My Summer With Alexander

Regular readers of my articles may recall that I am a single gay male now in my sixth decade. For those folks - and those just now discovering that fact - some well earned speculations is likely to occur about just what the title of this article might mean. Assumptions could vary, but might go something like this: Well, he´s going to describe a summer fling of some sort, a warm season "gay romance" possibly - holding hands on a beach by the pounding sea…and maybe, just maybe I (the reader) don´t what to go there. So before you stop reading and go on to the next click of your mouse, let me quickly assure you that this is no romance story. At least not in the usual sense. In this case, my "Alexander" has been long deceased. In fact, he died at age 32 some 2300 years ago. He was better known then and throughout western history as Alexander the Great. And yes, I did have a summer fling, na, even a romance with this dashing, self-assured god-like human who in his short span of years accomplished more politically and militarily than any ten other heroes combined in the years since he passed.

Family and friends seeing the array of books, fiction and non-fiction laying about my reading chair might have easily surmised that I had become obsessed with Alexander: and they would not have been far from the truth. From the uncut Oliver Stone movie, to the Vangelis soundtrack, to several books on ancient Greek history and historical fiction by Mary Renault, to an unabridged audiobook of the Iliad, to a collection of not-so-well-done documentary videos, I steeped myself in Alexander and his time…the classical period of Grecian history. I almost memorized his complicated family tree - from his father King Phillip of Macedonia and his Eption royal blooded mother, Olympias to his many friends and companions, and also, his many enemies. I outlined in my head the sequence of his important battles, his conquering of mighty Persia and his plunge to the edge of the world in India. His marriages, his loves and finally his untimely death at the age of 32.

In Harvey Fierstein´s Tony Award winning gay-themed play "Torch Song Trilogy", later made into a 1988 movie, Arnold, the main character, talks of his love for his deceased life partner stating at one point in a conversation "It´s easier to love someone who´s dead. They make so few mistakes."

This line came instantly to mind when I finally realized I had fallen in love with Alexander. A man known mostly for his military exploits rather than by any definitive information about his personality. But isn´t love like that sometimes? We fall in love with people we barely know….its a chemical thing maybe. And maybe my chemicals would not have been aroused to a boiling point had I not seen Oliver Stone´s highly controversial DVD "Alexander Revisited – The Final Cut" sometime in early summer of 2009. It stands as a true Hollywood production - a mix of fact and fiction. Watching it, I found myself swept along by the romance and glory that was once the world of classical Greece. When Aristotle roamed the land and Kings took council from oracles before battle. To see the young Alexander tame a wild beast of a horse that would, till its death many years later, carry him at the front of his armies as they meet vast hordes in combat. To see Alexander (even if only portrayed by an actor) reach for and almost grasp and hold the "world" in his hands was beyond mesmerizing.

So why another article about Alexander? I had written previously about this giant of history and might have just let it be - except that…..when I wrote about Alexander before, it was in part to speculate (based on some fairly sound and accepted historical data) that not only was Alexander, at minimum, bi-sexual but that he also expended most of his emotional love energy on fellow males. In my article, titled "Did a Gay Sensibility Help ATG Conquer the World?"http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/view/105372 I explored how a gay sensibility might have influenced decisions by and behavior of this great worrier and military commander. You can easily guess that the article was not well received in some quarters. In fact, when it was reposted on websites that allowed reader "comments", I got some nasty retorts from people who did not appear to have read much beyond the article title.

Why - I found my self wondering – is it so difficult for some people to imagine and accept that a man recognized for over 2300 years as one of the worlds preeminent military leaders and strategists, a truly courageous and fearless hand-to-hand combatant….could be a lover of men? And I do mean in the physical sense.

It´s not my intent here to launch a defense of my characterization of Alexander´s sexual nature in the previous article. A great deal has already been written and debated about his sexual orientation (as that term is used used) and just as much of it twists itself into knots franticly attempting to deny or set aside some very suggestive historic and accepted information. But the question I ask before about "why" still hangs in the air. Why is it so difficult for some to wrap their thoughts around the notion, yea the likelihood, that Alexander the Great bedded down with males, and seemed to prefer the love that "dare-not-speak-its-name" to the sexual love of women.

Before going further, let me add a few more comments. I recognize the inherent dangers when applying today´s terminology and concepts regarding sexuality to a person born over 2300 years ago. A chasm exists in time and culture. However, recall that during Alexander´s own time an elite fighting force of homosexual adult (gay…dare we say) lovers, called the Sacred Band of Thebes, had been fielded successfully for many years before being defeated by none other than Alexander himself, who while still a teenager, fought next to his father King Phillip II of Macedon.

The Sacred Band is described in detail by Plutarch in his Life of Pelopidas. The Band was made up of adult male lovers in couples. The rationale was that "lovers" would fight more fiercely and cohesively than strangers who shared no ardent bonds. For over 40 years (378-338 BC) the Band was the "crack" force of Greek soldiery and established the pre-eminence of Thebes in late Classical Greece as a military and political power till it was finally bested by Alexander and Phillip in 338 BC at the battle of Chaeronea. Plutarch recorded that King Phillip, touring the battlefield afterwards found that the dead of the Scared Band "lying all where they had faced the long spears…..with their armour, and mingled one with another" Amazed and learning that this was the Sacred Band of "lovers and beloved", he shed tears and said, "Perish any man who suspects that these men either did or suffered anything unseemly." Philip had their bodies buried in a mass grave with honors, setting up the Lion of Chaeronea over them. The remains of the Lion still stand to this day.

So once again, why is it that cultures today (almost worldwide) have such a problem with the idea of a gay or homosexual worrier, a fighter, a muscled hulk that prefers to sleep with other men than with their biological opposite?

The answers are at once simple and complex. The simple becomes complex in the fullness of time: over a period of centuries, mostly following the early Christian anti-sexuality, anti-female era promoted by Paul of Tarsus, who suffered his own unquenchable "demons" (thought by many scholars to be sexual in nature and possibly homosexual in intent) there has been perpetuated (at times deliberately so) a stereotype that links sexual orientation with "gender identity" and its associated concept – gender role behavior. Simply put, gay men (in particular) have been painted and repainted over and over for centuries (and even before Paul) as soft, effeminate (a term often used as slander), weak and ineffective and being more like a "woman" than a "man" (and yet again another insult to women). So successful has this simple propaganda been for so long, that many people find it impossible to separate the idea of sexual bonding and longing from the concepts of what constitutes being a male and what constitutes being female. And just as we were very late in admitting that women can and do make effective soldiers, culturally - we likewise cannot see how "effeminate" gay men could be capable of effective military fighting.

Year ago when I finally came out to my elderly mother, some of her first questions regarding the relationship I was in at the time had to do with, well basically, who was the top (male) and who was the bottom (female). Her notion of homosexual was like most others - tied strongly to the concepts of gender role identity and behavior. As sweet and accepting as she otherwise was, it took her several more years before she understood that her son being "gay" had nothing to do with his being masculine or feminine. If we had asked mom about it (early on at least) she would have agreed that a gay male would not make a good soldier. However, as I´ve shown and as history has shown many times over, gay men do indeed, when they so desire to do it, make excellent soldiers, competent fighters and even star NFL players. If we were culturally less uptight about homosexuality, we would better know the real numbers of gay men and women in occupations and sports that have for years been considered the province of heterosexuals. Football and other team sports, coalminers, truck drivers and timber men are only a few examples.

To admit that gay has nothing necessarily to do with gender role functioning requires a major paradigm shift in cultural thinking. Some say this is slowly happening even now, but there is considerable evidence that we here in America have a long way to go. The US Military policy of "Don´t Ask, Don´t Tell" under which thousands of qualified military men and women have been summarily discharged is only one example - but probably one of the most egregious. How many hundreds of lives have been destroyed, careers smashed and reputations ruined? No-one has the full count. All of the clap-trap about communal showers and guys in foxholes is nothing more than a cover disguising a tenacious resistance to the notion that gays can and do make competent soldiers. To admit this idea disembowels a cultural stereotypic icon that does not want to go quietly into some dark night (as it should). So the idea that loving ones own sex is somehow equivalent to surrendering gender credentials continues to be perpetuated in most western cultures.

While a great deal of progress has been made in gay visibility and the acceptance of gays in our culture, gay folks continue to be subject to massive discrimination worldwide even to the point there is now a country in Africa that wants to install the death penalty for homosexual behavior. And here in the US, a country dedicated to liberty and justice, somehow it still is being accepted as and OK thing to do to put the gay marriage question up for popular vote as if this course of action on a civil rights matter was just peachy keen. By the way, why is it that gay people don´t get a chance to "vote" on heterosexual marriage?

So somewhere out there is another Alexander of sorts. Maybe he´s a famous NASCAR driver, or a hunky country music star or a still playing NFL Quarter Back or Defensive Lineman. Are we ever going to be ready for that? Is it going to take another hundred years before a gay man or woman can serve openly in the military or become famous in some aggressive team sport? I hope not, because at my age, I´d like the chance to again fall in love, at a distance, with Alexander – or at least, his updated version.