Kiss me Hardy

I’m reading “Sodomy and the Pirate Tradition” by B.R Burg today, which is unfortunately not as interesting as it sounds, largely because the author goes in for paragraph long sentences and academic-speak.  If only more scholars were as easy and clear to read as N.A.M Rogers!

If I’m reading him right he intends to show that the Pirates of the Caribbean formed something of an OKHomo society, particularly as they reflected a lack of condemnation of sodomy in society as a whole in the 17th Century.  I’m somewhat unconvinced that laissez faire toleration is quite the same as lack of condemnation, particularly when people are still getting pilloried for sodomy, but I’m interested to see what he has to say next.

What did strike me though, was this quote from W.H Auden:

In times of war, even the crudest kind of positive affection between persons seems extraordinarily beautiful, a noble symbol of the peace and forgiveness of which the whole world stands so desperately in need.

It seemed to me that that was what “kiss me, Hardy” was all about.  Battle is raging all around, men are screaming in the bowels of the ship and the great guns are pounding, and a dying man wants to know that he isn’t going to go without the benediction of some kind of human affection.  You have to worry about the filthy minds of the Victorians who thought such an almost sacred gesture needed censoring.

/completely off topic musing.

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