BS: Behan's plays and Nancyboys

Subject: BS: Behan's plays and Nancyboys
From: GUEST,sorefingers
Date: 09 Aug 04 - 07:24 PM

If I am not mistaken the term was adopted by Brendan to refer to men who liked men, but I am not certain.

Any suggestions welcome...

Subject: RE: BS: Behan's plays and Nancyboys
From: akenaton
Date: 09 Aug 04 - 07:35 PM

Dont know about Brendan , but my grand father used to refer to those people in the old Scots term " Jennywillocks"

Derivation presumably.....A little bit of "Jenny", a little bit of "William"

Why do you ask ?....Ake

Subject: RE: BS: Behan's plays and Nancyboys
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 10 Aug 04 - 07:49 AM

I think a Jennywillocks is a term for a hemaphrodite, anyway that's how I understand it. A nancy boy is an effeminite man, but not necessarily a homosexual one. The words in use for homosexual men when I was a lad were poof, and queer, along with the ruder ones like 'brown hatter' and 'shirt lifter'. As for lesbians, I never even knew they existed until I was well into my teens. Oh what a sheltered life!
Giok

Subject: RE: BS: Behan's plays and Nancyboys
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 10 Aug 04 - 02:18 PM

Let's face it: Our ancestors didn't know much about homosexuality. It wasn't much talked about in polite society. Quite likely many people didn't understand the distinction between an effeminate man and a homosexual, and so used the terms interchangeably. Or if they happened to apply the wrong label to someone, they didn't much care. Either way, such a person was beyond the pale.

Subject: RE: BS: Behan's plays and Nancyboys
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Aug 04 - 03:42 PM

Is it true that Behan himself was a fag?

Subject: RE: BS: Behan's plays and Nancyboys
From: PoppaGator
Date: 10 Aug 04 - 04:15 PM

One of my favorite words in "Ebonics" (African-American slang) is "Morphodite" (or, better yet, "Morphodyke") for a male homosexual -- a corrupted pronunciaion of "hermaphrodite," which is, of course, not exactly the same thing as "homosexual."

Subject: RE: BS: Behan's plays and Nancyboys
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 10 Aug 04 - 04:46 PM

"Morphodite" is a word I knew and used myself as a kid, growing up in St. Louis, MO, in the 1950's, but (1) I knew it referred to a hermaphrodite (though I didn't learn the proper word until later), and (2) my friends and I were white, not black. It doesn't surprise me, though, that a word like that would change its meaning over time. After all, there were no dictionaries you could use to verify the meaning.

Subject: RE: BS: Behan's plays and Nancyboys
From: Big Tim
Date: 11 Aug 04 - 08:54 AM

Brendan Behan, according to his biographer Michael O'Sullivan, was bisexual. He seems to first have had honosexual relations during his borstal years. Outwith borstal and prison, the only verifiable homosexual relationship was with a man called Peter Arthurs, whose frank account O'Sullivan quotes. Behan was also married, of course, to a woman.                                                      

Read BB's "Confessions of an Irish Rebel", nothing about homosexuality in it, or much to do with reality, but it's very funny.

Subject: RE: BS: Behan's plays and Nancyboys
From: Midchuck
Date: 11 Aug 04 - 01:05 PM

The references to "morphodites," above, rang a bell. H. Allen Smith was one of my favorite American funny writers of the last century. He spent his working life in New York, but retired to Texas in his last years, and continued writing there.

I remembered the following from his 1970 book, "Rude Jokes" - possibly one of the most accurately titled books ever published - found it and scanned it.

Peter.

Community pride is a nice thing to contemplate. Some of you have heard of this town of Alpine, not too far from here. The next community to the west of Alpine is Marfa—named for a female character in a Russian novel.

A fella in El Paso, name of Arbuckle, wrote to me recently and said: "If a citizen of Dallas is a Dailasite, and a citizen of Houston is a Houstonite, would a citizen of Marfa be a Marfadite?"
One morning at the postoffice I mentioned this to a citizen of Alpine, and it called back the days of his youth. He said that when he was in high school the football rivalry between Alpine and Marf a was intense. The Al­pine students had a special cheer which was only used in the annual game against Marfa. They would yell in unison across the field:

"Go, Marfadites, Go!"

Said the proud Alpineite there on the postoffice steps:

"Always ended up in the goddamndest fist fights you ever saw. And we won them, too."

Subject: RE: BS: Behan's plays and Nancyboys
From: GUEST,Stan Kelly
Date: 11 Aug 04 - 04:18 PM

I spent some time singing etc (ie boozing) with Dominic, Brendan's "over-shadowed" brother. Dom's biography of Bren is worth reading (one gets the impression that both were permanently pissed to the point of impotence), as is his "novel" Parable Jones. Latter more than hints that Bert Lloyd preferred horses & men -- but this I think was "revenge" following Bert's criticism of Dom's "Posterity Be Damned."
Bert's summary: "Nothing to declare."
I was in the cast of MacColl/Seeger's "Ballad of John Axon" together with Dominic and Bert. Observed at close hand the rivalry twixt them.
Dom was skeptical of the "donnish-folk" attitude of Ewan and Bert.
Eg of the latters' Chanteys: "Bejayz they'ld get f***n' sea-sick in a rowing boat"

BTW: at least when he was in UK rather than Oz, AL Lloyd seemed totally hetero -- indeed, dubbed a "womanizer" -- one can't win, can one.
Another Oirish euphemism: "amphibious!"
And, of course, the jails were full of "quare fellahs?"

Subject: RE: BS: Behan's plays and Nancyboys
From: GUEST,JTT
Date: 11 Aug 04 - 04:30 PM

"Na Poblachtánaigh homognéasaigh" are a tradition that's never been explored; an interesting one for a sociologist. When you get large groups of one sex banged up together for years on end, people will find love where they are. I don't think it means anyone's homosexual or heterosexual; but then, we all make too much of these labels at any rate.

Subject: RE: BS: Behan's plays and Nancyboys
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Aug 04 - 05:12 PM

Well if you don't mind some bloke's dick up your arse you must be queer.

Subject: RE: BS: Behan's plays and Nancyboys
From: Seamus Kennedy
Date: 12 Aug 04 - 12:05 AM

I only object when it tastes like shit.

Subject: RE: BS: Behan's plays and Nancyboys
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 12 Aug 04 - 04:19 AM

That is not just a male homosexual practice, [Guest 05:12] or so I'm told.
Giok

Subject: RE: BS: Behan's plays and Nancyboys
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 12 Aug 04 - 11:38 AM

Would someone please translate "Na Poblachtánaigh homognéasaigh"?

Subject: RE: BS: Behan's plays and Nancyboys
From: GUEST,Stan Kelly
Date: 17 Aug 04 - 04:35 AM

My friend Deirdre Murphy thinks it means "Are you a Republican Gay?"
With "Republican" as in IRA, not President Bush!
Something like that. Await better translations.
Stan Kelly

Subject: RE: BS: Behan's plays and Nancyboys
From: HRH ted of hull
Date: 17 Aug 04 - 09:54 AM

Oh dear! Another thread on shirt lifters! I am beginning to pine for the days of endless threads on Iraq!

Subject: RE: BS: Behan's plays and Nancyboys
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 17 Aug 04 - 11:46 AM

well I'm buggered if I do.

Brendan said several times that he thought he would have grown up heterosexual if he hadn't been confined during his young adult years in the nick.

however if you read Borstal Boy , I think you can sometimes feel a sensual appreciation of the company of young men that is very reminiscent of Christopher Isherwood's early stuff - when CI felt he couldn't write overtly about homosexuality.

Also he wrote mainly about men - the memorable characters in his books are men - perhaps for obvious reasons.

Not nice calling him a fag. Call him a writer of genius

Subject: RE: BS: Behan's plays and Nancyboys
From: GUEST
Date: 17 Aug 04 - 01:51 PM

Drummerboy, he also took a shine to the Borstal governor`s daughter, Brendan could kick with any foot.