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From: dbensongyles@onetel.com Subject: Lawrence Date: February 22, 2005 8:03:13 AM PST To: jay@gayheroes.com
I'm sorry to have to tell you this but you are quite wrong and, I'm afraid, it's people like you who perpetrate and proliferate unsubstantiated nonsense about Lawrence and homosexuality which is completely wrong and besmirches his name. Homosexual people are constantly trying to find celebrities who they have decided might be gay. They then parade them about in print and elswehere to justify their own sexual predilections: ( "You see, Lawrence of Arabia was gay, so it's OK to be gay"), that sort of subjective self-justification. Personally I have no views one way or the other about homosexuality, except to say that I am not homosexual and that homosexuality is a biological cul-de-sac and not what nature and evolution intended.
But I digress. I have studied Lawrence
for over 40 years and I can assure you he was not
homosexual. So -- please -- STOP trying to justify your own
sexual orientation at the expense of the reputation of a man
who cannot defend himself.
From: jay@gayheroes.com Subject: Re: Lawrence Date: February 25, 2005 1:33:09 PM PST To: dbensongyles@onetel.com
Hello, Mr. Benson-Gyles. Thanks for writing to GayHeroes.com!
I'm afraid we'll have to agree to disagree about Lawrence. National heroes are dearly held, and I get e-mails all the time from outraged Greeks who swear that Alexander the Great was not gay. Do you recall the furor in your country when Richard the Lionhearted was deemed to have been gay? Even Encyclopedia Britannica agrees about Richard.
My main reaction to your letter is your claim Personally I have no views one way or the other about homosexuality
You then go on to say that homosexuality is a biological cul-de-sac and not what nature and evolution intended.
Well, those are pretty strong views "one way or the other", aren't they?
Furthermore, to say as you do that homosexuality "besmirches" anyone is a clear indicator of how you feel about it. So please don't continue to deceive yourself that you have "no views one way or the other about homosexuality".
As for a biological cul-de-sac, it would certainly seem like homosexuality should disappear from an evolutionary point of view, since it couldn't possibly be selected for. So how do we explain its persistence through all of human history, from Sappho to Alexander to Richard to Lawrence to me? Apparently homosexuality has some value, not readily discernable to everyone, which keeps it as a small but important part of life. Straight men consort with women, get laid, get married, have kids. It's what nature intended for them. Lawrence did none of these things. If you had a friend today who never hung out with women, never dated, never got laid, never married... wouldn't it, honestly now, even CROSS YOUR MIND that the guy might be gay?
As to what nature intended, here's a link to a story about gay penguins in a zoo in Germany for your amusement.
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,1564,1484083,00.html
Below I have appended another story from the New York Times. Homosexuality is common in nature, as you will read.
I hope you will take this opportunity to be honest and objective with yourself about your feelings and about the hidden realities of Lawrence's life.
Thanks again for writing to GayHeroes.com!
Jay Spears "Exploring and Celebrating the Contributions of Gay and Lesbian People to the Magnificence of the Human Experience"
From: dbensongyles@onetel.com Subject: Re: Lawrence Date: February 25, 2005 4:27:18 PM PST To: jay@gayheroes.com
I find being lectured by the ignorant very tiresome. The truth is what matters and Lawrence was not homosexual. All those who have spent a long time studying him know that to be so. I'm sorry to have to say it but you are very obviously not a Lawrence scholar. For you own sake and reputation I would strongly urge you not to jump to conclusions on a subject about which you are clearly extremely ill-informed. Ask all the really knowledgeable biogaphers (I know them well personally), or look at all the documentary evidence and real source material, and you will be duly disabused of your illusions. On second thoughts, probably not. Please don't bother to reply. I have no wish to get embroiled in a a time-wasting slanging match. None so blind as those who will not see, I'm afraid.
By the way, let me clarify something: you are 'besmirching' Lawrence's name, but not by saying he was homosexual, rather by telling a lie about a man who cannot defend himself. In fact, Lawrence wouldn't even bother to challenge you. He would just shake his head and chuckle to himself.
I've just re-read other comments of yours. You really are deceived, aren't you ? Americans live, largely, in a world of self-delusion and you are clearly no exception. This is a sex-obsessed age. Just because a man does not have sexual intercourse with a woman, with anyone in Lawrence's case, or is not known to have taken a girl out, doesn't mean he is homosexual. Some people, you know, just aren't that interested in sex. If you knew about Lawrence's family background, and what happened to him at Deraa, or if you had talked to his brother, A W Lawrence, you would know that you are talking rubbish. Dear me, why is it always Americans who rush in where angels fear to tread ? It's because most of them know nothing beyond the USA and judge everything and eveyone by American standards. I could cite you umpteen examples of the appalling insularity of America. My God, and tthis is the most powerful nation on earth and it's telling us how good democracy would be for us (or in the case of Iraq trying to impose their idea of it). The population of the USA constitues 20 per cent of the World's people and yet the USA is responsible for 60 per cent of the world's pollution --- and the USA won't sign the Kyoto agreement for political reasons ! What a bunch of hypocrites and ignoramuses. Your unthinking Lawrence website is a classic example of these double standards, shoddy research and subjective opinion triumphing over proper scholarship and objective analysis. -- the wish fathering the thought. Poor Lawrence. There is always someone like you spreading nonsense about him. You ought to be frogmarched off the web.
From: jay@gayheroes.com Subject: Re: Lawrence Date: February 25, 2005 6:17:18 PM PST To: dbensongyles@onetel.com
I'm the first to agree that I am not a Lawrence scholar. One thing I am extremely well-informed about, however, is being gay. To assert that Lawrence never got laid in his life is pathetic, blind, and renders him inhuman, which is what you would prefer to him being gay. It says plenty about you, and nothing about him, that you insist he be some sort of post-Victorian Blessed Virgin.
Lawrence was in love with Dahoum. 20th-century biographers, and Lawrence's brother, if they are as convinced as you that homosexuality is a slander, will of course deny vehemently that their hero was gay.
What pathology do you attribute to him that made him, in your view, incapable of normal human feelings of love and interest in sex? Being raped at Deraa has no bearing on the case -- gay people can be traumatized by rape as much as straight people.
I certainly agree that Lawrence himself would not challenge me, since he would know that I was correct about him being gay.
As for your amusing characterizations of my fellow Americans, I certainly agree with most of it. I hasten to point out that I am not among the 51% who elected Mr. Bush last year. But to disabuse you of your stereotype, my dad was USAF, stationed in England for much of his distinguished career. We lived at Lakenheath and Mildenhall, and my brother was born in Ipswich. We also lived in Ankara, Turkey for two and a half years, as well as in Cork. Since then I have traveled abroad many times, most recently to Budapest, Prague, and Vienna. I agree with you that most of my countrymen are appallingly insular. But at least they're not blind.
And you should frogmarch yourself over to the gay penguins article and see if you can't come up with a sense of humor you bitter old picklehead.
Jay Spears
From: dbensongyles@onetel.com Subject: Re: Lawrence Date: February 26, 2005 4:49:52 AM PST To: jay@gayheroes.com
'Lawrence was in love with Dahoum'. !!! Sorry. Wrong. I know whom TE loved. Get my book on Lawrence when it comes out and you might then start to have just a glimmering of understanding. I do not dislike or disapprove of homosexuality. What I hate is people, driven by their own agenda (even if unconsciously), disseminating patent untruths about other people when those people cannot answer back, thus unnecessarily further complicating the already incredibly complex life of a major historical figure and making the task of coming to a proper appreciation of that figure even more difficult for the newcomer . That's what you are doing. Lawrence is a very tricky subject and takes years of work and research to begin to appreciate, even a little. If you have solid proof that Lawrence loved Dahoum, why don't you present it ? You haven't, because such poof simply doesn't exist. And please don't say you can infer it from Lawrence's comments, and others', on the relationship. I have been to see the tribes and to the village where Dahoum came from; I have read very widely and deeply on the matter, and the sort of proof you would need just does not exist. To the contrary, in fact ! You personally can read whatever you like into things. It doesn't make them true. Have you never heard of man-to man friendships which are just that --- man-to-man friendships ? I have never married. My best friend (a man) is divorced. We are very close but we are not homosexual. The trouble with you Americans -- well-travelled or not -- is that you have no depth of national history so you go round stealing and meddling with other people's. Talk about the former USSR perverting historical truth. They have nothing on the USA. Did you see the film about the WW2 British Enigma decoding machine and its German counterpart ? A Hollywood film portrayed the Americans capturing a German submarine with the vitally important Nazi decoding machine on board. This was a prize catch and it played an important part in the Allies' successful prosecution of the war thereafter. The hiccup here is that it was a British warship, not an American, which apprehended the German sub. The American filmmakers were forced by British outrage to put in a written correction at the end of the film. It wasn't enough, but it was better than nothing. What these forms of indirect state propaganda do is to inculcate in the minds of well-intentioned but ignorant American minds the fiction that Americans have saved the world over and over again and are always coming gallantly to the rescue of blundering foreigners. (We will pass lightly over Viertnam and the CIA's atrocious meddling in South American affairs). I could cite you many examples of the American media circus, with its nationalistic urges, attempting to corrupt recent history to show the Americans as saviours, or at the very least, in a very favourable light. Films and TV are insidiously powerful propaganda weapons and your American media compatriots show no compunction in wielding them relentlessly to present an image of their country which shows them in an heroic --- but completely false --- light. When an American citizen is ignorant, he, or she, is spectacularly ignorant. A survey was recently conducted by the BBC in the USA to ascertain how much TV air time was given by American networks to foreign rather than domestic news. The survey was conducted over one night nationwide. The total time across all the networks, including NBC and ABC, was...... two minutes ! No wonder many Americans are, through no fault of their own apart from a culpable lack of interest in anything not American, abysmally ignorant about everything other than the USA. They think they've got everything and that no one has anything to offer them. Why bother with the rest of the world when you've inherited the earth yourselves ?! Cruel as it is to say it, 9-11 was, irrespective of it being a most awful tragedy and unforgivable crime, a clarion call to America: "Welcome to the world". You, Sir, are getting dangerously close to the category I have just outlined. Lawrence is, and is likely to remain, an enigma. Hence the continuing interest in him. By your unsubstantiated assertions about Lawrence's sexual predilections all you are doing is ensuring that respected Lawrence scholars will dismiss you -- quite rightly -- as irredeemably biased and someone who has not done his homework. Of course you are being suibjective and blinkered. Do you think you would be suggesting Lawrence was homosexual if you had been heterosexual yourself ? No, of course you wouldn't. I repeat, a scholar accepts his subject warts and all. His greatest duty is to be truthful and to respect the evidence however much it may diverge from his own beliefs. There have been a number of Lawrentian 'biographers' in recent years who have come to their task in a parti pris position, with their own agenda already in place before they had done their research. Their motive ? Personal gain. Money --- at the expense of truth. Probably the most knowledgeable Lawrence scholar (by far) is the authorised biographer, Jeremy Wilson. He is a stickler for facts and the truth. I know him, and I don't always agree with him, but I have discussed the matter of Lawrence's sexuality with him a number of times and I'm afraid he would not agree with you. Or do you dismiss him and his knowledge too as of no consequence ? In the words of Oliver Cromwell: "I beseech you in the bowels of Christ, try to consider it possible that you might be wrong".
From: jay@gayheroes.com Subject: Re: Lawrence Date: February 26, 2005 7:09:10 PM PST To: dbensongyles@onetel.com
On Feb 26, 2005, at 4:49 AM, Richard Benson-Gyles wrote: 'Lawrence was in love with Dahoum'. !!! Sorry. Wrong. I know whom TE loved. Well, I'm dying to hear it, as long as it's not Miss Fareedeh, the woman whom everyone goes through vain contortions trying to peg as TE's girlfriend who says "TE never fell in love with any woman. He could not..." And don't say that she was "S.A." Note she says TE never fell in love with any woman, not any person or anybody. If she knew TE to be a complete misanthrope, she would say he "never fell in love with anybody. He could not..." Instead Miss Fareedeh says "TE never fell in love with any woman." She is aware, and unlike most men is unafraid of the fact, that TE could fall in love with a man.
I have been to see the tribes and to the village where Dahoum came from; I have read very widely and deeply on the matter, and the sort of proof you would need just does not exist. No, the sort of proof that YOU would need does not exist. What would you need? Flagrante delicto photos? What proof do you have that I am gay? What would it take to convince you, or anybody 50+ years after my life, that I am gay? I can just see you in the Syrian villages, asking people "You don't think that Lawrence was some kinda poof, do ya?" and them all solemnly assuring you, "Of course not, effendi, of course not."
I do not dislike or disapprove of homosexuality. Why do you keep saying that? You just called it "unnatural" and "an evolutionary cul-de-sac", neither of which it is. It has been observed that self-imposed celibacy and virgin-martyrdom is no less of an "unnatural", evolutionary cul-de-sac than being gay.
Do you think you would be suggesting Lawrence was homosexual if you had been heterosexual yourself? Interesting point. I am gay, and I recognize that part of myself easily in TE's story. He is LIKE ME in that regard, and all of the clues, not "proofs" are easy for someone like me to recognize. You see him as LIKE YOU, a straight perpetual virgin. But to answer you, the question of gay people in history is not only promulgated by gay men like me. Nor is it only important to gay men. Do you think it was "gay" Encyclopedia Britannica editors who said Richard the Lionhearted was gay?
I needn't go into anybody's bowels to consider that I may be wrong about Lawrence. (Ollie Cromwell? Wasn't he the guy who slaughtered all those Irish men women & children?) I may be wrong. BUT when you objectively add up the following:
He liked a particular Arab very much, lived with him, made a scandalous nude carving of him, and undertook heroic labors for him; but when he died, TE counted his life's work as wasted, and dedicated his great literary work to him, "S.A." He writes "I loved you, so I drew these tides of men into my hands... that your eyes might be shining for me When we came." Amid persistent inquiry, TE changes the story of "S.A." over and over, even to "An imaginary person of neutral sex," obviously because as a Victorian gentleman he couldn't say HE VASS -- HE VASS -- MY BOYFRIEND! Sadly, he had come to dread that people might find the true identity of S.A. Through his whole life, he never marries, dates, or consorts with women. The one woman people say might have been his love interest denies it categorically, saying that TE was incapable of loving women. He has men administer annual beatings to him.
...well, I might be wrong, but he sure sounds gay to me.
Jay Spears
From: dbensongyles@onetel.com Subject: Re: Lawrence Date: February 27, 2005 1:32:45 AM PST To: jay@gayheroes.com
A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. You have, of course, started with the wrong premise with regard to Lawrence's sexuality, and as a result have been on the wrong path ever since. I'm sure your opinions are sincerely held but they are wrong and you should accept this and save yourself any further self-delusion. Beliefs and convictions unsupported by empirical proof are pretty worthlesss things. Anyway, I must tell you that I have had enough of this fruitless dialogue. As I said to you before, none so blind as those who will not see. I'll sign off by reminding you of Lawrence's love for Janet Laurie. As you must know but naturally don't like acknowledging, he asked her to marry him. If you don't beieve that, then you're beyond help. Don't believe Jeffry Meyers's views, or Professor Allen's, on the matter. They have been seduced by the relentless rubbish pumped out by the likes of you and your ilk. Anyway, Meyers is, I understand, a homosexual himself and, of course, has his own agenda, and Allen hasn't checked his facts properly. I have further evidence about Janet which has not been published. Take my advice and don't stick your neck out any further on your 'Lawrence was a homosexual' thesis. You are liable to get it chopped off and prove yourself even more ignorant than you already have -- if that's possible ! Sorry, but you're wrong about Lawrence's sexuality. I can't do anything more about that, if you insist, against the evidence, on clinging to your self-deceptions.
From: jay@gayheroes.com Subject: Re: Lawrence Date: February 27, 2005 11:41:45 PM PST To: dbensongyles@onetel.com
On Feb 27, 2005, at 1:32 AM, Richard Benson-Gyles wrote: I'll sign off by reminding you of Lawrence's love for Janet Laurie. So what? I had girlfriends in school, girls that I really liked but, I'm not proud to say, I used them as a cover for my homosexuality. At least I had the sense not to ask them to marry me. I look forward to the details about Ms. Laurie in your book. I'm interested to see if the reason she declined TE's offer was that she, like Ms. Fareedeh, knew or intuited the truth about her suitor, that he was gay.
So, you feel this means that Ms. Fareedeh was wrong? lying? joking? when she said "TE never fell in love with any woman. He could not..."?
As far as the "experts" (and remember, I don't count myself as expert at anything but being gay) Meyers, Allen, etc., my one comment is on the "authorised" (by whom?) expert, Mr. Wilson. Like you, he cannot possibly be described as having the objective eye a professional biographer or historian would have in this matter. Like you, he describes the very possibility of TE's homosexuality not as an item of biographical information to be investigated and discussed, but rather as an "accusation", made by people who had "very strong personal reasons to wish to discredit him. They made no secret of their general enmity." He feels as you do that homosexuality is a hideous slander to be refuted rather than a personal trait to be objectively investigated. Do you feel at all that I have a wish to demean, degrade, or insult TE, as if I could? I don't publish a single thing on my web page that is negative at all about TE -- UNLESS you think that homosexuality is an abomination, as you and Wilson do. You both have an "agenda": to protect your hero from what you misguidedly regard as slander. It isn't.
Please keep me informed as to the release of your book, so that I may learn the startling truth about Laurie & Lawrence. And best of luck in finding other schoolgirl crushes to make a "man" out of your hero.
Jay Spears
From: dbensongyles@onetel.com Subject: Re: Lawrence Date: February 28, 2005 1:35:00 AM PST To: jay@gayheroes.com
If you were as earnest in respecting the truth as you are in trying to prove British historical figures homesexual, serious Lawrence researchers might just not laugh you out of court and dismiss you as a misguided amateur. Lawrence research, and Lawrence's memory, would be better served by your conspicuous absence. However, I'm afraid people like you always speak before they think and always put emotion before reason. Incidentally, you have again walked in where angels might fear to tread and got yourself into a laughable mess: I knew Fareedah personally, very well, and have a lot of letters from her too. She was a close friend of mine and I know a damn sight more about her views than you do, and many is the time I visited her in Broumana and sat drinking tea and talking about TE. and, incidentally again, she hated what she said were the "terrible lies" being put about about"Ned" being a homosexual (her words were "that awful name"). And naturally (par for the course for you ) you have misinterpreted her comments --- which, of course, you picked up from the Sunday Times book (which was a largely inaccurate and rushed journalistic job). If you were able to put your views to her, she would laugh at you and say you were "very misguided .Ned was not like that at all". No doubt you would say she was an innocent and wouldn't know. That, of course would be typical of the unthinking arrogance of your ilk.However, she had the distinct, and vital, advantage over you of having known Lawrence, and known him well -- and before the war too. So ,goodbye to you, and, going on the quality of your Lawrence 'researches', I would advise you to stop immediately and do something else, something less harmful ,and untrue, to the memory of a great British hero. You are an American homosexual. Such a person is the least qualified of all to understand Lawrence.
From: jay@gayheroes.com Subject: Re: Lawrence Date: March 1, 2005 10:24:41 PM PST To: dbensongyles@onetel.com
Dear RB-G,
So what then if I bow to your superior knowledge, extensive contacts, and impeccable credentials. Why don't you just TELL me:
a) what Ms Fareedeh meant by "TE never fell in love with any woman. He could not..." In what way am I misinterpreting it? It seems pretty cut & dried to me. Please enlighten me.
b) why JL declined TE's offer, when was the explanation made public, etc.
c) how many straight guys you know make naked carvings of and get whipped by other guys?
You referred in your first e-mail to me to homosexuality as "besmirching", as contrary to nature, and as an evolutionary cul-de-sac. Wilson uses "accusation", "discredit", "enmity". Now Ms. Fareedeh uses words like "hated... terrible... awful". Do you see a pattern here? Without agreeing with me on anything, can you at least observe that all three of you use negative, hysterical, completely un-objective language about the subject?
I also take exception to your characterization of this conversation as fruitless. You know that's not true. I'm a fruit and TE is too!
Jay Spears [no further response was had from RB-G] |