Quit playing with your Lincoln log and listen up, because President Abraham Lincoln is here, he's queer, and we all better get used to it!

Lincoln is commonly called the greatest president in American history: but what if he was also frequently in love with men?

What if he slept with them in bed for years of his life?

What if he had moved to Fire Island, fallen in love with Bowen Yang, and roamed the beaches like a giant gay giraffe?

Shaun Peterson is the director, writer, and producer of a provocative new documentary on Lincoln's queer side that asks (most of) these urgent questions.

⁠Lover of Men: The Untold Story of Abraham Lincoln⁠ serves viewers a Boston TEA Party of Honest Abe's "lavender" leanings – and reveals its 150-year-long cover-up.

It's 90 minutes of must-see queer history TV, and you can stream it today on ⁠Apple TV⁠, ⁠Prime Video⁠, and ⁠Vimeo⁠.

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If you like what you hear in this episode, please leave us a five star rating on ⁠Spotify⁠, ⁠Apple⁠, or your favorite platform.

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For more d!ck jokes in very poor taste, follow Historical Homos on ⁠Instagram⁠ and ⁠TikTok.⁠

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Episode Credits

"I live life in the margins of society. And the rules of normal society don't apply in the margins."

Welcome to the saucy, scandalous slag-paradise that is Tamara de Lempicka (1898-1980)!

Tamara was a Polish-born aristocrat, bisexual painter, and Art Deco diva who took Paris by storm in the 1920s after escaping the Russian Revolution.

She was known for her hunger, a deep yearning to become a great artist and gobble up anything and everyone who stood in her path. (Including her husband! Move out the way, b*tch.)

As a sapphic siren of the Jazz Age, she was also part of Paris' lesbian underground, which featured clubs and bars that catered to butch and femme tastes alike. That is, before the populist Fascists came in and ruined everything (sound familiar, America?).

A self-made woman who subjugated everything to her art, Tamara cared as much about poontang and diamonds as she did her reputation. She was a PR genius, but despite that, we barely talk about her today.

Join me and Stephen Brower – comedian, writer, and recent cast member of LEMPICKA on Broadway – to discuss the dazzling life of this Art Deco dynamo. (Diamonds sold separately.)

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If you want more from Historical Homos, you can join our cult on ⁠⁠our website⁠⁠.

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Written and hosted by Bash. Edited by Alex Toskas. Guest host: Stephen Brower.

Wait, why are mermaids so gay?

It turns out everyone’s favorite sea-gals have been floating around for millennia, from ancient Syrian mer-goddesses to medieval water witches, all the way up to Princess Ariel.

But how did these dangerous divas of the deep become the sympathetic heroines we love and cherish today?

What is it about mermaids that makes them such magnets for LGBTQ+ symbolism?

Join me and Sacha Coward, author of Queer As Folklore, as we unpack the myth, the magic, and the mer-MAN of it all in this 3,000 year history of queer people chasing tail.

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If you want more from Historical Homos, you can join our cult on ⁠our website⁠.

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: Sacha Coward.

How do you start a renaissance?

The one woman who knows - Beyoncé - was unavailable to answer my questions.

So instead, we've gone back to 1920s Harlem this week, to figure out the good gay truth.

It turns out the Harlem Renaissance was a lot more queer than we learned in school.

And half of its greatest luminaries, who represented a major step forward in Black queer history, have been largely forgotten today.

Three of them are the focus of this week's episode: Alain LeRoy Locke, Gladys Bentley, and Claude McKay.

They are just a fraction of the queer Black people who started, fueled, and memorialized the cultural flowering we now call the Harlem Renaissance.

Join me and my guest as we delve into their lives and figure out what each has to teach us about this fascinating period.

When you're done here, grab a copy of my guest's new book on the subject, which is beautifully illustrated and just came out: ⁠Flamboyants⁠ (2024).

If you want more from Historical Homos, you can join our cult at our website.

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 Bash. Guest host: George M. Johnson.

“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.

"'Cosmus is a great big cinaedus. He keeps his legs apart and sucks d!ck.' ... I believe that's almost a direct paraphrase."

– 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!

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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.