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| This Day in Gay History | |||
March 21
Born
 Gavin Arthur
1901 -
GAVIN ARTHUR, American writer, grandson of President Chester A. Arthur (d: 1972); Grandson
and namesake of U.S. President Chester Alan Arthur, he was Alan Watts'
father-in-law. An adventurous soul, he worked his way around the world
as a merchant seaman. He has been described as "an Ivy League dropout,
an Irish Republican Army activist, an experimental-film actor, a commune
leader, a gold prospector, a teacher at San Quentin, and a bisexual
sexologist/astrologer. An early Gay Rights activist and a practical
prototype for the hippies."
In 1962, Arthur published The Circle of Sex, a
book that analyzed human sexuality through the lens of astrology.
Rather than the linear scale developed by Alfred Kinsey, Arthur
envisioned sexuality as a wheel with twelve orientations. The
twelve types corresponded to the zodiac and Arthur illustrated each
with an historical archetype (e.g., Don Juan, Sappho, Lady C). He appears in James Broughton's film The Bed as the man receiving last rites from Alan Watts
Arthur, bisexual himself, was said to have been intimate with Edward Carpenter and Neal Cassady. Arthur
was also a friend to many of the beat generation, including Allen
Ginsberg and Alan Watts, and was active in the early Gay Liberation
movement movement.
Arthur married for the third time in 1965 to Ellen Jansen. He wrote an enlarged edition of The Circle of Sex the following year. He
used astrology to determine the date to hold the Human Be-in in 1967.
In 1968, he debated fellow astrologer Dane Rudhyar on the topic of the
Age of Aquarius. In 1972, Arthur died in San Francisco. Having
no children himself, he was the last living descendant of his
grandfather, President Chester A. Arthur. His papers, including many
family papers, were donated to the Library of Congress.
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| This Day in Gay History | |||
March 19
Born
 Richard Francis Burton
1821 -
RICHARD FRANCIS BURTON,
legendary British explorer, diplomat and author was born (d. 1890); an
English explorer, translator, writer, soldier, orientalist, ethnologist,
linguist, poet, hypnotist, fencer and diplomat. If we left anything out
it’s hard to imagine what it might be.
Burton was "the
most interesting man alive" before there was such a thing. He was known
for his far-flung and exotic travels and explorations within Asia and
Africa as well as his extraordinary knowledge of languages and cultures.
According to one count, he spoke 29 European, Asian, and African
languages.
His best-known
achievements include traveling in disguise to Mecca, making an
unexpurgated translation of The Book of One Thousand and One Nights (the
collection is more commonly called The Arabian Nights in English because of Andrew Lang's abridgment) and the Kama Sutra and
journeying with John Henning Speke as the first white men guided by the
redoubtable Sidi Mubarek Bombay to discover the Great Lakes of Africa
in search of the source of the Nile.
Allegations of
homosexuality followed Burton throughout most of his life, at a time
when it was a criminal offense in the United Kingdom. Biographers
disagree on whether or not Burton ever experienced Gay sex (he never
directly acknowledges it in his writing).
These allegations
began in his army days when General Sir Charles James Napier requested
that Burton go undercover to investigate a male brothel reputed to be
frequented by British soldiers. It has been suggested that Burton's
detailed report on the workings of the brothel may have led some to
believe he had been a customer.
Burton was a
party boy and a heavy drinker at various times in his life and also
admitted to taking both hemp and opium. Friends of the poet Algernon
Swinburne blamed Burton for leading him astray, holding Burton
responsible for Swinburne's alcoholism and interest in the works of the
Marquis de Sade.
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