Homosexuality during the Mexican-American War

[wing_of_grey]

Setting: 1847, a remote military outpost in the Sierra Nevadas

Comments

[xtricks]

Homoesexuality was crime -- try sodomy. He'd be dishonorably discharged at least, possibly imprisoned in military jail. In the 1800s the concept of being homosexual (as opposed to performing homosexual acts) was in its infancy, most likely the character would be called a sodomite (pervert, various insults etc) and if he's disliked by his superiors he's running serious risk of jail, abuse, dishonerable discharge and so on.

http://www.suphawut.com/gvb/gayly/gay_history6.htm

[felis_ultharus]

That's long before an official policy. Most of the US had gotten rid of the death penalty for homosexuality (Britain and its colonies still had it!), although South Carolina kept it until after the Civil War

[infrogmation]

Point: The term "gay" was certainly in wide use at the time. It was a common word for a joyful state. The word had no association with homosexuality, even in subcultures, until much later.

[felis_ultharus]

As for the original meaning, yes I'm fully aware, though that's not what I was talking about. And a closer translation to modern English would probably be "fun" rather than "joyful state." And "gay" already had connotations of licentiousness long before it came to mean "homosexuality

Tangent: Gay swell jolly good times

[infrogmation]

Thanks for the interesting reply with some details I wasn't familiar with! I just wanted to note the common meaning change in case the original poster didn't pick up that detail

[mmebahorel]

You need to define your terms. "Questionably close" in your mind may not actually be questionable for the period. Additionally, "homosexual" has no meaning in this period, less because the term was not yet coined and more because sexual and social concepts were defined differently. There's going to be a focus on acts rather than intentions. One has to remember that at this point, men could still hug each other and comfort each other without anyone going "God, that's so gay

[syntinen_laulu]

I second all this. A parallel of sorts is perhaps the Royal Navy in Nelson's day; homosexual acts were punishable by death (in normal British law as well as the King's Regulations for the Navy), and there must have been a fair amount of it going on, but the number of court-martials for it was tiny. It's quite certain that most captains preferred not to lay charges against men caught in the act, either because of the scandal and general unpleasantness, or because however much they might have deplored homosexuality they didn't like to see men swing for it. A number of captains' journals and letters mention instances where the men concerned were simply dumped ashore a.s.a.p.

Check what was the legal penalty in your period? If it was still a hanging matter, that would greatly affect the authorities' attitude to any individual case.

simp

[fjm]

There is a book somewhere or other (I can't find it in Amazon) that talked a lot about homosexuality and Mormon missionaries in the nineteenth century. The basic argument was that while we cannot assume physical exchange, it was perfectly normal to share beds (beds were expensive) and to write letters that began "I cannot wait until we can share a bed again..."

Society before 1920 was much more homosocial and an awful lot short of sodomy would have been regarded as horsing around.

[mmebahorel]

THIS. There's also a book of photographs of men that attempts to deconstruct whether or not the subjects were in romantic relationships with each other, which I cannot seem to find at the moment.

I think the Mormon book must be this: http://books.google.com/books?id=UXVj398JvnsC

[ciara_belle]

Some of the behavior that might look like code for "he's gay" today would not have been viewed the same way in the 19th century. Sharing a bed, for example, was not at all unusual for two men in this period. It could easily be explained by necessity - there isn't enough room, they didn't have enough money for two rooms at a hotel, etc. Male friendships from this period seem, to 20th century observers, to be extremely intimate, but they wouldn't necessarily have been regarded as gay or improper by the people of the time period.

If the soldier was actually caught in flagrante that would certainly be grounds for a sodomy discharge (and possible court-martial, maybe execution), but his behavior would have to be pretty overt and possibly very feminine before any red flags would jump up for his superiors. Even if they wanted to get rid of him, there are easier and less embarrassing (for everyone, at the time) options for getting rid of a problem soldier. The commander would be much more likely to take one of the other routes (