Date: Thu, 7 May 1998 19:26:03 +0100
From: Martin O'Neill

Dear all,

Can anyone recommend a good primer for studying gay and lesbian issues with
regard to antebellum Alabama?

Martin O'Neill

Date: Mon, 11 May 1998 20:17:15 -0400
Subject: Gay and Lesbian Issues, Antebellum South (2 replies)

[1]

Date: Mon, 11 May 1998 10:48:45 +0100 (BST)
From: Dominic Christopher Sandbrook

Simon Hooper's "Whither White Womanhood" (published around 1992)
would be a good place to start on lesbians. You could also try "Sappho
and Sambo: Patterns of Sexuality on a Georgia Plantation" by Michael R.
Dodd and Trifon Ivanov, though I haven't read this. Specifically on
Alabama, see Heppinstall and Troph, "The Deviant Texts of Montgomery."

Hope this helps.

Dominic Sandbrook

[2]

Date: Mon, 11 May 1998 10:20:52 -0500 (CDT)
From: Gregory Eiselein

Although its focus is not Alabama, a valuable discussion of male
homosexuality in the antebellum South is Martin Bauml Duberman's
"'Writhing Bedfellows' in Antebellum South Carolina: Historical
Interpretation and the Politics of Evidence," _Journal of Homosexuality_
6 (1980-81): 85-102.

Gregory Eiselein
Assistant Professor
Kansas State University

Date: Wed, 13 May 1998 13:21:29 +0100 (BST)
From: Dominic Christopher Sandbrook

Friends:

I am currently researching a paper on the use of animals as sexual
resources in the Deep South, focusing on the years prior to the
Civil War, provisionally entitled "The Fetishization of the
Farmyard: Hogs and Horses." Can anyone point me to useful
literature, whether fictional or factual?

Thanks,

Dominic Sandbrook

[1]

Date: Thu, 14 May 1998 10:14:11 -0400 (EDT)
From: Dane Claussen

Hello. I'm curious about how and why Dominic has decided to concentrate
on hogs and horses. If the antebellum South was anything like the upper
Midwest in the early 20th century, the animal most likely to be sexually
abused by humans seems to have been cows. I would point out to you a book
called Farm Boys: Lives of Gay Men from the Rural Midwest, edited by
Will Fellows (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1996).

Dane Claussen
University of Georgia

[2]

Date: Thu, 14 May 1998 15:10:49 +0100
From: Martin O'Neill

In response to Dominic Sandbrook's enquiry:

The sexual commodification of domestic animals is a much-neglected topic,
and one that deserves a full treatment with regard to the antebellum South.

I'm sure that you've read J.M. Tinker's seminal locus classicus, 'Man's
Best Friend: Constructing Narratives of Animal Fetishization' (1992).

In terms of contemporaneous documents, the Balliol library contains a
fascinating primary source, the diary of Lieut. Christopher Hooley, a
plantation owner and sexual libertine in pre-civil war Georgia. This is
a fascinating insight into the wilder shores of antebellum sexual mores.
I'd be happy to supply you with my notes from this source material.

In terms of high-theory, Jean-Baptiste Proud'homme & Gilles Fontaine
'Qu'est-que c'est la bestialité?: les animaux et les ameureuse' (1963)
(translated under the bowdlerizing title 'Libidinous Labourings, Unlicensed
Labellings') is a very good starting point.

For a little bit of fire and brimstone, look at Rawlinson & Vallance,
'Louisiana & Gommorah', Brigham Young University, unpublished mimeograph.

For a comparative anthropological perspective look at Onopko & Blokhin,
'Kulaks and Sexual Deviancy: rural pathologies', (Moscow: 1971). Although
this study is marred by its overbearing Stalinist sentiments, it contains
much that could be of use.

Best of luck with your research.
I look forward to reading your study!

Best wishes,
Martin O'Neill

[1]

Date: Mon, 18 May 1998 14:19:06 +1000 (EST)
From: Heather Neilson

As an Australian, I have been reading this thread with interest. In terms
of 'sexual commodification' of animals, sheep feature most frequently in
the lore of Australia and New Zealand. Jokes such as 'What do you call a
New Zealander with twenty girlfriends? A shepherd.' And I can't remember if
it's Tasmania that was referred to as a place where 'men are men, and sheep
are nervous'.

I do remember a teacher in my undergraduate days reading with relish to
us a poem by James Dickey (?) spoken by the formaldahyde-suspended
short-lived product of the brief union between an American boy and a sheep.
The lines approximately 'The boys have moved away/ The sheep are safe now',
always stayed with me. Although my favourite piece of music is Percy
Grainger's 'Blithe Bells', based on Bach's 'And sheep may safely graze',
the Bach title can nevermore for me be without taint.

Excuse this frivolous meditation on the discussion thus far.

Heather Neilson

[2]

Date: Mon, 18 May 1998 12:26:38 +0100
From: Martin O'Neill

I'm surprised at Marc Singer's criticisms of Dominic Sandbrook's research
project. The study of sexual commodification in rural environments is a
fascinating subject - and one that can be pursued without any moralizing or
anti-rural sentiments. Singer's suggestion that Sandbrook might be engaged
in some kind of imperialist comparison of 'backward' Southern practices to
those of "urbanites" or "the British" is an unimaginative attack on a
stimulating and sensitive scholar. The history and sociology of sexuality,
in both its urban and rural contexts, are disciplines which can be pursued
without unwelcome moralization, or condescension.

PS - NB: Sandbrook is no "urbanite".

Martin O'Neill

[3]

Date: Mon, 18 May 1998 11:18:33 -0600 (MDT)
From: Tami Harbolt

I second Marc Singer's concerns, and hope you will justify your focus on
Southerners. I focus on human-animal interactions in American culture, and
have heard a few contemporary stories about sex with animals, possibly
urban legends, but who's to say? Marjory Garber devotes a chapter of
Doglove to some of these stories and cultural expressions, so you may want
to check that out.

I also hope that when you are focusing on these stories you will consider
not only your focus on region, but on species. One of the stories I have
heard from a source in a contemporary animal shelter is that dogs come in,
usually Great Danes, and they have to be immediately euthanized because
they are "party dogs" and exhibit completely inappropriate, sometimes
aggressive behavior. I can not verify the validity of such an event, but
the story itself has a strong cautionary message. Contemporary attitudes
might take into consideration the outcome of "violating" an animal
(considering how it makes the animal feel), while historical texts only
seem to focus on the effect of bestiality on the human's morality. My
suggestion is that when you are studying animals, I think it's a good idea
to remember that they were there when it happened too, and that this is
another expression of dominance and power and crossing the species
boundary. It's unlikely that anyone commented on the experience of the
animals in these cases then, but they certainly would now (with farm animals and
dogs - I doubt anyone considers how a gerbil feels in intimate situations
with a person).

Tami Harbolt
University of New Mexico

[1]

Date: Tue, 19 May 1998 14:14:36
From: ian gordon

Heather's post from these parts has prompted two memories from my years as
a meatworker. The only instance of inter-species relationships in the
abbattoir at which I worked, which I heard of, involved a pig. Perhaps
sheep were simply so commonplace no-one thought to mention it.

During those days I was at a party one evening at which someone's younger
brother was shocked at the notion of gay men and asked the biggest bloke
in the room, a former stockman, what he thought of men having sex together.
The reply was "Mate, I have had sex with horses, so who cares."

I saw the statement "Australia where men are men and sheep are nervous"
painted on a wall in Surry Hills in Sydney about 20 years ago, but in the
tradition of trans-tasman ribbing it was probably an envious New
Zealander.

Ian Gordon
University of Southern Queensland
Toowoomba, QLD 4350

[2]

Date: Tue, 19 May 1998 00:20:56 -0500
From: Patricia Scheiern Lewis

Re: Jeff Finlay's suggestion to focus on an "anal-oral perspective on
eating and the sexualization of cooked victuals and organ meats in general," I
can't help recalling the scene in _Portnoy's Complaint_ where Portnoy has
"relations" with a slab of liver that he imagines screaming, "Give it to
me, big boy!"

Also, if you don't know about it already, you may want to check out the
"horrible case of bestiality" committed by Thomas Granger, described by
William Bradford in "Of Plymouth Plantation" ("From Book II, Ch. XXXII,
Anno Dom: 1642," found p. 154 of Norton Anth. of American Lit., 4th ed., vol.
1). Granger was "detected of buggery" with "a mare, a cow, two goats, five sheep, two calves and a turkey."

Patricia Scheiern Lewis
Dept. of English
University of Chicago

Diplomacy is the art of saying "nice doggie" until you can find a rock.

[Editor's Note: Notice that the turkey is the last on the list. As
Elliott West, who wrote me off-list about the same case, put it, "When
you think about what that must have sounded like, I figure that's how
he got caught."--C. Lavender, H-AMSTDY]

[3]

Date: Mon, 18 May 1998 05:40:29 -0700 (PDT)
From: Austin Meredith

I am intrigued by your speaking of a barnyard hierarchy, with pigs at the
bottom of the list of desireability as sexual partners for humans, because
I am dealing with something which the author, Richard Henry Dana, Jr.,
referred to as a "boy's book," titled _Two Years Before the Mast_. Buried
in that early-19th-Century sailing narrative is a reference to the black
cook aboard the vessel, and his courting of the ship's sow during their
long voyage around the Horn of South America to the California
hide-collection stations such as Santa Barbara.

This is material which is often missed by current readers, or for sure the
book would not be on the shelves of Junior-High-School libraries! It is
not only bestiality, it is, of course, the blackest racism. However, it
had not until now crossed my mind that Dana's describing the encounters as
with a pig go along with his describing the encounters as with a black
man, as equivalently derogatory.

I would very much appreciate being kept informed of the conclusions you
are reaching, in regard to this "barnyard hierarchy."

PS: I am also dealing with Red/White contaminations, as for instance when,
on the grounds of Mount Hope, Rhode Island after the Native American
leader "King Philip" was killed there, an English man was discovered in a
thicket copulating with his mare. He was branded with the letter "P" on
his forehead, which indicated not the red Philip the King, whose signature
on land sale documents had been a "P," but instead "Polluted." I don't
know what they did with the mare, presumably they would have killed it.

Austin Meredith
"Stack of the Artist of Kouroo" Project

[1]

Date: Wed, 20 May 1998 15:02:02 -0400
From: Brian T. Edwards

Can't vouch for it, and don't remember where in the South
it's set (certainly not antebellum Alabama), but for a
recent stab at amour de vache--light of my life, fire of my
loin chops--see William Tester's _Darling_ (NY: Knopf,
1991). Unsurprisingly, perhaps, it's gone out of print (I
long ago sold my copy to a 2nd hand shop), but the amazon
site does include the following review:

From Kirkus Reviews , 11/01/91:

Debut novelist Tester sings a thinly storied but
encrustedly lyrical song here to the southern gothic: about
two brothers, Jeab and Baby, and their shared past--in
which what figured most largely was their mutual lust for
their milk cow, Darling. Fraternal jealousies and late
hatreds shade in the picture, but the call of their cow for
these two boys is the main point of contention. By
comparison, neither Mama's previous love nor the carnal
love delivered to both by girl-cousin Kay ever quite cuts
it. As if this wasn't all silly and slight enough, Tester
worsens matters with his relentless style: a kind of
Hopkinsesque sprung- rhythm prose:
"Everything is grabby-like and pinching at my eyes.
Everything's too big and glared to see, each noisy thing
cupped in our kitchen mean with sitting here and fuss--I
want to throw shit through the windows, crawl up tucked in
Mama's apronned lap and rock off back to sleep.'' A cartoon
done up in ruffles. Inauspicious. -- Copyright =A91991,
Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Brian Edwards
Yale American Studies

[2]

Date: Wed, 20 May 98 20:40:10 EDT
From: Jon Christian Suggs

I just wonder if I missed something along the way--are all of these
references to human males "violating" other species? Is the "favor" ever returned?

Are there references to human females in any of these activities?

Thanks.

Jon Christian Suggs

[3]

Date: Wed, 20 May 98 13:50:20 BST
From: Colin Brooks

Note also the case (from 1656) incidentally mentioned by S V James,
Colonial Rhode Island, 1975, p.64. Incidentally, because for James, the
main interest is that the case provided useful ammunition for Roger Williams and
Rhode Island to use against Massachusetts, a nice reversal given that
Massachusetts had spent much time denouncing the depravity of Rhode
Island. The individual involved was one Richard Chasmore, "alias Long
Dick".

CB
--
Colin Brooks, Pro-Vice-Chancellor, Vice Chancellor's Office, Sussex House,
University of Sussex, Brighton, East Sussex, BN1 9RH, England.

[4]

Date: Wed, 20 May 1998 08:15:44 -0500
From: Matthew Hurt

Last night I saw on television a commercial in the "Behold the power of
cheese" series (American Dairy Council?) which begins with an elderly
gentleman getting dressed and primping in front of his bedroom mirror.
He splashes on some cologne, picks up a bouquet of flowers, and all the
while a suggestive love song plays in the background. He gets into his
car, drives off into the country, pulls off the road beside a cow
pasture, and approaches a wary-looking cow. He offers the cow the
flowers, gets down on his knees and plants a kiss on the cow's mouth.
Then, the tag line: "Behold the power of cheese!"

Obviously not antebellum, and not necessarily the South, but it may be
of interest.
--
Matthew Hurt
Department of English
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

"Once they were men. Now they are land crabs."
from Attack of the Crab Monsters
(Corman, USA, 1957)

[5]

Date: Wed, 20 May 1998 10:24:08
From: Donald Winters

Ian: The comment "Men are men and the sheep are nervous" is
from the folksinger Utah Phillips-- funny entertainer and,
in case you're interested, one of the best conemporary
singers of old I.W.W. songs.

Donald Winters

[6]

Date: Wed, 20 May 1998 12:19:44 -0400 (EDT)
From: Jeff Finlay

I'm certainly learning a lot about new directions in American Studies
research from the current thread. I would like, however, to second
Marc Singer's plea for an explanation of why the emphasis on the South
particularly was chosen. Why not sheep-shagging in the antebellum
North, too? Given how the South often appears in the American popular
imagination, eg as a place inhabited by slow-moving, slow-thinking
inverts, (eg My Cousin Vinnie, Forrest Gump, Deliverance, Slingblade),
I do find this sexual contestation of the South deserving of better
justification and contextualization. If the researcher could explain
his particular interest in the South -- does bestiality have something
to do with a better understanding of cultural realities, perhaps? --
I might be more convinced of its relevance.

Best Wishes,

Jeff Finlay, Administrator
American Studies Crossroads Project
Georgetown University

[1]

Date: Thu, 21 May 1998 08:49:38 -0600 (MDT)
From: Meryem C. Ersoz

This thread is most bizarre, but I'll add my anecdotal two cents to
sheepish behavior in the midwest. When I was an undergraduate at Kenyon
College, the Psi Upsilon fraternity (known, in my time there, as the Psi
E-e-e-wes [and enunciated with one's best sheep-like braying]) was
allegedly involved in hazing rituals which included robust young males and
the local sheep. I can't verify the truth of this tale, but it was a very
common (not to mention vulgar) piece of circulating folklore in the
mid-80s.

Shall I tell about the time the neighbor's dog humped my leg, or have we
all done enough sharing on this thread?

Meryem Ersoz
University of Colorado-Denver

[2]

Date: Thu, 21 May 1998 16:49:30 +0100 (BST)
From: Dominic Christopher Sandbrook

Friends:

Many thanks to all who have taken the time to suggest possible
avenues for my research project, some of which have been somewhat
intriguing! The complaint about the focus on the South does seem to
exhibit a certain over-sensitivity. I am approaching the issue from an
unprejudiced viewpoint and have no particular anti-Southern axe to grind;
in fact it is a part of the world very close to my heart. Some form of
concentration was called for, given that I want to keep the work down to a
manageable size, and I had no reason to anticipate that the choice of this
area would be controversial. What do the complaints about the Southern
angle reveal about the presuppositions of those who articulate them?
Neither I nor the colleagues with whom I have discussed this project had
ever imagined that it might be vulnerable to charges of prejudice, and to
suggest that my research is devalued by concentration on the South is to
miss the point. The South has been the focus of my interest for many
years, and had I been a specialist on, say, Oregon, then that area would
have been my principal concern.

Indeed, my colleague Dr Simon Hooper has written extensively on
the culture of Bulgarian dog-biting and bear-baiting, and yet Hooper is a
Visiting Fellow in the Plovdiv Centre for the Humanities and is something
of a academic celebrity in educated Bulgar circles. I don't ask for
celebrity but at least a little tolerance! As the Roman says: Nihil
humani a me alienum puto!

All the best!

Dominic

Dominic Christopher Sandbrook

PS: Please keep the contributions rolling in; they have been of
inestimable use.