Bea's Journal (2)

"April 16, 1999, 11:02

I am to write for 20 minutes and today I choose to comment on public reaction to deviant sex. I would like to explore why, in the present era, there is so much criticism of people who prefer to make love to their own sex.

I cannot help but notice how many accomplished men and women prefer their own sex or are bi-sexual.

First to my mind are the great Italian Renaissance artists: Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci. Michelangelo was gifted both as a sculptor and a painter. His greatest work, I think, was his sculpture La Pieta, in Rome. The Sistine Chapel shows, too, merits mention. Imagine getting up to that ceiling and painting! And how beautiful is the statue of David in Florence.

Among the great bisexuals we include Shakespeare, for over 100 sonnets are very definitely addressed to a young man whose beauty is praised.

Why does Sappho’s lesbianism bother people? Or Virginia Wolff’s startling weekend with the lady of aristocratic background, the one who wrote, ‘All Passions Spent’?

I think one reason for disapproval is that those who are disturbed fear their own erotic attraction to their own sex.

Sappho expressed her desire eloquently when she wrote the following, now in translation:

‘Death shall be death forever
unto thee, maiden
for valuing gold
above the muses.’

Sappho probably lived on an island called Lesbos.

I cherish my trip to Greece in 1932. I remember one day when I wanted to swim from Ithaca to a nearby island. How sparkling clear was the water and pristine, the atmosphere! 11:20.”