LOG ENTRIES

     My initial intention when starting the Quigley Institute for Non-Heterosexual Archival Archaeology, was to bring us out of the historical shadows and hopefully get others interested enough to help in that, and make this information available to those asking about homosexuality on whaling ships.

                                                                    It is a place where the answer is “YES”, and here are the examples.

     As has been the case historically, the everyday normal lives of people go unnoticed while those who step outside the bounds become obvious. A bar might be filled with patrons imbibing but no one takes note of anyone other than the one person who stands out by being the loud drunk in he room. Thousands of cars cross the same bridge every day but we only hear about the one involved in an accident.

    We know instinctively that these do not represent the norm as the reality is so unremarkable as to go unnoticed.

     Using the 10% figure, there was a good sized population of Gay people by modern definition among the majority, but all we know from history are the more sensational instances like rape, observed or reported “sodomy”, sex acts performed without discretion in places other than behind closed doors, or for unreported income as would be banned for everyone. These do not represent the silent majority of any group and their actions should not be considered representative of all others with whom they have a shared orientation.

   As a retired teacher I can recall the times that the teachers in the schools in which I taught braced ourselves when the media reported on an indecent relationship between a teacher and a student. We knew until this story left the community consciousness that we were all under suspicion, and as a Gay Teacher this was magnified as all Gay teachers were considered predators and for a while and we were put in the position that, while we were horrified with the actions of that teacher, and others like them, and even as we felt the proper empathy and sadness for the student, we hoped the student and teacher were of the opposite sex. We were in the morally awkward position of welcoming the relief if it were a heterosexual thing as it would be one less issue and not become  the cause for faux moral outcry from those who thrive on such. I was an openly Gay teacher in the Buckle of the Bible Belt and on one occasion in a grocery store after a teacher in another state was found in an illicit relationship with a student of the opposite sex had a parent pull her daughter away from me as she was standing near me at the checkout to protect her from   the Gay predator.  Clearly she feared that of which she was woefully uninformed. Her daughter was safe  near me.

     But if visibility can have hugely negative consequences, that majority will remain silent and unnoticed and with nothing to compare them with, the few are assumed the most.

     Homosexual acts on whaling ships when included in entries usually involved  some violation of ship rules, official and otherwise, not necessarily the actual Homosexual activity. In the case of Smith of the Charles Phelps, his punishment for offering money for sex was added to the many other serious charges, in the case of Scott it was his being in a place he should not have been and his punishment was the equivalent to being sent to your room, and in another case, lying about it when this interfered with proper procedure was more serious than the actions. Usually the Captain only reacted to extreme situations, such as the annoying and multiple instances of one crew member who seemed to assume if he was in our berth when you got to it, apparently assuming you would want what was being offered, and even a possible case of a falling out that resulted in h common immature action of “snitching”. 

     With the exception of Scott of the Newport, these log entries resulted from complaints from one or more crew members about another crew member's annoying practices and does not record those more discrete or less annoying encounters.

     While the entries included, as I have found so far, whippings due to attempted rape, awkward and annoying advances that resulted in whippings and exiles, in the case of Scot of the Newport, his “Punishment” was much lighter than that of the others which would imply it lacked the element(s) calling for punishment, or he was just one of those whalers who was less obvious and annoying for people, normal in his pursuits, who are in a self-contained environment for month without seeing land and have to deal wit h whatever conditions are on board and the problems, physical and mental, that  are brought onboard by the others.

It  is important when reading these entries to consider the details that call for whatever action the Captain takes. There seem to be no standard consequences and it is clear that factors around the main offense, “sodomy and Onanism”, are what determine them. It might not be so much the act but that which surrounds it.