#t.e. lawrence – @somewhereinmalta on Tumblr

I’m sure he knows that a bit of “controversy” makes any project look more interesting, though. (x)

‘She never married and had various close friendships with women – however, there is no evidence that she was a lesbian’ [x]: Hullo, it was the 19thC, and have the ‘commentators’ never heard of the historical suppression of women’s (and especially poor women’s) sexuality and historical lesbian invisibility? Mary Anning’s orientation could have been anything, including lesbian.

Also, the ‘distant niece’* of Anning secondary-quoted in Pink News seems to want to slam a not-yet-made film from every possible angle: ‘the lesbian storyline is “pure Hollywood”’ (ha, she’s clearly never seen a Francis Lee film), but ‘if Mary Anning was gay she should be portrayed … by a gay actress’. As we all know, a blood relationship is an immediate qualification for knowing your ancestor’s sexuality: see also the descendants of T. E. Lawrence who persist in denial that TEL was, in his own words, ‘so funnily made up, sensually’ [x].

#francis lee #ammonite #queer cinema #mary anning #palaontology #jurassic coast #women’s history #twitter #love him #t.e. lawrence #e.m. forster #compulsory hetersexuality #oh people!

somewhereinmalta reblogged

expo63

“I wanted to read your long novel, and was afraid to. It was like your last keep, I felt: and if I read it I had you: and supposing I hadn’t liked it? I’m so funnily made up, sensually. At present you are in all respects right, in my eyes: that’s because you reserve so very much, as I do. If you knew all about me (perhaps you do: your subtlety is very great: shall I put it ‘if I knew that you knew…’?) you’d think very little of me. And I wouldn’t like to feel that I was on the way to being able to know about you. However perhaps the unpublished novel isn’t all that. You may have kept ever so much out of it. Everywhere else you write far within your strength.”

— T. E. Lawrence, letter to E. M. Forster, Karachi, 8 Sep 1927 [X]

#t.e. lawrence #e.m. forster #letters #sexuality #queer history #i wanted to read your long novel and was afraid to #however perhaps the unpublished novel isn’t all that #i very much like his way of writing #this paragraph is a masterpiece of subtlety #there's so much left unwritten #like a coded message written from an occupied country

somewhereinmalta reblogged

callmedavidglen

thefoxhuntingman

E.M. Forster writes (from Isle of Wight) ‘Have just had four very enjoyable days with T.E.L[awrence]. He is a rare remote creature, uncanny yet attractive. I suspect him of “practices” – i.e. some equivalent of yoga – otherwise I can’t understand his attitude towards the body, his own and other people’s. He thinks the body dirty, and so disapproves of all voluntary physical contact with the bodies of others. I should like to know whether he held that view before he was tortured at Deraa. He had one of your Palestine notebooks and spoke of it with enthusiasm.’

from Siegfried Sassoon’s diary (1924)

#e.m.forster #siegfried sassoon #t.e. lawrence #the body thing sounds sadly creepy