Unruly Desires, William Benemann
Unruly Desires, William Benemann
List: $19.99 | Sale: $13.99
Club: $9.99

Unruly Desires
American Sailors and Homosexualities in the Age of Sail

Author: William Benemann

Narrator: Rich Miller

Unabridged: 10 hr 58 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 05/03/2022


Synopsis

In its voracious hunger to fill its decks and spars with the bodies of strong young sailors, the nineteenth century US Navy and the commercial maritime industry welcomed eccentrics, criminals, outcasts, and misfits into a community of the marginalized, one that held very different values and expectations than the towns and villages from which the young men fled, a community that offered a tentative refuge to men who were sexually attracted to other men.

Drawing from biographies and autobiographies, diaries, newspapers, government reports, Congressional hearings, religious tracts, pornography, ships' logs, medical treatises, maritime fiction, court-martial reports, personal letters and business correspondence, Benemann provides an in-depth examination of nineteenth century LGBTQ culture as it developed at sea and in America's port cities.

About William Benemann

William Benemann is the author of A Year of Mud and Gold: San Francisco in Letters and Diaries, 1849-1850, Male-Male Intimacy in Early America: Beyond Romantic Friendships, and Men in Eden: William Drummond Stewart and Same-Sex Desire in the Rocky Mountain Fur Trade.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Terry on September 07, 2022

William Benemann writes an engaging history of homosexuality in the British and American mercantile and national navies. The issue is difficult to research because except for captain's logs and some archival legal information, little information exists on the life of sailors before the 20th century.......more

Goodreads review by Steven on December 15, 2020

This book was suggested for me on Kindle Unlimited and I ended up purchasing after reading it. Much of the history of LGBTQ+ individuals has been assiduously (and ignobly) been avoided in the American history classroom which leaves the impression of historical societal invisibility. This book was ca......more

Goodreads review by Lila on January 29, 2025

Very niche but interesting subject! It’s more academic than reader-friendly in terms of the writing style, definitely reads like a doctoral dissertation adapted into a book. You’ll definitely learn a lot you didn’t know about sailor culture. I appreciate how thoroughly the author worked to recapture......more

Goodreads review by Morgan on March 25, 2024

Gruesome but fascinating and informative. Do not read if you find accounts of assault and rape, including of children, triggering. They are all throughout this book. Most of the actual accounts of m/m sexual encounters in this book are assaults and rapes (including of children), and the author doesn'......more

Goodreads review by Christopher on May 18, 2021

Very interesting study on Sailors and homosexual behavior. Although there is little available in the way of journals, studies, etc, it is an interesting read, esp the detail of the Dartmoor Prison Massacre in England during the War of 1812. One does wonder what there actually was before the individu......more