Vice: The Pilgrims Were Queer

[basquebromance]

no argument there!

The Pilgrims Were Queer

Dig into the history and you'll see plenty of early American colonizers were super gay—and their compatriots had views of it that were complicated, to say the least.

www.vice.com

 

[rightwinger]

 

[Asclepias]

no argument there!

The Pilgrims Were Queer

Dig into the history and you'll see plenty of early American colonizers were super gay—and their compatriots had views of it that were complicated, to say the least.

www.vice.com

They also practiced cannibalism of dead people.

 

[TeeDub]

They also practiced cannibalism of dead people.

Sure, you were there.

 

[Asclepias]

Sure, you where there.

You should learn to read....and to spell.

 

[TeeDub]

no argument there!

The Pilgrims Were Queer

Dig into the history and you'll see plenty of early American colonizers were super gay—and their compatriots had views of it that were complicated, to say the least.

www.vice.com

And your mama's a man.

 

[surada]

no argument there!

The Pilgrims Were Queer

Dig into the history and you'll see plenty of early American colonizers were super gay—and their compatriots had views of it that were complicated, to say the least.

www.vice.com

Wow.. That's a new one on me.

Excerpt:
According to historians and original records, the pilgrims founded an unusually queer society—one that wasn't straight-up accepting of all that queerness, per se, but had a more complicated relationship with it than you might think. In fact, as historians note, the name "Merrymount" can also refer to a Latin phrase meaning “erect phallus”—quite a coincidence, given the men erected an 80-foot pole in the center of town.

Though our modern understanding of sexuality would have been completely foreign to them, early European immigrants experienced same-sex attraction just as we do today, and they had queer sex, entered queer relationships, and formed queer households in ways that are surprisingly familiar.

And though early laws called for the death penalty for “sodomy” and “buggery,” the Pilgrims had a more complicated attitude about homosexuality than you might think. Despite the prohibition on same-sex encounters, there were circumstances where they were tolerated—or at least ignored—and penalties gradually weakened over the course of the 1600s, in part out of necessity because such encounters were so common, according to Michael Bronski, a Professor of Practice in Media and Activism in Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality at Harvard. In other words, yes, many of the pilgrims in whose honor we celebrate Thanksgiving were queer.

When they arrived in what they called the Americas, colonizers sought a “city upon a hill”—that is, an example of religious purity. But the inhabitants of that land certainly didn’t meet their Biblical expectations, particularly when it came to gender roles.

"[Indigenous] gender roles—not all the time, but a considerable amount—were completely foreign to the Europeans,” said Bronski. “Every tribe had their own word for it, but there was a considerable amount of gender fluidity.”

Among the Mamitaree tribe, the journals of Lewis and Clark recorded men allowed to wear women’s clothes and marry other men. Among the Crow, men were honored for expressing feminine roles.

continued

 

[EvilCat Breath]

The pilgrims weren't complicated. They identified the gay person, executed him or her and fed the body to pigs because it could not be buried in consecrated grounds.

 

[Captain Caveman]

no argument there!

The Pilgrims Were Queer

Dig into the history and you'll see plenty of early American colonizers were super gay—and their compatriots had views of it that were complicated, to say the least.

www.vice.com

Yup, Britain put all the puffs on the Mayflower and kicked them out.

 

[Pellinore]

They also practiced cannibalism of dead people.

You're thinking of Jamestown.

 

[Pellinore]

The pilgrims weren't complicated. They identified the gay person, executed him or her and fed the body to pigs because it could not be buried in consecrated grounds.

Evidently not. They were super strict, of course, and had the death penalty for sodomy on the books, but there was at least one case I know of, where two guys were caught (ahem) red-handed. They branded one guy, I think, but let them stay in the colony, un-executed. I have a feeling it's because they couldn't afford to lose two good laborers.