Much controversy has been made of Whitman's sexuality over the years. No doubt, this is because of his tendency to praise beauty in all its forms, be it a male or female body. While there's no evidence pointing any direction, scholars have long wondered about exactly what sort of love life Walt Whitman had.
Personally, I couldn't care less about what Walt did or didn't do in the privacy of his bedroom. I'm an equal-rights kind of guy, and I have no opinion whatsoever about another person's sexuality. But when I mention Walt Whitman to some people, they automatically want to point out that he was "the first gay poet" or something along those lines.
The truth is, we know very little about Whitman's love life. He never married, and the fact that he received several visits from Oscar Wilde is usually the "nudge-nudge wink-wink" used by biographers, lecturers, and critics to declare him a homosexual.
I wanted to get this blog post out to make it clear that I have no interest in the private life of Whitman. Instead of focusing on what we can never know, shouldn't we instead celebrate the amazing poetry he created? I think the answer to that question is a simple "Yes."
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