Were pirates gay? On Sodomy in the Age of Pirates

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Gay pirates have pretty much become a trope at this point - homosexual relationships often play a minor or even major part in pirate media. Jack Sparrow is often seen as exhibiting stereotypical homosexual behavior, Our Flag Means Death is a romantic comedy about two homosexual pirates, and most interesting is perhaps Black Sails, which is really about a naval officer scorned from English society for his sexual preferences, and seeking revenge for it. And no doubt you’ve heard the phrase “butt pirate”.
This portrayal is relatively recent, and stands in stark contrast to the traditional presentation of the pirate as a hypermasculine womanizer. It all dates back to the book Sodomy and the Pirate Tradition, written in 1984 by Barry Richard Burg - it seeks to answer the rhetorical question posed in the title of this video, and whilst you might expect to be provided some sort of simple answer, this is simply not possible. Burg even admits this in his book, saying there's not enough documentation from pirate society to do anything but theorize. So instead, this video will more so provide an insight into this period so radically different from our own, and perhaps provide a better understanding of how they might have viewed this very contemporary topic.
Modern sources:
1700: Scenes from London Life - Maureen Waller
Against Nature: Sodomy and Homosexuality in Colonial Latin America - Zeb Tortorici
Escaping court martial for sodomy: Prosecution and its alternatives in the Royal Navy, 1690-1840 - Seth Stein LeJacq
Gotham: A History of New York to 1898 - Edwin G. Burrows & Mike Wallace
Homosexuality and rape of males in Old Norse law and literature - Kari Ellen Gade
Men and Matelotage - Nicole Keegan
Pirates in their own words - E.T Fox
Redefining Sex in Eighteenth-Century England - Tim Hitchcock
Sailors: English merchant seamen, 1650-1755 - Peter Earle
Sodomy and the pirate tradition - B.R Burg
Sodomitical Inclinations in Early Eighteenth-Century Paris - Jeffrey Merrick
Songs of Sodom: Singing About the Unmentionable Vice in the Early Modern Low Countries - Jonas Roelens
"Things Fearful to Name": Sodomy and Buggery in Seventeenth-Century New England - Robert F. Oaks
The Sea-Rover's Practice - Benerson Little
The Transformation of Sodomy from the Renaissance to the Modern World and Its General Sexual Consequences - Randolph Trumbach
Period sources:
Germania - Tacitus
Les us, et coutumes de la mer - Chez Jean Lucas
Sodom, or the Quintessence of Debauchery - John Wilmot
Music by Jon Sayles at jsayles.com
Timestamps:
0:00 Introduction
6:27 Defining sodomy
14:16 Sodomy in Law and Religion
23:36 Sodomy in the Old World
31:50 Sodomy in the New World
41:51 Sodomy at sea
48:10 Pirates and sodomy
58:15 Pirate gay marriage?
61:52 Conclusion
#pirates #history #lgbtq #pridemonth

[@GoldandGunpowder]

Chances are high that this video will be demonetized. Support Gold & Gunpowder by becoming a channel member, patreon supporter, or buying yourself a nice (romantic?) candle over at Mythologie Candles by using my referral link below: mythologiecandles.com/?ref=xnvornil

[@arnijulian6241]

''Average Londoner'' my Aris. Much of London is Muslim & Black which are most often very much homophobic. Myself a cockney cares not as long as consenting of age gays or homosexuals keep their affairs private which few rarely do these days. I am relatively-tolerant to gays & bisexuals but London as a whole not among the upper class are certainly not tolerant no matter how the Mainstream media or todays present ideologies tries to push other wise! My position on lesbians is much the same as Queen Victoria as no true penetration is possible means no fornication is possible so merely to overly affectionate women is all. My ex's considered me very odd that I permitted them female partners as long as they have regular check ups as I trusted them but not the company they kept! 'Heterosexual or straight decreased from 94.6% in 2018 to 93.7% in 2019'' but this is mainly in the youth & lesbians obfuscate this figure considerably. When the Uk is compared to most western nations like the USA Germany or France you will realize the Uk is rather traditional & that it is only the upper class & new comers are homosexual with exceptions of course. Ask the average British born male what they think of Gays & you will probably get an insulting threat about shanking them. The Mainstream media & the toffs in charge can claim the contrary to reality of Britain including London but ask the average Brit what they think as it is not positive or neutral at best!

[@arnijulian6241]

''Average Londoner'' my Aris. Much of London is Muslim & Black which are most often very much homophobic. Myself a cockney cares not as long as consenting of age gays or homosexuals keep their affairs private which few rarely do these days. I am relatively-tolerant to gays & bisexuals but London as a whole not among the upper class are certainly not tolerant no matter how the Mainstream media or todays present ideologies tries to push other wise! My position on lesbians is much the same as Queen Victoria as no true penetration is possible means no fornication is possible so merely to overly affectionate women is all. My ex's considered me very odd that I permitted them female partners as long as they have regular check ups as I trusted them but not the company they kept!

[@PekkaErareika]

I personally don't like the pride movement. But history is history. Also what's up with the accent? :DD

[@LordRevan-vi2op]

@PekkaErareika there’s several things wrong with that pfp 💀

[@CzechMateTraining]

How come homosexuality wasn’t defined until 19th century. It is clearly defined in the bible from 2000 years before already.

[@SPACENECK40IN]

rainbow seamen

[@nathaniel_fern4207]

You’ve made my day captain 🫡

[@elocxv]

Goddamnit

[@PekkaErareika]

"Gay" laddies ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

[@WalldoTheWInner]

I was really hoping the term "butt pirate" would be uttered in this video, and goddammit, you delivered

[@GoldandGunpowder]

personally I prefer "rump rogue"

[@edwardnormal]

It's one of my favorite terms in Dutch because it also rhymes: "bilnaad piraat" = buttcrack pirate

[@angela_merkeI]

Now that I am re-entering my bi-annual maritime phase I am so glad to be treated with a hour-long video by you!

[@retardgorrilanigler522]

More like bi anal LOL

[@spamman9327]

That bone on that thumbnail flag is looking quite hard might I say

[@LadyTylerBioRodriguez]

Anytime I see someone claim Anne Bonny and Mary Read are lesbians, I die a little. This is coming from a misunderstanding of theatrical tropes within A General History of the Pyrates, and from a one sentence section from the 1725 rip off, History and Lives of Notorious Pyrates. That says they were lovers, but its so sloppily written that its hard to gauge meaning. Jump forward to the 1910s when the famous sexologist Magnus Hirshfeld just casually says Mary Read was a lesbian, and the 1970s when feminist Susan Baker wrote an article for The Furies Magazine amusingly titled, Anne Bonny and Mary Read They Killed Pricks. After that its just basically looping itself over and over. Utterly bizarre, and of course very much not true.

[@GAIVSCALIGVLA]

They were lesbians and I won’t hear otherwise. Source: I made it up in my own sexual fantasy.

[@TaRAAASHBAGS]

Modernity is so brainrotted and hypersexualized they think any close relationship is sexual. Look how dirty these degenerate professors did the reputation of Ancient Greece.

[@mikebryant614]

It was my understanding that both Reade and Bonny pleaded for leniency due to pregancy during their Trials, and at least one of them is confirmed to have delivered , quite the feat for a Lesbian.

[@LadyTylerBioRodriguez]

@@mikebryant614 Actually umm, both claimed to be pregnant, but this was so common of the era, it was actually very easy to fake being pregnant by the nature of Jury of Matron examinations. Read definitely died in April 1721, of what who knows. No mention of any children baptized or buried at the time. Its a real open question.

[@mikebryant614]

@@LadyTylerBioRodriguez I agree ,bonny did go on to have children after her father bought her release but if one of them was from during the trial time i dont know , i found this bit about Read after a google search "did mary read have children" but it isnt definitive : " Answer and Explanation: Possibly none. Mary Read was not executed because of a pregnancy, but she died of a fever on April 28, 1721. She is believed to have died with her child or shortly after giving birth, which the child may not have survived."

[@AntonEugeneLanthier]

"Why are butt pirates, butt pirates? They just arrrrgh."

[@orksy2935]

"Fruits!"

[@AntonEugeneLanthier]

@@orksy2935 nice someone got it

[@ArrowsInTheMoon]

Thumbnail goes hard though

[@SpoopySquid]

Do what you want 'cause a pirate is free, you are a pirate 🏳️‍🌈🏴‍☠️

[@alexrexaros9837]

I just wanted to say that "Borgnefesse" is two words. "Borge" indeed means "One-eyedness", but "Fesse" means... Well, buttcheek.

[@flyingsquirrell6953]

Ight guys we’re watching the hour long video on queer pirates.

[@matthewwyman1581]

Ight lgbt

[@cr4ckp1dgeon]

Yar har, queen

[@SUNNYDINTHEREAL]

Have you read through Sodomy Punish’d? I thought it was very interesting. It’s the translation of a dutch diary from a sailor marooned for sodomy.

[@GoldandGunpowder]

discussed in the video

[@SomasAcademy]

~13:16 This translation of Tacitus is dubious: it comes from 1910, during a period when it was very common for translators to use contemporary euphemisms for what they percieved as references to homosexuality - the taboo around discussing homosexuality at the time frequently led to translators sliding the word "unnatural" into places where it didn't originally appear as a euphemism. The Latin term translated as "unnatural prostitutes" is "corpores infames," literally "infamous bodies" or "those viewed unfavorably with relation to their bodies" (though the use of "corpores" here may also be appearing more in the sense that we would say "infamous people" as opposed to just "the infamous," rather than modifying the meaning of the phrase. Aren't linguistics fun?). This has been interpreted by some as meaning "men who disgrace their bodies," which was in turn interpreted as "homosexuals" or more specifically "homosexual prostitutes" by some 19th-20th century readers, as seen in that translation. However, while the term "infames" at times referred to prostitutes, it had a wide variety of other uses including those that worked with corpses, slaves, gladiators, and actors, among others. The term "corpores infames" in particular was even used to describe military deserters by Livy. So, there's a possibility that this text referred to prostitution in some way, but the meaning has been subject to a lot of scholarly debate, as it could have referred to those who fell outside of social norms in a broader sense, or it may have implied people who were unfit to participate in war for some reason (which may explain why it is grouped together with "ignavos" (the cowardly/lazy) and "imbelles" (the unwarlike), given in that 1910 translation as "cowards and sluggards"). It is therefore highly debatable whether this passage was ever intended to refer to the Germanic treatment of homosexuals or male prostitutes at all, in addition to the reliability of Tacitus' presentation of Germanic society being questionable, as mentioned in the video. Damn that's a lot of words about a tiny part of the video with minimal significance to the point lol

[@draskk3471]

Responding to that last bit, like dude says in the video, welcome to history

[@Alex-cw3rz]

1:56 I think a great example of how different it was to now or the victorian era, was a very popular song from around 1730 till 100 years later called Black Joke, black joke meant female genitalia. With the main refrain being "Her black joke and her belly so white" the song was bascially a comedy song about the best lady of the night in the world and all the funny things her clients got up to including some clients who it would have been socially unacceptable to be with her. They even HMS Black Joke, so even navy ships were named after the song. It would be the equalivant of calling a ship today USS WAP and nobody even giving it a second thought

[@roelantverhoeven371]

around 30 minutes it is said the low countries were especially antagonistic towards sodomy not the right wording... the netherlands (the calvinist republic) were, but the austrian netherlands (Belgium and Luxembourg) were not, in fact Belgium was the among the first countries to decriminalize homosexuality when it laid down it's constitution in 1830. while the netherlands, indeed, kept it punishable to the 1950's!

[@lc1138]

Hey ! If I may add an ingredient to your already very honourable pronounciation of french words : the final e is mute, unless it's a é. "Bougre" can be read "bougr". Generally speaking, the last letter of a word is mute, or can at most transform the pronounciation of the second-to-last. These letters generally an artifact from the latin or germanic roots of the word. For instance, the sentence "j'ai raté" ("I missed") would have the final e pronounced exactly as you did with "bougre" in the video. (wich would read "bougré", which is a form I don't think it existed.) Whereas in "je rate" ("I miss", or "I'm missing") "rate" would be pronounced almost exactly like the english "rat". (The final t sounds.) (And of course, "rat" in french (the classic rodent) would be pronounced "ra" like the egyptian god. Unless you name him Rê, or Ré but I'm out of my depth here.) You've already got it totally accurate for Olivier Levasseur ("Olivier" = "olivié" and "Levasseur" with the final r pronounced. Yeah the "r" is an exception to the generality above. Yeah I know my language is not intended to be read at all. Only makes me appreciate your efforts even more. It would take me a big time to get as fluent in Swedish as you are in French) (And of course I'm speaking about modern french. If you have any specific information about it being different in old french, I'm eager to learn :p )

[@presidenttogekiss635]

I'm not gonna lie, I laughed at the idea that one of the words for being a homosexual in old france meant "to be a bulgarian" lol

[@internetkurator9256]

Very interesting aspect, thank you

[@shyguy54321]

I mean... they were sailors

[@Saastapukki]

Interesting topic that is not often covered in detail.

[@bumboy5348]

Clearly a topic that warrants an hour long video

[@erikm8372]

I play Irish music (fiddle, tin whistle), and there’s actually an older song called "I Am A Maid That Sleeps In Love"-which you can find on YT recorded by the band Solas-and its lyrics provide a small glimpse into a homoerotic captain… in a way. Long story short, a boy-crazy girl (or young woman?) follows her "love" aboard a ship he's leaving on, by simply dressing as a sailor boy, and being recruited by the captain! I’m assuming it’s a pirate ship, or something "non-sanctioned", because she is so easily is recruited, while disguised as a male. I don’t know that the navy would be that easy to infiltrate. They’d probably have fully nude strip searches and physicals. Not saying a pirate ship would be any easier to infiltrate, but just comparatively speaking. That’s how obsessive she was. She says she’ll cut off her "yellow locks" and "men’s clothing I’ll wear-on". She ends up being recruited on the same vessel as her boy, dressed as a boy. Then somehow, apparently, 'his' (her) bed is in the captain’s quarters? Or very close… or the captain snuck in to whisper this to 'him': _The very first night that the Captain laid down on his bed to sleep, these very words he said to me: "I wish you were a maid…your cherry cheeks and ruby lips, they’ve often enticed me… I wish to the gods, unto my heart, a maid you were to me."_ So… sexual tension at sea (already on the first night?!) apparently caused this captain to begin noticing the "Ruby lips" and "cherry cheeks" of his fellow shipmates… and this one just so happened to be a female, in disguise. Wonder what else he was noticing and wishing for…

[@gencreeper6476]

Actually easy enough to infiltrate that several women did disguise themselves as men and join navies and armies back then. A small percentage might have been what we call "trans FtM" there was one veteran who lived as a man his whole life and only was discovered to have been born female really late while in the process of dying of old age but most of them only took on a male persona to get around legal restrictions and immediately went back to living as women when they were finished needing their male character.

[@oldbrokensqueezebox]

Really nice video, sometimes people can speculate and theorize reading so deep into possible evidence for something that they can miss a whole plethora of information and what it might have to offer to the topic at hand. As always you do a great job sharing a lot of information and using it to form a little reasonable speculation which is why I love your videos. 👍

[@howardp.lovecraft4499]

In one video you've explained the pirates' sexual life and the origin of the word "Arrr!". 10 out of 10 video.

[@Recomagne]

If only I could force my friends to watch this video every time they start debating about “gay” stuff in history

[@beauwhitlock5034]

“Worst of all, he was a catholic” 😂😂😂

[@user-go2sx9vc2r]

Bugger also means scoundrel in English.

[@Pootycat8359]

Q: WHY couldn't Oscar Wilde have written the "Canterbury Tales"? A: Because, everybody KNOWS, that, "BUGGERS can't be CHAUCERS!"

[@conorvaughan9870]

This is the content we need !! Thank you

[@troychambliss784]

WOW ! My gaydar has always thought Pirates had red flags for this very reason. I was too afraid to mention it. I'm glad you did.

[@unknowntrooper_2791]

Very nice and balanced look in this topic! I hope it stays monetized but it is indeed risky. Have to add that while I see pirate society of inherently "straight" at the onset, there were indeed these elements out there sometimes a bit different from this. I must say there is perhaps something a bit sexual in some of the pirate punishments for example, like sweating half naked men while stabbing their butts with sword or humiliations like marooning naked (of course the wanted to steal the stuff), mutilations, cannibalism etc. more humiliation or sadism of course but also a bit kinky at times too when you look at it. I do not mean here to associate people with different sexuality automatically to these kind of things, of course, but still there is perhaps something kinky repressed or expressed there somewhere at least. Anyway one has to be careful not to read too much into it. Cheers!

[@JSBachXIV]

Arrrrgh! Is that yer yard-arm, or er ye just happy to SEE me?

[@simonpayne8252]

Any port in a storm

[@julzy3]

"Before getting into the thick, juicy meat of the video..."😂

[@wyvern4248]

Hi will you / have you done a video on the navies and how they operated/ countered piracy? My interest is in the British in particular but i would like to know about the others too Thanks!

[@PrincessMadeira]

Have you looked at "Unruly Desires: American Sailors and Homosexualities in the Age of Sail"? I found it very interesting

[@lilmilky]

if you wanna see some pirate sex on film, the closest i'd say exists is that Oliver Reed Greco-Roman wrestling scene in the movie Women In Love, they got the mustaches and beards right.

[@stcredzero]

Barry Richard Burg was merely projecting about his Barry Richard Bung.

[@Asheanae]

Truly exemplary work!

[@piro_agua1363]

Absolutely wonderful video, as always.

[@TrajGreekFire]

Nothing about black pirates from west africa given their islamic or pagan origins?

[@TheHallow31]

Would you be open to reviewing Netflix's "Lost Pirate Kingdom" docu-series and judging its historical accuracy?

[@questprotector]

any ho-, uh, i mean any port in a storm! 😂

[@otakunthevegan4206]

Imagine being choosing a life on a hot humid piece of wood floating in the ocean stuck with 50 other men who share a close space together, I am shocked people would even wonder if gay pirates existed because statistically it's impossible for them not to. Reminds me of the people moaning about gay cowboys being a thing.

[@Jenna_Talia]

To add: Stuck with 50+ hot and sweaty men who also are beholden to no laws, who also understand that this day might be their last.

[@arnijulian6241]

Most didn't choose it as they were often press ganged or criminals that wanted a way out of the gallows! I bet even your idea of a cow boy is Hollywood or some tosh. Most cowboys by ethnicity were native Americans/Amerindians & cowboys wore bowler hats most often as the cowboy hat didn't exist for most of the wild west. John B. Stetson in 1849 hat for added protection from Sun & the rain was not initially popular but by the late & early 19th century you got the hat holly wood would put on everyone. Even the most common side arm of prospectors & cowboys was a cheap simple pepperbox as who would spend 1/2 a years wages on a fancy new colt revolver? The revolvers that were used were normally muzzle loaded so not much more useful then a pepperbox. A pepperbox or muzzle revolver was adequate self protection as most were not looking to get in a shoot out!

[@vorynrosethorn903]

Depends on wider context, it was probably a thing among pirates, but the lack of privacy and spectrum of attitudes towards it probably restricted it greatly. Cowboys were contact labour in a time fairly strong condemnation towards such actions, they had a fairly firm hand taken against them in work, the reputation for lawlessness comes from when they would take their pay packet and unwind in town, as it was the end of the contact the discipline and hierarchy of the job was gone as they were no longer considered employed until they took a new contact, their employers wanted to get cattle to market, once there the interest was financial, in not chasing former employees out of brothels. It probably happened, but unless they were extremely short staffed in addition to extraordinary indifference the people involved would probably have been lost their job, or at the very least blacklisted from ever working with them again. Given the isolation honestly they were as likely to kill the offender and bury them as to be tolerant, that would have much the same problem of the fact you would soon have a bunch of drunken ex employees around town with nothing much to discuss other than manufacturing disputes and any gossip from work more interesting than the colour of cows. You most certainly did not want to risk your reputation with buyers. Cowboys were one of the professions in the old west least amenable to such actions, due to attracting romantics it might have had some, but to be honest they would have had a better time in the army, as high desertion rates meant that the main priority with garrison troops was retaining a suitably strong force until relieved, the reality however was that the thing the were mostly lenient with was laziness as lazy soldiers often couldn't be as bothered to abscond if they heard of opportunities, during the gold rush many border forts were ironically only maintained by Hispanic troops as they were the one's who didn't make an immediate beeline for California as soon as word was heard that fortunes were to be made.

[@harbinger200]

Thats modern fantasy.

[@abraxas4261]

Lmao a Helluva Boss pfp would comment this

[@RabidPancakeDisorder]

0:44 That image is from a shanty, lol. Stormfrun-All Hands.

[@afwalker1921]

Yar, mateys! Part yer nates!!! Ugh-gug-gug-gug-gug!

[@RyderFlo]

Nice video as always, pretty original and interesting topic, on a very smaller note as a french i just wanted to say that I appreciate the efforts in the french prononciation and I perfectly understand your english but I'm allowing myself to clarify a little bit the way of spelling "bougre", it's perfeclty fine except for the end, the "e" is'nt prononced "é" or english "a" but is kind of like the american way of saying "u" in "hum" if that can help.

[@iainmelville9411]

As we say here in Australia, “ Well, I’ll be bugged!”

[@m.streicher8286]

This is a A Bruno Powroznik classic

[@thecreweofthefancy]

Dang youtube didn't like this one. I have the bell set for your channel and it never told me.

[@GoldandGunpowder]

Might be but the channel hasn't been performing well overall lately so I think it just lost steam and YT stops recommending it. Mostly caused by the Madagascar video and preceding ones getting a lot of traction and then ppl losing interest after the armor and Levasseur episodes.

[@monkstery]

@@GoldandGunpowderactual tragedy that the Levasseur video wasn’t more popular, it was awesome and for some reason pirate biography videos are massively popular pretty much anywhere else on KZbin

[@AulusClaudiusNero]

@@GoldandGunpowder Shadiversity recently made a series of videos where he talks about a change in the algorithm affecting channels that used to be popular and suddenly stopped being recommended, which is hurting small content creators by limiting them largely to subscribers. If there's no clear reason you can see for the drop (not just a point in time when it started, but for example a very negative reaction to a video) it's quite possible you've been hit by that same phenomenon.

[@GoldandGunpowder]

my subscribers barely watch my videos, it's mostly external viewers

[@thecreweofthefancy]

@GoldandGunpowder my buddy PAbackwoods noticed that while I was in prison I kept getting new subs and he, putting out videos every day remained stagnant. KZbin is weird.

[@KrusherMike]

I never thought I'd hear "Butt pirate" used outside of primary school. I'm admittedly a bit shocked to see it holding relevance in an earnest conversation. Is this the full circle we've come to? I feel like we accomplished something here.

[@TheHaughtyOsprey]

Just couldnt resist, could you?

[@EuTrabalhoParaSagres510]

"Hello Pirate... Why are you gay?"

[@chissstardestroyer]

Well, mind you: pirates *were* basically aquatic mobsters, in the very *literal* sense; and that also means, when you factor in the personality of the being that is *actually* the founder of organized crime (their lifestyle description to a T); the first thing taken away and destroyed is the *morals* of those who fall into its custody; the reason for this is reflected in the approach vectors of the dictators of the Eastern Bloc in the mid-twentieth-century AD: they'd remove anything at all that could possibly enable resistance to them. Well, what enables resistance to Hell's Red Tsar *besides* virtues? NOTHING! So of course they'd very rapidly lose all their morals; you cannot persist in virtue if say you're living as a career robber and a member of organized crime, your "owner" as they'd know from commonly available literature of the day, quite well at that, won't allow *that* to be persisted in! If they *weren't* lewd initially, it did NOT last long; and ironically the loot that Ed Teach/Blackbeard extorted from Charleston SC actually backs that up, he didn't demand *any* money, what he *did* demand is a very *precise medicine* for very *specific* health problems: namely STDs, meaning that a surprisingly high number of his men had gone to brothels to visit their crooked "girlfriends" and had contracted *sexually* transmitted diseases. Now in the psychology predominant in the worldview of those days that he himself and his fellow gangsters were running away from: *STDs* are a very shameful trait to contract, it is pretty much proof that you fooled around somehow in regard to marriage, which's a VERY shameful act, and rightly so!

[@Pootycat8359]

14:33 "...[A]nd the choir boys, of course." Ah, there's "Nothing new, under the Sun," as the saying goes!

[@8greateight8]

😂😂😭 u the greatest

[@jill-ti7oe]

Harpsichord was quite enjoyable. A question: Musicians and their instruments, fiddles of course, and flutes. What about keyboards and small orchestras?

[@GoldandGunpowder]

Laurens de Graaf was allegedly accompanied by a small orchestra ashore, probably including seaborne instruments(trumpets, drums, fiddles, flutes, maybe hurdy-gurdy). Harpischords and keyboards would've been too large and heavy to have aboard most ships, but most importantly fragile. If they get hit by a cannon you'd have splinters everywhere, and it's not like cutlery which you can hide away during combat. So I wouldn't bring one aboard and I haven't heard about it being done.

[@jill-ti7oe]

@@GoldandGunpowder TY.

[@mmedujard]

​@@GoldandGunpowderplus in the humid and changing climate on sea a harpsichord would get out of tune (I don't know the proper English term) in no time...

[@mmedujard]

​@@GoldandGunpowderin "Peter Simple" by Frederick Marryat the wife of one captain has a piano on board and plays it very badly 😂 he was a contemporary of the napolenic wars and so I guess a lot of the stuff he wrote has a grain of truth in it.

[@Dullahan161]

Don't tell Disney

[@WabbyDoo]

Argh! happy pride month!

[@GoldandGunpowder]

A thousand gratitudes for yer pittance sire

[@dankurth4232]

Their sexual practices may have been influenced by … supply and demand … with supply the more determinant factor

[@grungeisdead8998]

Lmfao 😂 the character of captain jack sparrow never struck me as “gay” or “homosexual”

[@GoldandGunpowder]

me neither but google "jack sparrow gay" and you'll find all the popular enough opinions you need for evidence

[@dannydanny2789]

He's flamboyant, but not in a zesty way, more like a pimp or something.

[@cronykil74]

There's a bit in the last film where he's encouraging one of the female characters to keep getting undressed, so not sure he is gay. He's probably bi.

[@JohnSmith-kp7yr]

@@GoldandGunpowderperverted sodomite redditors casting their perversion onto everything

[@GoldandGunpowder]

not exactly, Johnny Depp himself was allegedly open to the character being gay before the movie, and Disney were close to cancelling him specifically because he was "too gay"

[@TachibanaSumitomo]

Some Chinese pirates were also gay, it is said that they love boys because they rarely see women all year round. The famous Chinese pirate Cheng I kidnapped 15-year-old Cheung Po Tsai in 1798, it is said that Cheng I fell in love with Cheung Po Tsai because of his good looks, and later adopted him as his adopted son. (This is a rumor. I don’t know if Cheng I really fell in love with him.)

[@ajkleipass]

My take on this is that, absent "morality", sex is just seen as a biological need and function. Yeah, it can be fun too, but mostly when you need to release that sexual tension, they went with whatever was available that also turned them on to get them off. Maybe they preferred other men, or maybe they didn't care who (or what) they docked their dinghy in. Any port in a storm.

[@burtonlewis8119]

Wasn't Augustine a known homosexual?

[@elocxv]

This explains a lot….

[@bravoyankee1632]

A book I read that has most of the myths including this one, is “Under the black Flag.” It’s very interesting that no accurate book has been written on the subject, only exaggerations and legends

[@user-wj1kg8qo3p]

I was going to say i thought pirates were one of the parts of history where the homosexuality is played up, not down.

[@VictorCruz-sp3ro]

Being that they were British, it wouldn't surprise me.

[@mcaptain97301]

Joining the military brings many out of the closet. After WWII, many gay soldiers moved to New York or San Francisco.

[@abraxas4261]

I'm reminded of seeing this one tweet by some fatherless minor snarkily expressing disbelief that historians didn't conclude two male skeletons found in the same bed on a sunken ship were homosexual lovers. People nowadays seem so hopelessly porn-addicted that some can't even fathom that people slept communally for most of human history. It wasn't uncommon to sleep in the same bed as virtual strangers.

[@nicolasnamed]

Weird to view someone interpreting history as queer as porn addiction, like you're not even wrong per se but the way you phrase this tells me you're a huge dork who's chronically online, for the sake of your health man touch grass or even the mighty sea what kind of serious person gets mad at minors on Twitter 😂😂😂 Thank you for the laugh, my good man

[@captainorion9756]

It’s over an hour long. . .

[@tonywade7473]

SEAMAN!!!!!

[@gencreeper6476]

Wasnt heterosexual vaginal intercourse without the purpose of children (ie wearing protection) technically considered a minor sin as well?

[@lloydgush]

They were pirates, they did whatever they wanted and could get away with.

[@Crowborn]

Hello LGBTQ community

[@Sepia36912]

😮

[@mentallychallenging]

all i can think is the people that want to try to use the past to identify with them now sexually probably wouldnt if they did even a little research

[@The_ZeroLine]

Is this where the term butt 🏴‍☠️ came from? Edit: You literally addressed that within 15 seconds of the start. And this is an unworthy post for how intelligent your analysis is.

[@harbinger200]

😂😂😂 Half of the comments i seen in last few minutes where deleted 😂😂😂😂

[@GoldandGunpowder]

FYI I haven't and won't delete any comments. KZbin usually filters out vulgar and explicit comments

[@dartmart9263]

@@GoldandGunpowderWrong! They delete a lot more than just “vulgar or explicit comments”. By censoring dissenting voices, they manipulate the discussions, to tilt opinions in a certain direction.

[@GoldandGunpowder]

i run 2 youtube channels so I have a thorough grasp on what kind of comments get published. "dissenting voices" don't get deleted and that is apparant if one reads the comments on any of my videos

[@dartmart9263]

@@GoldandGunpowder I’ve had numerous civil dissenting comments deleted by KZbin. Fact! The content creators claim it wasn’t them, so that only leaves KZbin.

[@harbinger200]

@@GoldandGunpowder No of course, YT AI is deleting them. They delete my pure historical comments, its quite insane.

[@Pootycat8359]

I believe buggery was much more common & accepted among seamen, than the narrator suggests, due to the famous quote of Admiral Lord Nelson, "Life in the Royal Navy consists of equal portions, of rum, sodomy, and the lash."

[@monkstery]

lol that’s not even a real Nelson quote, it’s a joke Winston Churchill made

[@Pootycat8359]

@@monkstery Shiver me timbers, I've been repeating that quote (with the proper accent, of course) for decades! The Irish folk/rock band, "The Pogues," even produced an album, "Rum, Sodomy, and the Lash." I'll have to check that out: Sir Winston was very knowledgeable concerning history, so I don't think he would have simply made it up!

[@GutterJon]

Happy pride month

[@colindols4112]

hah, seamen

[@cmbaileytstc]

*Sigh* Why is this an hour video when it could be just as profitably reduced to ONE word- “Sometimes”

[@GoldandGunpowder]

because the purpose is not to answer the question, any one of my videos can be reduced to less than a minute, but that is not why they're watched

[@JM-rp5lo]

Because the video, despite what the title says, actually isn't asking if pirates were gay, because that's a stupid question, it's actually a video about the topic of Sodomy in the Age of Pirates. . . which has an hour of information.

[@draskk3471]

Mate how many historical documentaries are titled as questions? This is a place to share information and give context to the realities of the period and the available evidence. History and life itself rarely operates in black and white, so nuance is required to properly inform the viewer. Ya clicked on a history video my guy.

[@user-dv5pr5ut7j]

Happy pride month, folks!

[@Private-Potato]

Yarr! Happy pride month, mateys.

[@2012asand]

👎🤮

[@spyrofrost9158]

Yikes.

[@benjamindover6408]

Happy pride month 💜💜💜

[@grim7965]

Happy Dino month!!!

[@dannydanny2789]

Did gay pirates become a trope nowadays? Looks like I'm way behind the current zeitgeist lol. An interesting topic nevertheless

[@johnramey333]

the answer. yaap. super gay pirates.

[@nicolasnamed]

This comments section really brings out the more unsavory and butthurt fans of history. Just wait until they hear half of cowboys were people of color and many were gay! 😂

[@charlesswenson259]

That's just a theory. A gay theory. Lol. I see what you did there. I'm telling Matt Pat!

[@Crabby303]

No mention of bagpiping. boo.

[@borecchio424]

No ads. Wierd.

[@mageillus]

PAUSE

[@bookofroger]

17:44 love is love… right?

[@waynemcauliffe-fv5yf]

Poor cabin boys

[@fixervibii]

arghhh im gay

[@WoebringerofDoom]

Can you please do a video of the fanny bandits next?

[@triangleman9997]

Butt pirates are first recorded in the golden years of pirates. Keep researching.

[@merikatools568]

When i sail i lay on top of my fellow sailors out of tespect for how they raise the mast

[@PekkaErareika]

I'd be "gay" if I had such jolly adventures 😉

[@Bbbshushrhrsux]

We rewriting history again?

[@matthewwyman1581]

No actually

[@draculinalilith396]

WOAH DOOD XD