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