Tuesday, June 21, 2005

   Health Writer Says Study Shows
a Biological Cause for Homosexuality
Some Headlines Mischaracterize Study's Findings
by Roy Waller and Linda Nicolosi
October, 2003-- A British study just published in the October issue of Behavioral Neuroscience claims to find contributing biological factors for homosexuality.

The study--which was conducted among only a small number of subjects, and found modest differences between groups--added some evidence to a recent body of research that suggests that for some people, biological factors contribute to homosexual development.

The factors identified in this and other studies seem to be factors that masculinize females and feminize males, which results in gender-atypical development.

Yet an October 6, 2003 article by reporter Amanda Gardner in Health Day News, and trumpeted on the internet by Yahoo, mischaracterizes the study's scope and findings with the headline, "Startling Study Says People May Be Born Gay."

The first sentence of Gardner's article adds, "The origins of sexual orientation may be evident in the blink of an eye."


The Study's Method
The basis of the study, conducted by Qazi Rahman of the University of East London, is a technique known as "pre-pulse inhibition," or PPI. The main premise of PPI is that when people are startled by a loud noise they involuntarily blink their eyes, but when the test sound is preceded by a quieter noise, this appears to inhibit the response to the second, louder sound. PPI is used in tests to gauge certain inborn human responses and characteristics.

For purposes of the study, the 59 gay and straight men and women participants were subjected to both noises--first the louder noise alone, followed by the softer and louder sounds, and their responses were compared. The goal was to determine the differences, if any, between the responses of homosexual and straight men and also gay and straight women, as well as any possible similarities between homosexual men and heterosexual women and straight men and gay women. The attempt was to use the data collected from the PPI responses to demonstrate a bridge between a genetic cause of homosexuality and an automatic human response.

The researcher sought to find an automatic physiological response that was not developed as a result of learning or social interaction. He decided to employ startle responses, which are involuntary and instinctual.

In terms of statistics, Rahman's study presents the following findings:

Among lesbians, the PPI response rate was 33 percent--compared to 13% in heterosexual women--thus leaning towards the heterosexual male end of the spectrum.

In gay males, the average for PPI was 32 percent, while it was 40 percent for heterosexual men.
Among other conclusions drawn by Rachman and his colleagues in the study is that it appears that some 4 percent of men and 3 percent of women are homosexual-- figures which do not agree with those of other, well-known studies which suggest somewhat lower figures.
The researchers appeared unaware on the recent finding that homosexually oriented individuals have been found to exhibit a significantly higher level of psychiatric problems than the general population. Nor were they evidently aware that the reasons for the high rate of problems have not been identified.

"Although homosexuality per se is not related to psychiatric problems," Rachman states, "on those occasions that gays and lesbians do present with psychiatric problems, they often show disorders that are typical of the opposite sex."

The recent study correlated with findings of reorientation theorists, who generally agree that biological factors lay the foundation for gender-atypical feelings and behavior in some people. This sets the stage for feelings of differentness from their own biological sex.

However, because other factors besides biology are known to influence gender identity, reorientation therapists do not believe that inborn gender-atypical traits mean that a person was "born gay."

From:http://www.narth.com/docs/scrutinized.html
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   Biological Correlation of being gay
Chapter 23. Biological Correlates of being Gay - Biological Determinism?

Scientists are currently uncertain as to whether homosexuality is primarily caused by environmental or genetic factors. The uncertainty arises because much of the available data involves correlations. But the controls have gotten better, so that it is now possible to reject some of the competing models.

Two papers on homosexual behavior in (male) humans made headlines in 1991. The first, authored by Simon LeVay and published in the journal Science (253:1034-1037) described a small anatomical difference between the brains of homosexual and heterosexual men. The second study purported to demonstrate that homosexuality had an appreciable genetic or inherited basis (Bailey & Pillard, Arch. Gen. Psychiatry 48:1089-1096).

The issues underlying this topic are similar to those which underlie an earlier controversy over the inheritance of I.Q. scores. In both cases, interest is in the biological basis of differences in human behavior (intelligence, sexual orientation). And in both cases, science faces similar difficulties: demonstrating the causal basis of observed correlations. LeVay's study demonstrates a possible (anatomical) correlate of homosexuality, but as we will find, further evidence is desirable in concluding that the correlate is truly with respect to sexual orientation; there is no attempt at this stage to investigate even the simple matter of whether the brain difference is a cause of, or merely a correlate of sexual orientation. The second study demonstrates that the probability of homosexual orientation in a male who is the brother of an individual claiming to be homosexual (on a questionnaire) increases with the genetic relatedness of the two brothers. The authors interpret their results as evidence for the inheritance of sexual preference. This study also has problems.

Study 1 (LeVay) A correlation between brain structure and sexual orientation
The data in this paper consist of volume measurements of different regions or "nuclei" in a part of the brain called the hypothalamus. These nuclei are recognized merely as areas of high cell density in sections of the brain, and the boundaries for the nuclei are ambiguous. LeVay studied the volumes of 4 such nuclei: INAH 1, 2, 3, and 4. (INAH stands for "Interstitial Nucleus of the Anterior Hypothalamus".) Previous work by other authors had demonstrated (i) that the anterior hypothalamus is critical in the performance of various male-typical sex behaviors (i.e., that lesions impair heterosexual behavior without impairing sex drive), and (ii) that the volumes of INAH 2 and 3 are larger in males than in females. However, previous work had not looked for possible anatomical or physiological differences between men of hetero- and homosexual orientations.

From this previous work, LeVay formulated the following model/hypothesis:

either or both of INAH 2 & 3 should be larger in individuals whose sexual preference is for females (smaller in individuals whose preference is for males).

His material consisted of post-mortem tissue from 41 subjects:

19 declared homosexual males (1 bisexual; all AIDS deaths); mean age 38.2
16 presumed heterosexual males (6 AIDS deaths); mean age 42.8
6 presumed heterosexual females; mean age 41.2
Slices of the brain were coded, stored, and eventually sectioned. The scoring of INAH volumes was done blindly. The results were as follows (-*- indicates a statistically significant difference in nuclear volume, ~ indicates the absence of a significant difference):

Results for INAH 1, 2, and 4.
No statistically-significant differences were observed among the different groups.

Results for INAH 3.
homosexual male ­*- heterosexual male
homosexual male ­*- AIDS heterosexual male
AIDS heterosexual male ~ non-AIDS heterosexual male
female ­*- heterosexual male
female ~ homosexual male
All significant differences were in the predicted direction. So here is the first (and still the only) study to suggest an anatomical correlate of hetero- versus homosexual behavior.

Caveats and observations offered by LeVay

1) The model makes predictions about INAH volumes in women according to sexual preference, yet this female comparison was not undertaken in the present study. (Material was not available.)
2) The correlations of INAH 3 volume with sexual orientation could reflect confounding factors. One of the most obvious is AIDS, yet
i) there was no correlation between nuclear volume and time since AIDS diagnosis
ii) the correlation between INAH volume and sex was observed even within AIDS victims (a good control)
iii) AIDS apparently did not affect the volumes of the other nuclei
3) Samples may have been biased with respect to behaviors among heterosexual males.
4) INAH volume was not an absolute predictor of orientation, so behavior cannot be strictly correlated with nuclear volume.
5) INAH 2 was not dimorphic, though it was predicted to be.
So this study may give some insights to the biological basis of sexual orientation in humans, but it is only a first step in understanding the biological basis of these behaviors; the paper is in fact extremely modest in what it claims.

Study II (Bailey & Pillard): Inheritance of sexual preference
This study was designed to compare two models:

Model 1: Homosexuality is inherited.
Model 2: The environment a child is raised in determines whether that child will be homosexual or heterosexual.
The manner by which this study compared these models was motivated by previous work which found a high positive correlation between monozygotic (e.g. identical) twins in the incidence of homosexuality. In the present study, the authors looked at the concordance of homosexual behavior in 3 groups of men:

(a) monozygotic or identical twins raised together,
(b) dizygotic or fraternal twins raised together, and
(c) men with adopted brothers.
Each of these groups serves as a control for the other groups.

Model 1 predicts that the concordance of homosexuality should be greatest in group (a) and least in group (c). By contrast, in the absence of an inherited basis for this behavior, we might expect there to be no difference among these groups. Certainly, by restricting all comparisons to "brothers," much of the impact of common environment is removed, but we still might expect some systematic environmental differences among these groups that would partly confound the interpretation.

The design was to advertise in gay publications of the Midwest and Southwest for gay males with male cotwins or adopted brothers. The objective was to determine the sexual orientation of both those who responded to the ad and of their brothers. (It was also necessary to determine what kind of twins they were.) There are various messy aspects to these data (the sexual orientation of some men was assessed only by their twins, the assessment of monozygotic versus dizygotic twins was based on responses to a questionnaire, etc.). The final results are given in Table 11.1. These data are consistent with the model of moderate inheritance of sexual orientation: the heritability calculated from these numbers lies within the range 0.31- 0.74, which is consistent with a moderate to a high genetic determination of the trait (that whether an male becomes gay or heterosexual depends moderately to substantially on his genes).

Table 14.1 Resemblance between relatives in sexual orientation

Relationship
Rate of homosexuality

monozygotic
52% (29 out of 56)

dizygotic
22% (12 out of 54)

adoptive
11% (6 out of 57)


Any pair of these 3 sets of results provides a controlled evaluation. The fact that 3 groups are available provides a level of control that is superior to any of the pairs. The fact that all 3 groups are in relative agreement with each other (under the model of inheritance) adds substantial support to the model.

The authors noted one inconsistent result, with respect to non-twin brothers (not part of the data reported above). The rate of homosexuality was on 9.2% (13/142), significantly lower than the expected rate. (In the absence of environmental factors, the rate for non-twin brothers should be the same as for dizygotic twins.)


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   Gay is Genetic
London Researchers Say Being Gay Is Genetic
06.20.05

By Ross von Metzke

(London, England) — According to a duo of London based researchers, being gay has nothing to do with outside influence or your family environment — it is all determined by your genes.
Born Gay: The Psychobiology of Sexual Orientation is the new book which discusses the study. Qazi Rahman, a psychobiologist at the University of East London, wrote the book with Glenn Wilson, a personality specialist from the University of London.

Born Gayreviews research from the last 15 years and the evidence, they conclude, is that people are born with their sexuality defined, and it is not the result of their relationships with other people in their early life.

In 1990, psychobiologist Simon LeVay published research that revealed differences in small parts of the brain between gay and straight men. Three years later, further research argued that there were chromosomal differences. Since then there has been an "absolute explosion" in research into the area, Rahman said, but his is the first attempt to analyze it together.

“There's the classical gay man with a smothering mother and distant father idea, which comes from Freud's oedipal complex theories,” Rahman told EducationGuardian.co.uk. “For most of us scientific psychologists, Freud's theory is like astrology to a physicist. In other words, it's rubbish. Gay and straight men don't differ in their relationships with their parents.”

Rahman said his findings offer no evidence that people could “learn” to be gay — for example, children of gay parents are no more likely to be gay than their peers.

Rahman and Wilson said they examined evidence from the fields of psychology, neuroscience, genetics, endocrinology and evolutionary biology, and concluded that sexual orientation is determined by a combination of genetics and hormonal activity in the womb.

While the book is currently only available in the United Kingdom, copies can be purchased at www.amazon.com.uk.
© 2005 GayWired.com, All Rights Reserved

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Hate Crime
Hate Crime
A Tommy Stovall film
06.20.05

By Chris S. Witwer

Tommy Stovall’s directorial debut, Hate Crime, premiers at L.A.’s Outfest 2005 next month, and is expected in theaters later this year. The film is not only a testament to the power of love, but also a powerful statement about the destructive nature of religion-based prejudice.
Set in Dallas, Texas, the film juxtaposes an ordinary, middle class, church-going gay couple against a homophobic, reactionary young man and his cohorts.

Robbie (Seth Peterson) and Trey (Brian J. Smith) find their normally peaceful existence threatened when Chris Boyd (Chad Donella), the son of a fundamentalist preacher, steadily grows more menacing in his behavior towards them.

One evening, Trey takes his dog out for a nightly walk and never returns. He is later found unconscious and badly injured. Chris and Robbie are both suspects. Robbie's quest for justice takes him outside the realm of the authorities, igniting a series of unexpected consequences and revelations.

The film’s characters and plot lines are a little unbelievable at first—reminiscent of another Dallas area film, It’s In The Water (Hate Crime is a serious film, however, not a comedy). Hate Crime’s over the top stereotypical characterizations may at first seem unbelievable, until we realize that life itself is, sometimes, over the top.



When asked about some of the bigoted characters in the film, director and screenwriter Tommy Stovall mentioned The Westboro Baptist Church’s infamous website, GodHatesFags.com. The controversial site, with over 5 million hits to date (make that 5 million and one—I had to check the spelling), is among the source material that Stovall mined in writing Hate Crime.

He also drew on a plethora of news reports and articles on the topic of gay bashing and hate crimes against gays, as well as on his own experiences growing up gay in a small Texas town. Sometimes, this is how it is. And someone has finally someone written a powerful film about hate crimes against the GLBT community.

Canadian singer/songwriter Ebony Tay draws on some deep-seated personal life experiences to create a masterful, eclectic score for Hate Crimes.

Working with bassist Mark Corben and drummer/percussionist Billy Hawn, Tay (on guitar and vocals) has been performing selections from the haunting score before most screenings, which, she says, "puts the audience in the perfect mood to see the film. We're trying to draw attention to the fact that modern society is slow to include gaybashing in hate crime legislation."

"I chose Ebony to do the score for 'Hate Crime' initially because of her immediate excitement about the project and her desire to make the movie edgy through the score," says Stovall. "I recognized that this movie had deep personal meaning for her and she seemed to really get what I was going for. She threw her heart and soul into the project and she was able to attract other highly talented musicians through her enthusiasm. Her belief and passion is infectious and she's been a huge cheerleader for this project. The end result has been a wonderfully unique score that gives this movie the edge we were going for. When I watched the finished movie for the first time, complete with score, I was ecstatic because the music took the movie to another level."

In addition to composing the score to Hate Crime, which features a soul-stirring blend of classical, African tribal music and religious choir influences, Tay-who completed the entire suite in only four weeks-also wrote the powerful and sweeping, gospel-flavored end credits theme "Jesus Was Crucified By A 45," featuring the Children of the World choir and some lyrics penned by Stovall himself.

Tay is also working her indie debut Sketches of the Firehorse, which will be available through her web site at www.ebonytaymusic.com.

Hate Crime is already a hit on the independent film festival circuit, including the prestigious Palm Springs Film Festival. Hate Crime recently garnered the Best Feature/Audience Choice Award and Best Feature/Executive Director's Choice Award at the 2005 Sedona International Film Festival, and the Audience Choice Award at the 2005 Q Cinema in Ft Worth, TX. The film is also an official selection at the 2005 NewFest in New York City and the Philadelphia International Gay & Lesbian Film Festival.



The film will make its Los Angeles premiere at Outfest 2005, Los Angeles' biggest film festival. The July 15 screening is co-sponsored by The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), and the Agency For The Performing Arts (APA). The sponsorship and endorsement of influential, high profile organizations such as these reflect the increasing sense of momentum the film has created, based on its topical, controversial subject matter.
For more information on the film, visit www.hatecrimemovie.com.
© 2005 GayWired.com, All Rights Reserved

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Monday, June 20, 2005

Blind date with a hot anime guy ^.^ by Originality
Name
Age
Lucky Number
Favorite color
Date ===
Where the date is	Ice Skating Rink
First thing date says to you	"Where to?"
Last thing date says to you	"Sorry about the whole noodle thing."
Quiz created with MemeGen!

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nn
nWhat Kingdom Hearts Character Are You?n
nHosted by theOtaku.com: Anime. Done right.n
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   Tchaikovsky
Gay Love-Letters from Tchaikovsky to his Nephew Bob Davidov

Gay men have taken to their hearts the music of Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-93) because it is perceived (rightly or wrongly) to contain all the longing and despair of homosexual angst in a homophobic world. Although he was one of the great musical thinkers, it is for the melodic lyricism and suffering so audible in his work, rather than its complexity or brilliance, that he will be remembered.

Tchaikovsky's homosexuality was denied by Soviet musicologists until fairly recently, and much material still remains to be retrieved from Russian archives and published in English. His lovers included Alexey Apukhtin in his music student days 1867-70; Vladimir Shilovsky, a wealthy young lad whom he also met at the Moscow Conservatory, during 1868-72, and who financed several trips for the two of them; Alexei Sofronov his valet from 1872 to the end of his life; his pupil Eduard Zak, who killed himself in 1873 (he inspired the Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture); Joseph Kotek in the mid-1870s; his nephew Vladimir Davidov (second son of his sister Alexandra) in the 1880s-1890s, to whom he dedicated the Symphonie Pathétique (1893); and the young pianist Vassily Sapelnikov who went with him on a tour to Germany, France and England. In addition, many brief affairs are recorded in his cryptographic diary; e.g. on March 22, 1889 he records that a ‘Negro came in to me’, to his hotel room in Paris.

But Tchaikovsky was uneasy about his sexuality – unlike his brother Modest, who was also gay, and who lived relatively openly with his boyfriend Nikolai (‘Kolia’) Hermanovich Konradi (1868-1923), a deaf and dumb boy whom Modest tutored and with whom he lived for about seventeen years from 1876. During a mid-life crisis at the age of thirty-six, Piotr wrote to his brother:

I am now going through a very critical period of my life. I will go into more detail later, but for now I will simply tell you, I have decided to get married. It is unavoidable. I must do it, not just for myself but for you, Modeste, and all those I love. I think that for both of us our dispositions are the greatest and most insuperable obstacle to happiness, and we must fight our natures to the best of our ability. So far as I am concerned, I will do my utmost to get married this year, and if I lack the necessary courage, I will at any rate abandon my habits forever. Surely you realize how painful it is for me to know that people pity and forgive me when in truth I am not guilty of anything. How appalling to think that those who love me are sometimes ashamed of me. In short, I seek marriage or some sort of public involvement with a woman so as to shut the mouths of assorted contemptible creatures whose opinions mean nothing to me, but who are in a position to cause distress to those near to me.

Tchaikovsky married Antonina Miliakova in 1877, but frankly told his wife he did not love her though he would be her devoted friend. Not surprisingly, the marriage ended disastrously after a few months, which brought Tchaikovsky close to a nervous breakdown and helped him accept his unchangable sexual nature and stop tormenting himself.

It is possible that Tchaikovsky married Miliakova ‘on the rebound’ after being rejected by some male lover. At the time, he was busy composing Tatiana's Letter Scene in his opera Eugene Onegin. He very clearly identified with Tatiana, who had been rejected by her lover Onegin. He had recently responded to a letter from Miliakova and had agreed to meet with her, but he pointedly notes in a letter to his brother Modest that he had entirely forgotten about Miliakova when working on his opera:

I didn't ask any more about Mlle Miliakova. I was entirely preoccupied at the time with thoughts about Eugene Onegin, i.e. with Tatiana whose letter had originally drawn me to composing the opera. I began writing the letter song, driven to the work by an irresistible emotional need, in the heat of which I not only forgot about Antonina Miliakova, but even lost her letter or hid it so successfully that I couldn't find it. I remembered about it only when a little later I received the second one. I was completely buried in my composition and had grown so close to the character of Tatiana that she and all around her started to seem real to me. I loved Tatiana and was terribly angry with Onegin, whom I saw as simply cold and heartless. When I received the second letter, I was ashamed, and even came to hate myself for my attitude toward Mlle Miliakova. In this second letter she bitterly complained that she had not received a reply, adding that if the second letter met with the same fate as the first, the only course open to her was to take her own life. In my mind this all got associated with my conception of Tatiana, and it seemed to me as if I myself had behaved infinitely worse than Onegin.

But when he finally met Miliakova, the first thing he told her was ‘I could not return her love’. It is clear that the heart-rending Letter Scene was not inspired by Miliakova, but that his identification with Tatiania compelled him to agree to marry Miliakova, for fear of being as heartless as Onegin. Thus his identification with a female paradoxically made him temporarily reject his desires for a male, or, rather, his desire to be desired by a man like Onegin.

Vladimir Lvovich Davïdov (1871/2-1906) – Tchaikovsky’s nephew nicknamed ‘Bob’ [illustrated at the right] – became his lover from the late 1880s. Tchaikovsky was always homesick during his musical tours abroad – he hated the loneliness of large cities – and he always longed to get back home to be with his beloved nephew – ‘my idol’ – whom he made his heir. His letter to Bob from a hotel room in London in May 1893 shows this correspondence to have been his life-line: ‘I am writing to you with a voluptuous pleasure. The thought that this paper is going to be in your hands fills me with joy and brings tears to my eyes.’ Later that year ‘Kolia’ chucked out Modest, and there were plans to set up an apartment in St Petersburg where Modest, Piotr and Bob would live together.

But it was not to be, for in November 1893, less than a month after the premiere of the Symphonie Pathétique, Tchaikovsky was murdered. It was reported that he died from cholera, caused by drinking an unboiled glass of water. On November 1 (New Style; the Russian Old Style calendar was twelve days behind this) he dined at a restaurant with Bob after seeing a play, and insisted on being brought a glass of water even though it was unboiled and even though his friends remonstrated with him. (Another version has it that he ran to the kitchen in Modest’s apartment to get the unboiled water, shouting ‘Who cares anyway!’) On November 2 he fell ill, and on November 6 he was dead, from kidney failure and dehydration caused by vomiting and diarrhoea. But death from cholera cannot possibly occur so soon after an infection, and even Rimsky-Korsakov, who paid his respects to the composer’s body in Modest’s apartment, thought it was strange that the apartment had not been disinfected and that people were even allowed to kiss the corpse despite government regulations that required that the coffin be sealed in cases of cholera. Rumors of suicide began to fly. In the 1920s one of the doctors who attended him, Vasily Bertenson, admitted that Tchaikovsky had poisoned himself.

The facts of Tchaikovsky's death were revealed to the West by Alexandra Orlova, a Soviet musical scholar who emigrated to the USA in 1979. It was privately known in Soviet musical circles in the 1920s and 1930s (including people such as Alexander Glazunov) that Tchaikovsky had not died of cholera, but had killed himself. In 1966 Alexander Voitov, a pupil and historian of the St Petersburg School of Jurisprudence, told Orlova what really happened. In 1913 he was told by the widow of Nikolay Jacobi that she had a terrible secret she did not wish to take to the grave. In autumn 1893 Duke Stenbok-Fermor wrote a letter addressed to Tsar Alexander III complaining of the attentions the composer was paying his (the Duke's) young nephew; this letter was handed to the civil servant Jacobi to pass on to the Tsar. Exposure would have meant loss of civil rights and exile to Siberia, and public disgrace not only for Tchaikovsky, but for his fellow former students of the School of Jurisprudence. Instead of passing on the letter, Jacobi assembled a court of honor of the old boys of the school and summoned Tchaikovsky to his apartment. Jacobi's wife could hear loud voices behind the closed door, and after a meeting that lasted five hours Tchaikovsky ran unsteadily from the room, very white and agitated. When the others had gone Jacobi told his wife that the court of honor had required Tchaikovsky to kill himself and he had promised to comply with their demand. A day or two later his illness was reported. Nataliya Kuznetsova-Fladimova, the granddaughter of the sister of the wife of Tchaikovsky’s eldest brother Nikolay, after reading Orlova’s account in 1987, told her that the story was true, and was the same story told by her grandmother who died very old in 1955. Her grandmother also said that Tsar Alexander III was shown the incriminating letter to Count Stenbok after Tchaikovsky’s death.

The prominence given to the supposedly infected glass of water shows it to have been a symbolic leave-taking; the major Tchaikovsky biographer David Brown calls it ‘a very public demonstration of something happening, to give an explanation for something that was going to happen in due course.’ Tchaikovsky's most recent biographer Alexander Poznansky rejects the court of honor story because he does not believe such things could happen in the civilized society that Russia was at this time. Poznansky even points out that there were other homosexuals in the School of Jurisprudence, such as the statesman Vladimir Meshesvsky, who was protected by the Tsar after being denounced for seducing a bugle boy in the imperial marching band, However, trying to seduce the son of Count Stenbok might well have been considered more reprehensible and damaging to the public image of the School. In any event, the historian Simon Karlinsky has proved that courts of honor did in fact exist at the time (though usually they only demanded resignations etc., as when Chekhov’s editor was called to a court of honor). Karlinsky acknowledges that the Russian law against homosexuality – more specifically, Paragraph 995 which prohibited mujilostra or anal intercourse between men – was not very often enforced. Nevertheless, there was a very notable scandal during Tchaikovsky’s day, when a teacher who had seduced many teenage boys was tried and convicted, and exiled to the provincial city of Seratov for five years. (The maximum penalty was resettlement in Siberia for a period of five years.) Tolstoy in his book Resurrection mentions the case of a prominent homosexual who escapes legal punishment, and calls this a case of ‘evil triumphant’. In other words, homosexuality was neither legal nor respectable in Russia, In any case Tchaikovsky’s own comments quoted at the beginning of this essay indicate that a suspicion of homosexuality was often used to shame people. And he often felt shame, or at least regret, over his own homosexuality, writing in his diary, for example, ‘What can I do to be normal?’ The enigmatic Fate motif in his Fourth Symphony probably stands for the ‘tragic curse’ of his homosexual orientation.

Poznansky does not adequately account for the inconsistencies in the cholera story, which seems to have been concocted to hide the truth and to avoid the stigma of suicide. Everyone at his death bed gave conflicting accounts of exactly what happened, and one of the doctors’ accounts suggests he died one day sooner than that reported. The Swiss musicologist Aloys Mooser and the French scholar André Lischke were both informed that Glazunov confirmed that Tchaikovsky was homosexual and had committed suicide, but Poznansky dismisses the accounts of Bertenson and others because they were reported orally after their deaths. When each claim is examined in isolation, it is admittedly ‘weak’, but since all of the claims confirm one another despite coming from different sources, they add up to ‘strong’ evidence in my opinion. Do a dozen weak links add up to a chain? Well, yes, they do.

In November 1993 the BBC broadcast a documentary on the death of Tchaikovsky, called ‘Pride or Prejudice,’ which interviewed Orlova, Brown, Poznansky and Karlinsky and various experts on Russian history, and concluded largely in favor of the theory that Tchaikovsky had been sentenced to death, ordered to do the decent thing. Dr John Henry of Guy's Hospital, who works in the British National Poison Unit, concluded that all the reported symptoms of Tchaikovsky's illness ‘fit very closely with arsenic poisoning,’ and he suggested that people would have known that acute diarrhoea, dehydration and kidney failure resembled the manifestions of cholera which would help them put the death over as a case of cholera.

There is a similar argument about the truth behind Tchaikovsky’s sixth and last symphony, the Pathétique, which some find profoundly enigmatic and some find profoundly self-revealing: a longing to reveal something, a sense of tragic destiny, a struggle for happiness defeaed by implacable ‘fate’, i.e. oppression, a union of defiance and despair with which many gay men have identified at least until the 1970s. Tchaikovsky decided not to leave a detailed programmatic explanation of his darkest work: ‘Let them guess!’ he told Modest. The last movement, the Adagio Lamentoso, is prophetic not only of Tchaikovsky’s own death, but also that of its dedicatee, Bob Davïdov, who became curator of the Tchaikovsky Museum at his uncle’s home in Klin, and who killed himself, at the age of thirty-five.


Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky to Vladimir Lvovich Davïdov

New York
2 May 1891

Things have gone so far that it is quite impossible to write letters. Not a free moment, and I scarcely manage to write my diary. I made a trip to Niagara. As soon as I returned I had to visit one Mayer at his country house and pay some visits in the few free hours I had left. Then I was invited out to lunch. Altogether I have been frightfully busy, and I am completely numb with exhaustion. Tonight I have to be at a big dinner, and then leave at midnight for Baltimore; tomorrow a rehearsal and concert there, the day after that Washington, then Philadelphia, then two days here, where all my time is already booked, and at last, on the morning of the 21st, I leave. Oh God! Will I ever come to that happy moment!!!

In about a week after you receive this letter I will be with you!!! This seems an unattainable, impossible happiness! I try to think of it as little as possible, to have enough strength to stand up to the last insufferable days. But in spite of all I feel that I shall remember America with love. Everybody has been wonderfully kind.

Here are a few newspaper cuttings. Shall bring many more with me. I think that you will all much prefer reading my diary than getting only short news from my letters.

I embrace you all.
P. Tchaikovsky
In only one week!!!

Town of Klin
District of Moscow
25 June 1891

Bob!

As promised I can report that I finished the sketches for the ballet yesterday evening. You remember how, when you were here, I boasted that I had only about five days work left. How wrong I was, for I barely managed it in two weeks. No! the old man is definitely deteriorating. Not only is his hair thinning and as white as snow; not only are his teeth falling out and refusing to chew; not only is his sight deteriorating and his eyes getting tired; not only are his legs beginning to drag –p but the only faculty he has is beginning to fade and disappear. . . . I get very tired if I read in the evenings – it always results in a frightful headache. But unless I read I don't know how else to kill time at night. This (I mean headaches as a result of reading), is becoming a serious obstacle to life in the country, which made me decide to look for a place to live that was not in the suburbs of Petersburg but in the town itself. In general I think it would be simpler to settle in Petersburg for good. Just the possibility alone to be able to see more of you is so vitally important for me. I would love to know what you are doing. Write at least a few words. . . .

Klin, District of Moscow
22 July 1891


I am definitely coming to Kamenka, for I feel from your letter that you would like me to come, and also because I have a great desire to see you. . . .

You are not at all like an empty suitcase. There are plenty of things in it but they are still kept in disorder and it will take time to decide and sort out those that are important. However, stop worrying, for it will all sort itself out. Enjoy your youth and learn to cherish time; the longer I live the more frightened I get at the aimless dissipation of this prieless element of life. This rather high-flown sentence is nothing more than the advice to read as much as possible. You have an excellent gift of assimilating what you have read, I mean you do not forget it but put it away in a sort of mental store-room until you need it. I do not possess such a store-room. To be honest – no memory at all. Am sending several numbers of the Fliegende Blätter.

I embrace you, my idol!
P. T.

Paris
12-24 January 1892

I feel an awful fool. Here I have another two weeks without anything to help me kill time. I thought this would be easier in Paris than anywhere else but, except for the first day, I have been bored. Since yesterday I do not know what to think up to be free of the worry and boredom that come from idleness. . . . Am still keeping my incognito. . . .

I often think of you and see you in my dreams, usually looking sad and depressed. This has added a feeling of compassion to my love for you and makes me love you even more. Oh God! How I want to see you this very minute. Write me a letter from College during some boring lecture and send it to this address (14, Rue Richepanse). It will still reach me as I am staying here for nearly two weeks.

I embrace you with mad tenderness.

Yours
P. Tchaikovsky

Klin
12 August 1892

My dear Golubchik!

I have just received your letter, and was terribly pleased to hear that you are in a happy state of mind. Could it be that one of my letters to you has been lost? I did not write very often but I did write. With all my soul I long to join you, and think about it all the time. But what can I do? There are more and more complications and more work every day. . . .

So all I can say is that it is impossible for me to leave before I have finished all my business in Moscow.

I embrace you to suffocation!!!
P. T.

Moscow
14 August 1892

I have just received the Paris photographs from Yurgenson and have told him to send four of them to you. I was so glad to see what a good likeness they were that I nearly started crying in the presence of Yurgenson. All this proof correction had completely destroyed all other feelings and thoughts and it had to be this little incident which made me feel again how strong my love for you is. . . . Oh God! How I want to see you.

I embrace you.
P. Tchaikovsky

Berlin
16-28 December 1892

I am still sitting in Berlin. I haven't got enough energy to leave – especially as there is no hurry. These last days I have been considering and reflecting on matters of great importance. I looked perfectly objectively through my new symphony and was glad that I had neither orchestrated it or launched it; it makes a quite unfavourable impression. . . . What must I do? Forget about composing? Too difficult to say. So here I am, thinking, and thinking, and thinking, and not knowing what to decide. Whatever happens these last three days were unhappy ones.

I am however, quite well, and have at last decided to leave for Basle tomorrow. You wonder why I am writing about all this to you? Just an irresistible longing to chat with you. . . . The weather is quite warm. I can picture you sitting in your room, scented nearly to suffocation, working at your college exercises. How I would love to be in that dear room! Give my love to everybody.

I embrace you.
P. Tchaikovsky

If only I could give way to my secret desire, I would leave everything and go home.

Klin
11 February 1893

If you do not want to write, at least spit on a piece of paper, put it in an envelope, and send it to me. You are not taking any notice of me at all. God forgive you – all I wanted was a few words from you.

I am going to Moscow tonight. The concert will be on the 14th. On the 15th I shall be going to Nijny-Novgorod for about three days and from there straight to Petersburg. About the end of the second week in Lent, therefore, I shall be with you.

I want to tell you about the excellent state of mind I'm in so far as my works are concerned. You know that I destroyed the symphony I had composed and partly orchestrated in the autumn. And a good thing too! There was nothing of interest in it – an empty play of sounds, without inspiration. Now, on my journey, the idea of a new symphony came to me, this time one with a programme, but a programme that will be a riddle for everyone. Let them try and solve it. The work will be entitled A Programme Symphony (No. 6) Symphonie à Programme (No. 6), Eine Programmsinfonie (Nr. 6) [Modest suggested the title finally adopted, Symphonie Pathétique]. The programme of this symphony is completely saturated with myself and quite often during my journey I cried profusely. Having returned I have settled down to write the sketches and the work is going so intensely, so fast, that the first movement was ready in less than four days, and the others have taken shape in my head. Half of the third movement is also done. There will still be much that is new in the form of this work and the finale is not to be a loud allegro, but the slowest adagio. You cannot imagine my feelings of bliss now that I am convinced that the time has not gone forever, and that I can still work. Of course, I may be wrong, but I do not think so. Please, do not tell anyone, except Modest.

I purposely address the letter to the College, so that no one shall read it. Does all this really interest you? It sometimes seems to me that you are not interested at all and that you have no real sympathy for me. Good-bye, my dear. . . .

Yours
P. Tchaikovsky

London
17-29 May 1893

I am writing to you with a voluptuous pleasure. The thought that this paper is going to be in your hands fills me with joy and brings tears to my eyes. Is it not curious that I voluntarily inflict upon myself all these tortures? What the devil do I want it all for? Several times yesterday, on my way, I wanted to run away; but somehow I felt ashamed to return empty-handed. Yesterday my tortures reached such a pitch that I lost both appetite and sleep and this happens very rarely. I am suffering not only from anguish and distress which cannot be expressed in words (in my new symphony there is a place which I think expresses it very well) but also from a vague feeling of fear and the devil only knows what else. The physical symptoms are pains at the bottom of my bowels, and aching and weakness in the legs. So, definitely, this is the last time I am going through all this. From now on I shall agree to go anywhere only for a very large sum of money and not for more than three days. . . .

Klin
3 [or 2] August 1893

In my last letter to Modest I complain that you don't want to know me, and now he is silent too, and all links with your crowd are completely broken. . . .

What makes me sad is that you take so little interest in me. Could it be that you are positively a hard egotist? However, forgive me, I won't pester you again. The symphony which I was going to dedicate to you (not so sure that I shall now) is getting on. I am very pleased with the music but not entirely satisfied with the instrumentation. It does not come out as I hoped it would. It will be quite conventional and no surprise if this symphony is abused and unappreciated – that has happened before. But I definitely find it my very best, and in particular the most sincere of all my compositions. I love it as I have never loved any of my musical children.

. . . At the end of August I shall have to go abroad for a week. If I were sure that you would still be in Verbovka in September I would love to come at the beginning of the month. But I know nothing about you.

I embrace you with all my love.
P. Tchaikovsky


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SOURCES: Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Letters to his Family: An Autobiography, trans. Galina von Meck; with additional annotations by Percy M. Young (London: Dennis Dobson, 1981). English translations copyright © 1973 by Galina von Meck. The Diaries of Tchaikovsky, trans. Wladimir Lakond (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Ind., 1945). David Brown, Tchaikovsky Remembered (London and Boston: Faber and Faber, 1993).

Rictor Norton, "Gay Love-Letters from Tchaikovsky to his Nephew Bob Davidof", The Great Queens of History, 19 October 2002 .
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