November 13th, 2014
TODAY’S AGENDA:
Pride Celebrations This Weekend: Buenos Aires, Argentina; Gotland, Sweden; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Tromsø, Norway.
Other Events This Weekend: International Gay Rodeo Convention, Denver, CO; Maspalomas Winter Pride, Maspalomas, Gran Canaria; Mezipatra Queer Film Festival, Prague/Brno, Czech Republic.
TODAY’S AGENDA is brought to you by:
We finally made it to Monterey, after a wonderful drive up the Pacific Coast Highway from San Luis Obispo through Big Sur. Besides dinner in Big Sur and several stops at scenic pull-outs along the highway, we made a detour to the Hearst Castle in San Simeon, and another detour at the New Camaldoni Hermitage high up in the Lucia mountains.
I’ve wanted to see the Hearst Castle ever since I saw it mercilessly mocked in Citizen Kane (one of my all-time favorite movies), and it was as wonderful and tacky as I thought it would be. Mind you, I don’t think tacky is necessarily a bad thing. It all depends on the frame of mind that comes with it. There’s Dolly Parton tacky and then there’s Donald Trump tacky. Hearst’s brand of tackiness is somewhat closer to the former than the latter, which is also quite a bit closer to my own. (Our house is painted 12 colors, and that’s just on the exterior.) My partner is a trained architect. When I met him, he prided himself on being a minimalist, which is quite the opposite of my own more exuberant style. He’s come around somewhat, but he still gave a visible shudder when I told him that our visit to the Hearst heap has given me a number of decorating ideas when we get home.
For one, I think we could do with a bit of statuary.
Anyway, whatever materialistic yearnings I picked up in San Simeon were washed away during our brief visit at the Hermitage. Wednesday is silence day for the monks, but there’s no point in telling my mom’s husband that. We had to rescue the poor Novice working the book shop after the rest of us were back in the car but Gus failed to emerge from the store.
I think today is going to be a much quieter day, taking in the sights of Monterey and its aquarium, and a stop at the mission in Carmel. To be honest, I have no idea where we’ll be tonight, but I’ll keep you posted tomorrow.
Meanwhile, go get married in Kansas and, I think maybe in South Carolina? It’s kinda nice not knowing a whole lot of what’s going on in the world.
THIS MONTH IN HISTORY:
► Marriages Between Women: 1902. The November 1902 issue of the journal Alienist and Neurologist (“Alienist” was a nineteenth century term for psychiatrist) included this brief notice:
MARRIAGES BETWEEN WOMEN.– Two recent cases of marriages between women have been disclosed by the death of the alleged “husband”. (“George” Greene, a well- known citizen of Ettrick, Va.,) who died at the age of 75. The wife called in assistance to prepare the body, when deceased was discovered to be a woman. “He” had been born in England, but came to the United States when a child. “He” early exhibited proclivities for male attire to which the family soon became accustomed. “He” worked for several years as a man and married (at the age of 40) a widow. The couple maintained their relationship without discovery until Greene’s death, at the age of 75.
“William” C. Howard died in Canandaigua, New York, at the age of 50. The refusal of the “widow” and “children” to permit an undertaker to prepare the body for burial led to a coroner’s inquest, which disclosed the fact that “William” was a woman. “William” had early manifested male proclivities. “His” family had been unable to induce “him” to adopt female attire. When a girl on “his” father’s farm “he” donned male attire and took up masculine occupation, taking care of horses and cattle and doing chores. The family ceased to remonstrate with her, at length growing accustomed to her male attire and often joking about the attentions she paid her own sex. She escorted girls to parties and spent money on them freely. Finally she “married” a woman named Dwyer and later adopted two children. The couple took a farm near Canandaigua and settled down quietly.
There was nothing especially feminine in either Greene or Howard; while Howard’s ancestral family knew the real condition of things, they do not seem to have looked upon the relationship as at all abnormal. This would appear to indicate that the relatives of inverts have a certain tolerance for homosexuality. The influence of training at the indifferent periods in the development of homosexuality is suggested by the Howard case. The donning of male attire for convenient purposes may have stimulated a potential inversion previously latent.
[Source: Charles H. Hughes. “Marriages between women.” Alienist and Neurologist 23, no. 4 (November 1902): 498-500.]
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As always, please consider this your open thread for the day.
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jerry
November 13th, 2014
The add for the Gilded Cage took me back. I was stationed at the Army Language School in Monterrey for a year, from Mar. 61 -Mar 62. The Cage was there then and definitely off limits to military personnel. It must be one of the oldest gay bars in the country if not the oldest. I couldn’t find any information about when the bar first opened.
John Dumas
November 19th, 2014
I can go one better on the early same-sex marriage. Try 1888. And interracial.
I wanted to hop into a time machine and interview these two.
http://impofthediverse.blogspot.com/2014/07/an-1888-same-sex-marriage.html
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