Jeremey McMillan (youth) wants to know

>Wasn't Chopin gay or bi? I know he had a nine or ten year affair with
>novelist George Sand (Dudevant), but the author of every biography I've
>read about Chopin questioned his sexuality.

I, who have read a great many books on Chopin, including a collection of
his letters, don't think he was gay.  He had a gentle soul, although his
polonaises, etc.  show him capable of fury, and his sweet, introspective
melodies reflect the mindset of a genuis - sometimes called "a poet of the
piano".  He was in love (with women) several times and lived with a woman,
not that that neccessarily means anything.  He ran with a crowd that wasn't
gay.  He was perhaps shy and introverted, no doubt making some think he had
a secret life.

The gay thing comes from the attempt by some to associate him with the gay
community to add a feather in the cap of the gay community and from some
to reject any man who can play the piano, cook an omlet, play chess, and
listen to classical music as gay, as if it makes their macho, sports fan
mentailty more traditional and normal.  What is lost in all of this, due
to the process identified by George Orwell (1984) is the surpression of the
"Renaissance Man" concept.  There was a time in history where a gentleman
spoke French, played an instrument, liked art, rode a horse, fought with
a sabre or foil (as an exercise), hunted game, followed politics and had
an understanding of nature and science.  Thomas Jefferson comes to mind.
Democracy tends to reduce everything to the mindset of the average, called
normal (statistically true), and everybody else as gay, elitest, snobish,
nerdy, bookwormish, etc.  Usually, when I improvise at the piano in the
style of Chopin, say at a party, the women gather around.  Then when I join
the men for a drink, I can feel the distance they place between me a them.
Their topic is always sports, a real man's interest.

As many have said, Chopin's sexuality doesn't matter, nor does it to me (I
am not gay) but I resent the implication that any man who doesn't spend all
his time watching ball games as potentially gay.  That is, in part, where
the stigma of CM comes from.  Whatever happened to the Renaissance Man as
a desirable role model?

BTW I don't have anything against gays and hope that I have not
unintentionally offended anyone.  As Oscar Wilde said about homosexuality,
"I don't care what two people do as long as they don't do it in the street
and frighten the horses"

Bill Pirkle