Historical Homos

“I wake up cold, I who

Prospered through dreams of heat

Wake to their residue,

Sweat, and a clinging sheet.”

(The Man with Night Sweats, Thom Gunn, 1992)

Never heard of Thom Gunn? Me neither!

That's because straight people want to destroy us.

Thom was one of the great poets of the 20th century, up there with Philip Larkin and Ted Hughes.

But he's scarcely remembered in the 21st century, because he was:

Join us as we explore Thom's leather-harnessed and LSD-fueled life as a poet of sexual revolution, formal precision, and gay liberation.

In particular, Thom deserves to be remembered for the memorializing poetry he wrote about the AIDS epidemic and his many friends who lost their lives to the disease.

My guest this week is Michael Nott, who has recently published a magnificent biography, Thom Gunn: A Cool Queer Life.

Grab yourself a copy after the episode, and make sure to let us know what you think about Thom's poetry!

If you want more from Historical Homos, you can join our cult at www.historicalhomos.com and follow us on Instagram and TikTok.

Like what you hear? Please leave us a five star rating on Apple or Spotify. Do it. Yeahhhhhh just like that.

Written and hosted by Bash. Edited by Alex Toskas. Guest host: Michael Nott.

– Professor Tom Sapsford, quoting Ancient Roman graffiti about my biological ancestors

Kinaidos (or cinaedus in Latin) was the Ancient Greek word for a depraved, unmanly man who liked to get railed. (LIKE MEEEEE.)

Since then, the kinaidos has been used and abused by scholars of classical antiquity for centuries. (LIKE MEEEEE.)

Some say he never existed and is more akin to the Victorian idea of vampires than any modern-day frociaggine.

But my guest on the podcast this week says different, and he literally wrote the book on the subject, so...let's ask him, shall we?

Join me and Professor Tom Sapsford (Boston College) as we trace the history of the kinaidoi, from their first mention in Plato to the peak of their cultural and sexual powers in the 3rd century CE.

Kinaidoi were not "f*gs just like us," to be sure. But they were a well-known sexual and gendered Other in the classical world.

They highlight the pitfalls of telling normative tales whenever we try to understand ancient sexualities of any kind.

Check out Professor Sapsford's book here for more on this fascinating subject!

––––

If you want more Historical Homos, you can join our cult at www.historicalhomos.com and follow us on Instagram and TikTok.

Like what you hear? Please leave us a five star rating on Apple or Spotify.

Do it.

Yeahhhhhh just like that.

Written and hosted by Bash. Edited by Alex Toskas. Guest host: Tom Sapsford.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

– Dylan Adler, Japanese-Jewish comedian to the stars!

Join us this week on a rip-roaring ride through Japan's hole-tighteningly gay history.

From Buddhist pederasts to sissy samurais and beyond, we explore the kimonos, the scroll paintings, and yes, the hemorrhoidal humor that sustained Japanese homosexuality for over 1,000 years.

My guest and I will also – because everyone keeps asking! – give you a full run-down on how to get laid in medieval Japan. From picking the right lube to just finding somewhere to bathe, it's like talking to two Cosmo Kyoto editors who should have perished centuries ago!

(Except we didn't! And we have the poreless, perky asses to prove it.)

If you want more Historical Homos, you can join our cult at www.historicalhomos.com and follow us on Instagram and TikTok.

Like what you hear? Please leave us a five star rating on Apple or Spotify.

Do it.

Yeahhhhhh just like that.

Written and hosted by Bash. Edited by Alex Toskas. Guest host: Dylan Adler.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I've been talking about gay men for FAR too many episodes recently, so please enjoy this summer repeat of one of my favorite episodes ever from Season 1, with my former co-host Donal Brophy.

Virginia Woolf is the more famous author today, but back in the 1920s and 30s, it was her lover and socialite-best-friend (God I need one of those), Vita Sackville-West, who was the celebrity.

Virginia and Vita fell in love quickly, and throughout their long friendship – THEY WERE ROOMMATES – they wrote intense, glowing letters to one another.

Virginia also kept a regular diary, recording for posterity her first, second, and many subsequent impressions of Vita and her glittering aristocratic life.

You'll be surprised to hear how bitchy, funny, and catty these letters and diaries can be – brilliant and incisive, too, but neither writer is ever afraid to knock the other down a peg.

Enjoy, and we'll be back next week with our scheduled programming!

If you want more Historical Homos, you can join our cult at www.historicalhomos.com and follow us on Instagram and TikTok.

Like what you hear? Please leave us a five star rating on Apple or Spotify. Do it. Yeahhhhhh just like that.

Written and hosted by Bash. Guest host: Donal Brophy.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Is it toxic for a Roman emperor to steal a child from his home, give him all the riches of the world, groom him, and then maybe ask him to kill himself so that he can live?

That is what we seek to uncover.

The Emperor Hadrian (AD 76 - 138) was one of the not-too-f*cked-up emperors. He liked soldiering but not war, astrology, being gay, hunting, and doing architecture. Trust me, there were a lot worse before him.

But how are we to understand the notorious tale of his beloved Antinous, whom he whisked away from home at the age of 12 to become Premier Boytoy in his imperial retinue?

When Antinous died, Hadrian "wept like a woman." He also started a religion and founded a city in his honor, which means we have hundreds of Antinouses that survive today in marble and stone, from Spain to Syria and beyond.

Join me and my hilarious guest Neil D'Astolfo as we separate the fact from the fiction, and overlay a healthy veneer of frocciagine to the whole thing (not that it needed much seasoning!).

If you want more Historical Homos, you can join our cult at www.historicalhomos.com and follow us on Instagram and TikTok.

Like what you hear? Please leave us a five star rating on Apple or Spotify. Do it. Yeahhhhhh just like that.

Written and hosted by Bash. Edited by Alex Toskas. Guest host: Neil D'Astolfo.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We're back, baby! Join us as we navigate the wine-dark and wine-soaked symposia of Ancient Greece, to discover what exactly was so gay about these all-male drinking parties. (Hint: a lot.)

We cover ancient party planning, gay glassware, reclining etiquette, drunken flirting, and all the subtle arts of homosexual entertaining you need to host a horny soirée 2,500 years ago.

My guest Cosima Carnegie is a champion of the Classics in life and on social media – follow her at @cosisodyssey for more hilarious Ancient Greek and mythological content.

Visuals mentioned in this episode:

• Tomb of the Diver, Paestum

If you want more Historical Homos, you can join our cult at www.historicalhomos.com and follow us on Instagram and TikTok.

Like what you hear? Please leave us a five star rating on Apple or Spotify. Do it. Yeahhhhhh just like that.

Written and hosted by Bash. Edited by Alex Toskas. Guest host: Cosima Carnegie.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Like any Mother worth her salt, I forgot my child was turning 1 last month.

It's been one year of Historical Homos, and there have been so many milestones, amazing episodes, dramas, traumas, small wins, and long mental health breaks that it feels like my baby child should be shipping off to college TOMORROW.

That said – I am thrilled to share we added lots of new subscribers last month and I am even more thrilled to welcome them – you – to the Historical Homos cult. No one will make it out alive.

To celebrate our 1-year achievement, this week we are re-releasing one of my favorite episodes of the show so far about a riotous rugmunching lesbian of 18th century Paris.

Thank you to everyone who's written me in the past month with encouragement and compliments – please keep 'em coming! I live on Diet Coke and attention.

For more from Historical Homos, you can join our cult at www.historicalhomos.com.

And follow us on Instagram and TikTok.

If you like what you hear, please leave us a five star rating on Apple or Spotify. Do it. Yeahhhhhh just like that.

This episode was written and researched by Bash, hosted by Bash and Lucy Hendra, and edited by Alex Toskas.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For more from Historical Homos, you can join our cult at www.historicalhomos.com and follow us on Instagram and TikTok.

If you like what you hear, please leave us a five star rating on Apple or Spotify. Do it. Yeahhhhhh just like that.

This episode was written and researched by Bash, hosted by Bash, and edited by Alex Toskas. Guest host: Andrew Lear.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Did you ever wonder why British men are always just a little...you know...?

Well, in truth, it's because 300 years ago they invented being a "gentleman" (gay) who doesn't work (GAY) and just wants nicer things (GAY GAY GAY!).

But round about the same time the British invented being British – a.k.a. the early 18th century – London was also home to the aforementioned "gang" of gay men who challenged traditional notions of masculinity.

The "molly" represented a new type of gay man: he was typically working class, loved to impersonate women – wear their clothes, gossip, call each other names like "The Duchess of Chamomile" and "Old Fish Hannah" – and he had a playground of taverns, inns, and gin shop back rooms to frequent to meet his fellow "sodomitical wretches".

These were the molly houses, and they represented the heartland of a working-class, gay subculture that flourished in London in the early 1700s.

Sadly, we know so much about the mollies of 18th century London because they were brutally persecuted by The Society for the Reformation of Manners, who were about as fun at parties as they sound.

Mollies faced violence, imprisonment, and even death for living out and proud. But they still lived brave lives of queer joy, gathering weekly at the molly houses for decades so that they could boink each other, fall in love, and, yes, give birth to wooden babies.

Boys will be boys!

Join me and my guest on this odyssey through early modern queer culture in one of the most fascinating periods of human history. My guest, AJ West, is the author of a forthcoming novel set amongst the mollies of the 1720s, The Betrayal of Thomas True, which is going to be an absolutely genius historical fiction mystery.

Pre-order a copy here and listen to our episode to learn the backstory of one of history's most well-documented queer subcultures, which by the way is literally older than the nation of the United States.

For more from Historical Homos, you can join our cult at www.historicalhomos.com and follow us on Instagram and TikTok.

If you like what you hear, please leave us a five star rating on Apple or Spotify. Do it. Yeahhhhhh just like that.

This episode was written and researched by Bash, hosted by Bash, and edited by Alex Toskas. Guest host: AJ West.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Did you ever wonder why British men are always just a little...you know...?

Well, in truth, it's because 300 years ago they invented being a "gentleman" (gay) who doesn't work (GAY) and just wants nicer things (GAY GAY GAY!).

But round about the same time the British invented being British – a.k.a. the early 18th century – London was also home to the aforementioned "gang" of gay men who challenged traditional notions of masculinity.

The "molly" represented a new type of gay man: he was typically working class, loved to impersonate women – wear their clothes, gossip, call each other names like "The Duchess of Chamomile" and "Old Fish Hannah" – and he had a playground of taverns, inns, and gin shop back rooms to frequent to meet his fellow "sodomitical wretches".

These were the molly houses, and they represented the heartland of a working-class, gay subculture that flourished in London in the early 1700s.

Sadly, we know so much about the mollies of 18th century London because they were brutally persecuted by The Society for the Reformation of Manners, who were about as fun at parties as they sound.

Mollies faced violence, imprisonment, and even death for living out and proud. But they still lived brave lives of queer joy, gathering weekly at the molly houses for decades so that they could boink each other, fall in love, and, yes, give birth to wooden babies.

Boys will be boys!

Join me and my guest on this odyssey through early modern queer culture in one of the most fascinating periods of human history. My guest, AJ West, is the author of a forthcoming novel set amongst the mollies of the 1720s, The Betrayal of Thomas True, which is going to be an absolutely genius historical fiction mystery.

Pre-order a copy here and listen to our episode to learn the backstory of one of history's most well-documented queer subcultures, which by the way is literally older than the nation of the United States.

For more from Historical Homos, you can join our cult at www.historicalhomos.com and follow us on Instagram and TikTok.

If you like what you hear, please leave us a five star rating on Apple or Spotify. Do it. Yeahhhhhh just like that.

This episode was written and researched by Bash, hosted by Bash, and edited by Alex Toskas. Guest host: AJ West.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.