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Several years ago, The Advocate shared a glorious list of sixteen LGBTQ+ couples throughout history. So for Throwback Thursday, we thought we'd take a look at some of these romantic luminaries. Without much ado, let's dive into some of the list and share the love!
These two iconic bisexual women both had many same-sex affairs. Kahlo, while married to muralist Diego Rivera, also took up with painter Georgia O'Keeffe, and actresses Paulette Goddard and Delores del Rio. On the other side of the Atlantic, performer Baker had affairs with Bessie Allison, Clara Smith, and Colette. The two met while Kahlo, separated from Rivera in 1939, was in Paris for an exhibition of her art.
Take undoubtedly the world's greatest conqueror and military strategist, and his "best friend" since school days when they were both students of Aristotle, and let them loose to rule the world. Well, their part of it anyway. They travelled the known world, with Hephaestion serving as both his military advisor as well as, most historians have come to agree, his lover. Hell, even their former teacher Aristotle described them as "one soul abiding two bodies." Alexander's grief over Hephaestrion's death from illness (though some say poisoning) was extreme and dramatic to say the least. Besides the millions spent on honoring him and not eating for days, he also had his doctor killed for not saving him and the temple of healing destroyed. Alexander would die within a year of his own failing health, which many attribute to his grief.
Athenian lovers Harmodius & Aristogeiton were known as the Tyrannicides after they assassinated Hipparchus, a tyrannical ruler who illegally seized power. Hipparchus was actually a romantic target for Harmodius, though Harmodius's love was declined. So he takes up with Aristogeiton, who helps him plan to murder the ruler at the Panathenaic (ancient Olympic) Games. Blades are hidden in wreaths, and while they did manage to kill Hipparchus, Aristogeiton was also killed on site. Harmodius was dragged away, tortured, and eventually killed. So romantic! These spruned queens were not messing around!
These two poets fell in love and became romantic partners after Kallman, a fan of Auden's poetry, contacted him after attending a reading. They became collaborators, working on librettos, translations, and lyrics. They had a whirlwind lifestyle, summering in Italy and other places abroad, and living in New York and Austria. Some say they had an open relationship, and some say Kallman's infidelities got to be too much. Whatever the cause, they remained partners and collaborators, with Kallman and Auden sharing a home until Auden's death in 1973.
In September of 1871, 16-year-old Rimbaud arrived at the Paris home of his would-be benefactor and soon-to-be lover Verlaine, 27, and his pregnant 17-year-old wife. It didn't take long for the two to throw themselves into a hedonistic lifestyle of hashish, absinthe, and poetry. Verlaine, prone to alcoholic and abusive rages against his wife, would abandon his family and run off to London. They lived in drunken impoverishment, getting by on teaching and an allowance from Verlaine's mother. They fell apart. A reunion in 1873 in a hotel in Brussels would result in Verlaine shooting Rimbaud in the wrist. Rimabud would later drop the charges, though Verlaine would spend two years in prison. Once released, they did what drunken poets in love do. They moved back in with each other to write once more. For three months. One last meeting in Germany was followed by Rimbaud's death at 37 after a leg amputation. Verlaine would die a drug addict at 51. Rimaud's greatest poetry would all be written by the time he was 21. Their turbulent relationship was put on the big screen in the 1995 film Total Eclipse, starring Leonardo DiCaprio as Rimbaud.
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