Exploring an Explorer’s Sexual Life

I take issue with Kessaris’ letter, not as to Burton’s leaning (of which I neither know nor care) but as to Kessaris’ feeling that to speculate that Burton may have been homosexual was a “‘scurrilous attack.” It is only such to the prejudiced and ignorant who refuse to accept the reality of homosexuality as natural human variation.

I would ask Mr. Kessaris, is it really that much more noble to be heterosexual? Would Michelangelo’s or Leonardo’s art works have been more timeless, Tchaikovsky’s music more lyrical or Walt Whitman more poetic if they had all been heterosexual?

Obviously (and sadly), Burton would be lessened in Mr. Kessaris’ mind if he did happen to have been gay. To this I say that Mr. Kessaris should take his own advise: Honi soit qui mal y pense! (Shamed be (anyone) who thinks evil of it.)

BRIAN P. McENTEE

Altadena