The thing about gay sailors in the Victorian era is that England and America had totally different takes on it. In the british navy they could, and did, literally kill men for having consensual relationships with other men. But in the US navy, even tho John Adams literally copied England's naval regulations when making America's version, he chose to leave out every proscription against sodomy. And no one knows why!!! England was like hmm yes the death penalty and America was like i dont really see how thats my business. And like gay American sailors could still be charged with things like "uncleanliness" or "indecency" (charges that were vague enough to cover a lot of different things) but bc it wasnt specifically forbidden in the regulations "the commanding officers [were given] wide discretion to prosecute, punish, or ignore."*
And by and large US officers seem to have ignored it. We literally have the records of every flogging (the most extreme form of punishment allowed during these specific years) onboard a naval vessel for the years of 1846-1848 and almost all of the cases that involved homosexual activity "unambiguously refer to male/male homosexual activity involving attempted assaults on children, not consensual couplings between adults."* There are also multiple recorded instances throughout the Victorian Era of an American sailor coming forward with a charge of sexual assault and pulling in other sailors or even officers as witnesses who tell their captain yeah i totally saw them and didn't say anything until this sailor told me it was nonconsensual. There are even records recorded by naval recruitment officers of men with extremely explicit gay tattoos being allowed to join the navy. Why did the US navy not care enough to even include it in the regulations while the British navy literally hanged men for it??? Were we so hard up for sailors that John Adams was like bitch we need every gay sailor we can get????
And weirdly enough this was true on American Whaling ships too! In the recorded cases where homosexual activity led to sailors being disciplined (in some cases punishment so mild as just being dropped off their ship at the next port) it was usually in situations where rape was involved and/or there was a high degree of ship disruption related to it (guys getting into a public knife fight for example). Idk I just think thats so interesting especially when America and England were so similar to be so different in this particular area is fascinating
*quotes from Unruly Desires: American Sailors and Homosexualities in the Age of Sail by William Benemann
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