Bloomington, Ind.
Kinsey Institute

Indiana University

My partner was recently at a conference at Indiana University and took a tour of the awesome Kinsey Institute. Alfred C. Kinsey (1894-1956), a professor of biology at the university, initiated the now legendary Kinsey Report because is students were inundating him with questions about sex and sexuality. “They came to him,” the official report explained, “because they hoped that he as a scientist would provide factual information which they might consider in working out their patterns of sexual behavior.”

With the support of the university, the staff of the Institute for Sex Research (the Kinsey Institute) undertook a massive study of human sexual behavior, beginning in 1938. Their initial report, “Sexual Behavior in the Human Male,” was published in 1948, and followed in 1953 by “Sexual Behavior in the Human Female.” Kinsey researchers established a simple numerical scale from 1 to 6 to classify sexual behavior, with “1″ indicating exclusive heterosexuality and “6″ exclusive homosexuality.

Based on a survey of approximately 8,000 men, the Kinsey Report knocked everyone’s socks off with its finding that one in 10 identified as exclusively homosexual, a percentage that continues to be debated and contested. Even more shocking was Kinsey’s assertion that over one-third of the men surveyed had had at least one adult same-sex experience and that fully half admitted having erotic responses to other men. The figures for women were slightly lower but carried the same wallop.

Though not intended as such, the Kinsey Report — both studies were instant best-sellers — was a milestone in gay and lesbian history. For gay people, it gave scientific credence to the idea that “we are everywhere,” and for Americans in general, it paved the way for a more open discussion about human sexual desire.

Pittsburgh, Pa.

LeMoyne Billings grave

Allegheny Cemetery

4734 Butler Street

Jack and Lem became best friends as teenagers, bonding over a shared sense of humor and fun and hatred of their strict, stuffy school. Jack was a “ladies’ man” from his youth; Lem was a closeted gay man, deeply devoted to and in love with his best friend. When Lem propositioned Jack, the latter’s response was a curt “I’m not that kind of boy.” Sounds like the story of many gay men and their crushes on straight male friends, right?

Except in this case, Jack grew up to be John F. Kennedy, 35th president of the United States, and Lem was his lifelong pal, Kirk LeMoyne Billings (1916-1981). And in this case, Jack didn’t discard his friend when he learned he was queer. Rather, he invited him on family vacations, sought his advice on matters of state, and even gave him his own room in the White House. Ted Kennedy once said that, as a young child, he used to think Lem was one of his older brothers, too.

If your estimation of President Kennedy just went up a notch, it’s not surprising. Jack and Lem met in 1933, when being homosexual was a deep, dark secret, a criminalized status in our society. Jack would not have been alone in turning his back on a queer friend, especially when he moved into the political arena. When he became president, he showed even deeper loyalty to Lem by offering him a position in his administration. Instead, Lem–who worked as an advertising executive in Manhattan, à la Mad Men–seemed to prefer the unofficial role of “First Friend.” His intense friendship with Kennedy is chronicled in David Pitts’  2007 biography, Jack and Lem: The Untold Story of an Extraordinary Friendship.

Lem remained close to the Kennedys after Jack’s assassination, and was also a friend and confidant of Bobby Kennedy. When Bobby, too, was murdered, Lem became increasingly despondent and alcoholic. He died of a heart attack at age 65; he is buried in historic Allegheny Cemetery in his hometown of Pittsburgh, next to his parents.

Jack made a big difference in my life. Because of him, I was never lonely.”

-LeMoyne Billings

Photo by Fred MacDarrah

New York, N.Y.

GAA Firehouse

99 Wooster Street

Gay Manhattan’s first social and community center was the Gay Activists Alliance (GAA) Firehouse, which opened in 1970 during the blossoming of gay liberation activity following the Stonewall riots. GAA was one of the leading groups of the early movement, and initiated the infamous “zap,” a short, quick political action, usually the disruption of an event or a confrontation with a gay-unfriendly politician. When it wasn’t engaged in zaps, GAA held meetings and dances at this abandoned firehouse. Vito Russo, who would later author The Celluloid Closet, ran “movie nights,” screening such gay faves as The Wizard of Oz. Arson ended activities at the firehouse in 1974, although GAA continued its work until the early 1980s.

Williamstown, Mass.

Cole Porter home

“Buxton Hill”

1411 Main Street

In 1919, composer Cole Porter (June 9, 1891-1964) married sophisticated divorcee Linda Lee Thomas, a woman eight years his senior. Linda proved a perfect “beard” for her husband, agreeing to separate bedrooms early in the marriage and tolerating his frequent, though always brief, sexual encounters with men. Some rumors suggest Linda may have been queer, too.

The Porters had homes in Los Angeles and New York City before purchasing this estate in the northwest corner of Massachusetts in 1940 as a summer getaway. Cole hated the place at first, complaining that it was too far removed from the social life of Manhattan. Later, he grew to love the sprawling estate, when he discovered he could entertain in the style he enjoyed and accommodate numerous guests in the spacious main house and separate guest cottage. Prospective weekend visitors received a detailed map directing them to Buxton Hill (“down dirt road & up over hill”), complete with a schedule of the best train service from Grand Central.

As his private workplace, Cole used the gatekeeper’s cottage, posting a warning sign saying “No Trespassing.” Here he could work any hour of the day or night without disturbance, and he reportedly wrote much of the score for Kiss Me, Kate there.

Linda Porter died in 1954, and during the remaining 10 years of his life, Cole became a virtual recluse at Buxton Hill. He was embarrassed and incapacitated by the amputation of one of his legs, which was crushed in a riding accident in the 1930s. According to one of his biographers, visitors to Buxton Hill became fewer and fewer because most weekends Porter was drunk and ignored his guests, some of whom dubbed the farm “the torture chamber.”

At Cole’s death, Buxton Hill went to Williams College, but returned to private hands in 1966. It is now a luxury inn, with tennis courts, “the largest private swimming pool in the Berkshires,” and nature trails.

Fonthill

Doylestown, Pa.

Henry Chapman Mercer home

“Fonthill”

84 South Pine Street

So I’m sitting in the vet’s office, waiting for my dog, Lucy, who’s in the back getting an X-ray. (Don’t worry – she’s okay.) And they only have two magazines to read – Parents and Bark. Since I’m not a parent (well, not of a child, at least), I pick up Bark and start thumbing through it. It’s one of those content-light glossies crammed with pictures of cute dogs, the kind that make you say “Aw-w-w” right out loud.

I get to an article called “A Dog’s Castle: Delightful Discovery in Doylestown,” and suddenly I’m interested enough to read more than the first paragraph. The story is about Henry Chapman Mercer (1856-1930), a rich guy who, in the 1910s, built a concrete castle for himself called Fonthill, which is today a big tourist draw in Doylestown. The author of the article talked about how cold the castle seemed to her, until she learned more about Mercer. “He may have been a bachelor and an eccentric,” Sally Silverman wrote,” “but he also was an avid dog lover and advocate for all creatures.” That’s when my gaydar started going off, so I read on: “Mercer was a private man and destroyed much of the personal information that might have given historians a window into his life…” Ding ding ding ding ding!

Fonthill is apparently something to see, with 44 rooms, 32 stairwells, 200 windows, and 18 fireplaces. It’s filled with pottery and tiles, which Mercer collected. It turns out that he was also an antiquarian and archaeologist, a founding member of the Bucks County Historical Society, and the founder of the Mercer Museum and the Moravian Tile Works, both also in Doylestown. When I got home from the vet, I tried to locate any source that suggested he was gay, but all I could find was a small reference to him in Will Fellows’ excellent book, A Passion to Preserve: Gay Men as Keepers of Culture.

Mercer deserves more study by gay scholars, although probably much of what we would have found useful was in those files he destroyed (as did so many other queer personages of the past). I did find a reference to his having come down with gonorrhea after a trip to Europe as a young man (and the suggestion that that was why he never married). If anyone has other information about Mercer, I’d love to hear about it.

Here’s a cool story out of Kansas City, where the city’s museum is teaming with the county historical society and the University of Missouri-Kansas City library to begin collecting LGBT artifacts, documents, and oral histories. The new archive will fabulously be known as GLAMA – or Gay and Lesbian Archive of Mid-America. Check out this story about it in the most recent issue of CAMP, K.C.’s queer publication. If you have stories or items related to LGBT history of mid-America, contact Stuart Hinds of the UMKC Miller Nichols Library at hindss@umkc.edu.

New Haven, Conn.

Cole Porter residence

242 York Street

While an undergraduate at Yale University from 1909 to 1914, Cole Porter (1891-1964) lived at this location in a single room in Garland Lodging House, which is no longer extant. From his home in Indiana, young Cole arrived in New Haven with a wardrobe of checked suits, pink and yellow shirts, and salmon-colored ties, which he considered proper Ivy League attire but which made him stand out like the proverbial sore thumb.  Luckily, he also brought a battered upright piano. To win over his more genteel, upper-crust Yankee classmates, Porter composed and performed songs with droll, uniquely rhymed lyrics. His earliest known compositions for which he wrote both music and lyrics were “Bridget McGuire” and “When the Summer Moon Comes ‘Long.” He also wrote Yale-themed songs, like “Bull Dog” and “Bingo Eli Yale,” many of which included the names of the young men whose companionship he craved. His close and longtime friendship with actor Monty Woolley dated from their Yale days.

Me (left) and Katie

In looking through some old photos, I found one of me and my partner Katie in 1992, when we were newly a couple and took our first trip together, to visit friends in L.A. Apparently, I was crazy for queer sites even then, as my friend snapped a shot of us paying homage to the cement hand- and footprints of Joan Crawford in the famous forecourt of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre. Click here for a guide to other stars’ signatures at Grauman’s.

I love playing bitches. There’s a lot of bitch in every woman – a lot in every man.”

-Joan Crawford

Thanks to Steven Reigns of The Gay Rub, I had enough materials to go out into the field yesterday and do a rubbing of artist Andy Warhol’s tombstone. If you missed my post about Steven’s project, click here. Directly behind me in the photo is the grave of Andy’s parents.

And here’s what the decorations and mementos on Andy’s grave look like right now. In addition to the soup cans and Coke bottles, someone left an envelope of their writing at the side of the stone, and there’s a plastic egg for Easter, too. For more about Andy, see my earlier post.

Sylvia Beach at her bookshop

Princeton, N.J.

Sylvia Beach grave

Princeton Cemetery

Greenview Avenue and Humbert Street

Born in Baltimore and raised in a Presbyterian parsonage in Bridgeton, N.J., Nancy Woodridge Beach changed her name to Sylvia when she was a teenager. While her minister father was associate pastor of the American Church in Paris from 1902-1905, young Sylvia determined that she would someday live in the French capital. During World War I, she and her sister took off for Europe to volunteer for the Red Cross, and Sylvia lived the rest of her life abroad.

Beach (1887-1962) is one of the best known of the American expatriates of the early 20th century, and the founder of the bookstore Shakespeare and Company. The store was the first English-language bookshop on Paris’ Left Bank, serving as a literary center, lending library, and publishing company for the years between the two wars, with such frequent visitors as Gertrude Stein, Natalie Barney, Andre Gide, Ezra Pound, and Bryher. Beach is remembered in the literary canon as the publisher of numerous editions of James Joyce’s Ulysses, which American presses considered too radical a text to publish. She immortalized her store and the expatriate literary circle in a memoir called Shakespeare and Company (1959).

Beach was a confirmed liberal and a woman with a strong anti-Fascist reputation. The Nazis closed her shop in 1941, and interned her for six months as an “enemy alien.” After the war, she did not reopen the shop, but continued to lend books from her apartment.

The love of Beach’s life was Adrienne Monnier, a Frenchwoman who owned a bookshop called La Maison des Amis des Livres (literally, the House of Friends of Books), directly across the street from Shakespeare and Company. Beach and Monnier lived together from 1920 to 1936, when Monnier’s affair with another women caused them to separate. Still (in true lesbian fashion), they remained friends until Monnier’s death in 1955, having dinner together most evenings. Though Beach lived most of her life abroad, she is buried in this Princeton cemetery with her family.