The sounds that we make are called phonemes. They construct the entirety of any spoken language. But when they are used in music, or poetry, they can have a different utility to what we may be used to. Rap music, which we will be focussing on, has flow. Flow is the way the words come out, and their link to the music. It is a critical part of rap. A bad flow can completely ruin a song, and an artist’s reputation. Kendrick Lamar has an excellent flow, not least because of his interest in poetry. This is, I would argue, what separates Lamar from other artists. When you listen to his music, there is no sense that the words were only put there for the purpose of the flow. Instead, they feel natural, and organic, which, as someone who writes poetry is very impressive. It takes a lot of skill to have the rhyming structure flow naturally, and to then fit with the music. I will be exploring Humble and Alright from a linguistic, and musical perspective through the rhymes used, and how that fits with the flow.
Lamar mainly uses open vowels in the opening bars of HUMBLE. The open, and rounded nature of the vowel pulls the listener along with the music, until this tension is cut with the closed ɪs phonemes. For example, ‘some counterfits, now I’m countin’ this.’ Open vowels are so called because the mouth, and throat are at their most open. The /a/ phoneme is an open vowel, which is followed by a fronted plosive /t/ in ‘counterfits.’ The fronted plosive acts as percussion. Krims (2000), defined flow in three ways: sung, percussion-effusive, and speech-effusive. Percussion-effusive is, basically, using particularly consonants, but the mouth more broadly, as a percussive instrument. The main way most rappers flow is in a speech-effusive style. In terms of the internal rhymes in Humble, it is a similar technique to what Edgar Allan Poe was doing in The Raven. Lamar is using internal rhymes, and percussive-effusive flow to create the pace of the rap. These rhymes line up with the percussion, thus further emphasising it.
One other place percussion-effusive flow is seen is with the line ‘D’ussé with my boo bae, tastes like Kool-Aid for the analysts.’ /d/, /b/, /t/, /k/, and /α/, all act as plosives, creating an internal beat within the line. D’ussé is a high-end French cognac, backed by Jay-Z. This is juxtaposed with Kool-Aid, which is an affordable drink mix. For Lamar, and his ‘boo bae’, the cognac is an expensive, and luxurious drink. However for the ‘analysts’, whether that be financial analysts, or analysts of his music, and success, it tastes like Kool-Aid. For those who are already rich, the more expensive things in life are not luxuries, but, rather, day-to-day items. There is no reverence, or thought put towards possessing expensive things. Perhaps this is who Lamar is telling to be humble, those who already possess wealth. For those who have made it, who have reached success off of their own hard work, some flaunting is okay. However, for those who have possessed wealth all their life, they are the ones who should be humble. There is another layer to the Kool-Aid line. In 1978, the Jonestown Massacre occurred. 909 people, including 304 children, either suicided, or were murdered by cult leader Jim Jones, and other members of the People’s Temple. This event led to the, frankly, offensive, and insensitive phrase “drink the Kool-Aid.” This essentially means that one passively accepts a certain belief system, or ideology. “Drinking the Kool-Aid” of rap, and hip-hop music may mean to accept that bragging, and flaunting wealth is part of what makes a rap artist. However, Lamar is refuting that by encouraging people to do the opposite.
There is also the use of sibilance in Humble that very effectively draws in the next part of the line. Lamar says that he remembers ‘syrup sandwiches, and crime allowances’, and that there is a ‘soprano C’. Sibilance is the repetition of the /s/ sound, which is a voiceless fricative. In paralinguistic terms, it is typically used to get someone’s attention. We can see this through colloquialisms such as ‘shh,’ or ‘psst.’ It also slows down the text, making the reader pay more attention that way. Here, Lamar is pushing us to pay attention to ‘syrup sandwiches, and crime allowances.’ Syrup sandwiches are bread with syrup on it, a staple of a poverty food diet. It was also referenced on a Nas track, No Introduction. This is then, through the sibilance, coupled with the crime allowances. Crime, and the money earnt from it, is tied to poverty. Low-income is one of the biggest drivers of crime, not because those living in poverty are inherently criminal, but because desperate people will do desperate things. This focus on poverty then contrasts the grand aesthetics of the music video. Conspicuous consumption is the buying, and displaying of things that look/ are expensive. It is quite common among the nuevo riche (new money), especially in the Black American community. This is exemplified excellent in the music video for Ape Shit, The Carters. Displaying wealth is proof that you have made it. All of the wealth seen in the Humble music video, however, is undercut by the songs didactic message of maintaining grace, and modesty in the face of success.
Lamar is known to play with the down beat to create an interesting rhythm, as seen in To Pimp a Butterfly. Hip-hop is mainly in the metre of 4/4 time, this is four beats per bar. Typically, the first beat, the 1, is obvious, however in Alright this is not the case. This creates a restrained feeling that is later released with the chorus, ‘We gon’ be alright.’ The downbeat is on beat 4, with little emphasis to create a bouncy feeling without getting in the way of the lyrics. The half-time backbeat, with the snare being on beat 3, and 7 adds to this. The key chord progression slides down a semi-tone from Abm9 to Gm9. This, all together, gives the song a strong sense of arrival. The sense of arrival is further emphasised with the /ɹ/ in the word, ‘alright.’ Originally, Pharrell pronounced the phrase, ‘we gon’ be alright’ in a Louisiana accent: ‘we gon-be al-ight,’ however, Lamar pushed him to further annunciate the phrase to make the sounds clearer. This added to the sense of arrival captured in the music, as the /ɹ/ phoneme was emphasised as the music kicked in. The strong chorus is one of the best things about the song, and what makes it so iconic. In 2020, it was used as a protest chant to demonstrate, and support Black joy in the face of overwhelming oppression.
The beginning of verse 2 opens: ‘What you want you, a house? You, a car?/ Forty acres, and a mule? A piano, a guitar?/ Anything, see my name is Lucy, I’m your dog/ Motherfucker, you can live at the mall.’ Lamar uses a series of open vowels here in rapid succession to bring the listener with him. The words in bold are these open vowels. These let the music step back from being percussive, as we are suspended for these few lines with the song. Then the percussive-effusive flow, and percussion in the music kick in, making it hit the listener harder. This gives the song more weight, and impact then it might have possessed otherwise. Alright is a hard hitting song because of the unity between the flow, and the music.
Kendrick Lamar is obviously one of the most skilled rappers in, at the very least, a generation. His use of linguistics, however subconscious, only adds to the percussive-effusive flow. This compounds with the music to create some of the best songs, personally, I have ever heard.
I grew up very Gentile. My last name is super Christian. But I remember the first time someone called me a Jewess. I remember when I was having sex with a guy, and he began screeching about having an “ariyan dick”. My family is mixed, one parent a Jew, the other parent a leader in a church. Since October 7th, I have found myself longing for a Jewish community. Whilst most would turn to Chabad, that is not an option for me. Do you know what it does to your self-esteem to be rejected, as a Jew, by Chabad?! I live rurally in a village of three hundred people, in a county where I am sure I am the only Jew. I live with my Christian family who sit silently during a Seder. I live with a heart torn. The Jewish community has always seemed like a huge family, like honey and milk pouring from the dawn of the soul. But, aside from Progressive synagogues who, in all honesty, don’t offer that much community, I have felt like the dog eating crumbs from under the table. I want- no. I yearn for my Jewish community. For a collection of Jewish women who I can finally breathe around. I had this briefly whilst at university. I was studying to be a teacher, facing antisemitism from the students and staff. But I didn’t care. I had my people. But what does it mean to be a person without a people. How do we grieve alone?
I have a poster of Andrea Dworkin in my room. She is not someone who I agree with on everything, but she is right most of the time – especially on Allen Ginsberg. I have her there because she is a big Jew. A huge Jew! She is the most feminist Jewish Jew that I can think of. She keeps me company. The only thing I did for Pesach this year was eat some matzo for seven days. After last years silent Seder, I could not face it again. My Christian parent has always been supportive of my Jewishness, after all, it is my choice and my soul. “G-d has a plan.” But their support is limited to Fiddler on the Roof references, and sitting quietly. This Chanukah just gone, they asked questions. That meant the world to me. I began to explain the difference between Hillel and Shammai, about that story with the convert, about eight candles on night one versus one candle. They listened, and nodded, pulling faces at the behaviour of Shammai. But that was it. There was no further comments. Just silence.
I remember when I lived in Manchester for a short while. The synagogue did not tell me what time the Chanukah service was, so I hooked up with a guy instead. He was Greek, and proud of it. As he was holding me, I talked about Chanukah. I said ,“you know, your people oppressed my people.” He said, “no. We wouldn’t do that.” I fell silent. I am ashamed of that. I would not say that I am a woman in the Gentile sense. I am not quiet. I am not subservient. I am not to be ignored. In fact, my Mother bought all us kids jumpers that had Shakespeare quotes on them (yes, we were that type of family, we wore them to go see A Midsummer Night’s Dream). Mine said “though she be but little, she is fierce.” I am fierce. I would say, I am a Jewish woman. I am loud. I am proud. I am in charge, because HaShem knows if anyone else is, it will be a mess. But that time, with that man’s arms around me, I was quiet. I never expect antisemitism in a weird way. Yet every time I encounter it, I fall silent. What gives them the right to talk to me that way?
There was a time, also in Manchester, where I was stood up. The guy made me shlep to my local Wetherspoons, in the cold, just to call me a “kike” and block me. I had met this guy on a dating app. I always make it clear that I am a Jew. It is everything I am. In the word of Miriam Margolyes, it is “cultural vomit.” This time too, I stayed silent, but only because I was my own date. I messaged my brother, who is on his own spiritual journey, how many pints could I have before it got weird. My brother is a bartender, so he should know. He said six or seven. I, to my pride, managed four. I went home, picking up some cider on the way…
Since October 7th, I have been filmed, had things thrown at me, been yelled at, stood up, had to defend the word antisemitism, have lost family and friends, and my Jewish parent and I aren’t talking. We have not talked since I was seventeen. Every morning, I say my prayers. Every night, I say my prayers. Sometimes, if I remember, I say my prayers in the middle of the day. But Judaism sucks when you are alone. A TikToker, Zachery, compared being Jewish to cleaning the dishes. The world lives in a house, and it is up to the Jews to wash the dishes. We do not want to do it. But, if it is not done, nobody eats. With someone else, cleaning the dishes is fun. Put on some music, have a little party, split the washing and drying. But, on your own, it is a chore. It is exhausting. That is what it has been like for me. Exhausting. I wanted to write something positive, perhaps I still will, but I would be a liar if I denied the tiredness I feel.
I was in a situationship with a man. Not quite a relationship, but we were exclusive. He got too comfortable. He made jokes about me enjoying war crimes, about me hating Palestinians. The first time we talked was about whether Hamas were freedom fighters. I said they were not. He said they were. I argued, but eventually, I fell silent. I accepted it. It was not until over a year after we had met that I finally dropped him as a situationship/ friend. His housemate was even worse…
In Appalachia, they say “when the insects fall silent, get out of the woods.” I think about that a lot. Not just because I am a chronic overthinker, but also because it scares me. As I said before, I live rurally. I know what the insects sound like here. If they fell silent, I would take myself back home as soon as possible. They know more than I do. But, I have been thinking about it not just as practical advice, or not just because I am neurotic. I have been feeling it in my heart. When I fall silent, I should run. I remember reading that article “screaming without sound,” I think it was called. It was a New York Times article, I think. It was over Chanukah in 2023. I was alone in the lounge, Chanukiah lit, wood fire burning. I cried. I screamed without sound. My sister was railing against the war, and all I could feel, as I could not think, was how dare you? There are still women being held hostage. I could feel my abusers hands on me all over again. I could feel that quiet poison in my throat. I wanted to scream, and cry, and throw myself against the wall. But I fell silent. Just staring at this woman I thought I understood. When the insects fall silent, get out of the woods.
We used to play this game when we were kids, stuck in the mud. I hated it because it involved touching, or crawling between someone’s legs. I did not want to be touched like that, but I did not want to be in trouble even more. Silent. Stay silent. I hated that game because I did not need to imagine what it was like to be stuck in the mud. Every day, on that cursed walk home, I would shlep through mud. I would attempt to swim through it at home. I guess, I have always felt like that little girl. I was always the closest (and the favourite) of my Jewish parent. We got along the best. I was with them every other weekend they could be bothered to be a parent. I guess October 7th brought it all back for me. It also brought back a sense of guilt. How dare I make this moment about myself? How dare I take the suffering of others and focus it on me?! But that is what we do as Jewish women. We beat with one heart, and we breathe with one soul. Ruach.
Did you know that a strong eastern wind could have parted the Red Sea, and that is what is said in Exodus 14:21-2? I am not much of a believer in these things, but it is good to know. Breath. Not quite silent. That is what I have been focussing on as of late. When all the hostages came home, I felt that breath through me once again. It was miraculous. Out of all the religions and peoples in the world, the Jewish community is the one still experiencing miracles. We are still living and breathing after six thousand years of torment. This has given me strength. Sometimes I use this fact flippantly, “Oh, come on Sion. Your people lived through six thousand years of torment. You can call the doctors.” I fear my ancestors would be ashamed of me.
Why Andrea Dworkin? That is the question I come back to. Well, because she is Andrea Dworkin. She needs no introduction. She is off the beaten track. She commits to her principals to the point of impacting her life. Some find her work unreadable (something I want to experience so bad). She is so fully and emphatically herself. That is what I saw in Jewish women. In Golde (Fiddler on the Roof), she is a Jewish woman who runs her household, has everything under control even when things are falling apart. She always takes that extra step to search for her daughters, to learn, to pray, to grow, to change. I have no idea why Tevye is looking for a scholar when his wife is right there. In Yentl (Yentl). Her self-possession and drive. Her earnestness and passion. Her everything! How could you not want to be a Jewish woman when this is what is represented?
I have met two influential Jewish women in my life. One was a Rebbetzin. She made the best potato salad. It had little pickles cut up into it. She made some of the best challah in the world – not necessarily better then mine, but we will leave it up to HaShem to judge. She was so put together at every moment. Her children listened to her. She could cook perfectly. She knew everything. I guess I have always wanted that for myself. I always wanted that kind of mother, friend, companion. When I was around her, I got a little bit envious. I wish I was that. I wish that one day I could be that. In my daydreams of my future, I am a badass Jewish mother, doing everything I need to support my family. But that is a weigh of its own, is it not?
I do not know whether I could be a mother anymore.
I cannot watch my children suffer. Hagar, cast out into the wilderness, clinged to her son, and to her life. She abandoned her son as she cannot bear to see him suffer. As the cries of the infant ring out, Hagar turns around to comfort him. It is at this moment, when Hagar faces her suffering that she sees the well of water. I remember this being told to me on the Jewish-Feminist podcast Can We Talk?. It has stuck with me. Could I bear to see my child suffer? Could I bear to see them taken away from me? HaShem said to Abraham “Go out from your land, your birthplace, and your father’s house… And I will make you a great nation.” HaShem said to Abraham, “I will make your children like the dust of the earth, so that if anyone could count the dust of the earth, so shall your offspring be counted.” HaShem said to Abraham, “[G-d] took him outside and said, ‘Look at the heaven and count the stars – if indeed you can count them…’ So shall your children be.” HaShem said to Abraham, “Your name will be Abraham, for I have made you a father of many nations.” I feel this implicit pressure to have children… I wonder why?
Love. I suppose that is why people have children. There are four types of love: Ahavah, Dod, Yichud, and Racham. Ahavah is non-romantic, non-erotic love. It is a brotherly love for your fellow person. Its root is in hav, meaning to give. We give love. We act love. We do love. It is not a simple thing of passively feeling love, but rather actively doing love. We may not always feel the emotion, but our actions can bridge that gap. Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev said that he saw two drunks talking. One says, ‘I love you’, the other denies this. The first protested, ‘I love you with all my heart.’ The second responds, ‘if you love me, why don’t you know what hurts me?’ Dod means romantic love. It is the beloved. It is a simple, school-yard crush type of love. Yichud is the uniting of two into one. It means together alone. Yichud to echad, together alone to one. Racham is infinite love. The love of HaShem for us. It is a love we cannot reach. It is tied to the womb, from whence we came.
Things feel like they are happening in slow motion, yet everything is moving very fast. It is nearly June. I love for love, ahavah, dod, yichud, racham, where every I go to slow the pace of life. I cannot find it anywhere. So I kiss my mezuzah. I open my Siddur. I cover my eyes. And I pray.
can you name one (1) poem by lord byron without looking it up?
yes (reblog with the title in the tags please)
no
i don't know who lord byron is/results
Voting ended onApr 27
please reblog for reach because it feels like people know byron but not his poems and i wanna know if that's true. also i wanna know which of his poems people who do know his works think of first. i'm curious :3
Spotted some facial likeness between Julia's photo and this photo of Sumner
Also found out an queer interpretation of Lord Byron’s carefully staged portrait of him in the Albanian costume. It makes me think twice about Howe's famous portrait maybe also is queer coded and the rich layer of meaning that their time. Truth is in the surface.
In his new biography of Lord Byron, William Kuhn weighs what words to use to describe a man whose experience of same-sex sexuality was inter
This film is quite bad. I appreciate it artistically, for whatever that is worth, but it is not an entertaining film. Now, do films have to be entertaining? Does every work of art need to captivate its audience? I do not know, but I think that Gothic fails to do even that.
I appreciate the Marquis de Sade nature of the film. From Polidori cutting himself on a crucifix, to sodomy, to orgies. It is all overt and overly giving. But, similar to the writing of Sade, it can get a bit fatiguing and boring. Yes, there is all the evils of Regency sexuality, and crucifixes are going G-d knows where. But, after a few chapters of 120 Days of Sodom, the explicitness of it wears off. It becomes almost a novelty. The same sins are repeated, and the horror becomes a dull lull in the background. Gothic suffers from the same problem. There is so much sex that it loses all of its narrative purpose. After a while, it becomes dull and uninspired. I have to wonder about when the film came out, versus us today. For us today, sex is a topic we discuss fairly openly. It is not so much of a taboo anymore. It is in pretty much every TV show and film. However, in the 80s, sex was not featured that much in media. It was hinted to, and the occasional film may feature it, but those films would have midnight screenings, and have to fight censors. It is a very different world today.
So how do you translate taboo today? Well, bigotry is a big one. Lord Byron was a bigot by all senses of the word. He was lent a Black servant by a friend, and forced the servant to call him “Masser”. He took money of an enslaver for the purchase of Newstead Abbey. He reviled women. He was a true misogynist. All of these things would push a modern Gothic into the taboo. Furthermore, Byron engaged in age-gap relationships that we would find either disturbing or down-right paedophilic today. In fact, Clairmont was ten years younger than Byron, being only seventeen! Percy Bysshe Shelley groomed Mary Shelley, and threatened suicide if she did not court him. That would be taboo today. One of the more uncomfortable bits of the film (aside from the oral-sex-miscarriage scene) is when Byron nearly has his clubbed foot revealed. He beats Clairmont, nearly setting her on fire before the two passionately kiss. That made me feel uncomfortable because Mary got up to defend Clairmont, but was stopped by Percy. Polidori looked on, almost like he was enjoying the scene in a sexual way. It reminds me of a quote I read in a paper on Harriet Beecher-Stowe by McPherson: ‘expectations of conformity to female propriety enable instances of male sexual violence... to be passed over in silence.’ The violence was so real and tangible. It is something many women go through. All the sex is probably a part of somebody’s life, by the domestic violence was truly uncomfortable to watch because it felt real.
You could say that Byron was positioned as a domineering, demonic, father-figure, leading the rag-tag Geneva Squad into sexual impropriety. In this way, it is similar thematically to The Cenci or Mathilda. Both works, by Percy Bysshe Shelley and Mary Shelley respectively, portray father-daughter incest. They explore the ways it represents the domineering male sexual violence in society at large, the sexual violence inherent to patriarchy. The use of the snake and the goat, therefore, is not shocking. Of course this iteration of Byron would surround himself with devilish creatures.
The film is similar in tone to A Clockwork Orange (a teenage favourite of mine). Ken Russell did want to make an adaptation of it, but could not get it past the censors. It feels as if this was his Clockwork Orange. The same point about a creature of pure, unrestrained evil character is made through Byron. Mary is an innocent, as hinted at by her golden blonde hair. Percy, too, whose sexuality seems more naïve, and boyish than rakish, and untamed. Claremont is positioned with Byron sexually, however she is more unrestrained and chaotic. Polidori is gay, as he often is. It is Byron who is controlled, but unrestrained. He allows his sexuality and violence out, but always maintains dominion over the group. He does this primarily through sex and violence. I would say this aspect is not an unreasonable analysis of Byron, however it is not quite as nuanced as it should be. The writer also wrote Ghostwatch, so this film makes perfect sense if you have ever seen that TV special.
The slight Scottish lilt to Byron’s voice, and the limp are very good. Byron was said to speak with a lisp, and to have a Scottish twang to his accent. The limp is obviously because of his “clubbed” right foot, which is referenced in the film as his ‘cloven hoof.’ This may be linking to the fact Byron called himself a “limping devil”. There are other little details that are historically accurate, but the film is not trying to be that. I think it shows the level of research that went into the film both from cast and director/writer. The question then is “why not make it more historically accurate?” In the words of Julain Sands, who plays Percy Bysshe Shelle: ‘the film is an expressionist piece, and that on an unreasonable expression of their realities.’ I think that is fair enough. How do you express the chaotic life of Lord Byron, or perhaps, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, without dipping into expressionism? Whilst I think there is more of a balance to be struck, I can appreciate the point being made here. It is an expressionist film that tries to centre the awful and uncomfortable attributes of the Romantics in a way its contemporary audience would be shocked by. Now, we would be shocked by other things, such as the domestic abuse or sexualisation of a miscarriage.
The casting of Polidori is awful. I am sorry, but that was my least favourite part of the film. Timothy Spall is a very talented actor, and for the role written, he fits. I am desperate for a historically accurate Polidori, and have yet to find one. I know I have just said this film is not trying to be historically accurate, but me want Polidori! He was the embodiment of wrath, which, if accurately portrayed, could have added to the film’s Christian symbolism and through-line of sin. But, alas, I will continue my search.
Altogether, the film Gothic does have some intriguing points to make. I would argue that it is not a film to entertain, but to shock. Unfortunately, because of the times, we are no longer truly shocked by it in the way a contemporary audience may have been. I would say that if you are interested in the Romantics, then you should watch it. If you do, make sure there are no children around, because there is a lot of sex.
After the poll results from my last blog, Lord Byron and Why He Was Like That, it's well past time I paid up. So without further ado, I give you:
Bisexuality, Boys, and Byron: A Completely Uncomprehensive List of Byron's Queer Dalliances Throughout His Life.
Please be aware upfront that by the standards of today, Byron could be considered at the very least a pedarast, and it is uncomfortable to acknowledge that having sex with children was not the cause for disgust back then that it rightly is today - unless it was gay. Please consider this your CW for child sexual assault.
It is tempting to view the age discrepancies between B and his partners as indicative of moral character, but evidence suggests that age was not the motivation of his pursuits, rather accessibility (more on that later). His moral character sucked for a myriad of other reasons, too. Context is key, and though his behaviour is distasteful to us in a modern light, at the time it was his queerness which he was crucified over in the court of public opinion. There is more to be said on this nuanced topic, but not without writing a dissertation.
In the Regency Era in England, the age of consent for sex was 12 for girls and 14 for boys (yikes) and this was not revised until the 1900s. Though marriage of persons under the age of 21 was only granted with written permission from the parents of both parties in England, it was commonly known that the age of marriageable consent was 14 in Scotland, and elopement of teenagers was common. For example, Percy Byshe Shelley and his first wife Harriet eloped to Edinburgh in 1811, he 19 and her 16. He was 21 when he took Mary and her step sister Claire (16 and 15 respectively) on their flight to Europe, both of whom he was sleeping with.
People commonly died in their thirties and forties and grew up quickly as a result. Byron himself was molested at the age of ten by an adult nurse maid his mother intially refused to dismiss, and so it is safe to say that no one was overly interested in the protection of children from being groomed or coerced at the time.
Now - the list. Please note: some of these are speculation on my part and hotly contested. That's my opinionnnn etc.
The Cast of His Harrow Schooldays (1801-5)
Pretty much every one of his school friends at Harrow Boys School. No I kid, but truly it seemed that his passions for same-sex relations were stoked to life through intimate friendships with his school fellows, many of whom became his 'favourites', to which he would dedicate his special attention for spells of time.
As I have said before, he (and his cohorts) had an affection for the Greek classics, and especially the "Greek" custom of love, which to B at this time revolved around the personification of the Ganymedian, "lightly-bounding boy". There are many, many examples of this in his school days, when he himself would have been only 13-16. The romantic and sexual nature of these fads was exacerbated by the custom of bed sharing at Harrow, and the culture of 'fagging' (older boys making squires of younger boys, sometimes sexually), of which Byron had been both a victim and perpetrator of during his academic career. One boy, John Tatersall, left Harrow before Byron, and in a grief-riddled farewell letter Byron asked him "who will you have to comfort you […], and to undress you when you go to bed… who to go bathe with you… in short, who to do everything with you?"
Another of the most familiar names in the early days of boy-love was Byron's friendship with John Fitzgibbon, the 2nd Earl of Clare. Of him, Byron said "I never hear the word 'Clare' without a beating of the heart". He would coincidentally run into Lord Clare in Italy, a decade or so later, and be intensely moved by the fleeting reunion.
Henry Edward Yelverton, Lord Grey de Ruthyn
Lord Grey was the handsome, rakish renting tenant in Byron's ancestral pile, Newstead Abbey, while Byron was not yet of age to be living there himself. Grey occupied the Abbey for five years, and for an intense burst of that time, Byron spent a matter of weeks staying with him (he was then 15-16 to Grey's 23-24), even delaying his return to Harrow boarding school for the Autumn term in order to continue his friendship with Grey. They would ride together, swim and sail together, and go on midnight hunts (because the middle of the night is a perfect time to use a gun), and Grey insisted Byron spend as much time at Newstead as he liked - until an abrupt severing of their friendship.
Byron withdrew to Harrow and wrote to his half-sister Augusta Leigh: "I am not reconciled to Lord Grey, and I never will. He was once my Greatest Friend, my reasons for ceasing that friendship are such as I cannot explain, not even to you my Dear Sister." He also stated "I have a particular reason for not liking him". Later, his closest friend John Cam Hobhouse ('Hobby, Hobby-O' to B), said of the intimacy: "a circumstance occurred […] which certainly had much effect on his future morals".
This to many Byron scholars is interpreted as either a rejected romantic overture by Lord Grey, or (more likely, in my opinion), a sexual experiment that Byron recoiled from in self-dismay after the fact. I find this particular event fascinating - was this the relationship that brought the reality of Byron's sexual preferences to the fore outside of simple boyhood closeness? Was he taken advantage of, or put in a position (not to put too fine a point on it) that he misliked?
Tidbit: Byron's mother wanted him to make friends with Grey again because she fancied him. Jesus.
John Edelston, The Cornelian Boy
I have covered Edelston briefly in my previous post - he was Byron's 'Cornelian', a choral student two years Byron's junior at Cambridge whose relationship with him developed so intensely they discussed living together after their studies concluded (an idea that may well have resulted in Byron pulling back: it would not have been feasible in the moral climate at the time, at all). After their separation (Edelston's voice broke, making him untenable in his position of soprano choir boy- and perhaps Byron was aware of Edelston's expectations of the development of their relationship), Byron went on tour to the Mediterranean for two years. On his return, he received a letter from John's sister with the news that her brother had died from TB. Devatastated, Byron immortalised him as his "Thyrza", a female epitaph in the mourning poem, 'To Thyrza', and several others. They are heartbreakingly intimate, and were intrinsic in cementing Byron's reputation as a truly great poet. The fact they were published at all, censoring of genders notwithstanding, to me speaks of how keenly Byron desired his love for John to be immortalised, even through obfuscation.
His love for John, and his long-endured grief, was the most acute of any of his affairs. Edelston's death seemed to cement him in Byron's mind as the undiscovered potential - someone who had loved him without any expectation of earning something in return, and who loved Byron entirely as himself. He shares a heart-wrenching recollection of Edelston giving him a small gold ring with a carnelian heart set into it, delicate and tiny. At gifting it to Byron, he burst into embarrassed tears, mortified at the idea Byron might not return his feelings, or would think the gift paltry. Such a naked display of emotion moved Byron to tears himself, and the two boys embraced one another for a long time and cried. Byron did not remove the ring for the rest of his life, and still wore it when he died (yes I have mentioned this before, and no I'm still not over it).
It is my belief, from my reading, that Byron perhaps thought he might return to Edelston once they were both established and grown, though evidence suggests that Byron's friends (Hobhouse in particular) warned him off making any association known, as homosexual men were being targeted for pillorying and lynching.
[As an interesting aside, this poem was one that Mary and Percy Shelley quoted affectionately to one another as a symbol of their love - unknowing of the gender of Byron's lost inamorato - possibly always.]
Robert Rushton, Eustanthius Georgiou, and Nicolo Giraud
Also covered briefly in the first post, Robert Rushton was a young page boy taken into Byron's service just before his departure on his Grand Tour across the Mediterranean. He would have been 14 to Byron's 19 at the time of his trip. Byron boasted to his intimate friends of 'initiating' Rushton - the 'initatiated' being a code word amongst him and his friends that covertly referred to homosexuality. He also infected him with the cowpox apparently? Though this sounds fake as hell because Byron was not a cow nor, to my knowledge, a farmer. Wouldn't be surprised if he gave him something else, though.
When Byron moved on from Greece to Turkey, he sent Rushton home as "young boys [were] not safe" from the sexual advances of men there (or in Byron's tent, but apparently that doesn't count). Rushton reportedly was extremely devoted to Byron and was miserable to be separated from him, returning to Newstead to serve Byron's mother in his absence.
Interestingly, there is also a tidbit suggesting after Byron's return that he began having an affair with a maid at Newstead (if you could call it an affair, Byron seemed to be of the 'droit du seigneur' school of thinking) named Susan Vaughan, who Rushton was ALSO having an affair with. You can't make this shit up.
Eustanthius Georgiou was another Greek youth who was described as effeminate, with black curls tumbling down his back, and the large dark antelope eyes Byron was often taken with (whatever that means). He had the eccentric trait of needing a parasol or shade to travel, which Byron found amusing. He was said to be "disagreeable" and "prone to epileptic fits" (used to denote a tantrum, here), and Byron claimed he had "never in my life took so much pains to please anyone, or succeeded so ill" and said "I have quite exhausted my poor powers of pleasing, which God knows are little enough, Lord help me!". He sent poor Eustanthius back to his father rather quickly, all told. Only room for one Lestat De Lioncourt motherfucker in this camp, Eustanthius.
Nicolo Giraud was a French/Greek boy (also approximately 15 at the time) who seemed to have evoked some genuine affection and protectiveness in B. Byron boasted of his beauty, good nature, and their 'wild, puppyish sexual cavorting'. Nicolo was ostensibly hired to teach Byron Italian from a monastery, under what seemed to be an understanding that both parties would find compensation in matters other than the linguistic. Byron referred to their relationship in a letter to his friend Charles Skinner Matthews as "philosophical", but this was likely a playful code term referring to the "philosophy" of Greek love. Giraud cared for Byron through a bout of illness even though he himself was also unwell, and Byron disclosed (through thinly veiled innuendo) to friends that they had continued to have sex even throughout this fever, which he joked nearly killed him.
Afterwards, Nicolo came down with the same illness and Byron reportedly insisted on him seeing a British doctor who was in Greece. The doctor speculated privately that Giraud was ill from an infection that resulted from being sexually abused, but this was probably retrospective gossip circulated after Byron's death, as neither Byron nor Giraud make any mention of it in correspondence, and it would have been intensely damaging and preoccupying for Byron if it had been reported at the time. Again, I'll specify that the outrage would not have been Nicolo's age, nor whether he consented or not, but his gender. Priorities were wild back then.
Byron parted with Nicolo on arguably the best terms of any of his liaisons, paying for him to undertake an expensive education in Athens and even bequeathing him a generous sum (equivalent to £450,000 today) in his will, which was later removed (likely when he was getting married to Annabella Millbanke, and/or when he realised he didn't have any money). Heartbreakingly, it seems that Nicolo tried to maintain contact with Byron after he returned to England and was soundly ignored for his efforts, probably due to the mounting hostility toward queer men at the time (more on that later).
NB: There is no doubt that Byron's 'relationships' with teenage boys AND girls in this chapter of his life were the result of soliciting sex from paid or indentured individuals, even if this is not how it was acknowledged at the time. Sex workers were a common feature in London, but it seems it was almost implicit in any arena Byron entered in the Mediterranean that sex could be procured on tap. Indeed, he wrote in one of his journals that the only words he learned in Turkish for his travels were "water, bread, and pimp". Classy.
Speaking of Turkey! Ali Pasha (and his son, Veli Pasha)
Ali Pasha was the occupying governor of Albania during Byron's travels, ruling over it in the stead of Sultan Mahmud II, whom Byron also met and who insisted he was a "woman dressed as a man" for safety when travelling, due to his feminine looks and slight frame (aka he was a twink). Ali received Byron and Hobhouse with much fanfare and a regard that flattered Byron intensely. He was approximately sixty, short and rubenesque, with a white beard and hair and a cheerful demeanour. Despite this Santa-ish appearance, he was a brutal warlord who had purportedly had a teenage girl who had accused one of his sons of raping her sewn into a sack (along with several of her friends) and thrown into a river, where they drowned. Ho ho ho.
Byron interfaced with this in much the same way he did with the Sultan - privately outraged, but in turn almost admiring of the brutishness. He felt a dissonance toward the occasionally 'barbaric', lawless Turkish way of life, and the beauty of their architecture and men, and the scarcity of women (which seemed to please him). It likely doesn't need repeating, but sexual activity with young men was culturally encouraged and a regular feature of life even in Ali's circle, though usually men were said to grow out of "boy-love" and go on to marry for the sake of having children. This was largely because women were considered property, and therefore more closely protected - or rather, hoarded. Byron is actually said to have saved one girl from the same fate as her unfortunate peer, by purchasing her freedom. Whether this is true or not is debatable, but it is a theme that recurred in works such as 'Childe Harold' and 'The Giaour', which were largely autobiographical.
Anyway - Ali Pasha was very pleased with Byron's appearance and was sure he was a man of rank just going off his small ears and white hands. He called him beautiful, asked him to look upon him as a father, and begged Byron to visit him at night as often as he could when he would be at his leisure. He also furnished Byron and Hobhouse with horses, body guards, and sent Byron sweets, sherbets, and fruits throughout his stay, sometimes upwards of twenty times a day. There are other mentions Hobhouse makes of Byron cross-dressing at this time, as well as an asinine remark in his journal about him "entertaining" Ali Pasha's court (the mind boggles at what this might entail).
It is debated whether or not Ali was successful in his pursuit of Byron, but as Byron and Hobhouse had no real funds and were relying on the kindness of their host, it would not have surprised me in any way if there were expectations of reciprocity. Additionally, from what I know of Byron, I can imagine he had at least entertained the idea even if no sexual contact was had, as a young man clawing for all the experiences life could offer outside of the stifling society of England. Ali was certainly not his type, but he was attracted to power and the influence of it and, to put it indelicately, the daddy issues of it all probably played a part here (conjecture on my part).
Veli Pasha was Ali's son, receiving Byron and his entourage where he was holding another territory. He apparently was also very taken with Byron, calling him 'beautiful boy' and embracing him, and insisting that they drink, eat, and hunt together. Though Byron purported to be embarrassed by this attention, he still stayed with him for some days. Iykyk.
Charles Skinner Matthews and William Bankes
CSM may not have been a lover of Byron's in the traditional sense, but along with John Cam Hobhouse, he was one of Byron's very closest confidantes and seemed to make up part of the queer inner circle Byron fostered at Cambridge. CSM and Byron wrote coded letters about his sexual exploits whilst on his tour, and Matthews often encouraged him to tell him more details when he returned, and lamented on his own lack of "botanical exploits" (Byron and Matthews used this code as a term for having gay sex, using the term "Hyacinth" among others to describe gay lovers). Though their letters lacked the florid intimacy Byron typically bestowed upon his amors, there is no reason to suppose their initial discovery of mutual inclinations wasn't through experience as it was with other members of their circle. On the other hand, Byron was incapable of discretion, and likely would have shared if he had harboured any romantic feelings toward his friend. I waver.
Importantly, it appears that Matthews was rather candid about his sexuality whilst ensconced in the fishbowl atmosphere of Cambridge, more so than any of his set, which later may have caused issues. At the time of Byron's impending return from his tour, a local gentleman's club which was known to cater almost exclusively to gay men (clandestinely, of course) was raided by police, and two individuals (one only sixteen) were arrested and later hanged for the crime of sodomy. Matthews and one of Byron's other close friends, Scrope Davies, visited both of the victims in prison before their executions, and Matthews wrote in a carefully neutral tone about it to Byron, which could well have been a warning of the puritanical rise in London's moral landscape. They had other mutual friends (such as William Bankes) who are recognised as homosexual retrospectively, several of whom also ran into legal troubles surrounding "improper" behaviour with the same sex.
CSM is the same friend who drowned in the Cam river shortly before Byron's return, leaving no letter or whisper of reason for the apparent suicide. Given the historical context, it would be willfully ignorant not to suppose it had much to do with the executions of two other known homosexuals at the time, though it might have been compounded by other factors. Sadly, we'll never know, but Byron was deeply wounded by the loss.
The aforementioned William Bankes was a recurring member of Byron's set, the famous Egyptologist and a gay man who would later be arrested for committing a homosexual act near Westminster Abbey (apparently that was worse?) and be rescued by the Duke of Wellington - only to be charged again with sodomy some years later. Like dude. Quit fucking outdoors.
Byron coined Bankes as "the father of all mischiefs" and his "initiator" at Cambridge. As I stated, 'the Initiated' often referred to those who had gay sex or inclinations, suggesting that Bankes had exposed Byron to his way of life during their time at school together. Bankes was Byron's senior by two years, and seems to have been a guiding influence in introducing Byron to the idea of Greece and Turkey being accessible areas for gay men to explore their inclinations, as well as some of the literature he favoured. Bankes also joined Byron for his own exile in Venice where he settled for a couple of years after his split with Annabella.
Amusing aside: Bankes referred to Byron as "capricious and profligate", and Byron to Bankes as "not much of a flatterer". Calm down, boys.
William Fletcher
Byron's valet from when he was 16, Fletcher spent the rest of his Master's life with him. Byron spotted Fletcher tilling the fields shirtless and decided he would be his valet after his own had been dismissed for theft (there were some other hijinks in there where intially Fletcher was a footman, or some such). He would have been twenty eight by the time he became Byron's valet. He had the unenviable task of being at Byron's every beck and call despite having his own wife and children, and even went with Byron on his tour in 1809, though he was decidedly unsuited to the temperatures and customs of Turkey and Greece.
He also accompanied him on Byron's second flight from England, leaving behind a second wife and the children from his first marriage. At this time, Byron was at the height of his hedonism, first having his dalliance with the Shelley set and then making his way to Venice where he engaged in several months of "heartless concubinage". During this time he would prepare for sexual marathons like an athlete, and had Fletcher rub him down with linaments after ice baths. Even Percy Shelley remarked that Fletcher was a good-looking man, physically fit with sandy hair, who was devoted entirely to Byron for the entirety of their time together even though Byron was a difficult master.
Fletcher continued as valet to Byron until his death in Missolonghi in 1824, and was purportedly devastated, having a moment of intense overwhelm at his funeral where he had to be helped up after staggering to his knees in his grief. This, of course, does not necessarily portend a sexual relationship, but would certainly imply a high level of trust and intimacy, especially at a time when other noblemen were murdering their staff for simply discovering them in homosexual acts. Fletcher left behind two wives to spend extended months at Byron's side, and defended his generous character long after his death. He saw Byron at his very worst, through fits of temper and melancholy, and through sexual behaviour that thoroughly disgusted many of his close friends. Whether his feelings for Byron were brotherly or more, he was ride or die as fuck.
Tita
Giovanni Battista Falcieri, affectionately called Tita, was a broad, muscular gondolier that Byron adopted into his caravan in Venice during in a time where he quite literally nearly fucked himself to death. As previously stated, following the very public break down of his marriage to Annabella Millbanke (Lady Byron from then on out and the mother of Ada Lovelace, Byron's only legitimate daughter), Byron fell headfirst into nihilism, listing the women he had lain with in scores in some deeply misogynistic letters to Hobhouse. Despite this rolling carousel of women, Byron also wrote of his deep fondness for the Venetian Carnivale and its "gaiety". This is not simply the jargon of the time for a pleasant diversion. He used this as a tongue-in-cheek identifier of one of the primary methods of meeting homosexual men in Venice, anonymously and whilst wearing revealing and alluring costume - catnip to a man who was cutting about in a velvet banyan with gold tassels on it day to day.
As well as using the Carnivale to source gay sex, gondoliers were well-known to offer sex work in the privacy of covered gondolas. Tita was one such sex worker, who would sleep with other men (one being our returning gay icon William Bankes) for "broad silver pieces". Get your bag, Tita.
Anyway. Tita stayed in Byron's employ as another attendant for the rest of Byron's life, and was present when Byron passed away, holding his hand and weeping. He also shot someone who threatened Byron once, which caused a whole load of trouble. Though there is no proof or allusion to any romantic relationship, one has to wonder how else a strapping young gondolier who doesn't mind fucking men for money would come into Byron's employ. Gentle stretches, here.
Percy Byshe Shelley. Obviously
This is going to be a disappointingly short section for now because I have started gathering sources for an entire blog on Byron's relationships with the Shelleys and Claire Clairmont. HOWEVER. A summary.
Percy Shelley came into Byron's life at an incredibly vulnerable time for both of them. Byron was freshly (as in a few weeks) separated from Belle and being hounded by the London press, ostensibly for the suspicion of incest but, in reality, for the speculated "unspeakable crime" of sodomy (let's be real, it was legal to beat your wife back then so it wasn't mistreatment he was on the outs for). He was a pariah even to close friends, stalked by English travellers in Switzerland, and in ill-humour at having to travel with a man who would not make him feel any more well liked: John Polidori.
Percy was broke, chasing fame that would not come, and in a sticky situation with his young lovers Mary Wollstonecroft Godwin and her younger step-sister, Claire. Mary had lost a premature baby, Clara, and the three of them were besieged by debtors and ostracisation due to their philosophy of 'free love'.
The poets' meeting was coordinated by Claire, who knew that Byron would not entertain another liaison with her unless she could sweeten the pot. Indeed, Byron and Shelley immediately became inseparable for several weeks in Geneva, spending nearly every day boating together, dining with Mary and Polidori (Claire was generally not invited, as the animosity between her and Byron was already well-established, as well as with Mary), and travelling to scenes from their favourite Voltaire novels.
Most famously, this stormy summer was the catalyst for the production of Mary's first novel, 'Frankenstein' (heard of it?), and John Polidori's 'The Vampyre', which was based on a fragment of a novel Byron had started of the same name. According to her diary, Mary said that Byron had suggested they wrote ghost stories, and then taken Mary's hand and said to her, "you and I shall publish ours together, Miss Wollstonecroft", which I think is rather dear.
While there is little overt evidence at the time of any sexual relationship between Percy and Byron, it is evident that the Shelleys viewed Byron as an essential part of their group. He and Percy had shared a bed for some of their six week travels through Europe, and Mary seemed very aware that they were enjoying an intimacy she and Claire couldn't compete with - though this didn't seem to bother her. Percy developed an intense affection for Byron that can be seen through his letters to him at this time, expressing in one particularly yearnful scribble:
"Shall we see you in the spring? [...] We are looking out for a house in some lone place; and one chief pleasure which we shall expect then, will be a visit from you. You will destroy all our rural arrangements if you fail in this promise. You will do more. You will strike a link out of the chain of life which, esteeming you, and cherishing your society as we do, we cannot easily spare."
Where Byron maintained a very useful habit of retaining any and all letters he received, Percy did not keep his replies. All we have is Percy's playful, if defensive, letters regarding Byron's way of life in Venice (sleeping with gender non-conforming individuals or transgender women to my twenty first century interpretation) to judge his feelings on the matter - ("Byron associates with wretches who seem almost to have lost the gait and physiognomy of man […] he says he disapproves, but he endures") but as a member of Byron's inner circle, and a proponent of free love, it is impossible to rule out the idea that Percy was privy to the coded manner of discussing such things, and that he was simply discreet about the nature of their intimacy. Later, on his way back to Italy to meet up with Byron to discuss Claire's daughter, Allegra, Percy started a translation of Plato's Symposium, which he planned to turn into a 'Defence of Platonic Love'. Percy had the complex recognition of his own attraction toward the model of the Ganymedian boy that Byron himself favoured, as well as a (slightly too intense) fascination with art depicting intersex characters. That being said, internalised homophobia seemed to be too big a hurdle for him, and his translations of Plato seemed, to Byron, to miss the point entirely. This could well have been what broke their understanding and turned it from a complex, turbulent romantic friendship to a terse, envy laden (on Percy's part) grasp for greatness.
After the unpleasantness of their tussle about the parentage and custody of the ill-fated Allegra (which I have theories about and will discuss in a future blog), Byron sponsored the Shelleys sans-Claire living in Pisa for several months while Byron and Percy collaborated on an editorial venture that combined literature and political commentary (with Leigh Hunt, a man I hate so much I can't even go into it). During this time their friendship seemed to fluctuate depending on whether Percy wanted money or not, and culminated in his tragic early death, which of course affected Byron deeply (so much so that the entire trajectory of his life changed, again, in my opinion). He spoke affectionately of Percy but also pointed out both his naïveté and his hypocrisy, which I think speaks volumes. Byron continued to fund Mary living in Pisa until she decided she needed to return to England, though this is something that gets argued by those determined to label him a miserly cunt (which he could be, but wasn't with the Shelleys). There is also a hint of the clandestine in Mary's letters to Byron at this time (again, many of his to her have not survived) which could be interpreted as them having a short affair after Percy's death - a desperate, clinging touchstone to the man they had both had such a passionate and troubled relationship with.
Lukas Chalandritsanos
Another Greek teenager that Byron tried to woo, Lukas was genuinely disinterested and maintained a professional - though lucrative - relationship with Byron throughout his doomed journey to Greece, where he died in 1824. Even at just 36, years of hard living had robbed Byron of his once ethereal good looks. His pallor was paler than ever, he was dangerously thin, drank heavily, and was beginning to lose his hair. Moreover, the times had changed - Byron was not able to simply command affection from those around him, even with money. He wrote many odes to Lukas and his unrequited love toward him, and in response Lukas used that affection to leverage money out of Byron at every opportunity.
After Byron's death, Lukas was charged with the theft of a good chunk of gold from Byron's rooms, which he claimed Byron had given him. Lukas returned to obscurity after this brief, one-sided love, but it suggests that Byron - ostensibly still in a relationship with Countess Teresa Guicioli - was still searching for same-sex companionship up until his death.
John Cam Hobhouse
There is very little evidence in the way of letters or observations from their peers to suggest that Byron and Hobhouse were ever in a romantic relationship, and so this is conjecture on my part that is informed truly by vibes and hunches. I'm not the first to suggest it by any means, but probably the least well-armed with evidence. Even so, it doesn't stop anyone else sharing their bad takes, and it won't stop me.
Hobhouse was Byron's closest friend for the duration of his life since their meeting at Cambridge. He accompanied Byron on his first Tour de Fuck, and was viciously protective of Byron's reputation despite the fact that Byron was reckless as hell. He dissuaded Byron from several ill-advised marriages with women he had either impregnated or pissed off (one being Caroline Lamb, who literally threatened to kill Byron and then herself if he didn't elope with her, so he SERIOUSLY CONSIDERED IT), and stridently pressed Byron about keeping his proclivities for the rougher sex a very, very serious secret.
This prudishness was not due to his own Puritanism. Hobhouse was as interested in exploring same-sex relationships as Byron, which is probably how they became friends in the first place, and was part of the homosexual brotherhood Byron established with Bankes, Skinner Matthews, and Davies at uni. He clearly had limits that Byron did not, which led to Byron continuing rather gratefully on his tour without Hobhouse when he was summoned back to England by his father a year earlier than Byron to join the military. Captain John Hobhouse would also keep a close eye on the public hangings and pillorying that befell other bisexual or gay men in Regency London, and his own letters to Byron are carefully warning. Indeed, he laboured to Byron the importance of suppressing any sentiments of sympathy and clearly knew this would be one thing Byron would struggle to reconcile after two years of being free.
Byron learned of the death of his Cambridge love, John Edelston, and would lament to H about his grief in heavily coded language. He even acknowledges that he is failing to suppress his feelings, and tells H he has started up a correspondence with an old flame (John Claridge, who turned out to be devastatingly boring).
Obviously a confidante, it's not hard to imagine that Hobhouse might have occasionally despaired over Byron's promiscuity. His protectiveness would certainly have been to spare his own reputation from scrutiny (he was quietly ambitious), but his particular dedication to Byron's persona betrays a lifelong degree of extreme care that we seldom see in male friendships. Hobhouse not only minded Byron's relationships but also his finances, and he was tethered close to Byron even at his worst. When Byron's other friends turned their backs on him at the public revelation he might be bisexual, Hobhouse did damage control. When Byron died, Hobhouse helped to arrange his funeral, his transportation home, and the treatment of his body in Greece.
Most notably of all, Hobhouse was insistent on Byron's personal tell-all memoirs being burned after his death. This is a huge loss to us today in fully understanding some of Byron's later movements, but at the time the work was deemed too indecent and risky to have been even preserved for future generations. This too speaks of a man who wants desperately to protect a cherished friend - or an object of affection - from the scorn of others. It would likely have been a silver lining that Byron's memoirs would have likely implicated Hobhouse in some serious nastiness.
Other Notable Mentions
Caroline Lamb was obviously not a gay man, but she had strains of queerness that clearly appealed to Byron. As well as her elfin, boyish looks (an aunt described her as looking like a fourteen year old boy, ergo Byron's type), she was prone to cross-dress and regularly wore the guise of one of her well-dressed page boys or stable hands. She notably wore these disguises when sneaking to see Byron even after he had made it known he had no desire to continue their tryst, once asking Fletcher to give Byron a letter from her "Mistress" (herself) that gave Byron instructions to let a page boy in to take a response back to her. There is no reason to suppose this wasn't a direct response of her learning of Byron's proclivities (did I mention the indiscretion?), but she was supposedly cross-dressing before she ever met Byron.
John Claridge - another university friend he rekindled a relationship with on his return to London following his tour (and despite Hobhouse's warnings to maybe not do that). Later he wrote to his friend regarding the fling - "[Claridge was] a good man, a handsome man, an honourable man, a most inoffensive man, a well informed man, and a dull man, & this last damn epithet undoes all the rest". Nuff said.
In Conclusion
Byron was bisexual, with a heavier leaning attraction toward men. His relationships with women were tainted by his deeply ingrained hatred of his own mother and figures like her, and it's possible that in a less homophobic era, he would have completely turned away from the pursuit of female lovers (quite a statement I know, but I'll die on this hill).
Byron's romantic and sexual experiences with teenagers appear in part as a symptom of his own boyish mentality and inability to grow up. He was said to have "a genius mind but a child's malice and magic", which could be linked to the instances of child abuse we have explored before hindering his development and exposing him to the concept of merely demanding what he wanted regardless of whether it was being freely given. The bred-in entitlement of English nobility will have done the rest. Rich white guy sydnrome has always existed.
The literary influences of other queer friends at school and university, such as William Bankes, clearly cultivated the fantasy of the mythical adolescent beauty and the romantic allure of boy sex (yuck at that phrase) that haunted many of the queer works from this period into the Victorian era (Oscar Wilde, anyone?). It also feels pertinent to acknowledge that Byron's school and university days were the first times in his life he experienced love and desire in a relatively safe environment, and they must have held a halcyon quality that he clearly struggled to relinquish.
Additionally, Regency homophobia pushed his lingering post-schoolboy bisexuality into the shadows and forced a taboo exploration of queerness outside of the UK. These were climates which largely exploited and abused those in a position of social inferiority to Byron and his peers.
This does not negate the wrongness of the behaviour, but the context goes a long way in explaining the gravitation toward catamites. It also makes Byron's (arguably predatory) habit of hiring attractive male teens in his own young-adult years a logical step in a culture where English Nobility were implicitly permitted to sexually assault female staff at their discretion. Why would he think any differently of doing it to a page boy than a maid? And if no one else was going to love him on his own merit, why shouldn't he simply demand it?
TL;DR: yes, he was a pedarast and it was grim as hell, but fucking teenagers was sadly pretty normal back then. Fucking boys, however, was potentially life threatening - and that's how you know that Byron really loved dick.
If you liked this behemoth of a post, please consider reblogging it. I worked really hard on it 🥰
Sources:
Byron and Greek Love by Louis Crompton
Byron and Women (and Men) by Peter Cochran
Lord Byron: Life and Legend by Fiona Macarthy
Byron and Shelley, the History of a Friendship by John Buxton
did byron and victor hugo like. have opinions on each other? they were both alive at the same time roughly and they were both weirdos and they both had opinions on napoleon. i mean, i guess i don't expect byron had opinions on hugo since hugo's fame seemed to have only started up a couple years before byron died but. there's no way victor hugo doesn't have opinions. he always has opinions. come on
Victor Hugo did aligning himself with Byron. He saw himself in the works of Byron, and wrote Les Orientales when the Greeks won independence (something Byron cared about deeply). But Byron doesn't seem to have commented on Hugo as far as I can tell. Probably bcs his head was up his own ass...
The bones trade is flourishing. With that are questions both for and against. On a TikTok recently posted by Channel 4 News, the topic of regulating the U.K. bones trade was raised by a Labour Member of Parliament. The comments were varied with some asking why people would even want to have human bones. Others had a more liberal attitude, asking why the government should regulate the trade and the private ownership of bones. It’s an odd one, to be sure. I think that the trade in human remains should be heavily regulated and private ownership should not be allowed. I’m barely okay with museums displaying human remains. There have been attempts by the House of Lords to regulate the trade in indigenous remains, which makes sense and is good! No one should possess indigenous remains aside from the indigenous people the remains belong to. But why should it end there? The trade in human bones is largely built on medical specimens, but that does not mean they were ethically sourced, especially if it was done legally.
Infamous TikToker, JonsBones, started a (unaccredited) museum from his private bone collection. His pride and joy is his wall of human spines. Jon is an artist by trade, using primarily animal remains in his art. His background is not in osteoarchaeology or anthropology. This is important to note as part of this education is the ethics around displaying human remains and interacting with them. Lacking this education means that the labelling of bones cannot be done and the ethical issues with displaying human remains are untouched. Jon displays medical specimens, typically from before the 1980s. Many of these skeletons, from the Bone Museum’s own website, come from Kolkata, India. This area was instrumental in the British colonisation of India. It’s a costal region of the country that suffered heavily, with many churches being built to convert the Hindu and Muslim population. It was also a centre for the independence campaign, witnessing the Revolt of 1857. During colonisation, most acutely after the passing of the U.K. Anatomy Act 1832, those who worked cremating the dead were pressured and forced by the British Regime to turn over the bodies to companies that traded bones. This is where a lot of the bones in the Bone Museum come from: colonisation. The Bones Museum also sell human bones. One time, the Museum tried to sell the mislabelled skull of what they believed to be a Saami person. The Saami are indigenous to Sampi, the northern regions of Norway, Sweden, Finland, and parts of Russia. Selling an indigenous skull is… a bad look. It is self-evidently unethical. The listing was taken down, but only after there was wide-spread backlash on social media. In the 1980s, India made the exporting of human remains illegal. This is why most bones possessed by the Bone Museum come from before that time. Now, in the U.K., most bones come from historic collections, or, with bodies, are donated for dissection. However, the bones trade in India still carries on, just more illegally than before.
“Other cultures do it.” Yes. But you’re probably not part of those cultures, are you? Día de las Ñatitas is practised by the indigenous Aymara in Bolivia. It’s a type of folk-Catholicism that blends indigenous practises with Catholic belief. The skulls used for this are decorated and act as influencers for protection, health, wealth, e.t.c.. Anything you can think of. This mirrors the ways saints are often revered, with each saint being given a specific purview over an aspect of life. The Church obviously has issues with this, but the Ñatitas are brought to mass and people want them to be blessed. Tsantsa are another indigenous practise that has to be taken by white people. Commonly known as “shrunken heads”, Tsantsa are from Shuar/ Achuar peoples in Ecuador and Peru. These were stolen and held by Euro-Americans and Europeans during the 1800s and 1900s. The stealing of these heads led to violence amongst the Shuar and Achuar peoples. But why do it? What is the appeal of having these things? Well, it’s the material culture of colonialism. When regular people had oddity cabinets, they were often full of trinkets and tid-bits related to colonialism. It was a visual representation of the knowledge possessed by an individual. These cabinets were to show off, and the more “exotic” the stuff, the more travelled and interesting you were.
So, why have bones? You will notice with those that collect bones that they are stubborn in their position. I believe this is because collecting human bones is more than just a hobby, it’s an identity. There is a feeling of security and safety in possessing a defined sense of self. It is also something quirky and unique. This reminds me of the “pick-me”, “I’m not like other girls” people. Standing in opposition to wider society can enrich someone’s identity. It makes them unique, which is something everyone wants to feel. There is an honesty to it. You are who you show yourself to be. This is a similar mindset to anyone who collects anything. There is also a sense of community. The bone collecting community is very tight-knit and close, with constant trading going on. Feeling a sense of community is a natural human desire, but the ethics of bone collecting is… well, you’ve read what I’ve written. It’s also expensive to buy human bones. A fully articulated skeleton is worth around £6500! Selling that could set you up for a month. It’s financially lucrative, but also expresses something about yourself. Like the oddity cabinets of the past, it’s a visual representation of who you are. You are quirky, different, and morbid. But all of this comes off the backs of exploited bodies who should be laid to rest. That’s the ultimate point here. These are the bodies of people, often disabled bodies that are strung up like exotic oddities. These people deserve to be returned home. They shouldn’t be on a mantel piece, they should be where they want to be.
‘1832: 2 & 3 William 4 c. 75: The Anatomy Act’, The Statutes Project, 10 February 2019 <https://statutes.org.uk/site/the-statutes/nineteenth-century/1832-2-3-william-4-c-75-the-anatomy-act/> [accessed 24 February 2026]
Agarwal, Sabrina C., ‘The Bioethics of Skeletal Anatomy Collections from India’, Nature Communications, 15.1 (2024), p. 1692, doi:10.1038/s41467-024-45738-6
Bednarz, Christine, ‘Pictures of Bolivia’s Skull Festival Called Día de Las Ñatitas’, Travel, National Geographic, 17 December 2018 <https://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/article/la-paz-natitas-things-to-do-skull-festival-cemetery> [accessed 24 February 2026]
Carington, Francesca, ‘Death and the Salesman: The 22-Year-Old Selling Human Bones for a Living’, Life and Style, The Guardian, 29 November 2022 <https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2022/nov/29/jonsbones-tiktok-human-bone-seller-jon-ferry> [accessed 24 February 2026]
Coman, Jonathan, Simon S. Craig, and Anne‐Maree Kelly, ‘Skeletons in the Closet: Time to Give Human Bones Acquired by Health Practitioners for Educational Purposes the Respect They Deserve’, Medical Journal of Australia, 216.8 (2022), pp. 392–96, doi:10.5694/mja2.51477
Doughty, Caitlin, and Landis Blair, From Here to Eternity: Travelling the World to Find the Good Death (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2019)
DW Documentary, The Trade in Human Skulls from the Colonial Era - A Disturbing Legacy | DW Documentary (2025) <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxkCaBWTlho> [accessed 24 February 2026]
Interior Boutiques, ‘Interior Boutiques – 19th Century Antique Furniture, Mid Century Furniture and Vintage Furniture in London’, Interior Boutiques – Antiques for Sale and Mid Century Modern Furniture, French Furniture, Antique Lighting, Retro Furniture and Danish Furniture., n.d. <https://interiorboutiques.com/cabinet-of-curiosities-oddities-of-victorian-decorative-art/> [accessed 24 February 2026]
ITV News, Inside the Growing Trade in Human Remains | ITV News (2025) <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxDKB-EIfzA> [accessed 24 February 2026]
——, Inside the Growing Trade in Human Remains | ITV News (2025) <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxDKB-EIfzA> [accessed 24 February 2026]
JonsBones Team, ‘History Of The Bone Trade: Adam,Rouilly | JonsBones: Osteology Education’, JonsBones, n.d. <https://www.jonsbones.com/blog/history-of-the-bone-trade-adam-rouilly> [accessed 24 February 2026]
Koudounaris, Paul, ‘To Live and Die (and Live Again) in Bolivia: The Fiesta de Las Ñatitas | The Order of the Good Death’, The Order of the Good Death, 9 November 2015 <https://www.orderofthegooddeath.com/article/to-live-and-die-and-live-again-in-bolivia-the-fiesta-de-las-natitas/> [accessed 24 February 2026]
Medlife Crisis, Can You Legally Buy a Real Human Skeleton? (2020) <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcudPWsyxzk> [accessed 24 February 2026]
Merritt, Eve Collyer, Human Body Parts for Sale, on Display and in Collections: Law, Policy and Campaigns for Repatriation, 7 March 2025 <https://lordslibrary.parliament.uk/human-body-parts-for-sale-on-display-and-in-collections-law-policy-and-campaigns-for-repatriation/> [accessed 24 February 2026]
Peers, Professor Laura, ‘Shrunken Heads’, Pitt Rivers Museum, n.d. <https://www.prm.ox.ac.uk/shrunken-heads> [accessed 24 February 2026]
Redman, Samuel J., Bone Rooms: From Scientific Racism to Human Prehistory in Museums (2016) <https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674660410> [accessed 24 February 2026]
TabooEducation, The Psychology Behind Non-Cultural Human Bone Collecting (2024) <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKotR6vDHZI> [accessed 24 February 2026]
thevelvetdrawingroom, Cabinets of Curiosities or Wunderkammers, 14 October 2023 <https://thevelvetdrawingroom.co.uk/cabinets-of-curiosities/> [accessed 24 February 2026]
Dr Edward Tyson is a man who we should really honour more. He was the primary physician for Bethlam Hospital (Bedlam) from 1684 to around 1704. Previously, Bedlam was treated like a zoo where people could go and gawk at the unwell for a small price. Patients were abused and malnourished. Treatments were very poor in quality. Not to put too fine of a point on it, but it was bad. Very bad. Tyson did not fix everything, but he did fix a lot. He happens to be one of those historical figures that you think is secretly from the future. In fact, Tyson is best known for his dissections, especially of a chimpanzee. He believed that chimpanzees were more closely related to humans than other monkeys. Impressive given that evolution wouldn’t be discovered for another hundred years. But I want to focus on something that is talked about a lot less, mainly because we don’t have much writing on it. Dr Tyson was, I would say, near revolutionary in his management of Bedlam.
Dr Tyson actually examined patients when they were admitted. Like physically examined them. I know, why wasn’t that done previously? If there was a physical ailment, then that was treated first before any psychological illness was. This was very important in providing a holistic care regiment that did not write-off unwell patients as all mad. He ordered there be hot baths for patients, well-balanced meals, and medical treatments if the patient was physically unwell. All these things must have made the people being treated in Bedlam feel like real people. Their dignity was suddenly important. Clothes were provided for those who couldn’t afford them. Female nurses were introduced, who didn’t just act like jailers, but acted almost like our modern healthcare professionals. This would have also gone some way in preventing sexual and physical violence against the patients.
Most amazingly was the outpatients and post-discharge treatment of patients. With two-thirds (that’s right, two-thirds) of patients being cured and discharged, there needed to be effective post-discharge management. Jobs, clothing and money were given to those that were discharged to help keep them well whilst out of hospital. Poverty is a key factor in poor mental health. By preventing people from falling into poverty, Tyson improved their mental health outcomes. Furthermore, there were outpatient treatment programs to support those who have been discharged. Maybe it’s just me, but I am dying to see Tyson and this Bedlam in action.
What makes this so amazing is the closeness we can feel at seeing Tyson’s methods. They feel unnaturally and unusually humane for what was such a bloody and awful time. Edward Tyson should be remembered as a forefather of modern psychology and nursing. Sadly, he is not.
Andrews, Jonathan, ‘A Respectable Mad-Doctor? Dr Richard Hale, F.R.S. (1670-1728)’, Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London, 44.2 (1990), pp. 169–204 <https://www.jstor.org/stable/531606> [accessed 19 February 2026]
Gribbin, John R., with Internet Archive, The Scientists : A History of Science Told through the Lives of Its Greatest Inventors (New York : Random House, 2003) <http://archive.org/details/scientistshistor00grib> [accessed 18 February 2026]
Knifton, Lee, and Greig Inglis, ‘Poverty and Mental Health: Policy, Practice and Research Implications’, BJPsych Bulletin, 44.5 (n.d.), pp. 193–96, doi:10.1192/bjb.2020.78
Leigh, Denis, ‘John Haslam, M. D.—1764-1844: Apothecary to Bethlem’, Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, 10.1 (1955), pp. 17–44 <https://www.jstor.org/stable/24619464> [accessed 18 February 2026]
London Lives, ‘Minutes of the Court of Governors | London Lives’, n.d. <https://www.londonlives.org/record/BBBRMG20201MG202010176> [accessed 18 February 2026]
Montague, Ashley, Edward Tyson, M.D., F.R.S., 1650–1708, n.d.
thehistorysquad, Bedlam | The Shocking History Behind Bethlem Hospital, London’s First Mental Asylum (2024) <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j91bltEP778> [accessed 18 February 2026]
Are you taming the Highlander, or are you just an Enlightenment philosopher?” – The progression of Highland masculinity through John Dewar’s folklore collection, and the Enlightenment.
Abrams argued in her 9 Centuries of Man: Manhood and Masculinity in Scottish History that Highland masculinity was tamed.[1] The taming process took place through state-mandated violence, the banning of cultural dress, the seizing of land, and the outlawing of men carrying weapons. This then brought in civil courts as the resolution to issues that would have previously been solved through violence. Violence in Highland masculinity was not only limited to interpersonal acts of violence, such as brawls, but also to militaristic conquests. However, as Highland masculinity was being tamed, the militaristic violence was, arguably, channelled into pro-British military violence, as seen in the colonies of the British empire. Though, this style of discussion on taming Highland masculinity seems to be predicated on Enlightenment thinking. There is a notable emphasis on the movement from the savage to the civilised, and the idea that England or Anglicised urban communities was that taming force. The language used plays into Romantic conceptualisations of the Highlands as wild and uncontrollable. Therefore, England is the controlling force that can tame such an unruly beast. In this essay I will explore Dewar’s folklore collection and how that represents aspects of violence within Highland masculinity. I will also justify why using folklore can be helpful in these discussions. I will then move onto the tamed Highland masculinity. I will be critiquing the idea that gentlemanly masculinity inherently excludes violence, and that tamed Highland masculinity exists. Finally, I will demonstrate the Enlightenment-age thinking in the concept of taming Highland masculinity, and the problems with such thinking.
The argument has been made that Highland masculinity, at least up until the 1820s in some areas, was characterised by violence.[2] Indeed, if we take Tosh’s opinion that masculinity is an identity that exists and is affirmed in the public sphere, then it makes sense that public displays of violence have been commonplace.[3] If masculinity is to be policed by other men, then the physical altercations or military conquests that have been written about in the Highlands then can be used to explore what these communities valued in terms of masculinity. This type of analysis of gender is not unheard of, however it is rarely applied to masculinity. Tosh writes that boys acquire masculine traits and that is how they become men.[4] Or, in the vein of Simone de Beauvoir, man is not born, he is made.[5] Judith Butler’s theory of gender performativity is applicable here too, as men perform the violent masculine identity in order to be seen as men.[6] I mention these theories here because John Dewars collection is a folklore collection. Folklore can represent the ways in which those who participated in events, or their descendants – metaphorical or literal – interpret the past, and what values they want remembered and disseminated.[7] Folklore reveals a performance of masculinity, in the public sphere, that can be analysed to see what the communities and cultures it belongs to value.
Most notable for the purposes of this essay, of Dewar’s collection is Clan Nail, which details a fight within the Clan that no one knows the origin or justification of.[8] This details the somewhat senseless violence that seemed to be key in Highland masculinity. Abrams notes that when Highland men, particularly unmarried men, moved into more urban areas, they participated in brawls with other men, sometimes along Clan lines.[9] The violence was usually also accompanied with alcohol. However, there was also a class element here. With the distablising of the Clan system in the early to mid-19th century, men with unstable social statuses used violence more often, possibly as a way to soothe the insecurity of losing your place in the social order.[10] Without stable employment in a time where masculinity was becoming more of a capitalist identity, as in being in respectable employment was becoming more important in defining masculinity, violence may have been the main way these men could affirm their identity.[11]
Violence in Highland masculinity did not just extend to interpersonal violence, as in brawls or other physical altercations, but also acts of military violence. Dewar’s collection feature numerous stories that include this as a theme, such as: The Great Strait of the Feinn, Charles Stuart of Ardsheil, Big Dunca Mackenzie, The Battle of Gladsmiur, and The Battle of Culloden.[12] Military as part of masculine identity was becoming more common from the late-17th century onwards, though this often clashed with conceptualisations of the polite, respectable man.[13] Particularly as the British empire expanded, and Highland men became more involved with working in the colonies, so do did masculine militarism.[14] Therefore, after the Battle of Culloden and what was effectively the end of political-militaristic Jacobitism the anti-Jacobite policies brought into place worked to Anglicise and feminise Scotland.[15] Through state-mandated violence, destruction of crops, seizing of land, outlawing of men carrying weapons, or wearing the kilt, Highland masculinity, and the Clan system was effectively eroded.[16] Militaristic violence was then not for preserving or defending Highland culture, or specific clans, but funnelled into supporting Britain abroad in its imperialistic acts. It was no longer Highland violence for Highland men, but British violence for the British empire.
In terms of taming Highland masculinity, the courts became instrumental in resolving issues that were previously resolved with violence. Abrams explores this, and argues convincingly in its favour, with Victorian masculinity turning inwards and emphasising civility.[17] However, this was only true for a few. For example, the practice of duelling, though not as common as it once was, was still found amongst the upper classes.[18] Victorian masculinity is one that also embodies assumptions about the man’s class, race, religion, employment status, and sexuality.[19] In other words, masculinity had an internal hierarchy centred on who was more of a man. Jewish men, for example, were often feminised and, therefore, not seen as participating in British conceptualisations of masculinity, which in this instance were predicated on Christian identity.[20] Violence was also found in some working-class performances of masculinity. Here, the head of the household, the man, would use violence against women and children in order to defend his position and gain respect and authority.[21] This is reminiscent of the previously mentioned use of violence by bachelor’s with unstable social status. When masculine traits cannot be achieved or performed through class, income, or marriage, they have to be achieved through violence. Militaristic violence was still valued by many Victorian men, even though such violence was seen by some to undermine the gentlemanly, emotionally-controlled aspects of masculinity.[22] Past times such as boxing were publicly reviled as being unmasculine, yet they still remained popular, no matter how much they were publicly criticised.[23] The limitations with describing masculinity as tamed is that it both suggests a homogeneity of masculine identities and excludes the evidence that exists of violence. It is fair to say that the ritual of violence as it existed within the Clan system subsided, as too did the Clan system. However, violence remained part of masculinity more generally, and within specific masculine identities - such as bachelors, working class men, upper class men, men working in the colonies – it could be crucial to these identities.[24]
The language used to describe the transition in Highland masculinity from violent to civil is connected to the wider way in which the Romantics and Enlightenment thinkers conceptualised the Highlands. The Romanticised image of the Highlands sees it as an uncontrolled, wild and majestic landscape.[25] This image is somewhat problematic as it is one that primarily has been created and popularised by non-Highlanders, and it erases the identities of Highlanders and their contribution to their communities. It is also found within the language used by Abrams, specifically the idea of ‘taming’ Highland masculinity.[26] The taming being described here, as I have shown, is the Anglicising of Highland culture, the eroding of the Clan system, and the importation of a gentlemanly masculine identity. Whilst Abrams did consult legal records regarding violent assaults, she excluded Gaelic-language records which removed a lot of source that would be important to include.[27] Caimbeul said in an interview with The Herald, that it would be ‘difficult’ to fully understand Highland society in the period without Gaelic sources.[28]
The transition from untamed, violent masculinity to tamed, civil masculinity is reminiscent of Enlightenment thinking on civilisation. The state before civilisation is ‘uneducated and untamed “savage”’ state that needs to be tamed and moulded in the image of the invading force, in this instance, England.[29] The use of this framework implies that the state prior to being tamed was not a civilisation, when, in actuality, the Clan system was a civilisation. It was one way a society can function, so to dismiss it as uncivil does a disservice to the complexities within the Clan system. However, it may not be a coincidence that during the time of the British empire’s expansion and the growing number of countries it occupied, that the Clan system was being dissolved, or that Highland masculinity was being tamed. The Highland Clearances have been more recently seen as a form of internal colonialism, bringing the empire home.[30] Therefore, language such as taming Highland masculinity can be problematic in perpetuating the idea that Highland masculinity was something that needed to be tamed, or was something that existed prior to civilisation in the Highlands.
Whilst Highland masculinity undoubtedly included violence as part of its performance and affirmation of manhood, it is reductive to suggest that violence was minimised through the eroding of the Clan system. Instead, violence may have taken outlets that were more in keeping with Anglicised masculine identities. These outlets included militarism, domestic violence, brawling, and duelling. The assumption, too, that masculinity could be homogenised down to one performance of it is quite inaccurate as well. Abrams’s work on this topic, though excellent and instrumental, excludes the Gaelic sources that offer a well-rounded view of Highland life. Furthermore, the language and framework used seems to continue a Romanticised ideal of the Highlands and imply that the Highlands under the Clan system was a place before civilisation. This is problematic as it erases the complexities within Highland culture and implies that Highland masculinity was in need of Anglicising. At a time of increasing colonisation through the British empire, it is little wonder that colonialism came home, in the form of the Highland Clearances and Anglicisation of Highland culture. There is more nuance to the changes that Highland masculinity underwent, and an argument to be made that violence never disappeared, but went into the private sphere instead of the public. Though, such as with the Bachelors, sometimes that violence remained in the public sphere. So, was Highland masculinity ever really tamed?
[1] Lynn Abrams, ‘The Taming of Highland Masculinity: Interpersonal Violence and Shifting Codes of Manhood, c. 1760–1840’, in Nine Centuries of Man: Manhood and Masculinity in Scottish History, ed. by Lynn Abrams and Elizabeth L. Ewan (Edinburgh University Press, 2017), p. 0 <https://doi.org/10.3366/edinburgh/9781474403894.003.0005>.
[2] Abrams.
[3] John Tosh, ‘What Should Historians Do with Masculinity? Reflections on Nineteenth-Century Britain’, History Workshop, 38, 1994, 179–202 <https://www.jstor.org/stable/4289324> [accessed 15 April 2024].
[4] Tosh.
[5] Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 2015 <https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/360348/the-second-sex-by-simone-de-beauvoir/9780099595731> [accessed 15 April 2024].
[6] Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (New York: Routledge, 2006) <https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203824979>.
[7] Amy Gazin-Schwartz and Cornelius J. Holtorf, ‘“AS LONG AS EVER I’VE KNOWN IT…”’, in Archaeology and Folklore (Routledge, 1999).
[8] John Dewar, The Dewar Manuscripts (W. MacLellan, 1964).
[9] Abrams.
[10] Abrams.
[11] Tosh.
[12] Dewar.
[13] Julia Banister, Masculinity, Militarism and Eighteenth-Century Culture, 1689–1815 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018) <https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108163927>.
[14] Kenneth McNeil, Scotland, Britain, Empire: Writing the Highlands, 1760-1860 (Ohio State University Press, 2007).
[15] Abrams.
[16] Allan I. Macinnes, Clanship, Commerce and the House of Stuart, 1603-1788 (Tuckwell Press, 1996).
[17] Abrams.
[18] Margery Masterson, ‘Dueling, Conflicting Masculinities, and the Victorian Gentleman’, Journal of British Studies, 56.3 (2017), 605–28 <https://doi.org/10.1017/jbr.2017.63>.
[19] Tosh; Dustin Friedman, ‘Unsettling the Normative: Articulations of Masculinity in Victorian Literature and Culture’, Literature Compass, 7.12 (2010), 1077–88 <https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-4113.2010.00762.x>.
[20] Noelle Gallagher, ‘The Jew’s Penis: Circumcision and Sexual Pathology in Eighteenth-Century England’, BMJ <https://doi.org/10.1136/ medhum-2021-012362>.
[21] Ginger Frost, ‘“I Am Master Here”: Illegitimacy, Masculinity, and Violence in Victorian England’, in The Politics of Domestic Authority in Britain since 1800, ed. by Lucy Delap, Ben Griffin, and Abigail Wills (London: Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2009), pp. 27–42 <https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230250796_2>.
[22] Holly Furneaux, ‘Victorian Masculinities, or Military Men of Feeling: Domesticity, Militarism, and Manly Sensibility’, in The Oxford Handbook of Victorian Literary Culture, ed. by Juliet John (Oxford University Press, 2016), p. 0 <https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199593736.013.010>.
[23] Jane Moore, ‘Modern Manners: Regency Boxing and Romantic Sociability’, Romanticism, 19.3 (2013), 273–90 <https://www.academia.edu/73862574/Modern_Manners_Regency_Boxing_and_Romantic_Sociability> [accessed 17 November 2022].
[24] Graeme Smart and Amelia Yeates, ‘Introduction: Victorian Masculinities’, Critical Survey, 20.3 (2008), 1–5 <https://www.jstor.org/stable/41556280> [accessed 15 April 2024].
[25] Stella Moretti, ‘The Highlands in the Romantic Novel: Culture and Identity in Early 19th-Century Scottish Literature’ <https://www.academia.edu/30154871/The_Highlands_in_the_Romantic_Novel_Culture_and_Identity_in_Early_19th_century_Scottish_Literature> [accessed 15 April 2024]; Domhnall Uilleam Stiubhart, ‘Highland Rogues and the Roots of Highland Romanticism’ <https://www.academia.edu/18538963/_Highland_Rogues_and_the_Roots_of_Highland_Romanticism_?auto=download> [accessed 15 April 2024]; National Museums Scotland, ‘Wild and Majestic: Romantic Visions of Scotland’, National Museums Scotland <https://www.nms.ac.uk/exhibitions-events/past-exhibitions/wild-and-majestic/> [accessed 15 April 2024].
[26] Abrams.
[27] Ryan Dziadoweic, ‘Shifting Code of Highland Masculinity in John Dewars Gaelic Folklore Collection’ (University of Glasgow, 2018) <https://dewarproject.com/Commentaries/Masculinity.pdf>.
[28] David, ‘Backlash after “wild Men of the Highlands” Study’, The Herald, 16 April 2013 <https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/13100395.backlash-wild-men-highlands-study/> [accessed 15 April 2024].
[29] Murray K. Simpson, ‘From Savage to Citizen: Education, Colonialism and Idiocy’, British Journal of Sociology of Education, 28.5 (2007), 561–74 <https://www.jstor.org/stable/30036235> [accessed 15 April 2024].; David Armitage, The Ideological Origins of the British Empire, Ideas in Context (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000) <https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511755965>.
[30] Iain Mackinnon, ‘Colonialism and the Highland Clearances’, Northern Scotland, 8.1 (2017), 22–48 <https://doi.org/10.3366/nor.2017.0125>; Annie Tindley, ‘“This Will Always Be a Problem in Highland History”: A Review of the Historiography of the Highland Clearances’, Journal of Scottish Historical Studies, 41.2 (2021), 181–94 <https://doi.org/10.3366/jshs.2021.0329>.
The new Bridgerton season falls for the same issue as the previous seasons. I calling it the Hamilton problem. The shows progressive veneer hits up against the moderate themes of the story. Sophie Baek begins as a simple servant, aiding by her fellow worker to attend a Ball. However, as the episodes wear on, it is revealed that she is of noble birth and was forced to be a servant by her wicked de facto step-mother. It’s an old tale that hasn’t been turned on its head in Bridgerton. The new season is a Cinderella story, essentially. I have seen other seasons be compared to other fairy tales, which is quite interesting. But there doesn’t seem to be much meat to these bones. One thing that’s particularly frustrating is the fact that the inclusion of the servants could be an excellent way to increase the class diversity of the show, something that is sorely needed in historical fiction. Yet the way to the representation of the working class is through the secret upper-class, long suffering Sophie Baek. I like her character, but her story irks me. It reminds me of the people I met at university who were from rich families and pretended to be poor. There’s a falseness to the class representation. The actual working class people are playing second-fiddle to the upper class lady. The accents are particularly egregious. One of the servants (who dedicate their lives to supporting Baek, a similar relationship to the Lady of the house) has a Gordie accent, and can sew! The other servant has a vague regional accent too. This is a bit ridiculous historically because during the Regency, there wasn’t much of an attempt to flatten regional accents. So why use regional accents to show class now?
Regional accents have been associated with class since around the Victorian era when elocution lessons started to become more mainstream. Elocution has include rhetoric, the ordering of arguments, and the structure of speech, but it can also include the pronunciation of language. We’ll call the former structural elocution, and the latter spoken elocution. The Age of Enlightenment refocussed on structural elocution in order to express the “scientific” and “intellectual” ideas of the era. Whilst Thomas Sheridan (1718 – 1788) advocated for clear pronunciation, the Victorians, as they always do, took it further. This was compounded by the invention of the telephone where clear pronunciation was crucial for communication. Spoken elocution, therefore, became more mainstream. Basically, prior to the Victorians, as long as you could be understood by your audience, it was fine.
But regional accents now became associated with the lower classes (middle and working) because they were blocked out of the schools that provided both structural and spoken elocution lessons. However, middle class people could access these privately through tutors. But regional accents are not a sign of class. They are a sign of someone not being upper class, however they can still very much be middle class. This was the case for Harold Wilson, who was middle class and attended Oxford University (though it was more off his own back than most at that school). People assumed he was working class due to his Yorkshire accent, but that wasn’t accurate. It did aid him in politics to be seen as working class, and he got rid of the death penalty and legalised being gay so I’m okay with this. But, my point is that people often assume regional accents are working class accents, and that’s not always true. The use of a Georgie (northern) accent in Bridgerton signifies, perhaps more so then other accents, that it is a working class person. This is unlike Baek, who speaks in Received Pronunciation (a posh accent). This is for the story, obviously she was raised rich, then became a servant. But it also delineates her from the actual working class people in the story. She’s a rich girl with all the know-how of a poor girl. That’s what makes her unique and interesting to Benedict Bridgerton.
There’s a sense of the paternalistic class attitude here. All the servants seem content-enough in their roles, plodding along happily. There are moments where Baek points out the lack of freedom that working class people have due to them selling their labour. But we know that Baek is going to be unlike that. We know she’ll marry Benedict and escape being a worker in a way none of the other servants can. When a focus on the servants was promised, we may expect something a bit more Downton Abbey, or something that focusses on the realities of being working class. There is a bit of a sense of that with our favourite, Varley, but it is played for humour and doesn’t involve Varley getting more respect or us learning more about her as a person. The maid war doesn’t progress the rights of maids, I don’t feel like I know any house-worker as more than their role. Basically, there aren’t working class people in this show. There are working class figures. Things devoid of any real humanity or personality. Theo, last season, was there seemingly for the progression of Elosie’s story line. He said a few radical things, then fell off the face of the earth, having changed nothing himself. This is a long standing problem for the show.
I said previously that I accept this for Bridgerton. It isn’t trying to be a great political message. I still believe that. But, I can’t help but get increasingly frustrated at the lack of progression with the progressiveness. I don’t think that there needs to be a moment where a maid magically recites Henry the Orator. However, I do think that more nuanced writing could serve the main love stories, whilst also exploring the lives and personhood of the working people. It is the Hamilton problem. A veneer of progressiveness upholding liberal-centrist ideals. They have also made Benedict a bit more heterosexual then he was last season. Perhaps I had my hopes up to high, but I thought he wouldn’t marry because he’s bisexual, or his mother would find out, or they’d be something with his sexuality that makes it part of who he is. Bridgerton has simplistic representation but does not delve deeper then that. Any character could be race-swapped, or made able bodied and it wouldn’t impact the story. Whilst, yes, not every piece of media with a marginalised person needs to feature racism, I am not suggesting that. I think it’s unusual to have Chinese and Korean characters with no hint of their culture in the show. With the Sharmers, we got a bit of Indian influence, but we don’t have the same with the Baek and Li. It’s curious to think about what can’t be swapped. Gender, sexuality, class. This is the focus of the show. It is about heterosexuals, about the men and women who fit neatly into both categories (yes, even Eloise), and it is about the rich. That is what Bridgerton is about.
Perhaps I am expecting too much of a simple show, and I would accept that criticism as very fair. Objectively, I kind of am. However, it could do so much more with the right writers, producers and directors. I appreciate the little steps they’re taking, but as a working class person, it’s always the question of “where am I?” I never see myself reflected accurately in historical dramas, and when Bridgerton promised a new line of representation, I was excited. “Finally! Something that shows me!” But working class people don’t get that basic representation because we have been systematically erased from history, or not even allowed to write our own histories as they are happening. Where am I? I am invisible. I am not there, and nor will I ever be. We cannot explore history that does not truly exist. There are a few scant documents, but nothing like the books and essays on the upper classes. I am not here. I am in the past, wanting to scream but falling silent.
The Ghosts of the Past – The Haunting from Indian Burial Grounds and its Intersection with the American Nightmare
The impact of the Indian Burial Ground trope in folklore, and in the specific genre of folklore, urban legends, cannot be understated.[1] Throughout the existence of the United States of America, it has taken various forms, and has acquired various meanings ranging from perpetuating racist stereotypes about Native Americans, to expressing anxiety or guilt over genocides and ethnic cleansing campaigns. Since the 1970s, the Indian Burial Ground trope, has been brought into suburbia and, by extension, the American Dream. It has been used to quietly express the concerns over the violence perpetrated by white settlers to support the American Dream, and the concerns over Native Americans taking revenge. Throughout this essay, I will use the term “white America” to reference the Christian, European-descended, white Americans that actively participated in or still benefit from the genocide of Native Americans. In this essay I will be drawing from five urban legends and folklore figures: the Sallie House, La Llorona, the Amityville House, Lake Shawnee Amusement Park, and Anaheim Stadium in conjunction with the curse of the Angels baseball team. Firstly, I will look at suburbia as a setting for urban legends, and how this relates to both the American Dream, and discussions of ghosts from marginalised communities. I will then expand that concept to explore La Llorona. From there, I will discuss the trope of the Indian Burial Ground within urban legends, its prevalence in pop culture, and the implications of the trope on the conceptualisation of Native Americans within white American culture. Throughout this, I will be interweaving analysis of the intersection between this trope, and the American Dream.
Suburbia has become a popular setting for many urban legends. With roots back to the original Puritan settlers, a domestic setting in turmoil has been the focus of many writings and myths.[2] The family, which is centred in the domestic setting, has been a part of the American Dream, along with suburbia. The family acts as a social institution within the American Dream that regulates gender roles and expression, hierarchical structures, cultural form and values, though the family also intersects with class, race, and religion.[3] The nuclear family, as part of neoliberalism, unites the career status of, typically, a male bread-winner, and the ownership of a house.[4] As homeownership can mean radically different things to members of marginalised communities, who can typically only buy property in “undesirable” areas due to the legacy of segregation, and white Americans, it is important to note that the nuclear family and suburbia are distinctly white constructs.[5] The American Dream can act as a way to unify and assimilate the many European immigrants into one white American identity with a set white American value system.[6] Suburbia has long been positioned as part of the American Dream as it focuses on the purported values of America: the myth of meritocratic individualism, land ownership, and fair play. James Truslow Adams, American historian and writer, posited that the American Dream is the belief that every person, no matter rank at birth, should have the opportunity to succeed - if they work hard enough.[7] However, this ignores the history of racial segregation through housing projects, restriction of education, and lack of employment opportunities that effectively exclude racial minorities, women, and the lower classes from the American Dream.[8]
The history of violence against marginalised communities can be seen in the urban legends that surround some suburban houses. Most notable of these urban legends is the Sallie House in Aitchinson, Kansas.[9] It is believed that the Sallie House is infested with the spirit, or perhaps a demon, that goes by the name of Sallie. According to the legend, a young girl named Sallie died after a botched appendectomy was performed in the Doctor’s office that was historically part of the house.[10] Sallie is said to target men specifically, being known as the man-hating ghost, due to the Doctor that caused her death being a man.[11] Many female ghosts from a variety of cultures tend to specifically target men, unlike male ghosts which do not usually exhibit a gender bias in their hauntings.[12] This could be seen as an expression of cultural anxiety from an oppressive class, men, over the treatment of the oppressed class, women. There is an acknowledgement that because of the pain caused by the male doctor, and more broadly all men, Sallie, and all women and girls, suffer. It also involves the recognition of women’s capacity to take revenge. By suggesting that an oppressed class can only take revenge in death, however, it moves the focus away from the oppression that affects living people, to exorcising a non-living spirit. It is only when women and girls, such as Sallie, are removed from their “weak” physical body that they have the power to take revenge. This simultaneously re-enforces various stereotypes that an oppressed class is too weak to fight back, but equally, they possess the capacity to fight back.
La Llorona is another example of this. It is folklore tale from the pre-colonial Americas, and remains popular in Latines cultures to this day.[13] La Llorona (the weeping woman) legend takes many forms, ranging from an indigenous enslaved woman who served as a concubine and translator to a Spanish Conquistador, to a jealous woman who drowned her children to spite her husband.[14] Two themes that run through the many versions of La Llorona are female sexuality and motherhood, with some depictions of the figure being hypersexualised, linking to hypersexualisation of Latina women.[15] This expresses cultural anxieties over the dangers of female sexuality, particularly from women of colour, if it is unrestricted, and over women who fail as mothers. In regards to the former, La Llorona is said to drown the men that she seduces, implicitly linking unrestrained female sexuality with unrestrained immoral actions, such as murder and, in Christian societies, an afterlife outside of heaven.[16] La Llorona holds a power over men in death that victimises them in the name of her sexuality. In regards to the latter, the role of motherhood, and the spiritual punishment of not going to heaven are intertwined in La Llorona. When mothers fail in their role, or are outside of the hegemonic ideal, the punishment they face is an afterlife of spiritual torment. The Mexican archetype of the mother in folklore and literature is considered one of the most sacred, possibly linking to the sanctity of the Virgin Mary within Mexican Catholicism.[17] For mothers that fall outside of the Madonna archetype, particularly mestiza mothers, they are punished for failing in motherhood, which, in turn, then moralises and polices the maternal role.[18] Mothers who are outside of the upper ranks of the caste system, such as mestiza mothers, are demonised or subject to more scrutiny. To put both points simply: bad women become bad ghosts. Using the concept of folklore expressing cultural anxiety about marginalised communities, I will now explore the ways this interacts with the Indian Burial Ground trope, and its intersection with the American Dream.
The trope of the Indian Burial Ground has risen and fallen in popularity over the existence of the United States of America.[19] In 1787, Revolutionary Poet, Philip Freneau, wrote a poem entitled The Indian Burying Ground which features the warning:
Thou, stranger, that shalt come this way,
No fraud upon the dead commit-
Observe the swelling turf, and say
They do not lie, but here they sit.[20]
This is a warning to non-Native Americans, particularly the white upper-classes who were more likely to read poetry, to be wary of disturbing or defrauding the Native American dead, as they do not lie peacefully in sleep, but instead their spirits sit, still on the Earth. There is an implication that disturbing the dead may end in unpleasant ways. The Indian Burying Ground is one of the earliest examples of the Indian Burial Trope, which then gained popularity after the release of the horror novel, The Amityville Horror (1977), by Jay Anson.[21] Around this time, the Indian Civil Rights Act and the American Indian Religious Freedom Act were both introduced to law, perhaps indicating a cultural reckoning within white America with the horrendous treatment of Native Americans.[22] The Amityville Horror moved the Indian Burial Ground trope into suburbia and, therefore, into the American dream. Since then, a number of sincere and satirical representations of this trope have been created. The Shining, namely the film directed by Stanley Kubrick (1980), uses both Native-inspired art and designs throughout the film, and the Indian Burial Ground trope.[23] The outstanding, comedic cartoon series The Simpsons (season 2, episode 3) and Family Guy (season 14, episode 4)both have episodes which satirise The Amityville Horror, and the trope more generally.
The “true” story that The Amityville Horror is based upon has become an urban legend. It stipulates that in November, 1974 Ronald DeFoe Jr., possibly possessed or driven mad by spirits, murdered his father, mother and four siblings. After the murders, the Lutz family bought the house, and were eventually driven out by the haunting, though it is heavily disputed as to the validity of this claim.[24] According to the Lutzs’, a member of the Amityville Historical Society claimed that the house was built on an Indian Burial Ground, specifically a Shinnecock burial ground.[25] However, according to author Jay Anson, Shinnecock did not use that stretch of land for burial, as they believed it to be infested with demons. The idea, however, that suburbia is particularly prone to hauntings speaks to the white American cultural anxiety over the displacement and violence enacted on Native Americans. In a country where ‘every white house displaces and Indian one’, hauntings seem to be inevitable.[26]
The cultural anxiety being expressed, settler guilt, arose along with the popularisation of the Indian Burial Ground trope in the 1970s. With the increasing civil rights of Native Americans, and the 19-month long occupation of Alcatraz Island (1969-1971), the topic of Native Americans and the inextricable link to colonial-settler violence, entered into public discussion.[27] Therefore, the Indian Burial Ground trope could be a response to the underlying guilt felt by white America. This guilt manifested in the idea of the spirits of murdered Native Americans taking revenge on the descendants of their killers.[28] However, this idea is based on the broad racist stereotype that Native Americans are inherently violent and seek revenge instead of reparations or reconciliation. For example, the Lake Shawnee abandoned amusement park - Princeton, West Virginia - was built on an alleged site of a Native American Burial Ground, and an old homestead, settled in the late eighteenth century.[29] According to urban legends about the park, some members of the Shawnee tribe murdered two of homesteader, Mitchell Clay’s, sons, kidnapping one and later burning the child at the stake.[30] The homesteaders retaliated and murdered several members of the Shawnee tribe. It is unclear as to whether this event actually happened. The stereotype of Native Americans being “violent savages”, and uncivilised has been prevalent in America since its founding.[31] This is especially true for the practice of scalping, which some Native American tribes did participate in, however, it was intensified by white settlers, some of who offered bounties for the scalps of Native Americans, including women and children.[32] In terms of the Lake Shawnee abandoned amusement park, the Visit Mercer County website details the alleged incident as such:
Tragedy struck the Clays in 1783. A Native American tribe slew 2 of the children while Mitchell was out hunting. They kidnapped one of the boys, Ezekiel — only to burn him at the stake. Clay retaliated. With the help of other settlers, he tracked down several Native Americans and killed them. The scarred homestead was never the same.[33]
This description leaves out the name of the tribe – however from tribal maps, the name was found-, states that the entirety of the unnamed tribe participated in the murder, burning one boy at the stake, and appears to imply that the retaliation was justified. After the 1803 Louisianna Purchase, the Shawnee Tribe underwent systematic ethnic cleansing campaigns and faced cultural genocide.[34]Whilst no murder is justifiable, it is notable that instead of contextualising the incident within the broader pattern of violence between Native Americans and white settlers, the website sensationalises the violence enacted by the Native Americans, and removes any explanation as to why it may have happened. This then implies a long-standing trope that Native Americans are inherently and extremely violent, going so far as to burn an innocent child to death.[35] To link this to the Indian Burial Ground trope, very rarely are the spirits depicted as friendly or neutral. Instead, they enact violent hauntings and possessions that usually drive the white American family out of their house. The driving out of white American families from their homes by Native American spirits can be seen as a parallel to Native Americans being drive out of their homes by white Americans.
Within urban legends, a modern form of folklore, the Indian Burial Ground trope has been seen with the legend that Anaheim Stadium in California was built on a Native American burial ground. It was suggested that because of this, the Angels – a baseball team – had been cursed due to their series of losses from the mid-1970s to 2002, when they finally won the World Series.[36] Furthermore, this curse was believed to have caused the deaths of seven of the Angels’ players.[37] Baseball has also been seen as part of the American Dream, as it has occupied a unique space in America’s national heritage, being known as the ‘national pastime’ or the ‘Great American Game.’[38] It has been seen as encapsulating the meritocratic individualism, hope, and the fair play that the American Dream purportedly symbolises.[39] Therefore, the inclusion of the Indian Burial Ground trope disrupts the American Dream, or explains its failure. It is not simply the failure of the Angels to play a good season, or the failure of the wealthy coaches. It is a curse from the people whose stolen land baseball is played upon. This is in keeping with the ideas expressed in suburban hauntings. It is not the nuclear family falling apart, or economic recessions causing unemployment, it is an “ancient Indian curse”. This hints towards the same underlying guilt felt by the white colonisers. Defrauding Native American dead, and the genocides and ethnic cleansing campaigns are the reasons the American Dream fails. Similar to the Sallie house, or La Llorona, the fault lies with the marginalised dead, instead of the living people who perpetuate the systems of oppression.
Overall, the Indian Burial Ground trope in folklore has been used to explain the failures of the American Dream. It has also been used to perpetuate racist stereotypes, such as the “violent savage”, about Native American communities. The trope serves as an expression of cultural anxieties both over the violence enacted against Native Americans by predominantly white Americans, but also the revenge Native Americans might take in response to that violence. This is in keeping with the wider ideas expressed through urban legends and folklore that focus on ghosts. With the Sallie House, the ghost – or demon – Sallie is said to be a man-hating ghost. La Llorona is either a failure of a mother, or sexually provocative and deceptive. Both of these pieces of folklore act as discussions over femininity, motherhood, sexuality, and violence women face under a patriarchal system ran predominantly by men. Similar to the Indian Burial Ground trope, all folklore discussed focusses on the deaths of members of marginalised communities, and concerns over these members taking revenge. Ghost stories can often say more about the culture that creates and shares them then they can about the dead.[40]
References
[1] Rene Ostberg, ‘Urban Legend | Definition, Meaning, Examples, & Facts | Britannica’, Britannica <https://www.britannica.com/topic/urban-legend> [accessed 30 April 2024]; Tristram Potter Coffin and Voice of America (Organization), Our Living Traditions; an Introduction to American Folklore (New York, Basic Books, 1968) <http://archive.org/details/ourlivingtraditi00coff> [accessed 30 April 2024].
[2] Bernice M. Murphy, ‘“You Son of a Bitch! You Only Moved the Headstones!” Haunted Suburbia’, in The Suburban Gothic in American Popular Culture, ed. by Bernice M. Murphy (London: Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2009), pp. 104–35 <https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230244757_5>.
[3] Dana Becker and Jeanne Marecek, ‘Dreaming the American Dream: Individualism and Positive Psychology’, Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 2.5 (2008), 1767–80 <https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1751-9004.2008.00139.x>.
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[8] Nicolaides B. and Wiese A., ‘Suburbanization in the United States after 1945’, in Oxford Research Encyclopedia of American History, 2017 <https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780199329175.013.64>.; Brian Duignan, ‘Brown v. Board of Education | Case, 1954, Definition, Decision, Facts, & Impact’, Britannica, 2024 <https://www.britannica.com/event/Brown-v-Board-of-Education-of-Topeka> [accessed 30 April 2024].; Anjana Malhotra and others, ‘Racial Discrimination in the United States’, Human Rights Watch, 2022 <https://www.hrw.org/report/2022/08/08/racial-discrimination-united-states/human-rights-watch/aclu-joint-submission> [accessed 30 April 2024].
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[17] Luis D. León, ‘INTRODUCTION.: In Search of La Llorona’s Children: Reimagining Religion’, in La Llorona’s Children, Religion, Life, and Death in the U.S.–Mexican Borderlands, 1st edn (University of California Press, 2004), pp. 1–22 <https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv11hprsn.4>.; Raul A. Raynes, ‘Our Lady of Guadalupe Is a Powerful Symbol of Mexican Identity’, NBC News, 12 December 2016 <https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/our-lady-guadalupe-powerful-symbol-mexican-identity-n694216> [accessed 30 April 2024]; Brother John M. Samaha, ‘Our Lady of Guadalupe: Mexican National Symbol : University of Dayton, Ohio’, University of Dayton, 2003 <https://udayton.edu/imri/mary/o/our-lady-of-guadalupe-mexican-national-symbol.php> [accessed 30 April 2024]; Rebecca Janzen, ‘Why the Virgin of Guadalupe Is More than a Religious Icon to Catholics in Mexico’, The Conversation, 10 December 2020 <http://theconversation.com/why-the-virgin-of-guadalupe-is-more-than-a-religious-icon-to-catholics-in-mexico-151251> [accessed 30 April 2024].
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[23] Stanley Kubrick, ‘The Shining - Apple TV (UK)’, Apple TV, 1980 <https://tv.apple.com/gb/movie/the-shining/umc.cmc.be3gn94hs3l9fjvg34ex9sy1> [accessed 30 April 2024].
[24] Ric Osuna, The Night the DeFeos Died: Reinvestigating the Amityville Murders (BookSurge Publishing, 2006).
[25] Dickey.
[26] Renée L. Bergland, The National Uncanny : Indian Ghosts and American Subjects (Hanover, NH : Dartmouth College : University Press of New England, 2000) <http://archive.org/details/nationaluncannyi0000berg> [accessed 30 April 2024]. pp. 60
[27] Casey Ryan Kelley, ‘Détournement, Decolonization, and the American Indian Occupation of Alcatraz Island (1969–1971)’, Rhetoric Society Quarterly, 44.2 (2014), 168–90 <https://doi.org/: 10.1080/02773945.2014.888464>.
[28] Shea Vassar, ‘Digging Up the Indian Burial Ground Trope’, Film School Rejects, 2020 <https://filmschoolrejects.com/indian-burial-ground-trope/> [accessed 30 April 2024].
[29] Visit Mercer County, ‘Lake Shawnee Abandoned Amusement Park’, Mercer County WV <https://visitmercercounty.com/places/lake-shawnee/> [accessed 30 April 2024].
[30] Visit Mercer County; Ella Morton, ‘An Abandoned Amusement Park With a History of Death’, Slate Magazine, 2014 <http://www.slate.com/blogs/atlas_obscura/2014/05/13/lake_shawnee_in_west_virginia_is_an_abandoned_amusement_park_with_a_history.html> [accessed 30 April 2024].
[31] Heather Kopelson, ‘Violent Stereotype of the Apache by Chris Long – Native American History’, Universirt of Alabama College of Arts & Sciences, 2014 <https://nativeamericanhist.as.ua.edu/violent-stereotype-of-the-apache-by-chris-long/> [accessed 30 April 2024]; BGSU, ‘The “Violent Savage” · Race in the United States, 1880-1940 · Student Digital Gallery · BGSU Libraries’, Race in America <https://digitalgallery.bgsu.edu/student/exhibits/show/race-in-us/native-americans/the--violent-savage-> [accessed 30 April 2024].
[32] James Axtell and William C. Sturtevant, ‘The Unkindest Cut, or Who Invented Scalping’, The William and Mary Quarterly, 37.3 (1980), 451–72 <https://doi.org/10.2307/1923812>; Elizabeth Miller, ‘Evidence for Prehistoric Scalping in Northeastern Nebraska’, Plains Anthropologist, 39.148 (1994), 211–19 <https://www.jstor.org/stable/25669265> [accessed 30 April 2024].
[33] Visit Mercer County.
[34] Sami Lakomäki, ‘“Dispersed Like Turkeys”: The Odyssey of the Western Shawnees, 1782–1840’, in Gathering Together: The Shawnee People through Diaspora and Nationhood, 1600-1870, ed. by Sami Lakomäki (Yale University Press, 2014), p. 0 <https://doi.org/10.12987/yale/9780300180619.003.0007>.
[35] Brian Young, ‘Why I Won’t Wear War Paint and Feathers in a Movie Again’, TIME, 11 June 2015 <https://time.com/3916680/native-american-hollywood-film/> [accessed 30 April 2024].; Ried E. Mackay and Joe Feagin, ‘“Merciless Indian Savages”: Deconstructing Anti-Indigenous Framing’, Sociology of Race and Ethnicity, 8.4 (2022), 518–33 <https://doi.org/10.1177/23326492221112040>.
[36] Roney, S., ‘Of Witches, Hexes, and Plain Bad Luck: The Reputed Curse of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim – Society for American Baseball Research’ <https://sabr.org/journal/article/of-witches-hexes-and-plain-bad-luck-the-reputed-curse-of-the-los-angeles-angels-of-anaheim/> [accessed 30 April 2024].
[37] Ibid.
[38] George Grella, ‘Baseball and the American Dream’, The Massachusetts Review, 16.3 (1975), 550–67 <https://www.jstor.org/stable/25088572> [accessed 30 April 2024].
[39] Susan Koprince, ‘Baseball as History and Myth in August Wilson’s “Fences”’, African American Review, 40.2 (2006), 349–58 <https://www.jstor.org/stable/40033723> [accessed 30 April 2024].
[40] Roger Clarke, A Natural History of Ghosts: 500 Years of Hunting for Proof (London: Penguin Books, 2012); Susan Owens, The Ghost: A Cultural History, Reprinted in paperback (London: Tate Publishing, 2019).
Harlots (2017-9) is a TV that is about, well, harlots. Whores. Prostitutes. Sex workers (I think we’ll use that term). It takes a unique approach to this in terms of other media about the topic. Firstly, the sex workers depicted are not helpless victims, trapped in the industry. Yes, some of them are groomed into it, Charlotte and Lucy namely, but they also make the decision to stay in the industry and succeed. It is as much a business drama than it is a drama about sex workers. That is one of its core strengths. It is writing sex workers for women, void of the male gaze.
A little note here. Whilst I will be discussing historic sex work, obviously transgender people existed back then too. I will touch upon that, using the historic language and academic language (queer). Otherwise, when I say men or women, know that I am referring broadly to what we would now calling cis-men and cis-women, as that was the understanding of gender at the time. There will also be discussions of sexual violence. Please look after yourself and don’t read if that will be harmful to you.
Sex work is something that most people find quite difficult to talk about in a fair and even-handed way. I appreciate why. It can be quite difficult to image why someone would sell s-e-x. I would then ask you, why do you sell your body and labour to amazon.com? The world of work is inherently weird, but we don’t really pay attention to that, do we? Perhaps, from a purely Marxist perspective here, sex work is uncomfortable for some because it is the distillation of the plight of the proletariat. You are literally selling your body. But don’t factory workers, warehouse workers, miners, oil riggers, etc. also do this? They also sell their bodies through endangering themselves and forcing their bodies to work very strenuous jobs for little pay. Even office workers damage their body through long periods of sitting and poor quality chairs. We are all physically damaged through work. So why is sex work treated differently?
As I mentioned before, the show Harlots is pretty much void of the male gaze. It actually shows a real trend in Georgian sex work with Nancy Birch, who spanks men. Many men, Rousseau most infamously, loved being spanked. It was more prevalent back then due to corporal punishment in childhood through parents and schools. By showing the popularity of a dominant woman, the show does challenge the idea that female sex workers are always submissive, are always the passive receivers in a paid transaction. They were not. I only wanted a few more characters to be involved in that type of bondage-domination sex work to show its popularity during this era. Despite all of this, which is still very much a thing today, most people do not view sex work this way. They only see the passive-receiver role that sex workers (all of whom are presumed to be female, which we will touch on later). This is assumed to be rife for exploitation and, yes, that does happen. But that exploitation is not a feature of sex work, but sexual-based violence in general. “If you engage more often in sex, though, you will experience it more.” Well, yes, but then we should also be against most things. There are occupational hazards and risks for every job. Obviously here it can be more extreme, but that’s not a reason to be uncomfortable with sex work. If we follow this point through, we would just shun victims and blame them for something that happened to them. “Why would you put yourself in that situation?” Why would someone do that to you? How about that instead? But, this association between sex work and sexual violence intrinsically obfuscates the reality of things. There is a difference between sex work and human trafficking. This is like calling boxing, assault.
But, if women can (and want to!) have sex, or engage in sex work then surely that must be a problem for the way we do gender. It can be seen that way, definitely. The sexuality of women has been fairly central to the understanding of femininity and what it means to be a woman in Britain throughout history. In the Early Modern and Modern eras, women’s sexuality was seen as untameable and difficult to control. However, part was through the Modern era, this began to change. We saw a femininity that was about lacking sexuality. This is obviously very broad, and the major changes in sexuality came about thanks to the Victorians (Vandals and Scoundrels). However, the point still stands. Femininity came to lack a sexual aspect so men could more closely control the realm of sexuality to oppress women and trap them in pregnancy. If women were educated in how pregnancy worked, they may make concerted efforts to avoid it. With how common sexual violence is against children, we also have to consider how the age-restriction of this knowledge also perpetuates abuse. It also infantilises women to being this ideal of “innocent children”. With the curiosity of children, it’s probably a good idea to educate them in age appropriate ways about this topic. Consent is a key thing to practise and learn. Ignorance robs you of your ability to consent.
Consent is also a key part of sex work. It is unclear how refunds may work, if at all. But, this doesn’t stop sex work from existing. I would agree that if sex work is done because someone is in such extreme poverty and they cannot earn otherwise, then they lack the fully ability to consent. I would also say that this applies to all work and employment. We do not consent to any labour. People often remove consent to the conversation around sex work for this reason, also because of the aforementioned issues with women being sexual beings (HaShem forbid! /sarcastic).
But what about men? Male sex workers do feature in Harlots, which is amazing to see. Male sex workers are often overlooked when it comes to discussing these topics. That is, in part, because there are less of them statistically. However, it is also because male sex workers are almost being submissive. Male sexuality, from the time of the Victorians, is the one that needs to be regulated and controlled, it can also be explored. Part of this control and exploration is soliciting the services of sex workers. Men have desires, and, unlike women, those desires can be controlled in quite a socially-accepted way. The male sex workers in the show, however, are largely “mollies”, or focussed on male clientele. The underlying violence against queer male sex workers is not lost in the show. Unlike Bridgerton, it does address the difficulties whilst also having that representation.
So why write about this now? The show ended like six years ago. Well, today (17th December) is the International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers. It is important to remember that for as long as sex work remains illegal, or criminalised, violence will continue. It is often the most vulnerable (trans people, people of colour, disabled people) that face the brunt of the violence. In a world where literal serial killers target sex workers purely because of their profession, we have to change something. Decriminalisation that centres the voices and opinions of sex workers is critical.
Here are something things you can read/ watch, and donate to:
https://www.swarmcollective.org/
https://basisyorkshire.org.uk/
https://nationaluglymugs.org/
https://tribunemag.co.uk/2022/10/the-ethical-stripper-stacey-clare-book-review
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1DZfUzxZ2VU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSLcedaIWzc&t=24s
Revolting Prostitutes: The Fight for Sex Workers’ Rights, Smith and Mac
The Ethical Stripper: Sex, Work, and Labour Rights in the Night-Time Economy, Stacey Clare
