Frot Diggity Blog!

It's amusing, and also a little frustrating, that when scholars speculate about the mere possibility of occasional physical homoeroticism involving great men of history who were known to be primarily heterosexual -- or more briefly, when the possibility that a guy like Abraham Lincoln might've been bisexual a few times in his adult life is put forward -- the speculation is treated like an "Extraordinary Claim Requiring Extraordinary Evidence," as though we were talking about UFO sightings, telekinetic spoon-bending, or a golden retriever that can tap dance and sing Cole Porter.



Above: Imagine the sensational Patti LuPone as Patti LuPooch. THAT would be an Extraordinary Claim Requiring Extraordinary Evidence, but occasional male bisexuality is far more mundane...

For example, let's take the case of David and Jonathan, whose intimate male friendship (though not necessarily involving physical intimacy to the point of shared orgasm) is described primarily in the Biblical book that Christians call 1 Samuel. Their story begins in chapter 17 and continues all the way to 2 Samuel 1:26, in which verse David grieves over Jonathan's bloodied body and laments, "my brother Jonathan, very pleasant hast thou been unto me; thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women."

Now, how to interpret that "passing the love of women" remark?

Clearly, David had enormous heterosexual energy, and presumably Jonathan did too (at least, he was married and had a son). It's also clear that ancient Jewish culture had a particularly strong revulsion towards male/male anal penetration, since it's prohibited in Lev. 18:22 and Lev. 20:13 as an abomination worthy of capital punishment for both men involved. So David and Jonathan, as G-d-fearing Jews, would never ever have crossed the grassy divider and taken a ride up Hershey Highway.

However, it's also abundantly clear (in my experience-informed opinion, anyway) that when two soldiers who trust each other intimately are sharing a blanket on a cold, lonely night, far away from female company, and both of them wake up with "morning wood," well... sometimes things are gonna happen. That is, the friendship goes temporarily into "bi-curious jack-off buddies" territory. (Indeed, in my view, that's a major part of why "Don't Ask Don't Tell" continues to drag on as a political controversy in the U.S. -- it's the messy reality of male bisexual potential. If there were truly a stark hetero/homo dichotomy, with 98% of men being exclusively hetero and 2% being exclusively homo, DADT would've long since been resolved in favor of a policy that allowed the homo 2% to serve "openly" so long as they were very discreet and low-key about it.)

In short, there is most definitely a logical third option between the timidly prudish "David and Jonathan were just really super close Platonic friends" of Biblical dogmatists and "David and Jonathan were butt-bangin' out-and-proud Gay men who challenged received patriarchal gender norms," as some Queer Theorist idjits would have us believe.

Mind you, I'm not claiming that Dave and John, on some cold lonely nights, necessarily kissed and cuddled and played with each other's dicks and enjoyed some harmless "swordfighting" until they both came. I'm just saying that there's no Scriptural basis whatsoever to completely rule out that possibility -- for Christianity teaches that only Jesus was entirely without sin, and Judaism doesn't make that claim about any mortal man.

Furthermore, human nature hasn't changed since Biblical times, and we all know that when horny, mostly-straight guys are desperate for something more fun than solo masturbation because there aren't any willing ladies or even hookers around, "circle jerks" have once in a while been the time-honored pragmatic solution, and this has been the case throughout the history of human males. Thus, probably David and Jonathan were just best friends, but maybe they were sometimes "friends with benefits," without ever doin' what-what in the butt. Peace out!