After we retired and I was convinced by his poor attempt at snoring that he was not asleep, I gently placed by arm around his great manly form. This was enough. He turned toward me, placed his arms around my neck, pressed his lips against my own and — forgot to snore. For once I had met my match. We slept but little more, and the next morning when my brother asked him how he had rested, he glanced at me and said, “I never spent a more pleasant night.”

Image: photographer, sitters unknown
Text: Excerpt describing an encounter from 1895,
‘The Story of a Life,’ by Claude Hartland, the first known autobiography written in America by a self-described homosexual man.
Excerpted from ‘Love Stories: Sex Between Men Before Homosexuality’
by Jonathan Ned Katz

Tagged: bed, Claude Hartland