Love Stories: Sex Between Men Before Homosexuality

Rating:
Summary: Like 19th c. pix of gay men? This is the text to go with.
Review: "Love Stories" is about a struggle for men who love men to find a place for themselves within their own imaginations. Katz examines the 19th century intellectual nexus where same-sex male lust, emotional intimacy between men and, to a lesser extent, male femininity meet and from which the origins of contemporary gay male identity are found. This book gives context to those who believe the "gay community" as it is popularly thought of today is not a point of arrival, but a temporary and, in the history of same-sex attraction, relatively short-lived form. In a time when being gay is a commodified identity analagous to rooting for a sports team, Love Stories gives substance, history and meaning to those seeking to understand where we come from. Love Letters reads easy, in parts like a Vanity Fair-style social history, with famous names and well-known historical circumstances. I hope Jonathan Ned Katz lives, researches and writes forever.

Rating:
Summary: Like 19th c. pix of gay men? This is the text to go with.
Review: "Love Stories" is about a struggle for men who love men to find a place for themselves within their own imaginations. Katz examines the 19th century intellectual nexus where same-sex male lust, emotional intimacy between men and, to a lesser extent, male femininity meet and from which the origins of contemporary gay male identity are found. This book gives context to those who believe the "gay community" as it is popularly thought of today is not a point of arrival, but a temporary and, in the history of same-sex attraction, relatively short-lived form. In a time when being gay is a commodified identity analagous to rooting for a sports team, Love Stories gives substance, history and meaning to those seeking to understand where we come from. Love Letters reads easy, in parts like a Vanity Fair-style social history, with famous names and well-known historical circumstances. I hope Jonathan Ned Katz lives, researches and writes forever.

Rating:
Summary: I saw the title, got excited about the subject...
Review: ..and then was very disappointed in the content. When I bought the book, I assumed it was truly about "sex between men before homosexuality." Instead, I found a thinly veiled biography of Walt Whitman and his writings. Nowhere on the cover does it indicate this. Only way in the back in the acknowledgments, is this "acknowledged." When I started the book, the section on Abraham Lincoln was fascinating and I'm glad Katz advocates ensuring we look at relationships within their own context of society and culture. But he spends too much time on Whitman and hyperanalyzing every word he wrote. I am not interested at all in poetry or Walt Whitman, so it was a shame that I bought this hardcover and had to try and pick out the parts without Whitman. The only time this became interesting was toward the end where the focus was more on Whitman's life.
The best part of the book, and I have to agree with another reviewer, are the wonderful vintage photographs.
While I believe Katz is an expert and writes fairly well, I would not recommend this book to someone looking for a wide range of subjects.

Rating:
Summary: Overwrought and Too Long
Review: For someone completely ignorant on the making of "homosexuality" or the arguments between essentialists and constructionalists, et al. this may be a eye opening and engaging read. I was certainly intrigued many of the stories, particularly in their letter fragments to describe their attachements to each other. However, Katz, really is quite repetitive, with almost every chapter failing to build beyond his initial arguments. There are many overwrought suppositions and readings into the many different texts, particularly Whitman. In fact, I feel that Katz's "readings" distracted from what I really desired, actually getting to read the letters for myself and make my own decisions. I felt many times that it is hard to feel that Katz is anything but an untrustworthy or unwitting guide.

I think a much more interesting and better written book on the same topic is "Same-Sex dynamics between 19th Century Americas: A Mormon Example" by D. Quinn.

Rating:
Summary: 19th Century Friendships
Review: I found this book interesting at times. Jonathan Katz is wise to not attempt to label 19th century males when it comes to their sexuality. He makes a point of this, and then labels them all the same when they engage in common 19th Century practices.

Yes, 19th Century men often slept together. All types of men did this, Gay, straight or whatever. Katz, also attempts to slip in quotes taking today's meaning of a word, for example, the word "intimate" did not have a sexual connotation in the 19th century.

In regards to the Lincoln, Speed "relationship," did you know:

1) Lincoln's law partner of 18 years and friend for longer said in a letter "Lincoln and Speed were quite familiar, to go no further, with the women, I cannot tell you what I know, especially in ink..." Read Honor's Voice By Douglas Wilson

2) Joshua Speed in Springfield was known to be a womanizer and reportedly kept a female prostitute. Lincoln asked him where he could "get some" and Speed gave Lincoln this woman's address. Read- Hidden Lincoln, From the Letters and Papers of William Herndon edited By Emmanuel Hertz.

3) Joshua Speed was by all reports, very happily married for around 40 years. Lincoln and Speed only saw each other 3-4 times from 1842 until 1865. If you read all the(authentic)letters they exchanged there is nothing "erotic" in them. Read-Joshua Fry Speed, Lincoln's Most Intimate Friend.

4) At least 4 of Lincoln's friends(and Lincoln Himself) mention Lincoln's involvement with female prostitutes when he was single. Read- Herndon's Informants: Letters and Statements about Abraham Lincoln.

5) Lincoln's secretaries John Hay and John Nicolay slept in the same bed in the White House for 4 years. Robert Lincoln also slept there at times. See John Hay's Diary.

Rating:
Summary: Fascinating gay history
Review: In addition to being a wonderful collection of most if not all of the known facts about sex between men in the Western world during the nineteenth century, this book is a well-written narrative about how the mystery and the cultural taboo surrounding gay sex was gradually, sometimes awkwardly, unravelled and revealed and finally relaxed. The story of gay liberation in America and England begins here, with Abraham Lincoln and Walt Whitman and John Addington Symonds and the dozens of unknown but courageous men who were unwilling to let themselves be crushed by the social pressure to be less like themselves and more like the heterosexual, morally acceptable "norm." We should all be grateful to these early freedom-fighters and non-conformists, and grateful, too, to Jonathan Ned Katz for telling these stories with such passionate and admirable accuracy and feeling.

Rating:
Summary: Fascinating history
Review: Jonathan Katz, who by now is one of the most respected scholars of gay history, has written another telling volume about same-sex love in America. This one centers around the nineteenth century. Well-known names appear in these pages, principally the towering figure of poet Walt Whitman, who not only espoused the ideal of love between men in his own life, but was a mentor and inspirational figure to others struggling with their desires for those of their own gender.

Katz's overall point is that one cannot judge the sexual behavior of men of the past by today's standards and attitudes--for much of the nineteenth century, there existed no sharp dichotomy between man-woman (heterosexual) and man-man or woman-woman (homosexual) behavior. Rather, distinctions were made between _types_ of love, spiritual as opposed to carnal, and _types_ of erotic behavior, procreative as opposed to non-procreative. Even among acts judged early on to be immoral or wrong, some were more wrong than others--oral copulation for a long time was not regarded with the same revulsion as other penetrative acts, for example. Having delineated these basic arguments, Katz then tells the stories of individual men and specific incidents (trials, arrests, news reports, et al.) against this background, bringing a historical perspective of unusual lucidity to all of these disparate tales.

Although he does not specifically attempt to tie his history toward attitudes and behavior of the present day, one of the beneficial effects of Katz's study is that the careful reader can discern where the frequently virulent prejudices against gays and lesbians that remain today got their start. The fact that many of these once did NOT exist, moreover, gives hope for the future. This is an unusual, valuable, candid and ultimately very moving chronicle.

Rating:
Summary: A great scholary study
Review: Katz does a wonderful job in dissecting history and presenting his thesis in a clear, concise manner. This book is valuable to Historians and people who are interested in history. Some people may feel a little lost or overwhelmed in the text of the book which looks at the concept of sexual deviance legally, socially as well as historically. It is important to know the Homosexuality is a modern construct of the 20th Century. This book is about men struggling to name and identify what was yet to be named. The passages dealing with the legal definition of sodomy are crucial towards understanding the roots of prejudice against homosexuals today. Great book!