#panasexuality

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Mythological figures:

Most of the Greek Gods including Apollo - The Greek myths. Loki - Also genderfluid.  The Edda mentions Loki spending years as a woman “Birthing and milking like a cow.”  Loki also gave birth to the eight legged horse, Sleipnir, and fathered several children.   He was married to Sigyn.   ________________________________  Historical people:    Anne Bonny - History Channel’s real Pirates of the Caribbean. Was lovers with Mary Reed and Calico Jack.       Mary Reed  - History Channel’s real pirates of the Caribbean. Was lovers with Anne Bonny and Calico Jack.  Johann Georg Faust (Faustus) - Basis for the German legend of Faust. According to actual documents from the era he was banned from Ingolstadt Bavaria for negromancy (black magick) and sodomy.

Leonardo Da Vinci - Arrested for Sodomy but thanks to his political connections no witnesses would testify against him.  He was ultimately released.  (Historically documented.)   Freddie Mercury  - Several books, implied in songs like (bicycle race), and even his former lovers.  David Bowie - Came out of the closet on live TV and repeated the statement in many interviews.  Later he claimed to be a “closet straight man” but toward the end of his life said he was bi but monogamously straight. (Unfortunately Bowie was of an era that associated being bisexual with being promiscuous and the weird stigma that bisexual people can’t be monogamous.)   Mick Jagger - Angie Bowie (David Bowie’s first wife) caught him naked in bed with her husband. For years Mick Jagger denied the claims but roughly ten years ago admitted it really happened.  Vincent Price - Confirmed as bisexual by his daughter.

Roddy McDowall - (probably Vincent Price’s lover) - According to the Fright Night “You’re so cool, Brewster” documentary Roddy would have two dinner parties a week. One for straights, one for gays.  According to Victoria Price, when she confronted Roddy about her father’s sexuality he said  “You know, we didn't have any idea what bisexuality meant in that sense, and if we didn't know, then how can we know the answer to that question."  Oscar Wilde - Married and had children but also had male lovers and was even eventually arrested for it.  His own novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray was used against him at his trial.   Lord Alfred Douglas - Oscar Wilde’s lover, whom in the love letters was referred to as “Bosie.”  Julius Caesar - I’m only going to list a few emperors here because most Roman Emperors had male lovers and it would make this list very long.   Nero - This is not a very nice one.  After he murdered his own wife he had his favorite male slave, Sporus, made into a complete eunuch (removed Penis and testicles), so that he could legally marry him under Roman law. (A loophole that if he didn’t have male genitalia he could marry him as a woman).  Virginia Woolf - From the list 13 Bisexual icons Giacomo Casanova Lou Reed - Many exlovers of varying gender and sexual identities have come forward. Walt Whitman 

Josephine Baker  Sir Alec Guinness - Though married to a woman he was reported to have had many male partners. Billie Holiday - Openly attracted to men and women. Nina Simone  Lady Gaga  King James - Infamously believed to have had an affair with a male cousin (whom he had sleep in a room connected to his own and supposed to have said he loved more than any woman).  The clergy of King James (who were working on the English translation of The Bible) apparently deliberately exaggerated, embellished and sometimes outright added anti-homosexual content to The King James Bible in an attempt to discourage the affair.      Hans Christian Andersen - According to some recovered “love letters” he sent passionate love letters to several women and at least one man. Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach.  This revelation about Hans’ sexuality accounts for his version of the Cupid story in which an attraction to a boy causes an old man’s death and his final words to be “What a naughty boy Cupid is!”

Alan Turing - Convicted of the “crime” of homosexuality.   Edna St. Vincent Millay Alfred Kinsey John Maynard Keynes ___________________________

Speculative:  Mary Shelley - She infamously had lesbian friends and preached free love. This doesn’t necessarily prove bisexuality but she did sometimes talk about finding other women attractive. Bram Stoker - A popular theory is that Renfield in Dracula was created as a means for him to come to terms with his attraction to actor, Henry Irving, whom he based Dracula’s physical appearance on.

Susan B. Anthony - Her rivals spread rumors about her lesbianism.   It is a fair debate that she may have been bisexual.    William Shakespeare  Malcolm X - At least two websites about sexuality have suggested he was bisexual.  Wolfgang Von Goethe   

Lord Byron  Percy Shelley  

Channing Tatum - Rumored

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Literary characters: (Pre-1972 because before then is when they still had to be discrete about such things.) Mephistopheles in Goethe’s 2 part version of Faust - repeatedly confirmed in the actual two part drama.  The urFaust mentions the pleasures of sex with women and men.  Mephisto flirts with Marthe (Martha) and at the end of part 2 he is sexually aroused and attracted to male presenting angels.   In some versions of the Faust legend, when Faust says he wants a wife, Mephisto leaves and returns in a dress.  One theory about Goethe’s Faust is if Mephisto was able to claim Faust as his prize he would have “Kept” him. Dorian Gray in Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray - Currently this requires reading between the lines but apparently earlier editions of the novel were more blatant about the sexuality.  The novel was ultimately used as evidence against Oscar Wilde in a trial that got him convicted of the “crime” of homosexuality.    Basil Hallward - the character in The Picture of Dorian Gray was probably gay (no sign of female attraction).  Early editions of The Picture of Dorian Gray made his sexual attraction to Dorian Gray very blatant.

Lord Henry - Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray.  Though a married man, Lord Henry gave Dorian a cigarette case that was engraved with “The World has changed because you are made of ivory and gold. The curve of your lips rewrite history.”  This line (and many other Oscar Wilde quotes) would later be used in the film Velvet Goldmine, loosely based on the early career of biseuxal rock star, David Bowie.  

Alan Campbell - A gay (or bisexual) man whom Dorian blackmails with what is implied to be a list of his former lovers in the Picture of Dorian Gray, in order to force him to help get rid of Basil’s body. Alan eventually would commit suicide in the story.  Carmilla and Laura -  From the novel Carmilla.  Probably lesbian but worth noting.   Carmilla was sexually attracted to Laura and Laura hinted that the attraction was reciprocated.  Carmilla would later be portrayed as bisexual in some media such as The Batman vs. Dracula. 

Renfield - in the novel Dracula it’s often speculated that Renfield was sexually attracted to “The master.”   There is a deleted scene of the 1992 Bram Stoker’s Dracula movie where he admits to being spurned and having “lost him to that pretty woman.”  The song The Master’s Song in Frank Wildhorn’s Dracula the musical is very homo-errotic.  

Dracula - Frank Wildhorn’s Dracula The Musical (particularly the German production Dracula das Musical) has many bisexual and gay overtones. Dracula has male and female brides (and grooms) in his castle.  The scene where Dracula feeds on Jonathan Harker (Blut AKA Fresh Blood) is very homo-errotic) yet Dracula is also heavily attracted to Mina in this version of the story.  Renfield’s song “The Master’s song is very homoerrotic and in fact it looks like he’s about to kiss Dracula when Dracula kills him in the play. There’s a deleted scene in the 1992 Dracula movie where Renfield admits to feeling spurned by Dracula who has chosen a woman over him.  And director Dario Argento said his version of Dracula is bisexual.  

Ozma - Though not quite bisexual, L. Frank Baum’s Oz books (which include The Wonderful Wizard of Oz), Ozma is the rightful heir to Oz and spent most of her life disguised magically as a boy and when the spell was lifted she had to adjust to being female.  This provided a social commentary on behaviors considered acceptable in males but not females, and may have been an early allegory for being Trans.

Belasco - The ghost in the novel Hell House by Richard Matheson was supposed to have (in life) dabbled in all sort of “sexual deviance” with men and women and was implied to be attracted to the protagonist, Ben (played by Roddy McDowall in the film adaptation The Legend of Hell House).