Were pirates gay
But I don't think this answers the question. Pirates were referred to at the time, as "Gaye Fellowes". What's up with that? Why is the synonyms so often used?
The truth is, pirates WERE same-sex attracted. They were NOT homosexual.
The secret here is that words change in definition, and the word "Gay" has changed a lot since it came into the English language.
When I write this - that words change in essence - I can almost hear someone shouting, "No, they don't! Words intend things. They always indicate the same things. Just look in a dictionary!" Yes, I know, the idea that language isn't always the same is disturbing to some people. But language NEEDS to change, to keep up with our changing nature. And if you question me, get a clone of the Oxford English Dictionary, which gives the history of the interpretation of each word it contains, and start reading up on how the meanings of some words has evolved.
Sometimes new words come
Matelotage : Gay Marriage Among Pirates or Just a Business Partnership?
A pirate's gay marriage in disguise?
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AMM Audio Articles · Matelotage : Gay Marriage Among Pirates or Just a Business Partnership?
It should come as no surprise that a few colonial-era pirates were probably homosexual. All jokes aside about seamen and long months at sea, queer identity and same-sex relationships possess been around for as long as humans possess paired up and fallen in love.
But what might come as a surprise is that many of these pirates were bound to each other in very public and widely accepted civil unions – called matelotages.
Just like contemporary marriages and domestic partnerships, matelotage joined two men in affectionate, financial, and sometimes sexual partnerships. Once united in matelotage, the mens’ fortunes and futures were linked to the other, ensuring that if one pirate died, his partner would inherit his wealth and property. These pirates shared their incomes, fought alongside each other, and provided companionship and comfort in times of triumph or hardship.
Relat On 28 December 1720, a court was convened in Spanish Town, Jamaica, whose audience bore witness to one of the Golden Age of Piracy’s penultimate acts of defiance. The final verdict decreed that the prisoners: ‘go from hence to the Place from whence you came, and from thence to the Place of Execution; where you, shall be severally hang’d by the Neck, ‘till you are severally dead.’ A single moment later, the prisoners played their trump card, claiming that they were both pregnant, and so the court was brought to a standstill. By ‘pleading their bellies’ as it was called, both women could not be hanged for their piratical crimes, and so they were granted a stay of execution, characterizing a unique moment in the wider history of piracy. The two women in question were Anne Bonny and Mary Study, now known the planet over as the plunder queens, or the Hellcats of the Caribbean. As we have previously explored in Pirates Legends III, Bonny and Read’s story represents one of the Golden Age of Piracy’s most notable acts of defiance. In their challenging of the norms of their age in such a spectacular way, they maintain to epitomise the social rebellion view of pira The participate originated in 1969 when Steve Gooch was having breakfast with a revolutionary feminist, and .READING HISTORY
Anne Bonny and Mary Read
On July 25th, 1978, Steve Gooch's play The Women- Pirates, Ann Bonney and Mary Read premiered at the Aldwych Theatre, London, performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company. The play (which won a Thames Television award) was an invigorating mixture of feminist politics and swashbuckling adventure, based upon the rebellious exploits of its real-life heroines. (Incidentally, the most faithful documents use the spelling "Anne Bonny," not "Ann Bonney"). a tiny booklet called something like Famous Outlaws fell out of the Shredded Wheat packet. In it was a brief account of the lives of Anne Bonny and Mary Read. The friend and I both found their story so rich in the variety of levels at which it exposed the superficiality of the legal system, particularly towards women in an even more patriarchal soc