I'm reading Ron Chernow's biography of
Alexander Hamilton and the issue of Hamilton's homosexual relations
comes up. The same issue has come up regarding Abe Lincoln recently.
Both men wrote letters to other men that appear to be love letters.
When did American men stop sleeping
together? I don't know the date. I know that women visitors to our
house in San Francisco and our guests in Tokyo still sleep together
regardless of their age. Men don't, almost regardless of their age.
It is current social custom that lets women sleep together but not
men.
Men in the past have nearly always slept together, there were few exceptions.
I know why we have the present
male/female sleeping together distinction. Because men get erections
all the time and from a very early age, men masturbate and men
ejaculate in their sleep.
I'm a 1 or a 2 on the Kinsey 7 point scale (zero: pure hetero, seven: pure homo.) Speaking for all men, I can say that if I slept with men from age nine to age sixteen, other than my brothers, I would definitely have had sex with men.
So I vote for gay as being the norm for men before social custom made men sleep separately. I assume that nearly all men in previous centuries had plenty of gay sexual relations and enjoyed it, even though it was illegal (... consequently dangerous) and taboo.