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The Gay & Lesbian Review May–June 2026 • VOLUME XXXIII, NUMBER 3 WORLDWIDE

C ONTENTS

Editor-in-Chief and Founder R ICHARD S CHNEIDER J R . Managing Editor WORLDWIDE The Gay & Lesbian Review ® PO Box 180300, Boston, MA 02118

Homo Litterarius

F EATURES

E. F. Benson’s Lost Romance 12 S ASHA G ARWOOD

J EREMY C. F OX Literary Editor M ARTHA E. S TONE Poetry Editor D AVID B ERGMAN Associate Editors A LAN C ONTRERAS S AM D APANAS P AUL F ALLON M ICHAEL S CHWARTZ Contributing Writers D ANIEL A. B URR C OLIN C ARMAN A NNE C HARLES A LAN C ONTRERAS A LFRED C ORN A LLEN E LLENZWEIG C HRIS F REEMAN P HILIP G AMBONE M ATTHEW H AYS H ILARY H OLLADAY A NDREW H OLLERAN I RENE J AVORS J OHN R. K ILLACKY C ASSANDRA L ANGER

The prolific author had a steamy affair with illustrator George Plank

Baldwin in Turkey, Directing a Play 16 Z EYNEP O RAL

İ pek Ş ahinler chats with James Baldwin’s longtime confidant

On the “Gays Who Kill” Subgenre 19 M ATTHEW F RYE -C ASTILLO

Move over Mr. Ripley; the new fiction is both darker and sexier

Fantasy Island, 17th-Century Style 24 V ERNON R OSARIO

The truly queer world of the French novel Hermaphrodites (1605)

Christopher Street HitsFifty 28 D OMENIC D E S OCIO

In 1976 there arose a literary magazine for the LGBT thinking set

Trans Oppression Updated 34 S USAN S TRYKER

Eli Erlick talks with the author of Transgender History

R EVIEWS

P OEMS & D EPARTMENTS C ORRESPONDENCE 5 I NTERNATIONAL S PECTRUM – Keeping Queer Culture Alive in Wartime Kyiv 8 F INBARR T OESLAND I N M EMORIAM — Don Weise, LGBT Publishing Dynamo 10 R ICHARD C ANNING BTW 11 R ICHARD S CHNEIDER J R . A RT M EMO — Finnish Poets in Love 22 A RTEMIS K ELOSAARI H ISTORY M EMO — In the Age of Christopher Street 32 A NDREW H OLLERAN P OEM — “72nd St.” 36 J OHN H ARRIS P OEM — “Happiness” 38 A UDRA M C G REW H ISTORY M EMO — Also Born in 1776: Public Universal Friend 42 D ENISE N OE A RT M EMO — The Author Reflects on Blackbird at Forty 50 L ARRY D UPLECHAN A RTIST ’ S P ROFILE — Rachel Mason and the Cinematic Culturespace 53 P HIL T ARLEY A RT M EMO — Boys in Love on Asian TV 54 G REGORY A. D OBIE P OEM — “Two Steady Stars” 55 M ICHAEL J AMES O’B RIEN C ULTURAL C ALENDAR 56 Anthony Delaney — Queer Enlightenments 37 J AMES P OLCHIN Peter Ormerod — David Bowie and the Search for Life, Death and God 38 N IKOLAI E NDRES Nayland Blake — My Studio Is a Dungeon Is the Studio 40 S TEVEN F. D ANSKY Michael Lowenthal — Place Envy: Essays in Search of Orientation 41 E LAINE M ARGOLIN Steve Turtell — Portraits and Places 44 M ICHAEL Q UINN Rob Franklin — Great Black Hope: A Novel 45 R EGINALD H ARRIS B RIEFS 46 Rabih Alameddine – The True, True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother) 48 A NNE C HARLES Thomas R. Dunn — The Pink Scar 48 H ANK T ROUT Richie Hofmann — The Bronze Arms 49 D AVID B ERGMAN Owen Keehnen — Gay Chicago Memories: 1300 N. Wells 52 L ARRY R EYNOLDS Spectrum of Desire: Love, Sex, and Gender in the Middle Ages (Art) 57 A NDREW L EAR Ira Sachs, director — Peter Hujar’s Day (Film) 58 C OLIN C ARMAN

A NDREW L EAR J AMES P OLCHIN J EAN R OBERTA V ERNON R OSARIO Contributing Artist C HARLES H EFLING Publisher S TEPHEN H EMRICK Webmaster B OSTON W EB G ROUP ______________________________ Board of Directors A RT C OHEN ( CHAIR ) S TEPHEN H EMRICK D AVID L A F ONTAINE J EREMY C. F OX J IM J ACOBS A NDREW L EAR R ICHARD S CHNEIDER , J R . ( PRESIDENT ) S TEPH S TOLIS T HOMAS Y OUNGREN ( TREASURER ) S TEWART C LIFFORD ( CHAIR EMER .) W ARREN G OLDFARB ( SR . ADVISOR EMER .) R OBERT H ARDMAN ( TRUSTEE EMER .)

The Gay & Lesbian Review/ WORLDWIDE ® (formerly The Harvard Gay & Lesbian Review, 1994-1999) is published bimonthly (six times per year) by The Gay & Lesbian Review, Inc., a 501(c)(3) educational corporation located in Boston, Mass. Subscription rates : U.S.: $41.70 per year (6 issues). Canada and Mexico: $51.70(US). All other countries: $61.70(US). All non-U.S. copies are sent via air mail. Back issues available for $12 each. All correspondence is sent in a plain envelope marked “G&LR.” ISSN: 1077: 6591 © 2026 by Gay & Lesbian Review, Inc. All rights reserved. W EBSITE : www.GLReview.org • S UBSCRIPTIONS : 847-504-8893 • A DVERTISING : 617-421-0082 • S UBMISSIONS : Editor@GLReview.org

May–June 2026

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Pride Issue: Homo Litterarius FROM THE MANAGING EDITOR

T HE THEME of Homo Litterarius plays on the double meaning of “homo”—let’s translate the Latin as “per son”—and concerns the influence that LGBT figures have exerted on literary culture as well as the loves, heartbreaks, and creative collaborations that have influenced their work. It’s no secret that queer authors and the sublimation of same-sex de sire have helped shape literary culture, and I hope these articles, which visit episodes from the 1600s to the present, will guide you toward LGBT writers, books, and literary events that have been underappreciated or ignored. English author E. F. Benson was famous in his time for the comic Mapp & Lucia novels and dozens of other works, but Sasha Garwood peeks behind the curtain to show what only his intimates knew: that George Wolfe Plank, illustrator of Benson’s The Freaks of Mayfair , was also his lover. Next, İ pek Ş ahinler transports us roughly 1,800 miles westward to Istanbul, delving into James Baldwin’s Turkish sojourn through an interview with his translator and confidante Zeynep Oral. Speaking of Turkey, Matthew Frye-Castillo explores how Yi ğ it Karaahmet’s Summerhouse and three other recent novels suggest that a new subgenre is upon us: fiction in which queer characters not only survive but literally get away with murder. Then Vernon Rosario shares the delightfully campy details of a decidedly less recent novel, 1605’s Island of Hermaphrodites . Moving into the late 20th century, Domenic DeSocio and

Andrew Holleran have written separate essays on Christopher Street magazine fifty years after its founding in 1976, examin ing its outsize impact on LGBT literature and, in Holleran’s case, reconsidering whether nipples really are the windows of the soul (a joke at the time). Another anniversary this year is that of the novel Blackbird , whose author Larry Duplechan marks its pub lication forty years ago by considering its legacy as the first widely read coming-out novel with a Black protagonist. Another landmark was the publication of trans scholar Susan Stryker’s pioneering Transgender History in 2008. A third edi tion has just been published, and Eli Erlick has interviewed Stryker for an update at this critical moment in the battle for civil rights and basic human dignity for trans people. This expanded Pride Issue also includes an Art Memo in which Artemis Kelosaari writes of the love affair between early 20th-century Finnish poets Uuno Kailas and Kaarlo Sarkia. Denise Noe explores one of history’s first recorded nonbinary figures, the Public Universal Friend (1776–1819). And Phil Tar ley interviews documentary filmmaker Rachel Mason, whose newfilm, My Brother’s Killer , looks at the long search for jus tice following the 1990 murder of a gay porn actor. Taken together, this issue’s features demonstrate the multi plicity of LGBT people and experiences and remind us why we have pride in the many elements that make up our community. J EREMY C. F OX

A vivacious vita full of queer relations: the erotic, the pedagogical, the familial, the romantic, the platonic, and, of course, the cinematic .

“ Writing in the Flesh is a brutally honest, hilarious, and super sexy celebration of queer kinship and friendship.” –Peter Dickinson, Simon Fraser University

Writing in the Flesh Essays on My Lives, My Bodies, My Families, My Places, My Movies Thomas Waugh

mqup.ca @McGillQueensUP

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Correspondence

pressures, both reviewers responded more to their preconceived notions of the source material and the publicity about the show as “smut,” rather than seriously considering the series at hand, which was formally dar ing in its mix of sexual politics, romance, and the importance of gay visibility and the tremendous effect that can have on others. Plenty of gay men I know were staggered by the emotional impact such storytelling had for us, since it felt completely new, at least in the way Jacob Tierney artfully pre sented it. Its status as a cultural phenome non shows it delighted, touched, and even inspired many beyond the gay community, while being a showcase for queer talents. I loved the very different Boots , too, but it wasn’t the success of Heated Rivalry that killed it. The cowardice of Netflix in the face of criticism from the current Republi can administration did that, as Carman could have noted. There is room for both these series, and many more gay stories be sides, which the enormous success of Heated Rivalry may now encourage even in the face of the incessant wave of repression and conformity we’re being force-fed. Less snark from your pop culture critics in the future would be very welcome. Tom Phillips, New York City To the Editor: You seem to have written two reviews: one displeased and, well, kind of shallow, and a second (the right-hand column in my issue) a little more relaxed. Here you ac knowledge much of what I liked-loved

Heated Rivalry Fans Speak Out To the Editor: Great appreciation for the thoughtful re viewof Heated Rivalry by Jeremy C. Fox [in the March-April 2026 issue]. I would like to continue his discussion with a few more observations to support the reviewer’s reflections about what is going on in Heated Rivalry to build such interest. I feel these additional components to the story have made it so closely watched by everyone. The audience was able to learn immedi ately about four very different families and upbringings as they watched the four main gay characters. And regardless of all those various early life circumstances and up bringing conditions, all four men are gay or discovering their gay identity in real time before our eyes. Over the ten or so years of this series’ arc, Ilya and Shane had sexual experiences with one another maybe seven times. Scott and Kip had a three- or four-year timeline and only had sex twice—with other times possi bly implied. That’s not a lot of sex, really, and the sex is not the focus of the series. The longing, the waiting, the excruciating times apart, the lies, the pretense, and the exhaust ing loneliness—that is the actual focus, the surprise, the learning, and the takeaway as we watched the reality of a contemporary gay and/or closeted experience. Three very important central characters are women—Svetlana, Elena, and Rose. They are the kind and honest voices that guide and mentor these four men to under stand the importance of their coming out and becoming who they truly are by pro tecting, teaching, and advocating for them. Their authentic friendship work is vital to these gay stories. Gay men are indebted to the strong women friends in their lives. This is not missed by the women and others watching this series. When Ilya and Shane, or Scott and Kip, were together in safer spaces, the long si lences, the thinking times, and the pauses before knowing what to say, alongside the ongoing permission requests, permissions to talk, and offers to listen in new ways, were in fact a completely fresh language system being witnessed. It was in this context that these four men were able to teach each other about themselves and allow each other to unfold into more of who they truly are. Shane taught Ilya to trust genuine love, and Ilya taught Shane how to ask for what he needs. Kip taught Scott the meaning of fam ily, and Scott taught Kip how whole and lovable he is. This too is not missed by the women and others watching this series.

Ilya and Shane were both young men who were used and abused by their fami lies. Both are treated like family ATMs (sources of money, tickets, and lifestyles). Both are trapped in their families and the corporate/political dysfunctional systems of their lives. Both must break out of those structures to find the heart of the story line—we are at our Heated Rivalry best when we are free to love openly, whole heartedly, and safely. This again is not missed by the women and others watching this series. Michael Mansfield, Berkeley, CA To the Editor: Surely you could have done better by Heated Rivalry than the snobbish, conde scending review by Jeremy C. Fox, not to mention the gratuitously nasty dismissal by Colin Carman, who used the excellent Boots as a club to beat Heated Rivalry with. I can only assume that, due to deadline

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about the show. Though your tone lacked warmth; in fact, it seemed a little bitchy and grudging. I didn’t see the reference to Russ ian policy as “modest.” Have another look. It’s pointed, especially given its context. Same with safe sex. It’s pointed; you seem to have missed it. I got the impression that Rachel Reid intended to write a plain narra tive, albeit with some thoughtful, even beautiful passages. Like you, I thought the series was better. I thought it was brighter, created by a superior intelligence, but there are some passages in the book that clarify events, like when Shane is overwhelmed by what’s happening between them and flees. The book explains and deepens that event in a way that the series does not. I was enchanted, entirely taken in (you might say) by the delicate rendering of the growing self-awareness of these two young men, their growing understanding of their dilemma, and their growing acknowledge ment of their love for one another, a love that trumps (forgive me) everything else in their lives. Including their stardom, even in cluding their singularity as public heroes and public property. You’re right: “This isn’t the world most of us live in.” Is Hamlet , The Importance Of Being Earnest , or Marty Supreme the “world we live in”? It’s a story! It’s not “the world we live in”! The sooner we grasp that, the happier we’ll be. “I need.…” “What do you need?”

“You know.” “No, tell me.” “You. I need you.” It’s a wonderful show; sorry you missed it. Jeffrey Gillman, Oakland, CA To the Readers: I appreciate the variety of responses to Heated Rivalry , a series our community will probably continue discussing for a long time. As Jeffrey Gillman observed, I wrote two versions of my review: one for The G&LR ’s website while the show was airing, another for the magazine after it concluded. I warmed to the series somewhat after the final two installments, which are focused less on sex and more on connection than are earlier episodes, but I retain reservations about its glossy consumerist fantasy world. I don’t expect the show’s many loyal fans to agree, nor should they expect me to over look elements I consider flaws. Jeremy C. Fox, Managing Editor Providing Context for the Quakers To the Editor: I was raised in Friends Meeting and greatly enjoyed Daniel Burr’s review of Brian Blackmore’s book on Quaker in volvement in gay liberation [in the March April 2026 issue]. His review ends with a note that “most Quakers today are conserva tive evangelicals.” That is true if all Quak ers are lumped together. However, there are differences between the two main groups,

usually known as Friends Church (like a Baptist church with a pacifist core) and Friends Meeting, which is more like a blend of Unitarian and Mennonite or Amish. There is no central mandatory authority for Friends Meeting. The North Pacific Yearly Meeting of the Society of Friends, largely made up of Friends Meeting people, has taken the following positions. According to its website, in 1979, it re fused to meet at a Baptist facility that in sisted on taking down signage mentioning gays and lesbians. In 1992 it “affirmed Friends belief that the Spirit of God is pres ent in all loving relationships regardless of the genders of those involved” and “en dorsed efforts to protect the civil rights of all persons regardless of their sexual orien tation.” In 1997, after several years of con sideration, it supported the legal recognition of same-sex marriages without mandating this for local meetings. In 2004 it opposed “all attempts to deny legal recognition of marriage of same sex couples.” Although I am not a Christian, I take pride in my family’s longtime affiliation with the Meeting. Alan Contreras, Eugene, Oregon Correc ti on The last issue, March-April 2026—not 2025!—included the kind of error that every editor dreads: last year’s date right on the cover. Life lesson learned (again): beware the peril of templates!

F RIENDS OF T HE R EVIEW F RIENDS OF T HE R EVIEW are readers who donated $150+ to The Gay & Lesbian Review , a 501(c)(3) educational corporation, in 2025. All gifts are fully tax-deductible.

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Keeping Queer Culture Alive in Wartime Kyiv INTERNATIONAL SPECTRUM

sistance , released in 2023, followed the lives of young LGBT Ukrainian soldiers fighting to defend their country. “A lot of people joined the army,” they said. “A lot of people are being killed. This loss is on so many levels; it’s present and it’s felt. The queer community now in Kyiv has a big wound that is bleeding, and this loss just keeps happening and happening.” There’s no question but that Ukraine is deeply divided on LGBT issues, including marriage equality. But the presence of LGBT military service members and Rus sia’s connection to far-right, anti-LGBT ide ologies have tempered some of the most extreme vitriol against the community. An October 2025 survey by the Kyiv Inter national Institute of Sociology found that eighteen percent of Ukrainian respondents had a positive feeling about LGBT people, with 45 percent feeling neutral and 33 per cent negative. Yet the percentage of people saying that LGBT people in Ukraine should have the same rights as other citizens has grown from 63 percent in 2022 to 78 per cent in 2025. Several relatively high-profile cases of

F INBARR T OESLAND T HE FOURTH ANNIVERSARY of Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine fell on February 24th, just days after Russian forces launched a major missile and drone attack against Ukraine, predominantly targeting the region surrounding the capital city of Kyiv. Close to fifty missiles and 300 drones battered the nation’s energy sector, damaging residential buildings and railways, killing a man, and leaving more than a dozen people wounded in Kyiv alone. Power outages were by then the norm in the city, where winter temperatures reached as low as five degrees Fahrenheit. Sidewalks and roads were covered in heavy snow and black ice, making travel by car or foot treacherous. As positive developments failed to materialize at the trilateral talks in Geneva between Russia, Ukraine, and the U.S., Ukrainians continued to live their daily lives in seemingly impossible conditions. Members of Kyiv’s queer community have been working to keep creativity alive as their city undergoes seismic changes. Queer nightlife and connection are still pos

sible across the capital, even with midnight curfews, which have turned nights out into evenings out, typically running from 5 to 11 PM. Nightclubs like K41 and Closer are well known for being queer-friendly and of fering a truly safe space for Kyiv’s LGBT community to meet. “It keeps changing every year; it gets more difficult,” said Angelik Ustymenko, a queer artist and activist. “A lot of people have left, and it’s heartbreaking to think that some of them are not planning to come back, and the community we used to have will not be back again.” Before the invasion, Ustymenko and their collective Rebel Queers used street graffiti to communicate with each other. “For queer people who live in the city and who also feel lonely in a way, writing something on the wall kind of tells them: ‘Hey, you’re not alone,’” they added. The community quickly unified around the idea, and more LGBT people across several cities in Ukraine began sharing their own graffiti with Rebel Queers . The arrival of war changed the trajectory of Ustymenko’s artistic career. Their docu mentary Rebel Queers: Ukraine’s Queer Re

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to join the EU is a powerful tool for advo cacy. “Currently the political situation is be coming much more favorable for the LGBTQ community. But of course we [are] Ukraini ans and going through everything that all other Ukrainians are going through,” Kravchuk explained. When Donald Trump started his second term, according to Kravchuk, far-right movements in Ukraine were initially boosted by the expected ideological pressure the administration would place on Kyiv. But these ultraconservative groups were soon disappointed, as pushing back against LGBT policies in Ukraine has not been part of U.S. foreign policy. Ustymenko believes that after the Russian aggression against Ukraine ends, there will need to be a long period of recovering and healing. “This wound that we have, it will take generations to heal,” they said. “I’ve kind of accepted the fact that me and my generation are, in a way, a lost generation be cause we’ve been so traumatized. For the fu ture, we need to have the opportunity to heal, care for each other, and, as part of this heal ing process, keep fighting for our rights.” Finbarr Toesland is an award-winning jour nalist committed to illuminating vital human rights stories and underreported issues.

anti-LGBT protests and attacks have been re ported. Ukrainian singer Mélovin, who won a seasonof X-Factor Ukraine and subse quently represented Ukraine at the Eurovi sion Song Contest 2018, came out as bisexual in 2021 via an Instagram post. On February 17th in the western Ukrainian city of Rivne, a group of protesters, some masked, disrupted Mélovin’s concert, shout ing anti-marriage-equality slogans, including “Heroes are not fighting for gay marriages,” which resulted in the performance being can celed. While reporting from a recent Ukrain ian Fashion Week held in Kyiv, I asked an attendee in an eye-catching and elaborate outfit if he would feel comfortable wearing it out on the street. He replied that past experi ence had taught him that doing so would at

tract negative attention and shouts of abuse. For Andrii Kravchuk, a Ukrainian LGBT activist and one of the founders of the Nash Mir (Our World) Gay and Lesbian Centre, the turn toward deeper integration with Eu rope and the West has changed everything about the approach to LGBT rights. “These issues that were rather theoretical before be came practical, as Ukraine must comply with the European human rights standards in this sphere,” he said. “Our most important enemies of the Ukrainian LGBTQ movement currently just can’t afford to openly support Russian discourse on LGBTQ issues.” As the Ukrainian government has taken broad legislative and political steps to shorten the path to EU membership, Kravchuk has found that being a candidate

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IN MEMORIAM

Don Weise, LGBT Publishing Dynamo R ICHARD C ANNING L OS ANGELES-BORN Don Weise (1967–2026) was a titan of LGBTQ + publishing for over three decades. Wry, learned, shrewd, yet also risk-taking, he not only

other devoted to Huey P. Newton). At the same time, he never lost the most important perspective—that of the lay reader. The often myopic, gossip-ridden, backstabbing bear pit of much American publishing held no interest. He simply wanted great books to find new audiences, challenge orthodoxies and, yes, change lives for the better.

propelled queer publishing into a richer, more substantial, diverse, and significant realm; he also steered the tiller of several publishing companies through their most challenging times, first at California-based Cleis Press and—following a long and highly successful period as editor of a “queer and more” list at Carroll & Graf— later at Boston-based Alyson Books. In re cent years, he ran two publishing houses, Magnus Books and Querelle Press, contin uing to promote new voices, ideas, and fields of study. Being edited by Don was a pleasure, as so many have recorded in paying tribute. His

Don’s impeccable manners and fairness stood out and made his influence that much wider. He persuaded gay male luminaries such as Gore Vidal, Edward Albee, James Purdy, Edmund White, and Dennis Cooper to publish with him, despite Carroll & Graf’s relatively modest commercial reach. Equally, he promoted women’s work, in cluding that of Ann Bannon, Susie Bright, Kate Clinton, Sarah Schulman, Annie Sprin kle, and Urvashi Vaid. The C&G list was heterodox in every way, embracing estab lished and unknown authors of every eth nicity, spirituality, region, age, and class.

Don was understandably proud of nurturing a return of the challenging but brilliant Brooklyn novelist James Purdy to the public eye, escorting him personally in 2005 to receive the Clifton Fadiman Medal at the Mercantile Library, Purdy’s novel Eustace Chisholm and the Works having been nomi nated by Jonathan Franzen. Weise had strong commercial instincts but sometimes took a proactive view on what he thought needed to be heard. At Carroll & Graf, he commissioned my own Vital Signs: Es sential AIDS Fiction (2007), though we both knew it was un likely to sell many copies. This desire also led to the revised edition of Andrew Holleran’s collection of journalism Ground Zero as Chronicle of a Plague, Revisited (2008), still among the most compelling accounts of the first decade of the Amer ican epidemic. Don spent most of his spare time volunteering for advo cates of LGBTQ + writing such as the Publishing Triangle. He also edited books on a freelance basis for most of the big houses. In the early evenings during the late ’90s and early 2000s, he would be found at Chelsea’s Barracuda Bar, taking advantage of two-for-one happy hour. He would be sur rounded by many whose nascent literary careers he aided, even when they found their way to other publishing houses— including Michael Carroll, David McConnell, Vestal McIn tyre, Patrick Ryan, and Bob Smith. His inside knowledge of queer publishing always made his conversational contribu tions memorable, though he was uniformly discreet and al ways protected friends and contacts. Nonetheless, he was memorably witty, warm, and wise. Weise is survived by his mother Linda and sisters Susan and Lori. The queer literary community in the U.S. and far be yond is much in his debt. Richard Canning is author or editor of ten books, including Brigid Brophy. Avant-Garde Writer, Critic, Activist (2020).

calm, reasoned questioning was polite, discreet, and, most im portantly, always informed by scholarship. (He was also a renowned scholar in African-American literature, editing an acclaimed volume of the writings of Bayard Rustin and an

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They’re Back! A couple of issues ago we ran a photo of a statue that had materialized one day on the National Mall in Wash ington depicting Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump doing a kind of dance while holding hands. A new statue takes the ho BTW 38 years old and has matinee-idol good looks? That he’s the new, openly gay Prime Minister of the Netherlands? It’s true: Jetten took office in late February as the youngest prime min ister in Dutch history, which is not even his most important dis tinction for our pur poses. The fact that he’s openly gay is a newsworthy item in itself, to be sure, but there’s also a curious side story that’s a case of life imitating art. Jetten is currently en gaged to be married to his longtime boy friend Nico Keenan,

moerotic suggestion to a new level of innuendo. Titled Kingof theWorld , the twelve-foot statue recapitulates the iconic em brace of Jack and Rose in Titanic , a moment of both world con quest and romantic love. The plaque on the statue is worth quoting in full: “The tragic love story between Jack and Rose was built on luxurious travel, raucous parties, and secret nude sketches. This monument honors the bond between Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein, a friendship seemingly built on lux urious travel, raucous parties, and secret nude sketches.” And Then They Came for Ghosts Taken by itself, this could be just the raving fantasy of a lone State Rep. from the Upper Midwest, one Mary Miller (R-Ill.), who made quite a splash by publicly denouncing the widespread practice of hiring strippers to entertain children in public schools in Illinois, starting as early as the fourth grade. Of course there are no strippers in schools and no plans to hire any, and when asked to name a single instance of this happening, Rep. Miller was speechless. And yet, she’s not alone; this is all a part of a Re publican-sponsored bill titled the “Stop the Sexualization of Children Act” (H.R. 7661), which is filled with similar chimeras, including the assertion that transgender people do not exist at all. Another Miller (Arthur) wrote a whole play about the invention of social evils to be rooted out by what ever means in The Crucible . In the 1950s, Joseph McCarthy brought back the Salem Witch Trials in his pursuit of Com munists in the State Department and Hollywood and every where. Well, at least Communists really do (or did) exist in the real world. We’re now entering (or re-entering) a phase in which the invented realities of the Internet—like those of the Church fathers in the Middle Ages—are finding their way into the official laws of the land. Elected to Be Illustrated What can one say about Rob Jetten? That his name sounds like he comes from the future? That he’s

who happens to be—wait for it—an Olympic hockey player. Also, as luck would have it, our contributing artist Charles Hefling was jonesin’ to do a caricature of the new PM, and how could we refuse an offer like that?

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ESSAY E.F. Benson’s Lost Romance S ASHA G ARWOOD

W HEN THE ENGLISH WRITER E. F. Benson and the American artist George Wolfe Plank first caught each other’s eyes on the King’s Road Chelsea in early 1915, they came from different worlds. Edward Frederic Benson—Fred to those he loved—was in his late forties. Successful, famously witty, impeccably dressed, he’d been a bestselling novelist since the publication of Dodo in 1893 and a society figure even before that. His father had been Archbishop of Canterbury, his mother friends with Queen Victoria, and he combined connections with considerable charm. Plank, conversely, was orphaned young and working ten-hour days in a Pennsylvania factory for $1.25 a day before he was fourteen. But he taught himself to draw, and now, at age 32, his elegant, fantastical art was much sought after. His work for Vogue and Condé Nast defined the look of the era. For all their differences, there were similarities between Benson and Plank. They were both talented, popular, generous, caring—and queer. Plank had spent years embroiled in a pas sionate and romantically unrequited epistolary relationship with the older artist and dramaturg Edward Gordon Craig, and his later letters suggest that the combination of sensitivity, creativ ity, and authority was a potent lure. Benson’s diaries from Marl borough and Cambridge record passionate romances; his family talked openly of his proclivity for “the company of young men” and “Fred’s mysterious young friends”; and alongside his villa on the contemporary gay men’s paradise of Capri, he’d devel oped rather a habit of sweeping younger men off their feet. But by late 1914, when Plank moved into a studio at 55 Glebe Place in London, just around the corner from Benson’s house at 102 Oakley Street, Britain was at war. Many men were away; some were dying. Benson had lost “dozens of friends.” Even bohemian Chelsea vibrated with tension, desperation, and the breakdown of Edwardian certainties. Perhaps it’s unsur prising that after they crossed paths on the King’s Road—often enough to become familiar, fascinated—Plank wrote Benson a letter. Benson burned much correspondence before he died, espe cially anything he thought might “cause mischief,” so it’s in triguing that Plank’s approach to him survives in all its queer-coded glory. He describes his handsome neighbor as “un married, worldly, and witty”—all familiar queer signifiers—and quotes a Walt Whitman poem about strangers and desire. Whit man was a reference point for many men who loved men, and Benson responded accordingly: “He seemed so pleased to know that I loved Whitman, because he does too,” Plank reported in Sasha Garwood is writing a book about E. F. Benson and George Plank. She is an assistant professor at the University of Nottingham, UK.

genuously to his sister, “and we are developing a delightful friendship.” (Although he was excited enough to describe meet ing Benson in three successive letters over three weeks, he con structed a more anodyne chance meeting. His letter goes unmentioned.) Benson invited Plank to tea and played him Tchaikovsky (another queer signifier). Soon they were seeing each other every day, and Plank wrote: “I am … so happy I can scarcely realize it is I.” At first their contrasting backgrounds were a source of fas cination, and they swiftly integrated themselves into each

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other’s lives. Plank was delighted, exuberant: “two people never came from such opposite poles and were better friends.” Per haps physical attraction drew them together. Plank wrote openly of Benson as “a fine hard physical specimen” who “goes in for all sorts of sport,” adding “and yet, we seem to fit perfectly, which is a miracle!” Surviving photographs show that Plank, too, was beautiful—tall, dark, slender, with striking bone struc ture and an infectious grin. By early March—barely three weeks after meeting—they were planning weekends away together. Were they lovers? It’s tempting to speculate. Plank wrote that line about Benson’s physicality mere days after his introductory letter, which sug gests exposure to a more relaxed state of (un)dress than the for mality required outside domestic spaces. With Plank’s private studio and Benson’s well-staffed house, not to mention their travels together, there certainly would have been opportunity, at least after the servants had gone to bed. The historical assumption has tended to be that Benson was uninterested in sex, perhaps because of the way in which ho moerotic love is explicitly distinguished from “promiscuous im morality” and “dingy sensualism” in autobiographical works like Our Family Affairs (1920) and Mother (1925). But in his fiction, homoeroticism abounds: bronzed youths bathing naked; Greekness, wildness, nudity, and sensual indulgence in drink, sea, and sun. Close male friends who live or holiday together and are “wrapped up in each other” appear regularly, and emo tional need is figured in physical terms. Even Benson’s autobi ographies are open about “human love, the heart’s need of one individual for another individual,” “want[ing] someone with the sense of thirst.” Plank wasn’t wrong about all the sport, either: until arthritis cruelly curtailed his activities, Benson was a very physical man. It’s difficult to believe that his relationship with Plank was celibate. Perhaps most suggestively, some scraps of poetry escaped the bonfires: a few surviving poems in Oxford’s Bodleian Library evoke kissing, shared beds, and lying entan gled with a lover in heartrending terms. Plank’s letters imply that he considered sexuality a private matter, relevant only to those concerned. In his artistic and the atrical circles, desiring men might necessitate care but was hardly unusual. For Benson, more firmly anchored in the Eng lish establishment, it was different. Like many gay Englishmen in the aftermath of Wilde, he knew the stakes and was careful to conform—publicly, at least—to the conventions of contem porary morality. Nevertheless, despite his religious upbringing, classical education had given him access to an intellectual and moral framework that enabled him to understand and justify his feelings as romantic love, spiritual connection, and a source of nobility rather than vice. § F OR ALL THEIR ESTABLISHMENT STATUS , Benson’s family mem bers were almost entirely queer, albeit to varying degrees: his mother had moved her lover Lucy Tait in with the family before her husband’s death; his sister Maggie lived and worked with Nettie Gourlay; Nellie Benson was courted by Ethel Smyth; Hugh was involved with Baron Corvo; and Arthur had a suc cession of chaste emotional attachments to much younger men, although his idea of consummation was reading aloud to a young man leaning against his knee. Plank was welcomed with May–June 2026

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