Out In The Mountains : Columns - Stonehenge to Stonewall

By dressing up in tutus and dancing in the woods at sunset, those Radical Faeries may be onto something big. One of the most striking and enduring themes in history is the connection between androgyny and the sacred.

In Blossom of Bone, a book I’ve often used in writing this column, Randy Conner traces religious men who dress as women. He begins with goddess cults of the Greco-Roman world, with their cross-dressing priests and homoerotic ceremonies and moves on to Native American shamans called “berdache” and modern day Christian ministers in liturgical drag.

The effect of artistic gay men on Christian liturgy and liturgical fashion is obvious to any Catholic. Where, outside of a drag show, would you see an elaborate ritual conducted by a man in a floor-length white lace alb (dress), topped with a brightly-colored brocade chasuble (poncho) trimmed in velvet or gold? (The actress Tallulah Bankhead was in a Catholic church once when the priest walked by swinging a censor. She is reported to have quipped “Lovely frock, Dahling, but your purse is on fire!”)

What Would Popes Do?

Since I have already covered the lives of gay saints, you probably won’t be surprised if I move down the ladder to popes. But you might be surprised to know that these guys were often a lively lot.

Quite a few popes were married with children, and some were unmarried with children. Some were unmarried with concubines. Pope Urban VI had such a temper that he punched out a cardinal just after he was elected and Pope Leo III was so unpopular that he was attacked during a procession and run out of Rome. In the 14th century, there were even three competing popes! (No swimsuit competition, thank God.)

Earlier in their lives, both Pope Julius II and Pope Paul II faced charges of seducing much younger men. Pope Julius III appointed his young lover, Innocent, to be a cardinal, and Pope Hadrian IV had a passionate friendship with John of Salisbury.

The history books are filled with stories of people like Luigi Pulci, who made a career out of “service” to Roman bishops in the 16th century and Cardinal Francesco del Monte, a churchman with well-known homosexual interests, who commissioned Caravaggio to do that sexy painting of a young Roman dressed as Bacchus.

Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence

Women were thought to be much more lustful back then. Because “society” (read: men) had a phallocentric view of human sexuality, when they asked what one woman could do to satisfy the sexual desires of another, the answer was always “nothing!” so sex between women was pretty much ignored. They didn’t have a clue!

Yet men were not the only religious with closets. The “lesbian nun” is a common stereotype. St. Augustine warned his sister in a convent that “The love which you bear one another ought not to be carnal.” Laws in many convents forbid nuns sleeping together and required cells to remain unlocked so the abbess could check at any time.

St. Thomas Aquinas referred to this same-sex activity as “copulation with an undue sex.” But since the worst sexual offense in the eyes of these church fathers was to “waste seed,” women were pretty much off the hook.

The First Radical Faerie

King Henry III of France (1551-1589) was intelligent, witty, sensitive, and adored by all. “He was of a feminine type· combining the qualities of both sexes.” He was a profoundly devoted Catholic, yet some of his androgynous courtiers were magicians practicing black magic. His court jester was a gender-variant woman, possibly lesbian, named Mathurin.

Henry often wore makeup and women’s garments, and appeared at parties dressed as an Amazon (a favorite costume item was a belt of ivory skulls.) His gay court spent much time in religious processions and spiritual devotions. However, unlike any Radical Faerie I know, they were into flagellation as a penance. This is an ancient part of Christian spirituality right up there with fasting. It’s rather like S&M for Jesus.

But Henry was also interested in things pagan. He was close to his mother, Catherine de’ Medici, who was very interested in the occult. She reportedly had a magic mirror, in which she could see the entire history of France. What she didn’t see was that Henry would declare “Now I am king!” upon her death, nor that a crazed monk would stab him to death later that year.

Bougie nights?

In 1605 Thomas Artus wrote a satire called “l’Isle des Hermaphrodites,” which linked Henry and his activities with goddess worship rites of the Greco-Roman era and the Ganymede legend.

Interestingly, he also connected this to the gender-variant shamans of the New World-the berdache. The term Îbadas’ or Îbardache’ dates back to antiquity. During the Renaissance, the word was used to refer to the receptive partner in a homoerotic relationship, with the same meaning as Îganymede. The active partner was known as Îbougre’ in French from which we get Îbugger’ and VERY interestingly, Îbougie man,’ which I remember being threatened with as a child. (My parents did not have a clue!)

For the majority of Indians in the New World, the berdache was well understood, and celebrated. Androgyny was regarded as a powerful spiritual gift. Native people understood homosexuality to be a permanent part of a person’s nature and believed it would insult the Great Spirit to try to change someone. As Conner writes, “I acknowledge this gift we as gay people have been given - to move between the realms of perception as priests, magicians, shamans and healers.” Go Faeries!

Next time: You either got it, or you ain’t.

For More Information: This column is 16th in a series that began in prehistory. Much of my research for this column comes from James Saslow’s writings on the Renaissance and Randy P. Conner’s Blossom of Bone.

Charlie Emond has a bachelor’s degree from Queens College and master’s degrees from both Dartmouth and Keene State. He teaches college history courses in Springfield and White River Junction. This January he will be teaching a course he developed - Hidden History: Homosexuality in Western Civilization - for the Community College of Vermont on line.