painful, welcome to my breast!

Still, still, preserve that love unbroken,

Or break the heart to which thou’rt pressed.

Time tempers Love, but not removes,

More hallowed when its Hope is fled:

Oh! what are thousand living loves

To that which cannot quit the dead?

[First published, Childe Harold, 1812 (4to).]

Love and betrayals

At the end of 1811, something new happened in Byron’s life. A Byron letter to Hobhouse, dated December 25, 1811, informs us that the poet had “at least a bit” fall in love with a Welsh servant, Susan Vaughan.

Byron to John Cam Hobhouse, from Newstead Abbey, December 25th 1811: (Source: not yet found in NLS Ms.43438; BLJ II 151)

… I am at present principally occupied with a fresh face & a very pretty one too, as H will tell you, a Welsh Girl(a) whom I lately added to the bevy, and of whom I am tolerably enamoured for the present. But of this by the way, I shall most probably be cool enough before you return from Ireland. – …

(a) Susan Vaughan.

Susan Vaughan will betray Byron the following month by seducing Robert Rushton, the Byron page, who had accompanied him to Gibraltar in the Grand Tour. In a letter dated January 20, 1812, Susan Vaughan suggests to Byron that Rushton, then about nineteen, was seduced by Lusy, another Byron servant who, according to Ralph Lloyd-Jones, might have been the mother of one of Byron’s sons.

However, Byron’s letters to Rushton (BLJ II 158) and Susan (BLJ II 159) clearly show that Susan, not Lucy, had a story with Rushton. Byron forgave Rushton (“I am sure you would not deceive me, though she would”), but did not forgive Susan. The affair bothered Byron’s servants: Rushton treated aggressively Susan, Byron rebuked him with great firmness, pointing out that Susan had to be treated with the utmost civilization. Rushton had to accept the reproach but answered with great dignity. Byron tried to keep a positive relationship with the boy.

Byron to Robert Rushton, from 8 St James’s Street, January 25th 1812: (Source: Ms. not found; text from LJ II 94; QI 130-1; BLJ II 158) 8, St. James’s Street, January 25, 1812.

… If any thing has passed between you before or since my last visit to Newstead, do not be afraid to mention it. I am sure you would not deceive me, though she would. Whatever it is, you shall be forgiven. I have not been without some suspicions on the subject, and am certain that, at your time of life, the blame could not attach to you. You will not consult any one as to your answer, but write to me immediately. I shall be more ready to hear what you have to advance, as I do not remember ever to have heard a word from you before against any human being, which convinces me you would not maliciously assert an untruth. There is not any one who can do the least injury to you, while you conduct yourself properly. I shall expect your answer immediately. Yours, etc., BYRON

On January 28, 1812, Byron gave final leave to Susan.

Byron to Susan Vaughan, from 8 St James’s Street London, January 28th 1812: (Source: BLJ II 159) 8. St. James’s Street. January 28th. 1812 I write to bid you farewell, not to reproach you. – The enclosed papers, one in your own handwriting will explain every thing. – I will not deny that I have been attached to you, & I am now heartily ashamed of my weakness. – You may also enjoy the satisfaction of having deceived me most completely, & rendered me for the present sufficiently wretched. – From the first I told you that the continuance of our connection depended on your own conduct. – – All is over. – I have little to condemn on my own part, but credulity; you threw yourself in my way, I received you, loved you, till you have become worthless, & now I part from you with some regret, & without resentment. – I wish you well, do not forget that your own misconduct has bereaved you of a friend, of whom nothing else could have deprived you. – Do not attempt explanation, it is useless, I am determined, you cannot deny your handwriting; return to your relations, you shall be furnished with the means, but him, who now addresses you for the last time, you will never see again. BYRON

God bless you!

On October 18, 1812, Byron wrote to Rushton in a completely different tone:

Byron to Robert Rushton, from Cheltenham, October 18th 1812: (Source: Ms. not found; text from LJ II 177; BLJ II 232) Cheltenham, Oct. 18th, 1812.

Robert,—I hope you continue as much as possible to apply yourself to Accounts and LandMeasurement, etc. Whatever change may take place about Newstead, there will be none as to you and Mr. Murray. It is intended to place you in a situation in Rochdale for which your pursuance of the Studies I recommend will best fit you. Let me hear from you; is your health improved since I was last at the Abbey? In the mean time, if any accident occur to me, you are provided for in my will, and if not, you will always find in your Master a sincere Friend. B.

Wedding stories and incest

Byron had an half-sister, Augusta Maria, born on January 26, 1783, five years older than him. Augusta was the daughter of the first wife of the poet’s father. Augusta married and had seven children; she only met her half-brother when he was a student at Harrow School, and kept with him an exchange of letters focused on Byron’s conflicts with his mother, but she met him very rarely. Throughout the travel period in the East, the exchange of letters broke down. When Byron came back to England, Augusta sent condolences to him on the death of his mother and from July 1813 the two became lovers. Augusta, however, was married, had children and was not planning to put her family in trouble for Byron’s sake. In April 1814, Augusta gave birth to a little girl, Elizabeth Medora Leigh (April 15, 1814 – August 28, 1849), a few days later, Byron went to his hald-sister’s house to see the little girl. The conviction that Medora was the daughter of Byron became the subject of much talk, and still today the question is unclear. Byron on January 2, 1815, also to silence gossip about his relationship with Augusta, marries Anne Isabella Milbanke, nicknamed Annabella, an heiress learned and passionate about Mathematics, and goes to live in London with her.

Byron had not only to silence gossip about his relationship with his half-sister, but also on his homosexuality, that was beginning to move insistently; marriage seemed, among other things, a propitious opportunity to take possession of his wife’s belongings. In December 1815, his daughter Augusta Ada was born, but Byron resumed her relationship with her sister Augusta, and Annabella on January 15, 1816 asked for separation. Byron was accused of incest, adultery, homosexuality, sodomy, free love, and so on. The situation quickly became unsustainable, and the risk of moving from gossip to criminal charges was real and heavy. Byron on April 21, 1816, signed the separation document from his wife and decided to voluntarily exile from England, where he no longer came back.

In Switzerland Shelley

He embarked for the continent on April 25, 1816. Before leaving England, Byron had started a relationship with Claire Clairmont, step-sister of Mary Godwin Wollstonecraft (wife of Percy Bysshe Shelley). With Shelley, his wife and her step-sister, Byron spent a lot of time in good company. From Byron’s relationship with Claire was born Allegra, in January 1817.

In Italy

In October 1816 Byron moved to Milan where he met Silvio Pellico, Vincenzo Monti and Stendhal, then in November 1816 he settled in Venice, where he stayed for three years. Here he learned Italian very well but did not neglect amorous adventures, he boasted of have had sex with more than two hundred women, and he had two important relationships, the first with his hostess’s wife, Marianna Segati, and the latter with the twenty-two years old Margarita Cogni (the Fornarina). Byron’s house on the Grand Canal became a fixed reference point for all the Englishmen who went to Venice, here the fame of tombeur de femmes that accompanied Byron for decades grew. Shelley had been able to see closely Byron’s home in Venice but probably he was not very impressed by all this, some Shelley’s statements, which were very friendly to Byron, seemed generic and referred to the English in general rather than to those who attended Byron’s home. So Shelley writes in the sixth letter to Peacock:

Peacock’s Memoris of Shelley – With Shelley’s Letters to Peacock – Edited by H.

F. B. Brett-Smith – London – Henry Frowde – 1909 – Oxford : Horace Hart – Printed to the University.

LETTER 6

Milan, April 20, 1818.

Lord Byron, we hear, has taken a house for three years, at Venice ; whether we shall see him or not, I do not know. The number of English who pass through this town is very great.

They ought to be in their own country in the present crisis. Their conduct is wholly inexcusable. The people here, though inoffensive enough, seem both in body and soul a miserable race. The men are hardly men ; they look like a tribe of stupid and shrivelled slaves, and I do not think that I have seen a gleam of intelligence in the countenance of man since I passed the Alps.

In April 1819, Byron knew the 18-year-old Teresa, wife of the rich sixty-year-old Count Guiccioli: the woman soon became his lover and the two settled down to the end of 1819 in Ravenna, where Guiccioli lived. The young woman has a very positive influence on the poet, who finally adopts a less franyic lifestyle. Between 1820 and 1821 Byron entered Carboneria (a secret society that conspired against Austria for Italian independence) through the contacts of Teresa’s brother, Count Pietro Gamba. He wants his daughter Allegra to be educated as a Roman Catholic, and he accompanies her in March 1821 in the boarding school run by the Sisters of Bagnacavallo, in Romagna. Allegra will die on April 21, 1822 and July 8 of the same year will also die Shelley, drowned together with his friend Edward Elleker Williams, ten miles from Viareggio.

The Greece and the death

In 1823 Byron, induced by his friend John Cam Hobhouse, joined the London Philoellenic Association in support of the Greek Independence and against the Ottoman Empire. Byron organizes an expedition with the utmost care. He convinces Teresa to come back to Ravenna and on July 16 1823, Brigantine “The Hercules” leaves Genoa for Greece. They accompany Byron, Pietro Gamba, Trelawny, a young Italian doctor, as well as eight servants five horses and two dogs. In Livorno climbs to the brigantine a young Scottish, Hamilton Browne. On August 3 the brigantine stops at Kefalonia. On Greek island Byron knows Lukas Chalandritsanos, a Greek boy 15-year-old, and falls in love with him insanity, but his sentiment is not reciprocated.

Byron is no longer the lovely boy of Edleston’s time, he is fat, loses his hair and has teeth in a bad state, yet he seeks at least gratitude if not love, spending over a period of six months enormous sums of money to satisfy the boy’s whims. Byron realizes that he is no longer physically a desirable person, but nevertheless he is animated by a love at the limit of madness, the more acute and painful the more rejected.

Finally, in December, the poet seems destined to take up the part of Prince Mavrokordato, who more than others guaranteed a serious possibility of establishing a stable authority, and sails for Missolungi, where he came January 5, 1824. Here, in a three-story house occupied by Colonel Stanhope and by a group of Christian Albanians who Byron had hired in Kefalonia, resumes with unremitting obstinacy to work to strengthen the Greek resistance. The main tasks were two: to form an artillery brigade, to assault and conquer Lepanto leading forces whose core should have been constituted by his Albanian guard. Unfortunately, Byron does not get any results. Meanwhile, the story with Lukas became for Byron increasingly destructive. The sign of the terrible despair of that impossible love story (Byron had never experienced anything like this with a woman) can be read in a poem dated January 22, 1824, the thirty-sixth birthday of the poet.

January 22nd 1824. Messalonghi.

On this day I complete my thirty sixth year.

’Tis time this heart should be unmoved,

Since others it hath ceased to move –

Yet though I cannot be beloved

Still let me love!

My days are in the yellow leaf(a)

The flowers and fruits of Love are gone –

The worm – the canker, and the grief

Are mine alone!

The Fire that on my bosom preys

Is lone as some Volcanic Isle,

No torch is kindled at its blaze –

A funeral pile!

The hope, the fear, the jealous care

The exalted portion of the pain

And power of Love I cannot share,

But wear the chain.

But ’tis not thus – and ’tis not here –

Such thoughts should shake my Soul, nor now,

Where Glory decks the hero’s bier

Or binds his Brow.

The Sword – the Banner – and the Field –

Glory and Greece around us see!

The Spartan born upon his shield,

Was not more free!

Awake! – (not Greece – She is awake! –)

Awake my Spirit! think through whom

Thy Life=blood tracks its parent lake,

And then Strike home!

Tread those reviving passions down,

Unworthy Manhood; – unto thee

In different should the smile or frown

Of Beauty be.(b)

If thou regret’st thy Youth, why live?

The Land of honourable Death

Is here – up to the Field! and Give

Away thy Breath.

Seek out – less often sought than found –

A Soldier’s Grave – for thee the best –

Then Look around and choose thy Ground

And take thy Rest!

(a) Macbeth, V iii 22-3: My way of life / Is fall’n into the sear, the yellow leaf …

(b) Refers to Loukas’ indifference. Compare B.’s confession of his inadequacy as a Stoic, at Don Juan, XVII, stanza 10:

If such doom waits each intellectual Giant,

We little people, in our lesser way,

To Life’s small rubs should surely be more pliant;

And so for one will I – as well I may.

Would that I were less bilious – but, Oh fie on’t!

Just as I make my mind up every day

To be a “totus, teres” Stoic Sage,

The Wind shifts, and I fly into a rage.

It is as if Byron was now looking for a heroic death as an alternative to a life without love, almost the search for a martyrdom, caused by a violent and rejected love. In the next few days Byron writes two more poems always dedicated to Lukas, the last of his life, in the first he confesses to be crazy for love facing boy’s rejection, and recognizes that the boy’s magic power is mighty while the poet is so much weak; in the second he surrenders to his destiny:

Thus much and more; and yet thou lov’st me not,

And never wilt! Love dwells not in our will.

Nor can I blame thee, though it be my lot

To strongly, wrongly, vainly love thee still.

(Bloom, Harold – Poets and Poems – Bloom’s 20th anniversary collection, Chelsea Hose Publishers, pag. 115-116)

February and March pass between rebellions, rains, raids, telluric shocks, incompetence demonstrations, repatriation requests by British blasters, betrayals. When the Turkish fleet appears on the horizon it is now clear that the city is not defensible, the poet tries to personally organize the few troops and encourage the terrorized citizens. In the evening, after a mile ride in the rain, Byron has a violent fever attack. On April 10 and 11, he wants to go out on horseback again, but his fiber is surrendering. Doctors are beginning to be seriously worried and they think they will embark him for Zante if the sea conditions allow it. On Day 15 Byron’s condition worsens. William Parry, in The Last Days of Lord Byron (The Last Days of Lord Byron), reports:

He spoke to me about my own adventures. He spoke of death also with great composure, and though he did not believe his end was so very near, there was something about him so serious and so firm, so resigned and composed, so different from any thing I had ever before seen in him, that my mind misgave me, and at times foreboded his speedy dissolution.

(William Parry, “The last days of Lord Byron” – Paris – A. and W. Galignani, 1826, pag. 95.)

His speeches began to get disjoined. Among other things, he stated that he wanted to return to England to live with his wife and with his daughter Ada. On the 18th day, in Italian and English, imagining perhaps the attack on Lepanto, he shouted, “Come on! Come on! Courage! Follow My Example!” And in delirium he repeatedly named his sister, wife, daughter, children’s places. His last words were: “Now I have to sleep.” He died the next day, Monday 19 April 1824, at six and a quarter of the afternoon. That same evening, Lukas ran away taking the money from the garrison. The funeral saw an endless procession of forty seven carriages mourned but empty, with the just the driver: it was the last vengeance of the aristocracy against the rebellious poet.

LORD BYRON HOMOSEXUAL - First part

Posted by: gayprojectforum - 09-24-2017, 01:01 AM - Forum: Homosexuality in history and literature - No Replies

The problem of sources

André Raffalovich deals with Byron’s homosexuality in an extremely synthetic way, not to say reductive, but it should be kept in mind that Byron, more than a person, is an icon, a myth of English Romanticism, and that a myth is such as it is supported by a mythology, which, as is well known, is an enemy of history. Raffalovich was certainly not superficial when conducting his studies on homosexuality in history and literature, his succinctness derives from substantial reasons and not from personal assessments. Raffalovich on Byron had only very small and widely censored sources.

Thomas Moore, with his “Letters and Journals of Lord Byron” has for a long time been the only point of reference for Byron’s life studies. The work was published in 1830 but the collection began in 1814, when Byron himself sent Moore a first packet of letters and diaries so that they could be preserved and eventually published. By 1818 Byron began writing his autobiography, which Moore should have published, with additions taken from letters and diaries. Byron assumed that Moore could earn profits from the publication. Moore through Byron’s Letters and Diaries publishing intended to correct the idea that Byron was a vicious misanthropist, idea widespread in England well before the poet died, showing in the contrary his amiability. From the correspondence between Byron and Moore it is clear that both worked and in agreement on the project. Byron expresses concern for the fate of all that material, but at the same time invites to trust Moore, even though he knows that after his death Moore will still work a censorship, so to speak, a prudential censorship.

In 1830, just a few years after Byron’s death, most of the people mentioned in his letters were still alive, and the lawyers of those families would certainly read Moore’s biography. The people involved in Byron’s most or less honorable events were very powerful and influential, and it could not be surprising that Moore has acted censorship, but it is surprising that the biography has not been much more censored than it really was. The original memories of Byron, the core of the business, was destroyed by the will of Byron’s friends, and in particular by the executor, Hobhouse, who was largely involved in Byron’s affair with homosexuality, despite Moore’s protests. http://www.lordbyron.org/contents.php?do...0.Contents

Evidently, full publication would have created a great deal of embarrassment on many powerful people whose private life would have been put on the streets and would have heavily discredited Byron’s memory, supporting the allegations of homosexuality, sodomy, and incest that had been brought against him. It is not a moralistic censorship choice, as it is often presented, but an option without real alternatives, save perhaps the freezing of the publication for 50 or more years.

Byron biography books are many and also those who deal with the theme of the poet’s homosexuality are quite numerous. For me, in 2017, the greatest risk of trying to write a Byron homosexual biography is to be a “great translator of Homer’s translators”, that is to use rather than the sources, what others have written on the subject. The temptation is great and the work would be greatly facilitated, but when it comes to highlighting historiography more than documents, history becomes history of historiography and that’s exactly what I want to avoid here.

In the studies on Byron, a milestone is represented by the monumental and punctual philological work done by Peter Cochran (1944- 2015), who not only has rigorously transcribed an immense amount of Byron’s letters, documents, and texts but has opened to anyone free access to his archives. I have constantly referred to these archives in my attempt to reconstruct the facts, avoiding, as far as possible, deforming them on the basis of ideological assumptions.

The early years

George Gordon Noel Byron, was born in London, at Holles Street n.16, January 22, 1788, by John Byron and Catherine Gordon of Gight. A contraction of the Achilles tendon, found at birth, he made him slightly limp since he was a child. George Gordon spends his early years in Aberdeen at his mother’s home. His father, reduced to poverty from debt, retires to France, where he dies, probably suicidal, in 1791. At the time of his death, in 1798, George Gordon inherited his noble title and his property at the age of 10, becoming Sixth Baron Byron of Rochdale and then Lord. He leaved the Aberdeen’s maternal home and went to Newstead Abbey that was in abandonment at that time. He had inherited from his uncle great possessions but also many debts.

Cambridge

In October 1805, at age 17, nearly 18, he joined Trinity College in Cambridge, where he became acquainted with those who became his closest friends: Edward Noel Long, William Bankes, Francis Hodgson, Douglas Kinnaird, John Cam Hobhouse, Scrope Berdmore Davies and Charles Skinner Matthews are all among his close friends. At Trinity College, in October 1815, Byron also met John Edleston (then sixteen), a blond, beautiful boy, then Trinity College chorister. In 1816 Edleston gave Byron a spell of cornelian shaped heart. At the gift Byron writes:

THE CORNELIAN(a)

No specious splendour of this stone

Endears it to my memory ever;

With lustre ‘only once’ it shone,

And blushes modest as the giver. (b)

Some, who can sneer at friendship’s ties,

Have, for my weakness, oft reprov’d me;

Yet still the simple gift I prize,

For I am sure, the giver lov’d me.

He offer’d it with downcast look,

As ‘fearful’ that I might refuse it;

I told him, when the gift I took,

My ‘only fear’ should be, to lose it.

This pledge attentively I view’d,

And ‘sparkling’ as I held it near,

Methought one drop the stone bedew’d,

And, ever since, ‘I’ve lov’d a tear.’

Still, to adorn his humble youth,

Nor wealth nor birth their treasures yield;

But he, who seeks the flowers of truth,

Must quit the garden, for the field.

‘Tis not the plant uprear’d in sloth,

Which beauty shews, and sheds perfume;

The flowers, which yield the most of both,

In Nature’s wild luxuriance bloom.

Had Fortune aided Nature’s care,

For once forgetting to be blind,

‘His’ would have been an ample share,

If well proportioned to his mind.

But had the Goddess clearly seen,

His form had fix’d her fickle breast;

‘Her’ countless hoards would ‘his’ have been,

And none remain’d to give the rest.

(a) The cornelian was a present from his friend Edleston, a Cambridge chorister, afterwards a clerk in a mercantile house in London. Edleston died of consumption, May 11, 1811. (See letter from Byron to Miss Pigot, October 28, 1811.) Their acquaintance began by Byron saving him from drowning. (MS. note by the Rev. W. Harness.)

(b) ‘But blushes modest’.

On February 23, 1807, Byron wrote from Southwell to Edward Noel Long, his childhood friend and added to his letter this post scriptum: “If possible I will pass through Granta, in March, pray, keep the subject of my “Cornelian” Secret.” (Granta is the original name, still in use locally, for the River Cam, this name indicates, by extension, the city of Cambridge). Thomas Moore, who deleted homosexual passages from survived diaries and letters, called Edleston “adopted brother” of Byron.

A short time before Byron left Cambridge on June 27, 1807 he sent to John Edleston a short note written in cypher characters and translated by Leslie Marchand with the help of an alphabetical key found in his papers.

LORD BYRON TO JOHN EDLESTON May, 1807

D–R–T [Dearest?] — Why not? With this kiss make me yours again forever.

Byron

[“Byron’s Letters and Journals” a new selection – From Leslie A. Marchand’s – twelve-volume edition – Oxford University Press, 2015. Page. 22.]

To that same Cornelian, donated by Edleston to Byron, the poet refers in the poem “The Adieu” (of which we do not possess the date) at the time of separation from Edleston.

The Adieu

by George Gordon Lord Byron

Written Under The Impression That The Author Would Soon Die.

Adieu, thou Hill! where early joy

Spread roses o’er my brow;

Where Science seeks each loitering boy

With knowledge to endow.

Adieu, my youthful friends or foes,

Partners of former bliss or woes;

No more through Ida’s paths we stray;

Soon must I share the gloomy cell,

Whose ever‑slumbering inmates dwell

Unconscious of the day.

Adieu, ye hoary Regal Fanes,

Ye spires of Granta’s vale,

Where Learning robed in sable reigns,

And Melancholy pale.

Ye comrades of the jovial hour,

Ye tenants of the classic bower,

On Cama’s verdant margin placed,

Adieu! while memory still is mine,

For, offerings on Oblivion’s shrine,

These scenes must be effaced.

Adieu, ye mountains of the clime

Where grew my youthful years;

Where Loch na Garr in snows sublime

His giant summit rears.

Why did my childhood wander forth

From you, ye regions of the North,

With sons of pride to roam?

Why did I quit my Highland cave,

Mar’s dusky heath, and Dee’s clear wave,

To seek a Sotheron home!

Hall of my Sires! a long farewell–

Yet why to thee adieu?

Thy vaults will echo back my knell,

Thy towers my tomb will view:

The faltering tongue which sung thy fall,

And former glories of thy Hall,

Forgets its wonted simple note–

But yet the Lyre retains the strings,

And sometimes, on Æolian wings,

In dying strains may float.

Fields which surround yon rustic cot,

While yet I linger here,

Adieu! you are not now forgot,

To retrospection dear.

Streamlet! along whose rippling surge

My youthful limbs were wont to urge,

At noontide heat, their pliant course;

Plunging with ardour from the shore,

Thy springs will lave these limbs no more,

Deprived of active force.

And shall I here forget the scene,

Still nearest to my breast?

Rocks rise and rivers roll between

The spot which passion blest;

Yet, Mary, all thy beauties seem

Fresh as in Love’s bewitching dream,

To me in smiles display’d;

Till slow disease resigns his prey

To Death, the parent of decay,

Thine image cannot fade.

And thou, my Friend! whose gentle love

Yet thrills my bosom’s chords,

How much thy friendship was above

Description’s power of words!

Still near my breast thy gift I wear

Which sparkled once with Feeling’s tear,

Of Love the pure, the sacred gem;

Our souls were equal, and our lot

In that dear moment quite forgot;

Let Pride alone condemn!

All, all is dark and cheerless now!

No smile of Love’s deceit

Can warm my veins with wonted glow,

Can bid Life’s pulses beat:

Not e’en the hope of future fame

Can wake my faint, exhausted frame,

Or crown with fancied wreaths my head.

Mine is a short inglorious race,–

To humble in the dust my face,

And mingle with the dead.

Oh Fame! thou goddess of my heart;

On him who gains thy praise,

Pointless must fall the Spectre’s dart,

Consumed in Glory’s blaze;

But me she beckons from the earth,

My name obscure, unmark’d my birth,

My life a short and vulgar dream:

Lost in the dull, ignoble crowd,

My hopes recline within a shroud,

My fate is Lathe’s stream.

When I repose beneath the sod,

Unheeded in the clay,

Where once my playful footsteps trod,

Where now my head must lay,

The weed of Pity will be shed

In dew-drops o’er my narrow bed,

By nightly skies, and storms alone;

No mortal eye will deign to steep

With tears the dark sepulchral deep

Which hides a name unknown.

Forget this world, my restless sprite,

Turn, turn thy thoughts to Heaven:

There must thou soon direct thy flight,

If errors are forgiven.

To bigots and to sects unknown,

Bow down beneath the Almighty’s Throne;

To Him address thy trembling prayer:

He, who is merciful and just,

Will not reject a child of dust,

Although his meanest care.

Father of Light! to Thee I call;

My soul is dark within:

Thou who canst mark the sparrow’s fall,

Avert the death of sin.

Thou, who canst guide the wandering star,

Who calm’st the elemental war,

Whose mantle is yon boundless sky,

My thoughts, my words, my crimes forgive:

And, since I soon must cease to live,

Instruct me how to die.

On June 30, 1807, Byron, while still in Cambridge, probably after a short absence (and after the farewell to Edleston), writes to his friend Elizabeth Bridget Pigot (1783-1866).

[Byron to Elizabeth Pigot, from Trinity College, Cambridge, June 30th 1807: (Source: text from Newstead Abbey Collection NA 948(j); LJ I 120-3; QI 28-9; BLJ I 123-4)]

LORD BYRON TO ELIZABETH BRIDGET PIGOT Cambridge June 30th, 1807

. . . I am almost superannuated here. My old friends (with the exception of a very few) all departed, and I am preparing to follow them, but remain till Monday to be present at 3 Oratorios, 2 Concerts, a Fair, and a Ball. I find I am not only thinner but taller by an inch since my last visit. I was obliged to tell every body my name, nobody having the least recollection of visage, or person. Even the hero of my Cornelian (who is now sitting vis-à-vis, reading a volume of my Poetics) passed me in Trinity walks without recognising me in the least, and was thunderstruck at the alteration which had taken place in my countenance, &c., &c. Some say I look better, others worse, but all agree I am thinner, – more I do not require. . . .

I quit Cambridge with little regret, because our set are vanished, and my musical protégé before mentioned has left the choir, and is stationed in a mercantile house of considerable eminence in the metropolis. You may have heard me observe he is exactly to an hour two years younger than myself. I found him grown considerably, and as you will suppose, very glad to see his former Patron. He is nearly my height, very thin, very fair complexion, dark eyes, and light locks. My opinion of his mind you already know; – I hope I shall never have reason to change it. Every body here conceives me to be an invalid. The University at present is very gay from the fêtes of divers kinds. I supped out last night, but eat (or ate) nothing, sipped a bottle of claret, went to bed at two, and rose at eight. I have commenced early rising, and find it agrees with me. The Masters and the Fellows are all very polite but look a little askance – don’t much admire lampoons – truth always disagreeable.

The relationship between Byron and John Edleston continues until Byron leaves Trinity in the summer of 1807. Farewell takes place July 5, 1087, as we know from a Byron letter to Miss Pigot.

Byron to Elizabeth Pigot, from Trinity College Cambridge, July 5th 1807: (Source: text from Newstead Abbey Collection NA 948(k); LJ I 133-6; QI 29-31; BLJ I 124-5)

LORD BYRON TO ELIZABETH BRIDGET PIGOT Trin. Coll. Camb. July 5th, 1807

My Dear Eliza.

Since my last letter I have determined to reside another year at Granta, as my rooms, etc. etc. are finished in great style, several old friends come up again, and many new acquaintances made; consequently my inclination leads me forward, and I shall return to college in October if still alive. My life here has been one continued routine of dissipation – out at different places every day, engaged to more dinners, etc. etc. than my stay would permit me to fulfil. At this moment I write with a bottle of claret in my head and tears in my eyes; for I have just parted with my “Cornelian,” who spent the evening with me. As it was our last interview, I postponed my engagement to devote the hours of the Sabbath to friendship: – Edleston and I have separated for the present, and my mind is a chaos of hope and sorrow. To-morrow I set out for London: you will address your answer to “Gordon’s Hotel, Albemarle Street,” where I sojourn during my visit to the metropolis.

I rejoice to hear you are interested in my protégé; he has been my almost constant associate since October, 1805, when I entered Trinity College. His voice first attracted my attention, his countenancefixed it, and his manners attached me to him for ever. He departs for a mercantile house in town in October, and we shall probably not meet till the expiration of my minority, when I shall leave to his decision either entering as a partner through my interest, or residing with me altogether. Of course he would in his present frame of mind prefer the latter, but he may alter his opinion previous to that period; – however, he shall have his choice. I certainly love him more than any human being, and neither time nor distance have had the least effect on my (in general) changeable disposition. In short we shall put Lady E. Butler and Miss Ponsonby to the blush, Pylades and Orestes out of countenance, and want nothing but a catastrophe like Nisus and Euryalus to give Jonathan and David the “go by”. He certainly is perhaps more attached to me than even I am in return. During the whole of my residence at Cambridge we met every day, summer and winter, without passing one tiresome moment, and separated each time with increasing reluctance. I hope you will one day see us together. He is the only being I esteem, though I like many. . . . My protégé breakfasts with me; parting spoils my appetite – excepting from Southwell [i.e. leaving England altogether].

So far, the reader has been able to follow Byron’s homosexual history until the age of nineteen and a half: the resulting picture is still conforming to the Byronian myth: there is the love for a boy who was two years younger than the poet, but the border between love and friendship is very labile and the term “protector”, which Byron uses to designate Edleston without being too explicit, seems to emphasize more than a difference in age, a social difference, which is not overcome by feelings. Byron certainly will not give up on the Grand Tour, typical of high-ranking youth, to stay alongside Edleston, who will follow his way as a businessman. We must always keep in mind, however, that we are dealing with Byron’s homosexuality relying only on the little that has remained after the destruction of his Memories, wanted by his friends after the poet’s death.

The beautiful youth surrounding Byron had little to do with the heroes of Foscolo and Alfieri heroes, they were young guys, who belonged to aristocratic and very rich British families, and for them the university life in Cambridge was certainly not limited to the study. Byron himself, as we have seen, highlights the festive aspect of university life, especially in the summer, but student life could not be reduced to ritual parties and entertainments, or rather ritual parties could be interesting occasions for heterosexual students, certainly not for homosexual ones. There was, then, as there is now, an underground university life linked to homosexuality, and Byron was not alien to all this. We cannot hope to find out such things in Moore’s Biography, but clues and evidences exist anyway.

We have fortunately a letter from Charles Skinner Matthews to Byron, London, June 30, 1809, on the departure of Byron for the Grand Tour, of this letter will be discussed in detail below. Matthews, the author of this letter, was born on March 26, 1785 and therefore nearly three years older than Byron, was elected a fellow of Downing College in Cambridge (this fact is mentioned in the letter) and unfortunately died drowned in the Cam, while bathing, August 3, 1811, at age 26. When Matthews, defined by Moore as “the libertine friend of Byron,” wrote the mentioned letter, he was at the beginning of his 24 and Byron was 21. The letter highlights many interesting facts: at least three people (Byron, Hobhouse and Matthews) used to convey homosexual content a “mysterious” style, so they define it, “that style in which more is meant than meets the Eye”. Matthews found the reason very simply in the fact that “should the tabellarians [postmen] be inclined to peep”. In a time when homosexuality was a serious offense and sodomy involves the death penalty, a cryptic language imposed itself as an indispensable security condition.

We’ve already seen that Byron and Edleston in the college exchanged encrypted messages, but here we are not talking about short messages but about real letters with encrypted and unencrypted parts. The “mysterious” style was recently inaugurated and was in the process of being routed because it was designed to keep long-distance correspondence between guys involved in the Grand Tour and guys in England. The likelihood that Turkish police could inspect letters sent to England from very wealthy foreigners was certainly far more than a theoretical hypothesis and the encrypted text was not to be recognized as such. The use of expressions in French, of words to be understood according to French reading or the identification of coded words, among others, with the addition of one “e” at the end, were artifices unlikely to be recognizable to an unknowing eye. Thus a true brotherhood was created, the brotherhood “de la Methode” (in French) (Methode (ending with “e”) = homosexuality) and the adepts were the Methodistes (with “e”), who obviously had nothing to do with the Methodist Church. We can talk about Methodiste desires, other Methodistes, apostles of religion, and so on.

Hunting for boys is encrypted with the botanical metaphor of collecting flowers and flowers have significant names: Hyacinth (which alludes to the boy loved by Apollo) represents the homosexual partner available; but the metaphor goes even further, because according to the legend, Hyacinth died during a launch of disks or rings because the wind let go back the disk that struck Hyacinth violently. In English “coit” is a variant of “quoit” = ring of iron, plastic, rope, etc., used in the game of quoits. Therefore Hyacinth died for a “coit”, a word that alludes openly to “coitus” = sexual intercourse. To indicate a complete sexual intercourse, the Methodistes (with “e”) used the acronym pl&optC = “plenum et optabilem coitum” (full and desirable sexual intercourse), an expression used by Petronius in his Satyricon. Some traits of Matthews’s letter remain nevertheless obscure.

Beyond the Methodistes Sect and their cryptic language, Matthews’ letter contains another very important element in Byron’s homosexual biography. Matthews talks about an “Abbey Hyacinth” (with reference to the fact that Byron had lived the first adolescence in Newstead Abbey), the “Abbey Hyacinth” is Robert Rushton ( 1793-1833), a boy who was about 16 years old at the time of Matthews’ letter. Robert Rushton was the son of William Rushton, one of the most important tenants in Newstead estate. In 1808, at the age of about 14 to 15 years, Robert was in service at the Abbey as a Byron page, Byron took the boy with himself on the journey to Europe in 1809, but then sent him back home from Gibraltar and paid the expenses for his education in Newark; however, we will have the opportunity to deal again with Rushton later, let us here just note that among Byron’s friends Rushton is considered as one of the complacent boys whom Byron could enjoy.

We will see that Byron showed friendly attitudes towards Rushton, even in very embarrassing situations for the poet. A reflection should be made on a very important point: the “loves” or perhaps more banally Byron’s homosexual interests are not directed towards its peers but towards boys of very different social condition. Raffalovich, at the end of the eighteenth century, will blame John Addington Symonds for similar attitudes, but Symonds, while being a wealthy man, was certainly not a lord and his attitudes show a substantial affection for young men (non-adolescents) whom he falls in love with, Byron, perhaps because he is still very young, seems to swing between romantic and goliardic attitudes, where homosexuality becomes argument of social play and hot speeches between mates.

On June 25, 1809, just before embarkation, Byron communicated to Henry Drury that one of the reasons for his trip to the eastern Mediterranean was the ambition to contribute to a book proposed by Hobhouse [Byron’s Letters and Journals, ed. Leslie A. Marchand, 13 vols, John Murray, 1973-94; I 208.]]

“… a chapter on the state of morals, and a further treatise on the same to be entituled “Sodomy simplified or Pæderasty proved to be praiseworthy from ancient authors and from modern practice.” – Hobhouse further hopes to indemnify himself in Turkey for a life of exemplary chastity at home by letting out his “fayre body” to the whole Divan.(a)” (BLJ I 208)

(a) The Divan is a Turkish reserved room, meaning, obviously joking, that Hobhouse wanted to prostitute with all those present.

Byron, Hobhouse and Matthews’s interest in boys is very evident in a letter written by Byron and Hobhouse to Matthews from Falmouth just before their departure for the Grand Tour on June 22, 1809. Byron and Hobhouse use this in this letter the code “mysterious”. Hobhouse writes:

Byron and John Cam Hobhouse to Charles Skinner Matthews, from Falmouth, June 22nd 1809:

(Source: text from B.L.Add.Mss. 47226 ff.6-7; BLJ I 206-7) [(in Byron’s hand): Falmouth June twenty-two / C.S.Matthews Esqre / 13 Bunbury Court / Strand / London / Byron]

Falmouth June 22

My dear Matthews Under – omissis – As to the journey of Byron & myself to this port I have little or nothing to inform you of, except that nothing happened worthy of notice. I should not however forget to inform a Methodiste,(a) that by a curious accident we overtook Caliph Vathek(b) at Hartford Bridge; we could not obtain a sight of this great apostle,© he having closed the shutters on the out-side. By another strange coincidence, we heard at Salisbury, that a noble namesake of a Trinity Friend of your’s(d) was upon the road for his Devonshire seat.

These things do not happen without some intention of the gods, & are certainly ominous of either something very bad or very fortunate – Besides all this, the Cornish air is so exceedingly favorable to complexion, that the roses of the genus andron(1) are the most universally blooming you ever beheld, so much so, that our conversation here, pupis pars non minima fueris,(e) has generally turned on that interesting topic – … – omissis –

Byron writes: My dear Mathieu, – I take up the pen which our friend has for a moment laid down merely to express a vain wish that you were with us in this detestable region, as I do not think Georgia itself can emulate its capabilities or incitements to the “Plen. and optabil. – Coit.”(g) the port of Falmouth & parts adjacent. – –

We are surrounded by Hyacinths & other flowers of the most fragrant [tear: “na”]ture, – & I have some intention of culling a handsome Bouquet to compare with the exotics we expect to meet in Asia. – One specimen I shall certainly carry off, but of this hereafter. – Adieu Mathieu! — —

(a) Codeword for “homosexual”.

(b) William Beckford, author of Vathek, B.’s favourite book.

(d) Trinity friend unidentified.

(e) Male gender.

(f) Latin expression that should mean “You were not a negligible topic for kids” but the term “pupis” seems rather unlikely in Latin

(g) Petronius, Satyricon, par. 86.

But let’s come to Matthews’s letter.

Charles Skinner Matthews to Byron, from London, June 30th 1809:

(Source: National Library of Scotland 12604 / 4247G)

London. Saturday June 30. 1809

In transmitting my dispatches to Hobhouse, mi carissime βυρον (a) I cannot refrain from addressing a few lines to yourself: chiefly to congratulate you on the splendid success of your first efforts in the mysterious, that style in which more is meant than meets the Eye.(b) I shall have at you in that style before I fold up this sheet.

Hobhouse too is uncommonly well, but I must recommend that he do not in future put a dash under his mysterious significances, such a practise would go near to letting the cat out of the bag, should the tabellarians© be inclined to peep: And I positively decree that every one who professes ma methode do spell the term w ch. designates his calling with an e at the end of it – methodiste, not methodist; and pronounce the word in the French fashion. Every one’s taste must revolt atconfounding ourselves with that sect of horrible, snivelling, fanatics.

As to your Botanical pursuits, I take it that the flowers you will be most desirous of culling will be of the class polyandria,(d) and not monogynia (e) but nogynia.(f) However so as you do not cut them it will all do very well.

A word or two about hyacinths. Hyacinth, you may remember, was killed by a Coit.(g) but not that “full and to-be- wished-for Coit.” have a care then that your Abbey Hyacinth (h) be not injured by either sort of coit. If you should find anything remarkable in the botanical line, pray send me word of it, who take an extreme

interest in your anthology; and specify the class & if possible the name of each production.

Tomorrow morning I am going to Cambridge to invest myself with the magisterial hat, to drink ale, &, eventually, to play at Coits. It is not auditable (though from it’s auricular qualities it might almost be called so) which I am so eager to obtain, but some which comes from a more northern part of the kingdom. You who are so well acquainted with the topography of our cellar will immediately comprehend the sort I mean, when I tell you that I mean to broach one of two butts which I have often pointed out to your notice; not the tall one. And of the pl&optC, (i) should I be so happy as to obtain one, or of the progress towards it, you shall be fully informed.

I have not yet seen the hero of that Treatise on the Bathos which you promised me, but were too much engaged to execute; But, in another point, I have been admitted behind the scenes & was very much disappointed on a rear inspection of the Palma.

I admire the stoical unconcern & Christian resignation with which both of you seem to bear your disappointment of the Packet; & the consequent prolongation of your stay in this country. From which I readily infer that there must be something in Falmouth not a little delectable, and deplore my lot that I am not sharing your delights. I enclose with this the frontispiece to the Trial of Cap. Sutherland: which I bought yesterday thinking that it might contain quelque chose de la methode: but nothing of the kind appears. The face & right thumb of the negro are the principal features in the picture: which I send you on account of it’s oddity: and think that you, Hobhouse, & M.

l’Abbé Hyacinth (l) might represent the scene with much effect, taking the parts of the Captain, the negro, & the cabin boy, respectively.

I cannot conclude without exhorting & beseeching you, as I have besought Hobhouse, to oblige me with frequent favours in the epistolary way both before & after your leaving England.

Adieu my dear Lord; I wish you, not as Dr Johnson wished Mr Burke, all the success which an honest man can or ought to wish you, (m) but as grand founder and arch-Patriarch of the Methode I give your undertaking my benediction, and wish you, Byron of Byzantium, and you, Cam of Constantinople, jointly & severally, all the success which in your most methodistical fantasies you can wish yourselves.

So sail along with happy auspices & believe me.

Your’s very sincerely

C.S.M.

(a) “Byron” (Greek).

(b) Matthews refers to the coded style of B.’s letter of June 22nd.

(d) “with many males”.

(e) “with a single female”.

(f) “nogynia” is Matthews’ coinage: “with no females”.

(g) Hyacinth was killed when a discus he with which he was practising in a contest with Apollo, his lover, was flung back at him by the jealous West Wind.

(h) Robert Rushton.

(i) “Coitum plenum et optabilem” – “full and highly satisfactory sex”. From Petronius’ Satyricon.

(l) Robert Rushton.

(m) “When the general election broke up the delightful society in which we had spent some time at Beconsfield, Dr. Johnson shook the hospitable master of the house [Burke] kindly by the hand, and said, “Farewell my dear Sir, and remember that I wish you all the success which ought to be wished you, which can possibly be wished you indeed – by an honest man.’” – Piozzi’s Anecdotes, p.242

If Matthews’s letter stopped only with goliardic gossip about homosexuality, it would just be another manifestation of the desecrating livelihood of a group of homosexual young people, after all, nothing at all disruptive, but Matthews’s letter presents another element, not immediately obvious, but that needs to be clarified to understand the mentality of these guys more closely. The three Methodistes follow the English press carefully. Matthews’s letter is dated June 30, 1809, and refers to the trial of Captain Sutherland, who had been hanged the day before, on June 29, at the strength of the capital executions on the banks of the River Thames, used for the judgments handed down by the Admiralty. On November 5, 1808, Captain Sutherland (captain of a British shipping vessel on the Tagus, one mile from Lisbon) had killed with a dagger William Richardson, a 15-year-old boy. A black sailor, John Thompson, testifies to the trial in a way that could suggest that the captain had taken the boy in Lisbon about a month earlier because he was sexually concerned with him: the guy often went to the captain and the captain sent all sailors to the ground and stayed on the ship with the boy only. This testimony was not read by the Admiralty as a sign of sodomy, but after a brief process, Sutherland was sentenced and hanged for murder. It is amazing that on such a recent and so objectively terrible story, Matthews can make the spirit with his friends, but that’s just what happens. Matthews obtains a record of the process to look for Sutherland homosexuality, but he does not find it, sends out some drawings published in the papers to his friends and suggests that the three of them may represent the scene of the assassination. Matthews’s behavior shows some disturbing element of perversion, which goes far beyond the banal gay goliardery.

Accompanied by his valet Robert Rushton and by John Cam Hobhouse, Byron sailed from Falmouth on July 2, 1809 to Lisbon, then to visit Seville, Cádiz and Gibraltar. In Gibraltar, Byron decides to send back home Rushton and writes to the boy’s father:

Byron to Mr Rushton, from Gibraltar, August 14th 1809: (Source: NLS Acc.12604/ 4219A or C; LJ I 242-3; BLJ I 222)

Gibraltar August 14th 1809 Mr. Rushton, – I have sent Robert home with Mr. Murray, because the country which I am now about to travel through, is in a state which renders it unsafe, particularly for one so young. – I allow [you] to deduct five and twenty pounds a year for his education for three years provided I do not return before that time, & I desire he may be considered as in my service, let every care be taken of him, & let him be sent to school; in case of my death I have provided enough in my will to render him independent. – – He has behaved extremely well, & has travelled a great deal for the time of his absence. – Deduct the expense of his education from your rent. – Byron

Arrived in Malta on August 19, Byron and Hobhouse stay about a month before leaving for Preveza, the port of Epirus, reached September 20, 1809. From there they move to Giannina and then to Albania, to Tepelenë, where they meet Alì Pasha. They then settle in Athens, except for some months in Constantinople. On May 3, 1810, Byron crosses the Dardanelli’s narrow swimming. That same May 3, 1810 he writes to Henry Drury:

Byron to Henry Drury, from the frigate Salsette, off the Dardanelles, May 3rd 1810: (Source: text from Wren Library R2 40a , Trinity College Cambridge; LJ I 262-9; QI 63-7; BLJ I 237- 40)

… I see not much difference between ourselves & the Turks, save that we have foreskins and they none, that they have long dresses and we short, and that we talk much and they little. – In England the vices in fashion are whoring & drinking, in Turkey, Sodomy & smoking, we prefer a girl and a bottle, they a pipe and pathic. [A passive partner] …

It has long been credited to the news according to which John Cam Hobhouse recorded in his diary on June 6, 1810: “messenger arrived from England – bringing a letter from [Francis] Hodgson to B[yron] – tales spread – the Edleston accused of indecency.”

But Paul Elledge [[In “Lord Byron at Harrow School: Speaking Out, Talking Back, Acting Up, Bowing Out”] [The Johns Hopkins University Press, Beltimore and London, 2000]] showed that the annotation involved a collection of Hobhouse’s poems, considered obscene, the word “Collection” was confused with the word Edleston. Poor John Edleston was in fact not accused of anything.

During the voyage, Byron rejects the love offerings of Donna Josepha Beltram in Seville, Constance Spencer Smith in Malta, and Teresa Macri (or rather Mrs Macri on behalf of Teresa) in Athens. In a letter dated July 29, 2010, sent to Hobhouse from Patras, Byron tells about the first encounter with Eustathius Georgiou, the first boy to fascinate him in Greece:

Byron to John Cam Hobhouse, from Patras, July 29th 1810: (Source: text from NLS Acc.12604 / 4123A; 1922 I 10-12, censored; QI 74-7; BLJ II 5-8) Patras. July 29th . 1810

… At Vostitza I found my dearly-beloved Eustathius – ready to follow me not only to England, but to Terra Incognita, if so be my compass pointed that way. – This was four days ago, at present affairs are a little changed. – The next morning I found the dear soul upon horseback clothed very sprucely in Greek Garments, with those ambrosial curls hanging down his amiable back, and to my utter astonishment and the great abomination of Fletcher, a parasol in his hand to save his complexion from the heat. – However in spite of the Parasol on we travelled very much enamoured, as it should seem, till we got to Patras, where Stranè received us into his new house where I now scribble. …

On August 16, however, Byron is already tired of Eustathius and tells Hobhouse that he has sent him to his home because the boy is epileptic.

Byron to John Cam Hobhouse, from Tripolitza, August 16th 1810: (Source: text from NLS Ms.43438 f.15; 1922 I 12-13, cut; QI 77-82; BLJ II 9-11) Byron’s account of his meeting with Veli Pacha. Tripolitza August 16th. 1810

I have sent Eustathius back to his home, he plagued my soul out with his whims, and is besides subject to epileptic fits (tell M. this)(a) which made him a perplexing companion, in other matters he was very tolerable, I mean as to his learning, being well versed in the Ellenics.You remember Nicolo at Athens Lusieri’s wife’s brother. – Give my compliments to Matthews from whom I expect a congratulatory letter. – – I have a thousand anecdotes for him and you, but at present Τι να καμυ? (b) I have neither time nor space, but in the words of Dawes, “I have things in store.” –

(a) Why should Matthews be especially interested in the fact that Georgiou waseplieptic?

(b) “What to do?”

The “Nicolo” to which Byron refers, the boy whom the poet loved the most during Grand Tour, was actually called Nicolas Giraud and was born in Greece by French parents. The name Nicolo is a name coined by Byron. From what Byron himself says, Nicolo would be the brother-in-law of John the Baptist Lusieri, a Roman painter and swap agent of Thomas Bruce, the 7th Count of Elgin, Lord Elgin. But things were more complicated; Demetrius Zoggrafo, Byron’s guide, informed the poet that Lusieri, now sixty years old, was not married but cuddled two women at the same time, pointing to both of them who would marry her. The link between Lusieri and Giraud seemed very solid and it is not unlikely that they were actually father and son. In the Cappuccini Convent of Athens, Byron succeeds in realizing his dream of a homosexual community similar to Harrow’s, with some extra erotic adventure. On August 23, 1810, Hobhouse wrote in a mixed English language of abundant approximate quotations in Italian, not without a hint of Greek and French:

Byron to John Cam Hobhouse, from Athens, August 23rd 1810: (Source: text from NLS Ms.43438 f.1; 1922 I 13-17; BLJ II 11-14) Byron’s account of his life at the Athenian convent. The Convent. Athens. August 23, 1810.

… – I am most auspiciously settled in the Convent, which is more commodious than any tenement I have yet occupied, with room for my suite, and it is by no means solitary, seeing there is not only “il Padre Abbate” but his “schuola” consisting of six “Regatzi” all my most particular allies. – These Gentlemen being almost (saving Fauvel and Lusieri) my only associates it is but proper their character religion and morals should be described. – Of this goodly company three are Catholics and three are Greeks, which Schismatics I have already set a boxing to the great amusement of the Father who rejoices to see the Catholics conquer. – Their names are, Barthelemi, Giuseppe, Nicolo, Yani, and two anonymous at least in my memory. – Of these Barthelemi is a “simplice Fanciullo” according to the account of the Father, whose favourite is Guiseppe who sleeps in the lantern of Demosthenes. – We have nothing but riot from Noon till night. – The first time I mingled with these Sylphs, after about two minutes reconnoitering, the amiable Signor Barthelemi without any previous notice seated himself by me, and after observing by way of compliment, that my “Signoria” was the “più bello” of his English acquaintances saluted me on the left cheek, for which freedom being reproved by Giuseppe, who very properly informed him that I was “μεγαλοσ”(a) he told him I was his “φιλοσ”(b) and “by his beard,” he would do so again, adding

in reply to the question of “διατι ασπασετε?”© you see he laughs, as in good truth I did very heartily. –

But my friend as you may easily imagine is Nicolo, who by the bye, is my Italian master, and we are already very philosophical. – I am his “Padrone” and his “amico” and the Lord knows what besides, it is about two hours since that after {informing} me he was most desirous to follow him (that is me) over the world, he concluded by telling me it was proper for us not only to live but “morire insieme.” –

The latter I hope to avoid, as much of the former as he pleases. – I am awakened in the morning by these imps shouting “venite abasso” and the friar gravely observes it is “bisogno bastonare” everybody before the studies can possibly commence. – Besides these lads, my suite, to which I have added a Tartar and a youth to look after my two new saddle horses, my suite I say, are very obstreperous and drink skinfuls of Zean wine at 8 paras the oke daily. – Then we have several Albanian women washing in the “giardino” whose hours of relaxation are spent in running pins into Fletcher’s backside. – “Damnata di mi if I have seen such a spectaculo in my way from Viterbo.” – In short what with the women, and the boys, and the suite, we are very disorderly. – But I am vastly happy and childish, and shall have a world of anecdotes for you and the “Citoyen.” [[another name for Charles Skinner Matthews, suggesting his democratic politics]] – – Intrigue

flourishes, the old woman Teresa’s mother was mad enough to imagine I was going to marry the girl, but I have better amusement, Andreas is fooling with Dudu as usual, and Mariana has made a conquest of Dervise Tahiri, Viscillie Fletcher and Sullee my new Tartar have each a mistress, “Vive l’Amour!. – –

I am learning Italian, and this day translated an ode of Horace “Exegi monumentum” {into that language} I chatter with every body good or bad and tradute prayers out of the Mass Ritual, but my lessons though very long are sadly interrupted by scamperings and eating fruit and peltings and playings and I am in fact at school again, and make as little improvement now as I did then, my time being wasted in the same way. – However it is too good to last, I am going to make a second tour of Attica with Lusieri who is a new ally of mine, and Nicolo goes with me at his own most pressing solicitation “per mare, per terras” – “Forse” you may see us in Inghilterra, but “non so, come &c.” – For the present, Good even, Buona sera a vos signoria, Bacio le mani.

(a) “a great lord”.

(b) “friend”.

On August 24, 1810, in an addition to the letter dated August 23, Byron adds:

I have as usual swum across the Piræus, the Signore Nicolo also laved, but he makes as bad a hand in the water as L’Abbe Hyacinth at Falmouth, it is a curious thing that the Turks when they bathe wear their lower garments as your humble servant always doth, but the Greeks {not,} however questo Giovane e vergogno. – omissis – I have been employed the greater part of today in conjugating the verb “ασπαζω”(b) (which word being Ellenic as well as Romaic may find a place in the Citoyen’s Lexicon) I assure you my progress is rapid, but like Cæsar “nil actum reputans dum quid superesset agendum”© I {must} arrive at the pl&optC, and then I will write to ——. …

(a) Sheridan, The Rivals.

(b) “to embrace”.

In his diary of July 17, 1810, Hobhouse had annotated, speaking of an unidentified Greek boy:

Hobhouse’s diary for July 17th 1810 reads, “Took leave, non sine lacrymis, of this singular young person on a little stone terrace near some paltry magazines at the end of the bay, dividing with him a little nosegay of flowers, the last thing perhaps I shall ever divide with him”.

[https://petercochran.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/byron-and-hobhouse-11.pdf pag. 14, footnote 44.]

On October 4, 1810, Byron wrote to Hobhouse from Patras. In the letter, the “M” refers to Charles Skinner Matthews, their fellow of Cambridge, the Grand Master of the Methodiste Sect. The reference to the flower bouquet is to be interpreted through the botanical metaphor of the Methodistes.

Byron to John Cam Hobhouse, from Patras, October 4th 1810: (Source: text from NLS Ms.43438 f.18; LJ I 301-5; QI 85-7; BLJ II 21-3) Patras. Morea. October 4th. 1810.

… Tell M. that I have obtained above two hundred pl&optC’s and am almost tired of them, for the history of these he must wait my return, as after many attempts I have given up the idea of conveying information on paper. – You know the monastery of Mendele, it was there I made myself master of the first. – Your last letter closes pathetically with a postscript about a nosegay, I advise you to introduce that into your next sentimental novel – I am sure I did not suspect you of any fine feelings, and I believe you are laughing, but you are welcome. – Vale, I can no more like Ld . Grizzle144 – y rs . µπαιρων

Beyond the goliardic letters exchanged between the Methodistes, it is difficult to understand what kind of relationship Byron really had with the guys he talks about and with Nicolo Giraud in particular. I prefer not to venture into hypotheses and I limit myself to what the documents say. Nicholas Giraud cared for Byron when he took the fever in Patras and traveled with him to Malta when Byron was on the way back to England in 1811. In his testament written in August 1811, Byron left Giraud 7,000 pounds, but later the legacy was canceled.

[Go to the second part: http://gayprojectforum.altervista.org/T-...econd-part]

THE EROTIC DREAM OF MELEAGER OF GADARA

Posted by: gayprojectforum - 09-19-2017, 11:59 PM - Forum: Homosexuality in history and literature - No Replies

To demonstrate, if ever necessary, the eternity of homosexual eros, I carry here a splendid lyric of Meleager (Μελέαγρος) of Gadara (130 BC - 60 BC ), a Greek poet of Palatine Antologie who made love for boys the main object of his poetry.

Before letting you read the text that is upsetting for the utmost modernity of a substantially timeless event, I would like to point out a few things.

In modern common language, the word ἔφηβος ("ephebe" in English, more correctly with the emphasis on the first "e" as in Greek) means young boy, essentially still not adult. The noun ἔφηβος, derives from ἐπί (above) + ἥβη (youth).

In the Greek world, ἔφηβος was the young man who belonged to the age class of "Ephebeia" (ἐφηβεία or also ἐφηβία). Ephebeia was the legal status of young people just enlisted in the army, essentially the recruits, who were trained to the war under state control. They were therefore not ephebes in the modern sense of the word, but young adults.

In the city of Athens, for example, young men were considered as ephebes from eighteen to twenty years. The efebìa was therefore the first step in adulthood.

The chlamys (from the Greek χλαμΰς = mantle) was a short coat that covered essentially the upper part of the body, was the habit of the ephebes and the young military. When ancient poets refer to the ephebes, then they mean refer to guys between the ages of 18 and 20.

Saying that a guy "is still in chlamys" means that he has not yet emerged from the ephebeia and therefore is still one recruited by the army and is no more than 20 years old. This clarification is essential to understand the exact meaning of Meleager's of Gadara text, which I found often commented in a very fanciful way, ignoring what ephebeia was "historically".

Below you can read the Greek text, followed immediately by the Italian translation by Salvatore Quasimodo (Nobel Prize for Literature). There is also a English translation. This is a description of a "gay erotic dream". Notice how the gay eros is lived in an atmosphere of smile and sweetness.

ἡδὺ τί μοι διὰ νυκτὸς ἐνύπνιον ἁβρὰ γελῶντος
ὀκτωκαιδεκέτους παιδὸς ἔτ᾽ ἐν χλαμύδι
ἤγαγ᾽ Ἔρως ὑπὸ χλαῖναν ἐγὼ δ᾽ ἁπαλῷ περὶ χρωτὶ
στέρνα βαλὼν κενεὰς ἐλπίδας ἐδρεπόμαν.
καὶ μ᾽ ἔτι νῦν θάλπει μνήμης πόθος: ὄμμασι δ᾽ ὕπνον
ἀγρευτὴν πτηνοῦ φάσματος αἰὲν ἔχω.
ὦ δύσερως ψυχή, παῦσαί ποτε καὶ δι᾽ ὀνείρων
εἰδώλοις κάλλευς κωφὰ χλιαινομένη.

(The Greek Anthology. with an English Translation by. W. R. Paton. London. William Heinemann Ltd. 1926. 4.)

Nella notte un dolce sogno, Eros portò sotto la mia coltre un ragazzo di diciotto anni dolce sorridente, ancora in clamide. E io, col petto stretto alla sua delicata pelle, colsi tante vane speranze. Ora al ricordo mi brucia il desiderio ed ho continuo davanti agli occhi il sogno che prese in caccia l’apparenza alata.(1) Ma tu, anima dal triste amore, quando finirai d’infiammarti anche nel sogno alle vane immagini di bellezza? [Salvatore Quasimodo]

(1) inseguito da me se ne volò via.

Love in the night brought me under my mantle the sweet dream of a softly-laughing boy of eighteen, still wearing the chlamys; and I, pressing his tender flesh to my breast, culled empty hopes. Still does the desire of the memory heat me, and in my eyes still dwells the sleep that caught for me in the chase that winged phantom. O soul, ill-starred in love, cease at last even in dreams to be warmed all in vain by beauty's images.

GAY GUYS AND BOYFRIENDS OF BOYFRIENDS

Posted by: gayprojectforum - 09-19-2017, 08:17 PM - Forum: True gay stories - No Replies

Dear Project,

It was a pleasure for me to be able to talk to you last night, in fact you were the one who listened without giving negative judgments and trying to understand.

You know I've been in love with Marco and that we've lived together a beautiful story, at least for the time it lasted, then he told me he thought he was in love with another guy (Andrea) and then we broke up, but we broke up without grudge and rancor. Marco did everything with the utmost clarity, without any subterfuge. I set aside to avoid creating him any conditioning.

Marco and Andrea came together. Sometimes Marco called me on the phone (I never called him) and we talked a bit, for me this was a very nice thing. He told me that with Andrea he was fine and he was talking about him with affection. I was calm, I felt Marco pleased, I felt he was much better now with Andrea than when he was with me.

Things have been going on so for many months, then, between Marco and Andrea, something broke and they began to entrench each one in his own positions and, over a period of a few months, their story was over. Marco did not tell me why it happened, and I did not ask him questions about, but somehow I realized that Andrea had taken very harsh positions and that it was just Andrea who broke the couple's tie.

After talking to Marco, I suggested him to contact Andrea and overcome misunderstandings (although I did not know exactly what it was all about), but Marco, unlike his usual, was irrevocable: "I miss him to die, but he is the one who wanted to break up and it makes no sense that I try to put the pieces together." I and Marco started to meet again, and sometimes even to have some sex, but after sex I did not see him serene, he was aggressive, elusive, spoke little, and tended to go away immediately. We went on this way for a while, then I thought it was the case to put aside sex, but he insisted, I deceived myself that an emotional relationship like that of the early days would be born between us, but that did not happen. He insisted, I sometimes, a little unwillingly, told him yes, but after sex it was a disappointment both for him and me, it was as if the relationship between us had been reduced only to sex.

A few days ago, he calls me, we talk, he proposes to have some sex, I tell him no, but this time he does not insist and the conversation goes on. We talk a lot, then he tells me that Andrea called him, apologized to him and asked if they could meet again and he told Andrea yes. In telling me this thing he was very synthetic and almost fearful, obviously he did not know how I could react and he was surprised at my reaction. I told him: "You see how deeply you leave your mark! Whoever likes you does not forget you, because you're just a person of another level. And then, if Andrea, after months, by now, calls you to apologize and to meet you again, this means that he is a good guy who doesn’t make stupid matters of principle, he is one who can put aside his own pride because he loves you!" We greeted very quietly, he realized that I was happy that he had come back with Andrea and he also realized that the relationship between us would not be over.

Obviously no sex, but anyway so much love. When I closed the phone and went to sleep, because it was dark in the night, I felt light, I had felt Marco serene and it was a long time I did not feel him that way. So far the facts.

Of course Marco did not talk to any of our common friends about this, but I had the weakness to do it and I regretted it. I told the top facts to Sara, who said, "But you're just a fool!" She read the whole story in terms of betrayal, lack of loyalty, and so on, and she didn’t really understand the logic behind all the talk. However I was quiet because Sara did not know Marco and the talk was very vague.

Then I talked to Alfredo, who is my friend for many years, he is straight and knows that I'm gay. He listened to me in silence, did not interpret the facts in terms of betrayal, but he looked at me as if I were a rare animal and, by what he said to me, I think he did not really believe what I told him. For him, such a story simply does not make sense.

So I looked for you on Skype to know what you were thinking about my story and I found a completely different answer. I asked you, "Do you think I can really be happy in such a situation?" And you answered me. "If you really love Marco, I think it’s possible," and from here came the whole talk that the goodwill is never selfish and that happiness can also be found in seeing your ex-boyfriend happy.

Talking to you I felt comfortable, that is, I did not feel cretin but a guy in love who to see smiling the boy he loves would really do anything. This morning, after three days of intermission, I felt Marco (of course he called me), and he was just another Marco, he was serene, he wanted to talk. I told him that I was happy to hear him this way and that for me there was nothing nicer. He told me that I was a very important person for him and that he knew he was a very important person to me, then we greeted and I felt a sense of serenity within me.

I do not know if such a story is very gay, but to me, with the girls, nothing similar ever happened, maybe because I never really fell in love with a girl. Sara believes I have stopped attending the girls for craving desire of gay sex, and probably for this reason she does not understand anything about my story with Marco. I think many gay guys can find, at least strange my story, and yet things just went so. On the first day that Marco told me that he had met Andrea again, I was happy, but I thought that sooner or later I would have started living with discomfort, maybe that would have happened if I had really lost contact with Marco, but I keep on hearing him and I feel happy.

He is not happy to be with me but to stay with Andrea, but he is really happy, and I've seen so many bad moments of depression of Marco and now I feel calm because I see him calm. I have asked many times, especially in my first gay times, how would I react if I was left by my boyfriend. I knew what it meant to be left by a girl and for me, that wasn’t straight, it wasn’t certainly a shocking thing, but being left by my boyfriend then seemed to me like a tragic, unbearable thing, in practice a life thrown away.

Marco is no longer my boyfriend, and I think that now it is an irreversible thing, yet I know he loves me and we will continue to call each other. There are so many ways to feel good, before my story with Marco I thought there was only one, but now I know that you can be happy also for the happiness of your ex-boyfriend.

Dear Project, you have an infinite patience and also a great respect for people and these are rare things. I think we will still get in touch, even because about this story I can talk seriously only with you. Obviously, if you want, you can post this mail on the forum, names are not real ones and not even those I used in previous mails, and references to the facts are very generic.

A strong hug.

Paul

UNDECIDED GAY GUYS

Posted by: gayprojectforum - 09-18-2017, 03:13 PM - Forum: Understand to be gay - No Replies

According to the experience, both personal one and that of many gay guys I know, I’m inclined to think that for a gay guy meeting other gay guys of different ages and even gay mature age is a key thing. Why do I say this? The answer comes also from experience itself: the lives of gay men maintained over time, generation after generation, something constant arising from being gay itself and if the common contacts of everyday life can lead gay guys the “ordinary” adult life, the contacts with gay adults or older gay guys may facilitate the transmission of a wealth of experience typically gay. A gay guy can only learn from other gays what are the specific problems of being gay.

That said, what is the Forum of Gay Project? I can answer that it’s useful to promote dialogue and discussion, but what does that mean “in practice”? The answer is simple, It’s useful to pool the heritage of experience and knowledge developed by other gay guys in the past. The transmission of this heritage is the real purpose of Gay Project that aims to be a collection of first-hand material on the true life experiences of gay guys. Browsing through the various threads, but particularly those in the section “Gay orientation” you may have noticed that I have tried to outline in a summary the most typical problems that a gay man can face, those related to accepting their being gay, those about coming out, those about relationships with parents, to that more specifically sexual. Knowing these arguments can be a remarkable help when there is the real need to address them because we can rely on each other and we can avoid losing years to develop responses which are in fact always the same, generation after generation.

One of the most typical problems that a gay guy is certainly to live is that of his sexual orientation. For many it is not a problem if not social, for many it is a psychological problem significant in terms of recognition of their own orientation or acceptance of it, or both, for some uncertainties remain for many years and even for life. It is this last case that I intend to discuss here.

The experience made me notice that the discomfort associated sexual orientation is inversely proportional to freedom in which the individual lives. In a “free world” the problems of sexual orientation are absent because sexual orientation is not seen as a problem. In societies where homosexuality is forced to an underground life and is subject to radical censorship homosexual orientation has a strong negative connotation that ends up being internalized even by gay guys. In these environments, the indecision about sexual orientation is common for the simple fact that being gay is experienced as something evil by the gays themselves.

Here are some examples (while recognizing that the real situations may be very different). The problems related to sexual orientation emerge in particular:

1) in closed environments in which the community is small and the private is public domain and often becomes the subject of gossip (small countries closed-minded)

2) in communities linked to the religious culture that condemns homosexuality (for example: the tragedy of a priest or seminarian who recognize themselves as gay)

3) under conditions of economic dependence on the family home beyond the physiological limit of 25/26 years

4) when there is an educational dimension intolerant of homosexuality or homophobic attitudes are shown off in the family.

In such situations, the contact with serious gay people and the exchange of experiences is useful to raise awareness and to reduce the fear of homosexuality. It is not uncommon that I happen to talk to guys who experienced uncertainty about their sexual orientation. In these cases, in general, I perceive anxiety basically linked to the idea of clarity. I often say: “If you are straight, no problem, if you’re gay is no problem, if you do not know what you are you don’t have any obligation to past a label on yourself, you do not have to answer to anyone and in any case there is no problem “. Most of the problems of orientation are false problems that will be resolved over time if the anxiety related to the fact of not being straight decreases. It seems incredible how false problems may affect the lives of guys, but the emphasis is constantly placed on sexuality. Family expectations and environmental homophobia contribute to dramatize a situation which in itself has nothing dramatic.

In general, the anxiety associated with doubts about sexual orientation leads guys to non-spontaneous behavior. A guy who does not feel fully nor gay nor straight tries to define his sexual orientation through sexual behaviors that are straight or gay in order to get proofs of his sexual orientation. It so happens that several guys embark on real challenging sexual gay or straight experiences, without any basic conviction, with the unique (wrong) idea that if a guy has sex with a girl he’s straight and if has sex with another guy he’s gay. The relationships that are created on this basis often have a specific feature: i. e. they are essentially sexual and emotional values properly fade into the background. When an undecided guy enters a relationship only to accredit the idea of being straight or gay, in general, usually driven by anxiety of clarity, he’s not even aware that on the other side there is a real girl or a real guy who, unaware of the true motivations of the guy who in their eyes behaves like a lover, can invest in that relationship the whole of their affection.

I had the chance to talk to girls who have contacted me because they had come to realize that their boyfriends were gay even though they clearly stated the opposite. It is not at all certain that a girl refuse a priori a relationship with a gay guy and more than once I have known women deeply in love with gay men, in the full knowledge that they were gay, these relationships can stand very well and can be extremely solid if, even in the absence sex, between the two persons there is a deep emotional relationship. There are women in love with gay men that help them to be what they really are, that is gay. A woman feels perfectly when the man, with whom she also has sex, doesn’t really love her. In such situations a woman often feels used and cannot be able to understand the suffering of his companion. In these cases, in the absence of a genuine dialogue, relationships are going on wearily for years with mutual recriminations but generally the man will not admit being gay not even at the level of hypothesis.

When an undecided guy enters a relationship with another man, he does with the mental reservation of being able to leave at will, that relationship is clearly for him just an experiment. Sometimes and not only in situations of couple crisis, that will inevitably occur, emerges the idea of wanting to “try it with a woman”. Such a speech, that the undecided guy is unconsciously using as a weapon of psychological blackmail motivated by a greater demand for affection, warns his partner, creates insecurity and further destabilizes the couple. If the hypothesis of “try with a woman” comes only after years of cohabitation and without apparent justification, and especially if that hypotesis really occurs, it is to believe that we are facing a true swinging bisexuality (a form of bisexuality that alternates gay and hetero periods). In some cases, however rare, can also occur situations of intermediate bisexuality (not swinging). When this happens, generally, the undecided guy speaks openly to his partner searching for his understanding that he often really finds at least at theoretical level or as simple human understanding. Even in this case, however, the other guy experiences great difficulty.

The situations of indecision are never clarified through experiments to confirm an uncertain sexual orientation but only through dialogue and with the comparison in a climate of freedom and respect.

I should add that when an undecided guy sees the collapse of a relationship lasting years, at a personal level he experiences situations of extreme insecurity. Expect a final decision by an undecided guy, even after years of living together, is unrealistic and, on the other hand, save the coexistence despite its inherent instability not necessarily is the best solution.

I would warn many guys on one point: when a guy shows himself available to a sexual contact with you, but has some mental reservations, tells you not to feel gay or not to fell totally gay or not love you but just want to have sex with you, do not consider his sexual availability as a clear sign of his being gay, often, in fact, the opposite is true. Often undecided guys take the sexual initiative and involve their partners in order to make them enter the relationship, but these same undecided guys, when instead of having sex, you try to talk to them, show clearly their strong indecision. Before having sexual contacts with a guy you have to talk to him a lot, try to figure out whom you have in front of you and if you have the feeling that this guy is undecided, and you really love him, forget the sex and try seriously to build a friendship. Keep in mind that sexual involvements are often deeply wanted by an undecided guy but are lived in a negative form, as if his partner took advantage of him.

THE BIRTH OF A GAY COUPLE

Posted by: gayprojectforum - 09-18-2017, 03:01 PM - Forum: Gay couples - No Replies

Hello Project,

we already knew each other and about you I keep very positive memory that dates back more or less to a couple of years ago, when I used as a signature “lovethemusic”, we exchanged some mails, not few, and for me it was an important experience, even if I understood the real meaning only later.

At that time I felt weak and hesitant, today, luckily for me, things have changed and in a sense I think I have understood the true meaning of the things you told me in the mails two years ago.

It is now a year and a half that I’m with a guy, who is six years younger than me, it’s a lot of time, it is true, but since we’ve been together my life has changed, it has changed for me the meaning of the word “love”, my way of being gay has strongly changed. For the first time at the age of 29 I realized how they can be strong the feelings between two guys and for the first time I discovered the meaning of a deep human contact.

We both attended our church, I mostly out of habit, he probably because sincerely believer. We met because we both accompanied a group of young people (14-16 years old) to a summer camp, then he was 21 and I 27. We had already known by sight and a little more even before camping but at the campsite we got to talk a lot and our love story basically started there. I was enchanted by the charm he had on the boys. I was older and the boys with me didn’t familiarize too much, but he joked with him as though he was 15 y.o., and he was perfectly at home in their midst.

We started to talk a bit in the evening when the boys went off to sleep and we remained with the other two camp counselors to refurbish common rooms. At that time I thought that John was straight, because everything made me think so. He hadn’t a girl, I knew it well, but in the end he was very young and had many female friends with whom he was extremely casual. John is a nice guy, I liked him, but I considered him like many other straight guys I had met, in practice a separate world with which I would never had any contact.

The first few days we talked a lot about the church, the boys in the group, the study, the work, but not about the emotional life. I saw that he liked to stay and talk to me and it was always me that I had to stop the conversation because it was too late and we had to go to bed. The camp lasted for around ten days.

Eventually we became friends. I thought that for him, our relationship was a friendship but nothing more. With me he was casual but nothing gave the impression that he could nourish strong feelings for me.

Back in town we started dating, first only through the group linked to our church and then also for our business. In our conversations, only two subjects were completely absent: love and sex. At first I thought it was a sign that it was only a friendship but it did not make sense because in general two friends who already know each other talk a lot about these things. I could observe, however, that slowly our relationship had taken a dimension of everyday life and extraordinary spontaneity, things were developing on their own, we did not even need to agree, any proposal for one of us would automatically be accepted by the other. The smiles and the looking in the eyes had become common things and there was a minimum of physical contact: the hug when we said goodbye was not just a greeting, to invite me to come he took me by the hand, and sometimes he leaned his head on my shoulder or winked as if to say that he knew what I was going to say or do. I tried to be very careful not to expose me, he fascinated me but I tried to avoid him understand it but he must have realized it anyway.

At one point he began to indulge in forms of physical contact more meaningful, such long hugs, sudden and for no apparent reason, accompanied by expressions of happiness when he hugged me. The more I tried to pull back and get things back to usual level, the more John gave sign of feeling frustrated by my behavior. At one point, to fix a moment of embarrassment that had been created, he took the initiative and kissed me, I tried to say no but he replied: “Shut up!” And we remained kissing for 10 minutes. The next day I felt guilty, as if I had taken advantage of him, I told him but I read in his eyes the need to move on, that’s why I put apart every hesitation and hugged him strongly, that night we had our first timid sex. I do not think there’s anything more exciting than being in love with a guy and seeing that that guy wants you deeply. I basically understood what is the true sexuality. He hugged me very strong and had no inhibition, his spontaneity was total and, strangely for me, even my spontaneity was total.

Things went on like this for a few days, then I returned to the usual scruples and started to keep him at a distance. I believe that John has felt totally rejected and it was terrible, he insisted that he loved me but I did not want that between us there was sex anymore and I kept him at a distance for a while, then we restarted our meetings, but we made a pact between us, we decided that we would meet without physical contact. We spent long evenings talking and I began to learn more about John. I was amazed that he acted that way with me even if I wanted to distance. Then I was no longer able to tolerate to see him suffer and we newly began to have sex but the expression is not adequate because in reality, it was true love. For him, sex was a bit a response to his need for affection, was like to realize that his need for affection was much more important than my inhibitions and that in the end I could understand how he truly felt. I never thought that sex could have such an ability to soothe, to reassure that can have an affective so deep meaning.

When I was with him I felt no guilt, it was all so natural, so beautiful, so full of feeling that the idea that it was not a good thing never crossed my mind. But sometimes later, when I was alone, I was reminded that religion condemns these things and then beyond appearances, what we were doing was not a way to be good, but was actually a bad thing, that was a way to hurt him for some reason that I couldn’t even understand. I tried to tell John these things and he listened, puzzled, and yet I knew that he was a believer, but I lived religion through a thousand scruples, he lived it as something liberating. He looked at me with a strong sense of concern and asked me: “Do you really think that we are doing something bad?” And I did not know what to answer, and in those moments I saw him again alone in his solitude, the solitude to which I had forced him, then I took his hand and felt all his hesitation and in that moment it seemed terribly unfair to keep him away from me and then I hugged him strongly.

I knew the weakness of John, his need for love, I felt him close to me as I haven’t felt any other person and slowly I began to put aside my scruples, and I came to understand that our love was true.

Sometimes, when I read things that people say about gays, it takes me a sense of despair, because now for me it is clear that those people do not understand at all what is the gay love, the love between two men. Me too, for a long time indeed, I had strong doubts that between two men could exist a real love, I’ve probably learned this kind of mistrust by the environment in which I lived and for me to go over it was not easy. I started to put aside certain forms of psychological addiction to religion and I began to wonder what for me was good and bad, beyond any preconception and now I have no doubt, and I think that only love has the power to free us from our fears and give us the courage to finally be ourselves.

It remains only one fear that is the fear that my relationship with John can finish. Objectively there is nothing on which to base this fear, but the fact is that the love of John effectively became the cornerstone of my life and think of living without him would not make sense.

In our relationship there have been also moments of misunderstanding but when it happened I never had the fear that our relationship would end. We repeated to each other this thing a thousand times. Today, after a year and a half, I’m a happy man. We do not live together because our families do not know that we are gay and by mutual agreement we decided not to say anything, not for reasons of selfishness or distrust but because we both think that our parents would not understand and every day we receive confirmation from the speeches that we hear at home. In addition to putting in enormous difficulties our parents, we could also expose our relationship to strong tensions but we want to live as a couple in peace of mind. Now I have a job, but it is a job with fixed-term contract and John still studies, if things go on like this, in a few years (I hope) we could be truly independent and we could move in together.

The relationship with religion, in the sense of our community, went into crisis. Obviously in that environment nobody knows about us, therefore nobody can marginalize us but since we know what is the way to see things for the people that live in that environment, we prefer partridge outside to avoid having to pretend a communion of thought which does not exist no longer. But we kept a set of values related to religion and also a great hope that God is better than men and has reserved for us a place in heaven. It is not a figure of speech, it’s a form of faith, I think, we’ll never lose.

Project, now I understand the meaning of many things that you told me and I realize that they were true!

Matthew

GAY GUYS AND COLLEGE LIFE

Posted by: gayprojectforum - 09-18-2017, 01:13 PM - Forum: Gay guys - No Replies

For many guys, college is not only a place where you can get university degrees to spend in the job world, but it's also a very important opportunity for personal and human growth through contacts with many other guys, friendships and the birth of new love stories. It is not easy to tell in advance which of the two possibilities is the most important. The university institution is born for scientific and cultural education, but, in fact, bringing together many peers, leads them to a comparison of experiences that has an enormous potential.

This forum (gayprojectforum), although not popular because for many, the use of the internet is limited to social media, and because search engines insert, if not exclusively, mostly sites containing advertising or adherents to network promotion programs, is essentially visited by college students.

In the United States, university studies are regulated differently from what is generally the case in Europe. In the United States, the college expects the student to lodge with other students at the university campus. In Europe, universities are attended by students who continue to live in the homes of their parents, or, rarely, in flats, with other students, but outside the university structure. In summary one could say that a college student in the US lives in college, while an European university student, for example Italian, studies at the university but continues to live in his home, or rather at his parents' home.

In the US, going to college means full immersion in college life, for an European student generally going to university means going to university to attend lessons but continuing to live elsewhere. These are quite different organizational models that have followed different historical developments. In any case for a US student, entering college is also a decisive step towards adult life. I have to underline that, in Italy, the access to university comes at 19, after 13 years of schooling, that is, a year later than in the United States.

I have rarely been in contact with gay guys who attend or have attended college in the US and the evidences I have collected are strongly diversified, the most noticeable thing is that in general, students studying science or engineering disciplines are the most active on the net, in the search for serious gay sites, that is, sites that point to topics related to homosexuality without economic or ideological purposes. The most sought-after contents are not theoretical, almost always the most read posts contain stories of individual experiences (and this may seem strange) stories with too much technically sexual content are far less read than stories with strong emotional content. The impression I have also reported from some correspondence with guys attending college in the US is that for them there has been sexual education but not a real affective education. It is generally easy to study statistically the access to gay websites of US college students because they use their college servers, that have a fixed IP that shows the name of the college.

Italian university students rarely access gay sites by their university's servers because they do not reside within a university campus and it is therefore much more difficult to make a statistical study, but with a large number of Italian students, if there is no statistical identification at the level of use of the Internet, there is, however, the concrete chance of getting to know each other personally. However, face-to-face talks reveal a picture unmatched by the use of the Internet, in some ways richer and more articulate, but also more reticent. Overall, in Italy, university life is limited to technically didactic aspects, and practically it almost never permits the creation of truly important interpersonal relationships. In Italy, a gay student avoids the coming out in the university environment. The institution does only deal with strictly didactic aspects, and often the access to the university leads to a feeling of disorientation, which increases the nostalgia for high school times where much closer relationships with classmates were experienced. Somehow, in the Italian universities, the idea of growing together and of having a common life with colleagues is lacking, and university life ends up, at least sometimes, with a spirit of competition rather than emulation. I did not see very important emotional relationships between gay guys, that were born in college.

For a gay guy who attends university in Italy, except for exceptions, one thing is university life, that doesn’t have and cannot have anything gay, and a very different and completely separate thing is the affective life: you have to live your private life outside the university, which is in this respect neutral and sterile. I would be really curious to read testimonials about the college life of students attending colleges in the US and it would also be very useful to make their testimonies known to their Italian colleagues and European in general. To start this exchange of experiences, I propose a story, which is a bit extraordinary for the Italian universities, but is a sign of the change in progress: "gay life is changing"

GAYS AND SEX ADDICTION

Posted by: gayprojectforum - 09-14-2017, 07:58 PM - Forum: Gay orientation - No Replies

This post, based on the experience gained in the Gay Project, will try to clarify what is sex addition, especially in the homosexual context, what is the dimension of the problem and what levels of suffering this type of addiction can cause.

THE INCIDENCE OF SEX ADDICTION

The incidence of sex addiction is great. In Italy, according to data collected by Franco Avenia and Annalisa Pistuddi, chairman and secretary of the Italian Association for Sexual Research, the prevalence of sex addiction, is 5.8%. The National Council on Sexual Addiction Compulsivity estimates in the United States a prevalence between 6 and 8% of the population. Patrick Carnes believes that 8% of the male population and 3% of the female population are sex-addicted. These are objectively huge numbers. Certainly more than a guy out of twenty is sex addicted, although the problem does not present any perceptible external evidence. Sex addiction, among all forms of addiction, is that which has been studied later.

CONCEPT OF SEX ADDICTION

Let's start with a simple analogical speech. Drinking a glass of wine is a pleasure for many people, but to talk of alcohol addiction, many other elements are required:

1) First, the compulsiveness, the irreversible urgency of drinking, and the inability to control the behavior in the face of alcohol, that is, the inability to keep a moderate behavior, to restrict themselves to drinking moderately or not to drink at all in certain circumstances. A need can be controlled, an addiction can’t at all.

2) secondly the pervasiveness of the need of drinking. In alcohol addiction, drinking becomes the center of life, in the name of alcohol the addicted ends up sacrificing everything. The world of interpersonal relations narrows and the relationship with alcohol ends up dominating the scene.

3) Third, the increasingly clearer awareness of becoming addicted. Alcohol is no longer lived as a source of pleasure but as a slavery of which you cannot get rid. You feel guilty and at the same time you feel unable to get out of addiction.

A more or less similar picture defines sex addiction.

THE CYCLE OF SEX ADDICTION

Sexual addiction, similarly to other forms of addiction, manifests itself in a compulsive and cyclical repetition of behaviors.

1) Craving (longing, desire) is the first stage of the cycle. The craving for sex becomes strong, impelling, uncontrollable, presents itself as an absolute requirement that one cannot fail to satisfy. Momentary physical gratification that comes from sex is perceived, before its realization, as liberating and tranquilizing, as if it were a means for attaining happiness, or at least an ephemeral happiness. The sex craving is completely analogous to drugs craving, and it can lead to risky behaviors like endanger your own health and that of others (HIV), attend prostitution, spend a lot of money to find satisfaction.

2) The realization of the sexual act is the second phase of the cycle. It must be made clear now that what the sex addicted guy tends to realize is not love in the affective sense but only sex in which the partner is seen as an instrument. Sex is something to be consumed, not a way of interpersonal relationship. It does not matter the partner in himself but only his genitals and his sexual reactions. The choice of partners is determined by the ease of finding them and the availability of the partners themselves to sexual contact "without affective implications". Relationships usually are or become exasperated, transgressive, and exclude completely or almost completely any kind of preliminaries and dialogue, before, during or after sex.

3) Post-sex reactions form the third and last stage of the cycle. Sexual intercourse often ends with a deep sense of dissatisfaction with guilt feelings and a collapse of self-esteem. After sex, it often happens that nervousness, aggressiveness, depressive sensations, sense of defeat appear. Depression levels associated with sexual addiction at this stage can be very deep with all the risks that this entails.

THE CAUSES OF SEX ADDICTION

One can wonder how can a guy get into this vicious circle and it's really trivial and not respectful the idea that he gets into it by choice, because it does not happen that way. Book [Book, Praeger. (1997). Sex & Love Addiction, Treatment & Recovery. New York: Lucerne Publishing.] has found that 60% of those who are sex addicted have been sexually abused in childhood. This terrible statement must push us to reflect on the risks of pedophilia and the necessity of not abandoning the people who have been abused and risk becoming pedophiles in turn. Having been abused during the childhood can come to condition so heavily the sexuality of a guy to induce him, and certainly not because of his fault, to risky behaviors for himself and for other persons, and also to criminal behaviors.

The important statistical correlation that exists between sexual abuse and sex addition must make it clear that pedophilia can actually get to deprive a guy of his sexual freedom and put him into the vicious circle of addiction with devastating effects on his personality. Sex experienced in addiction situations is in fact the result of a compulsion and has not the rewarding affective character that usually accompanies non-compulsive sexuality.

The fundamental sign of the rise of a sex addiction is represented by the progressive detachment from the affectivity or by the difficulty of falling in love, that becomes progressively impossible. The sex addicted guy, initially at least, tries to build a stable affective relationship but then realizes that he is incapable of falling in love and of living a monogamous sexuality and an affective life rewarding for himself and his partner, and this causes feelings of guilt towards the partner, wastes the relationship and in the long run causes the break of it.

It should be noted, however, that partners and ex-partners of sex addicted guys, even though they have been technically betrayed, realize that that betrayal is actually very particular. Generally, sooner or later, the sex addicted guy confesses to his partners, or at least to some of them, his betrayal, but tends not to cut ties with his ex-partners and almost always succeeds in this. Behind this attitude, on the one hand, there is a tendency to maintain a relationship with a person who might be again at least an episodic partner of a sexual relationship, but on the other hand there is also a tendency, not declared and explicitly unacceptable, to maintain some affective contact with the ex-partner. The sex addicted guy's relationship with his ex-partners is complex, seemingly contradictory, if it is considered to be without any affectivity but understandable in the context of a relationship that still maintains some affective dimension.

FROM BEING ABUSED TO PEDOPHILIA

First of all, we have to keep in mind that sexual abuse does not always have the character of violence.

Violence is always, if not premeditated, at least put into practice against the will of the victim by the use of physical or psychological coercion and precisely because of this explicit violent character becomes for the victim an "removal-imprinting", that is, a first sexual experience to be removed. For example, for male boys who will recognize themselves as homosexuals and who have been abused by men during childhood, the "removal-imprinting" leads to the so called "escape-heterosexuality".

Abuse, very often, at least at the beginning, is not planned by the adult and has no violent characters. The child can begin, by pure curiosity, a game with sexual implications with the adult, in this "game" the child sometimes takes the initiative, finds in it something forbidden and transgressive and is pushed to continue until the "game" does assume a distinct sexual character.

An adult responsible and aware of the consequences of his or her behaviors should immediately get away from such "games" but sometimes this does not happen and the situation comes to the sexual acts with minors, behavior that is punished by criminal law, such acts in many cases do not materialize just once but become habitual. The child, in these cases, experiences the abuse in a very ambiguous condition, does not feel himself a passive victim but a co-participant if not a promoter of that behavior, abuse does not therefore result in a "removal-imprinting" but in an imprinting of imitation, it becomes a model of sexuality which, in adolescence, constitutes the dominant masturbatory fantasy, but during adolescence the boy, just because he has gained a greater awareness of the facts and of their meaning, begins to associate with fantasies about sexual abuse also negative feelings of shame and rejection, because he perceives the discredit that society attributes to those behaviors. On the one hand the boy feels himself bound to his sexual imprinting and for the other he would like to erase and overcome it, and so, starting with masturbation, begins the vicious circle that leads to sex addiction.

But there may be truly alarming developments; the sexual fantasies related to the abuse can easily lead the boy to imagine a changing of roles and the boy may begin to see himself no longer in the role of the victim of abuse by an adult but in the role of an adult who is induced to a sexual game with a child, that is, the victim of abuse can begin to develop pedophile fantasies. The appearance of pedophile fantasies is badly felt by the boys, in practice as if it were a condemnation or a curse, they feel unsuitable for life, dangerous for themselves and for others, guilty feelings are very strong because the boys consider themselves at list co-responsible if not promoters of the abuse they have suffered. In this situation, heavy depressive elements can appear, especially if the children have no way of dialogue on sexual abuse and pedophilia, with people who can support them.

The victim of abuse tries to relive in adulthood the experience of abuse, and at the same time feels uncomfortable about the inability to break away from addiction but nevertheless continues to perpetuate it in order to reduce anxiety and avoid thinking about those experiences. The guy who is sex addicted is perfectly aware that there is something wrong, he sometimes tries to break the cycle of repetitions, as in all dependencies, but the craving is so strong that his attempts are frustrating.

CHOICE OF PARTNERS AND MODALITIES OF THE SEXUAL INTERCORSE

People who have suffered sexual abuse during childhood and have experienced it as an imitative imprinting tend both in partner choice and in intercourse modality to repeat the characters of abuse.

The sense of frustration and defeat of a sex addicted guy is also complicated by sense of guilt, linked to the fact that abuse is often considered as caused, at least partially, by the victim: "I am the one who led him to do those things". In the mind of the victim that memory is interpreted (misinterpreted) as a kind of predestination to sex addiction: "At that age I was yet sex addicted." The victim doesn’t consider at all obvious that responsibility can only be attributed to the adult abuser. It should be emphasized that we are not talking about vague memories lost in the past but about vivid memories that accompany the development of sexuality up to adulthood and for the sex addicted guy there is a complete awareness of the suffered abuse, although interpreted in a self-blaming key, and also a complete awareness of addiction. One of the worst situations that sex-addicted guys can face is the total isolation when guys cannot talk to anyone about the abuse or sex addiction.

It should be pointed out that, despite the strong internal resistance, sometimes it is possible to get a clear speech, but the real risk is that the interlocutor, unless he is a professional one, ends up being considered by the sex addicted guy as one of the possible partners and more or less consciously takes this role. The experience that comes from this hypothesis is, however, stressful and depressing for both of them. The sex addicted guy makes the partner aware that it is "only sex". This premise, from his point of view, is essential to exclude the partner from creating expectations, but things go on anyway.

However, after the intercourse, the sex addicted guy recognizes that the partner's participation was only mechanical and is amazed that there was no real involvement ("how can you not be excited by these things?") Actually, the sex addicted guy is moved from the craving without any affective involvement. The partner, who would expect a minimum of affective involvement, acknowledges that this involvement doesn’t exist at all and comes out of the experience substantially disappointed. Often, the meeting ends with a brief discussion, even with strong tones, in which they promise to each other never to meet again, because both partners understand that it is a matter of addiction.

For the sex addicted guy then becomes a state of irritation, disappointment, collapse of self-esteem and for some time the craving is not felt and depressive elements prevail, but then the craving inevitably comes back powerfully and the sex addicted guy resumes the search for sexual partners to relieve anxiety and not facing the many real (social or economic) problems that in the meantime become ever more serious. The result of all this, on a psychological level, is a further fall in self-esteem, but the socio-economic consequences can be very high (job loss, study abandonment, loss of social relations). Those who experience a sex addiction end up believing that their fate is now marked and they will not come out of the addiction anymore.

Addiction is not related to one or another particular behavior or sexual content, however in sexual addiction can be encountered uncommon, rare, or not accepted sexual behaviors. I try to list some, only at indicative level:

1) Incestuous sex fantasies and incestuous relationships.

2) Sexual fantasies about minors and consequent acts.

3) Sexual fantasies about much older people and consequent acts.

4) Voyeuristic sexual fantasies and voyeurism acts.

AFFECTIVITY OF SEX ADDICTED GUYS

Speaking to guys who experience forms of sexual addiction, it is noticed that sexual addiction is accompanied by an affective deprivation, often manifested even before the rise of sex addiction, which is likely to be the cause of the addiction itself. I add that generally the guys who do not have friends and who are largely marginalized make extensive use of pornography that, if for others is often the only source of sexual education, for them is even the only source of affective education, with the result that both levels, affective and sexual, tend to become confused and identify. In other words, I think that at the origin of the mechanisms of sex addiction there are deep and unheard affective needs, which are sexualized. A guy who is not accustomed to serious affective contacts translates his need for affection in terms that are more familiar to him and, if he has been educated on the patterns of pornography, he translates his affective needs into sexual terms. This means that the sexual needs of a guy who is in a state of sex addiction are actually affective. They are guys who, although they tend to see themselves as depraved, interested only in sex, in fact, are hungry for affection, try to be understood and accepted, are afraid of negative judgments, and especially of the indifference of others. Talking in chat with these guys gives a concrete measure of their degree of despair and of the depth of their affective need.

After the first few minutes of chat, I am astonished at the level of the conversation, which is not dispersed in divagations. The guys who are experiencing forms of sex addiction are totally sincere and aim at immediately emphasize the darker dimensions of their behavior, or at least those that appear such to them, for them to be accepted in a generic way, that is, not for what they really are but on the basis of reticence and misunderstanding is absolutely unacceptable. They expect substantially negative judgments. The chat, which at first could hypothetically support the hypothesis of a sexual contact, when this hypothesis is lost, does not end at all, but continues on another more typically affective register. For these guys, being told "you are a good guy" is extremely important, to feel appreciated despite all that they see as negative in their behaviors is gratifying for them precisely because it responds to a deep emotional hunger. A serious response to this affective hunger is the real precondition for getting out of sexual addiction.

I've read a very interesting book these days, which I recommend to deepen the subject of sex addiction: Carnes, Patrick. (1991). “Do not call it love: Recovery from sexual addiction”. New York: Bantam Books. I basically agree with what the author says, and I'm pleasantly surprised that a clinical scientific inquiry comes to the same conclusions that come from Gay Project. Obviously the point is different. Carnes deals with diagnosis and therapies from a clinical point of view. The Project's interest is essentially centered on what friends or people close to the sex addicted guy can do, this is a minor support but can also sometimes be of enormous importance.

SEXUAL ABUSE OF MINORS

Posted by: gayprojectforum - 09-10-2017, 06:27 PM - Forum: Gay orientation - No Replies

To try to address the problem of sexual violence and sexual abuse in the homosexual field, I will start with the Italian Criminal Code, which presents a very clear formulation of the matter widely shared by the criminal codes of Western Europe.

Let's look at the criminal notions in summary:

1) Sexual Violence

2) Sexual Acts with Minors

3) Corruption of a minor

SEXUAL VIOLENCE

(from 5 to 10 years of imprisonment) To configure sexual violence, it is required constraint to commit or to undergo sexual acts with violence or threat or abuse of authority or of physical or psychological inferiority of the hurt person. Sexual violence is aggravated (from 6 to 12 years of imprisonment) when it is committed against a person who is not yet 14 years old or with the use of weapons or alcoholic substances or narcotic or drugs or other instruments or substances seriously dangerous for the health of the hurt person, or by disguised person, or who simulates the quality of a public official or public service officer, or on a person subject to limitations of personal freedom or on a person who has not completed sixteen years of age, of which the culprit is the ascendant, the adoptive parent, the guardian. Sexual violence is further aggravated (from 7 to 14 years of imprisonment) if the offense is committed against a person who has not completed the age of 10.

SEXUAL ACTS WITH A MINOR

Are punished with the same punishment as sexual violence, even in the absence of violence or threats or abuse of authority or of the physical or of physical or psychic inferiority of the hurt person, sexual acts with a person who, at the moment of the fact, did not complete 14 years or 16, when the culprit is the ascendant, the adoptive parent, the guardian, or other person to whom, for reasons of care, education, supervision or custody, the minor is entrusted or has, with the latter, a relationship of coexistence. The minor who, in the absence of violence or threat or abuse of the physical or psychological inferiority of the hurt person, performs sexual acts with a minor who has completed thirteen years, is not punishable if the age difference between the subjects is no higher at three years. The punishment is aggravated if the hurt person has not reached the age of 10.

CORRUPTION OF A MINOR (6 months to three years of imprisonment)

There is corruption of a minor when sexual acts are performed in the presence of a person under the age of fourteen in order to make him/her assist.

If you keep in mind that robbery is punished with imprisonment from 3 to 10 years and that sexual violence is punished with imprisonment from a minimum of 5 to a maximum of 14, if aggravated, it is understood that the criminal code will sanction very strongly sexual violence. The reasons are not only to be seen in the social alarm that these crimes (these are crimes in the strict sense) involve but also and above all in the actual and serious damage caused to the victim, which is not patrimonial but can often condition very heavily all the life. It is evident that group sex violence or sexual harassment through physical constraint can create a profound trauma in those who suffer such behaviors for the intrinsically violent element that characterizes them. Less obviously, at first glance, it seems to equate sexual violence with sexual acts with a minor, even in the absence of violence or threat, when it comes to a minor infra-14 or to a minor infra-16 when abuse is performed by family members or tutors. But the legislator intended to protect the child not only by sexual violence, but more specifically by any form of abuse that was not achieved through violence or threats.

Sexual acts between adults do not constitute a crime when there is the consent of the participants, only if that consent is aware and free. The criminal legislator assumed “ex lege” (by law) that the consent of the infra-14 (or the infra-16 towards the family member) cannot be considered valid because of the lack of full awareness and freedom. The choice of the legislator is the only one compatible with a substantial protection of the child that cannot depend on the subjective assessment of his alleged consent.

But let's put aside the criminal code. Sexual violence can be considered:

1) from the point of view of the author

2) From the point of view of the victim

As far as the author's point of view is concerned, there is an enormous chapter related to pedophilia, its criminal and psychological evaluation and how to prevent it and overcome it. I limit myself to two observations only:

1) Most pedophile sexual acts (infra-14) occur in a family environment by parents, aunts and family friends, and this fact makes them very difficult to pursue because responsible people are the people who should take care of the child.

2) Most people who show pedophile tendencies have in turn been subjected to sexual violence or pedophilia.

But let's analyze issues related to sexual violence or sexual acts on minors from the point of view of the victim, and especially on boys who will then manifest a gay sexual orientation.

Sexual acts on minors are much more common than actual sexual violence. Talking with guys in chat is not uncommon to meet guys who have experienced a real sexual violence but it is even quite common to meet guys who, well before 14 years, have been involved in sexual activities with adults or with boys far older than them. These are therefore criminal cases, but often these things are performed by family members or older boys, with whom a playful climate is created, sexual activities are experienced by the child just as a game and awareness of what had happened arrives long after the facts. Those facts, however, print themselves in the brains of the boys who have suffered them and constitute their true sexual imprinting. If violent acts, or, worse, group violence, has been put into practice, trauma can be very serious. Children who have repeatedly suffered sexual assault and also by many people end up associating very closely sex and violence, which creates enormous complications in the acceptance of their sexuality. A boy who has participated in sexual activities with an adult man at a very young age, if he comes to live a true exclusive heterosexuality, will also live that heterosexuality as an overcoming of the memory of those facts, and in essence, adult heterosexuality will not be conditioned in a really heavily way.

If, on the other hand, the boy who has had sexual experiences with an adult man when he was young, growing up, feels homosexual impulses, he will live them badly because he will interpret them not as his spontaneous need but as something that introduced itself into his mind just as a consequence of the abuse. Boys who have been sexually abused by adult men or boys far older will generally experience a strong rejection of their gay identity. Guys who in the absence of violence or homosexual abuse would have been spontaneously identified as gays, as a result of abuses develop forms of “escape-heterosexuality”. It is in fact a way to move as far as possible from the remembrance of violence or abuse and, since the boy has been abused by men, the escape towards heterosexuality is the main road. Essentially sexual imprinting related to abuse (removal-imprinting) ends up acting in the opposite direction to common sexual imprinting. Sexual imprinting generally leads to imitative sexuality, the one associated with an abuse triggers a true removal of forms of sexuality that are somehow considered similar to those of the suffered abuse. In general, the deep sexual orientation emerges even if there is a removal-imprinting, but emerges in a much more problematic and conflicting way and later.

This is where the problem of masturbation fits. As is well known, masturbating fantasies are the main index of sexual orientation, beyond the behaviors in couple relationships. As a rule, if there are no heavy external interferences, sexual orientation is clearly evident from early masturbation, does not change over the course of life and is in the vast majority of cases basically univocal: or heterosexual or homosexual. In the presence of strong environmental pressures towards heterosexuality or of an heterosexual imprinting, sexual deep orientation emerges later, even at 18/19 and gradually. In a short period of 2/3 years, sexual orientation stabilizes. For kids who have suffered abuses things are less easy. They have had gay sexual imprinting but connected with the abuse and therefore they try to remove it and, on the other hand, detect the impulses of their emerging gay sexuality and try to sublimate them. These phenomena that affect the free development of sexuality are manifested through masturbation that is not related to exclusively heterosexual or exclusively gay fantasies and leaves the boys in the uncertainty about their sexual orientation, sometimes the boys identify themselves as bisexuals. In this case, not even time can solve the problem, it is necessary to disconnect gay sexuality from a negative memory and to attach it to a positive experience. The event that leads to conflict resolution is falling in love, especially when love is deep and with both affective and sexual involvement. If the boy falls in love, his gay masturbation breaks away from the memory of abuses and binds itself to the new love object and loses or relieves its problematic meaning in this regard.

For a boy to masturbate thinking about his love object is absolutely spontaneous and this makes the refusal of gay identity fall slowly. If the affection meets a serious, even non-sexual, affective response, the trauma of abuse can be considered overcome because gay identity begins to be felt as a value.

I would like to make a remark, I have met several gay guys who have been abused, I’m talking about repeated abuses or real violence, well this guys have achieved great social positions. In essence, the removal of gay sexuality, which in the worst cases may last after the age of 30, and the fact that it is impossible for them to participate deeply in an heterosexual escape-relationship causes these guys to sublimate sexuality and to devote themselves very seriously to the study and to professional activities that are a real compensatory value. Sexuality is reduced to episodic and essentially physical masturbation, which undoubtedly creates less trouble than couple sexuality. The sublimation of sexual energies into professional activities, if one way complicates and slows down the psycho-affective maturation of these boys, for the other rewards them and compensates them in a non-trivial way. However, this is still a positive and concrete reaction to the idea that having suffered abuses can affect life and almost destroy it. Social self-esteem increases sharply even if sexual-affection remains in these cases the great “removed” that has sooner or later to be faced. However, since the adolescent's psycho-affective maturation is lacking, the boy faces its stages at another age, even over 30, and must learn everything by himself: he must understand what he really wants and that sexuality is not a choice but a fact with precise psycho-physiological bases, he must understand that, for a gay, a relationship with a woman at the sexual level is possible but is not fully gratifying, that sexuality and affectivity are things complementary but different. The more severe the abuse was subjectively felt, the more marked is the push towards an escape-heterosexuality and therefore towards the sublimation of sexuality into professional activity, because heterosexuality isn’t truly satisfactory.

In essence, boys who have suffered very badly sexual experiences leave in adulthood, what is usually characteristic of gay adolescence, such as attempts to escape into heterosexuality or frustrating feelings for having fallen in love with an hetero friend. These things can go on for years, but then, inevitably, comes the awareness of the true sexual orientation. Of course, if it is difficult for a gay boy to accept his identity, it is certainly much more difficult for a boy who has been abused. Psychological support, in these cases, can greatly facilitate overcoming discomfort.

FROM THE ABUSE TO PEDOPHILIA

The evolution of sexuality of sexually abused boys, who do not develop escape-heterosexuality, must be considered with the utmost attention. Sexual abuse can happen because it is planned and realized by the adult in the boy's unconsciousness, but sometimes the same adult, who has not planned anything, does not even understand the meaning of his behavior when, in the form of a game, he allows the minor to keep behaviors that lead to the sexual exploration. An adult should assume responsibly a role and should not get involved in things that start as a game but then are no longer governable. The minor, of course, takes things as a game and as a forbidden game and promotes it, also pushing the game further and making it a real sexual game. It seems that the adult and the younger are gambling companions as in the exploratory games of sexuality that sometimes occur during adolescence, but in this case the age disparity and evaluation skills should push the adult to stop the game before it can assume a markedly sexual character.

However, the fact remains that these sexual abuses (because they are such, according to the criminal code) are not experienced by the boy as abuse, do not give rise to repulsion but ultimately constitute an imprinting that turns from puberty into masturbatory fantasy, accompanied by guilty feelings and by the idea of transgression. In these situations, if the boy experiences in adolescence homosexual feelings, he does not fight for certain against these feelings but associates them with the early childhood memories of the abuse and with an exchange of roles he can see himself no more as a minor abused but as an adult who accepts and shares a sexual game with a minor, that is, can slip to fantasies related to pedophilia.

It should be emphasized that sexual fantasies are a thing and sexual behaviors are a very different thing. Abused children who develop fantasies on minors experience their condition very badly and terrible psychological suffering states can be created. It is essential that young people come to express their thoughts on such subjects and talk with people who can support them. The real problems arrive when these guys feel absolutely alone and devoid of any chance of dialog that could allow them to see things rationally.

The criminal law aims at the repression of abuses, and it is an indispensable thing, but before the criminal law there is and there must be the attention to those who, not by their own fault, are likely to come to criminal behavior.

I close my considerations with one observation. Sexual interest for minors, arising from sexual abuse with the mechanism just illustrated, is not exclusive. If a boy has an affective life really satisfying (friendships, love, and sexual life) the impulses addressed to minors diminish sharply or even tend to disappear.

GAY LOVE ON THE BATTLEFIELD IN THE SECOND WORLD WAR

Posted by: gayprojectforum - 09-09-2017, 08:35 PM - Forum: True gay stories - No Replies

I post here with great pleasure a few pages of a diary which, through minimal signs tell a gay love story born on the battlefield. I thank Max who wanted to send it.

I just add some small notes to clarify the historical context, because the text refers to relevant facts and figures of World War II that non-Italian readers may not know.

__________

June 10, 1940 [1], at 21 – This afternoon I felt the pride of being Italian. We heard on the radio the inflamed speech of the Duce! Finally we are at war! W Italy! Italian people, run to arms! And show your tenacity, your courage, your value! We have nearly 250,000 soldiers in Libya and we can wipe out the British army from Egypt! Sometimes I don't understand what Mike has in mind, it must be a proud moment, we can finally show what we are worth, but it is as if he was afraid of what lies ahead, he says it will be tough, here in Africa we are stronger than the British but to get to Alexandria will not be easy and we’ll see on the battlefield how British do the war.

June 11 – General Berti [2] has five divisions here on the border and artillery and tanks, then I don't understand what we have to fear, Balbo [3] certainly expected war and everyone says that we are well prepared, but it is also true that the tanks L3 are just Arrigoni [a historical brand of canned sardines], are three-ton tanks and a tank like this is really a can of sardines. I tried to make it clear to Mike that Italians have nothing to fear from the British, but he says that the British are a hard nut to crack.

June 12 – Today the cans of sardines have behaved well, we have thrown back the British troops and we chased them almost to Sidi Omar. I don’t understand why generals don’t give the order to attack. We were almost at Sidi Omar but we were given the order to turn back. Today Mike saw that on the battlefield Italians know how to do! And I saw his smile, but he too didn’t understand the meaning of the retreat.

June 13 – Today the captain told us that the British in Sidi Omar were hiding special armored cars that move much more easily in the sand than our cans of sardines, and they didn’t make them go out to lure us into a trap letting us approach closer and then giving us the killing blow, the staff understood this and didn’t fall into the trap.

June 14 – Day totally empty. Hour spirits are up, I keep talking for a long time with Mike, I like this guy, he is strong but also kind, he is from Abruzzo [4] and so are people from Abruzzo. He told me that he has volunteered, but I did it because I believe in Duce and I believe in the destiny of our country, but he in these things seems to me a bit colder, nevertheless two days ago he was very happy because of victory.

June 15 – Another long day but I talked a lot with Mike, I begin to think that we really have a lot in common, but now we have to think about war.

Sunday June 16 – Finally the counterattack towards Sidi Omar and we won! I felt bad moments, the armored cars are terrible and very suitable to the war in the desert but we did not give up and eventually the British withdrew. When we did turn around to return to our base I saw many of our Arrigoni on fire and I was afraid that Mike was dead. The very thought made me feel bad, but then we met. Actually to knock out one of our L3 you just need an antitank shoulder rifle. In the evening I and Mike had fun, we joked a lot, I told him that I was afraid he was dead and he told me he had had the same fear and then in the cans of sardines, under the sun you’ll probably die anyway heat even if British don’t fire a shot cannon. As we are reduced now, before resuming the fighting we have to wait for replacements. The captain told me that we have lost almost a half of our L3 tanks and unfortunately the soldiers who were inside.

June 17 – Full vacuum! I spend the day with Mike trying to re-start a few cans of sardines not too bruised. I’m okay with Mike, laughing, joking, if war is this way it’s not so bad, although when I think about guys who died today I feel completely upside down.

June 18 – The more I talk with Mike the more I'm convinced of one thing. I could be wrong but the feeling is that.

June 19 – I’m in recognition with Mike. we go back and forth near the border, there is not even the shadow of a British. At one point we are close to one of our L3 burned, we get closer, what we have seen I think that we will not forget it for a lifetime, men were not killed instantly but were burnt to death because the shot deformed sheet metal and doors did not open. To die this way it must be terrible! In the evening we didn’t even eat and we just rested a little out of our tent but without lie down on the ground because of scorpions and snakes, if you fall asleep you risk of ending up poisoned.

June 20 – Kitchen service with Mike and with others, boring day, I couldn’t even really talk with Mike because there were others, but I think that what I thought is true.

June 21 – Suffocating heat. I asked Mike why he volunteered and he told me that even if we are at war, perhaps it is better here than at home. I asked why but he was evasive.

June 22 – The captain says that the replacements will arrive later because there is not only the Anglo-Egyptian front but also the French-Tunisian one, and Balbo must provide both of them. With Mike now we understand each other without saying a word, I would say that even last doubts vanished.

June 23 – No trace of British troops. We are here to do nothing! We recovered some other little tank damaged. The captain did not know what to say, he was waiting for orders that didn’t arrive. With Mike we finally spoken out. Now what? Because we are at war, and I hope it does not end badly. Last night I had nightmares thinking about guys burnt to death, I spoke about with Mike and he hugged me trying to make me feel comfortable.

June 24 – Beautiful day with Mike, we have been sent near Bardiah to wait for orders, between us and the British less than 10 km but there wasn’t even the shadow of a British. We went to swim in the sea, leaving our clothes on the beach, then a few things happened. After an hour we were back at the camp, but there were no orders. We came back towards the desert to our camp. It was really a wonderful day and I was just fine.

June 25 - With Mike everything is okay but in practice we spoke very little because six soldiers of reinforcement have come, practically nothing in relation to our needs, and I’ve had to instruct them on how to use the L3. With Mike we met only in the evening, because he went to inspection in the rear and I was not worried.

June 26 – How I wish that were the end of the war! Before I wanted war so much but now I think it already lasted too much time, I would like to be discharged tomorrow, so I could come back to Italy with Mike and we could go to Abruzzo.

June 27 – With Mike we decided that it is better to have patience. The captain called me and told me never to forget that we are soldiers and I think he’s absolutely right .

June 28 – I heard incredible news on the radio, Italo Balbo died, he was killed while returning from a reconnaissance flight in Egyptian territory. His plane crashed in flames during a British bombing of Tobruk, so told the radio. Tobruk is not near the Egyptian border but well inside the Libyan territory. But what happened is absurd! He was a flying ace! The captain says that the whole course of the war will depend on who will replace Balbo. The captain understood something about us but didn’t say anything, now he speaks only about Balbo. Beautiful day with Mike.

June 30 – Arrived some soldiers who were in Tobruk when the Balbo’s Savoia-Marchetti crashed. They reported that at five-thirty in the afternoon, they heard the cannon that in Tobruk is the alarm signal of an air attack. Nine British twin-engine loaded with bombs, came from the sea in groups of three, heading straight for Tobruk2, because our fighter planes were there. But our airman distribute all planes in places far from one another in order to avoid that a single raid can cause much damage. From the harbor they saw a huge column of black smoke. Only when it came to the third group they heard some Italian anti-aircraft cannon. The British action was swift and caught our troops unprepared. The British twin-engine turned away against the sun to avoid the anti-aircraft fire. Then they heard the ambulances run to Tobruk2. Then again they heard the roar of aircraft engines in the same direction (the direction of the sun) to where British bombers had left . Italians were expecting another wave of bombing. The planes approaching were only two and because they came from the direction of the sun it was impossible to distinguish well, at some point one officer shouted that they were Italian planes, Savoia-Marchetti 79, but while he was saying so the anti-aircraft unleashed. From the port, from the cruiser San Giorgio and from submarines in the harbor has been a living hell. They all thought that planes were British planes, otherwise the anti-aircraft would not shoot, but someone had seen very well that that planes were Savoia-Marchetti 79, one of the two planes moved away to the north, the other was hit and crashed, then the other plane came back making itself clearly visible and it was really a Savoia-Marchetti 79. The plane knocked down was Balbo’s one. Balbo knocked out by Italian anti-aircraft that had just undergone a British bombardment without firing a single shot! The colonel was to hear the story of those who were in Tobruk, and made a grimace, as if he wanted us to understand that there was something weird.

August 5 – Today there was a battle near Sidi Aziz, and we have thrown back the British, but I do not understand why we have not given the order to go ahead, the longer we wait ,the more the English organize themselves. I was with Mike on an L3 but it was not a difficult battle, I think that the British were expecting an attack in depth and instead, we were ordered to come back. I don’t know anything about how Graziani [5] would lead the war, and I do not know if he’s expert in desert warfare, because this is a very special war, here the problems are mainly the heat, lack of water and fuel and sand that enters everywhere to the point that trucks are no longer working and there are no roads and the heavy wheeled vehicles cannot advance in the sand. When the Ghibli blows you cannot see anything and sand enters the lungs. I look forward to ending the war!

August 21 – We were joined to a new brigade arrived from Italy with the M11/39, 11 tons tanks, they are not heavy tanks but seem powerful to me, nothing similar to L3. The colonel of the tank drivers told us that the M13/40 will come soon, which are much more manageable and modern. However, even the M11 is not bad, has a 37 mm cannon in casemate and two Breda twin machine guns in turret. Too bad the cannon in casemate is not very pivoting, if it had been in a turret it would have the horizon at 360 degrees. However, the armor is 15 mm then to break it down you need a big cannon. With Mike everything okay. Now everyone thinks that the order to attack is going to come and there are other things to think about.

August 26 – The Colonel says that there is a lot of movement in the rear. We will enter Egypt soon, and we will fight with the British. There would be three Italian divisions and two Libyan ready to cross the border.

August 27 – We are close to the border and here it all seems peaceful, but the officers are in turmoil, shouting that all should be set.

September 10 – The Colonel told us that the bulk of the army is coming. He sends me and Mike in the rear to give traffic information. I saw the power of the Italian army, an immense mass of men and equipment.

September 11 – There is a lot of confusion. We tried to make it clear to the officers that trucks could not go off roads because the sand would make any movement impossible, and the roads were not suitable for a long line of trucks. No one would pay attention to what we were trying to explicate. The officers gave orders that cannot be run in the desert, lack of coordination. We tried to make it clear that after crossing the border the situation could have been much worse. In response, they sent us back to our camp.

September 12 – The Colonel told us that the army was reorganizing before crossing the border. The colonel said that the staffs weren’t aware of the difficulties in the field but now they had to deal with the desert and then the attack would not come before ten days.

September 13 – The Colonel is furious! Five divisions have been ordered to immediately enter Egypt, but he said there were not adequate logistical conditions for such a thing. In the evening we too received the order to enter Egypt. We start immediately. We tank drivers thought we had to stay together to face the British, but we must separate into small groups to protect not armored troops.

September 15 – We conquer Halfaya.

September 16 – We occupay Sidi El Barrani.

September 18 – All the Tenth Army stops around Sidi El Barrani. Advance towards Marsa Matruh without water supply is impossible.

_________

The Diary of Antony ends here.

On December 9, 1940, the General O’Connor, attacking Sidi El Barrani, starts the Compass operation, intended to oust the Italian Tenth Army from Egypt. At the end of the Compass operation the Italian Tenth Army was destroyed, 130,000 Italian soldiers were captured by the British. British forces held firmly Cyrenaica and were ready to move against Tripolitania.

My grandfather (who was born also in 1920, as Antony, the author of the diary, and Mike) received these pages by Antony because they had become friends. He had understood the meaning of the relationship between Antony and Mike but with those guys he was really at ease.

The story does not end here, both Antony and Mike were captured by the British and were sent to the same prison camp in Scotland. My grandfather instead ended up in a different camp because he was captured later. Anthony and Mike at the end of the war remained in Scotland and together they opened a small restaurant. My grandfather went to visit them and stayed with them a week. Antony died in 2004 and Mike in 2006. When I was a boy, my grandfather told me for the first time the story of Anthony and Mike and told me that I had to have the utmost respect for these people. At that time I did not understand what he meant, then, growing up, I think I did understand. It is out of respect for these people that I send you this letter so that you can make it known to those who are able to understand.

Max

______

[1] 10 June 1940 Italy entered the Second World War on the side of Germany against France and England. Mussolini gave a famous speech from the balcony of the Palazzo Venezia in Rome. The speech ends with this exhortation: ” Italian people, run to arms! And show your tenacity, your courage, your value! ”

[2] Commander of the Italian Tenth Army in Libya.

[3] At the time of the Italian declaration of war on 10 June 1940, Balbo was the Governor-General of Libya and Commander-in-Chief of Italian North Africa. He became responsible for planning the invasion of Egypt.

[4] A region of central Italy between the Apennines and the Adriatic Sea.

[5] At the start of World War II, Rodolfo Graziani was still Commander-in-Chief of the Regio Esercito′s General Staff. After the death of Balbo in a friendly fire incident on 28 June 1940, Graziani took his place as Commander-in-Chief of Italian North Africa and as the Governor General of Libya.

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