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It's actually stated in the book that his male friends would gladly have sex with Michael if he wanted them to. He simply never asked.
I think I are right. Having said this, I initially thought ben had chickened out because of michael being naked and all that may have suggested rather than just orgy...
I've never had the impression that Heinlein was anti-gay. In Time Enough For Love, Lazarus Long mentions that he experimented with his roommate and found that homosexual just wasn't as enjoyable for him as hetero. Heinlein's characters usually seemed to preach that people should be able to do what they wanted as long as they didn't hurt anybody.
Me either. Some of Heinlein's characters were gay...wasn't it Friday who said something about "the poor in-betweeners"? Anyway, when I was a kid and hadn't even met an openly gay person, it was actually Heinlein who introduced me to the idea that they might just be people. So if he meant to be anti-gay, it really didn't work out.
I meant to say: some of his characters seemed anti-gay. Some.
It's difficult to extrapolate from the attitudes of his characters what Heinlein's personal views on the subject might have been.
David, it was actually Jubal who made that comment in Stranger; Harshaw felt that Mike would sense a "wrongness" in the "poor in-betweeners". Friday was most likely bisexual as it's implied that she happily had sex with Janet Tomey and possibly other women.
Harshaw was written as a large self-insert so one might assume that Heinlein was anti-gay, but then again Lazarus stated that he had experienced eros and agape with men, and so did Jake in TNotB, and both of those were also aspects of his personality.
Ultimately I like to think Heinlein was not opposed same-sex relationships. He seemed to despise the majority of the attitudes on sex that stemmed from his Bible Belt upbringing, and so part of me thinks he would have supported same-sex couples if for no other reason than to rebel against that.
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Joey
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Aug 07, 2012 12:18AM
It's actually stated in the book that his male friends would gladly have sex with Michael if he wanted them to. He simply never asked.
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I think I are right. Having said this, I initially thought ben had chickened out because of michael being naked and all that may have suggested rather than just orgy...
I've never had the impression that Heinlein was anti-gay. In Time Enough For Love, Lazarus Long mentions that he experimented with his roommate and found that homosexual just wasn't as enjoyable for him as hetero. Heinlein's characters usually seemed to preach that people should be able to do what they wanted as long as they didn't hurt anybody.
Me either. Some of Heinlein's characters were gay...wasn't it Friday who said something about "the poor in-betweeners"? Anyway, when I was a kid and hadn't even met an openly gay person, it was actually Heinlein who introduced me to the idea that they might just be people. So if he meant to be anti-gay, it really didn't work out.
I meant to say: some of his characters seemed anti-gay. Some.
It's difficult to extrapolate from the attitudes of his characters what Heinlein's personal views on the subject might have been. David, it was actually Jubal who made that comment in Stranger; Harshaw felt that Mike would sense a "wrongness" in the "poor in-betweeners". Friday was most likely bisexual as it's implied that she happily had sex with Janet Tomey and possibly other women.
Harshaw was written as a large self-insert so one might assume that Heinlein was anti-gay, but then again Lazarus stated that he had experienced eros and agape with men, and so did Jake in TNotB, and both of those were also aspects of his personality.
Ultimately I like to think Heinlein was not opposed same-sex relationships. He seemed to despise the majority of the attitudes on sex that stemmed from his Bible Belt upbringing, and so part of me thinks he would have supported same-sex couples if for no other reason than to rebel against that.
