I took a closer look at a quote from Karen Hansen\u2019s \u201c\u2018No Kisses is Like Yours\u2019: An Erotic Friendship Between Two African-American Women During the Mid-19th Century\u201d.
\nOn page 187, one of the women, Addie says to the other woman in this closely examined friendship, Rebecca in a letter,
\n\u201cYou are the first girl that I ever love so and you are the last one. Dear Rebecca, do not say anything against me loving you so, for I mean just what I say. O Rebecca, it seem I can see you now, casting those loving eyes at me. If you was a man, what would things come to? They would after come to something very quick. What do you think the matter? Don\u2019t laugh at me. I not exactly crazy yet.\u201d
\nAlthough homosexuality was not widely acknowledged or sanctioned at this time, these women feel love with the intensity and depth of any heterosexual relationship. The phrase \u201cIf you was a man\u201d (187) indicates that the relationship is not one of friendship. This distinction in the type of relationship is from a standpoint of gender, not devotion or attraction. In addition, Addie refers to Rebecca as \u201cthe first girl that I ever love so and…the last one,\u201d (187). Singling out Rebecca and putting her apart from all other women that she could have relationships with indicates a romantic connection. Finally, the notion that Rebecca would think of Addie as \u201ccrazy\u201d for loving her suggests that their love would not be sanctioned by their general community. This is typical of a homosexual relationship, both then and, in some circumstances, now. However, it is important to note that the author of this chapter found that this type of relationship between two women was not looked down upon by many in their African-American community at the time.
\nThe entirety of the chapter deals with reading notes between two African-American who had an \u201cerotic friendship\u201d. The author noticed that these women were far less subtle in their displays of affection and sexual attraction when compared to white women from the same time period. Addie\u2019s note exemplifies one of the ways in which black women, presumptuously, were more transparent with their amorous feelings towards each other in comparison to white women in the same age.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I took a closer look at a quote from Karen Hansen\u2019s \u201c\u2018No Kisses is Like Yours\u2019: An Erotic Friendship Between Two African-American Women During the Mid-19th Century\u201d. On page 187, one of the women, Addie says to the other woman in this closely examined friendship, Rebecca in a letter, \u201cYou are the first girl that … Continue reading Indications of Erotic Friendship in the 1860s<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4642,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[169398],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-96","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2021-blog-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqhistoryandliterature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqhistoryandliterature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqhistoryandliterature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqhistoryandliterature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4642"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqhistoryandliterature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=96"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqhistoryandliterature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqhistoryandliterature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqhistoryandliterature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqhistoryandliterature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}