Jack The Ripper...Why Not Gay?

[Sam Flynn]

given your astounding knowledge of historical British gays (kidding, kidding!)

Only what I've read, MrP!

You're lucky I kept to the Brits and didn't go on to Proust, or we'd have been here forever

I still dont think Jack was gay though....

Neither do I.

[AP Wolf]

I think 'gay' is the wrong word choice.
I'd enjoy 'confused' a lot more.
Hard to imagine that we are looking at a male individual who has been through an upper class boarding school type of homosexual winnowing and honing, as most of these men either grew up into a settled pattern of homosexuality - and usually quite outrageous at that - or became true blue husbands.
It was in the middle class that the confusion reigned.
Not the upper, and certainly not the lower.
To be 'gay' in the upper class was quite 'modern'.
To be 'gay' in the lower class was the role of cannon fodder who serviced their masters; but to be 'gay' in the middle class was nowt but confusion.
So you look for a young man who was caught between the classes, in the middle, who neither serviced or served his master.
A man whose close relatives took orders from the upper class to pass onto the lower class, and sort of found himself in the middle of things, and very confused about identity, and sexual identity.

[Mr. Poster]

Hi ho AP

I like your points on upper and lower.

Indeed I fully support, whilst not detracting from SamF's points, that certain members of the upper and lowers classes might not hav ehad a problem with gayness.

Indeed it occurred to me that using literature, as we have tried, to infer how gayness might be perceived may be wrong..............as these literary types would be predisposed to viewing things differently.

They might have been more sensitive or something. Using it as a muse.

Unlike the man in the street perhaps. Who had been buggered senseless in public school/the navy and didnt think much of that or his subsequent fondness for young boys or whatever?

p

[Paul Butler]

Afternoon all.

From reading about Cleveland Street and the like, I got the distinct impression that homosexuality was considered by the late Victorian establishment as a disease of the aristocracy. That the rent boys they used were more likely to be victims, rather than anyone who might actually be enjoying what they did, or have any predisposition towards "gayness."

Anyhow, what I really wanted to hear the opinion of others about, was why JTR must have been a sexual serial killer. I accept that this is likely, probable even, but Jack was attacking women in the only area of the body accessible to him. Did he even know it was a uterus he was taking away?

When presented with a naked or near naked victim on which to perpetrate his fantasies, did he go for the "lady's bits?" No, he made a bee-line for the heart.

Add to that the lack of any evidence that he "got himself off" at the crime scenes, and it makes you wonder.

Jack's sexuality need not even be relevant.

regards.

Paul

[Doctor X]

When presented with a naked or near naked victim on which to perpetrate his fantasies, did he go for the "lady's bits?" No, he made a bee-line for the heart.

Well . . . to be fair he removed a lot of bits as well as the heart in that case, and the heart is much harder to get to.

Without knowing Jack, one is always left with uncertainty regarding his actual motives. He compares well with other sexual killers, but that will always remain a comparison.

--J.D.

[Mr. Poster]

Hi ho

We have been down this road before. The description "sexual serial killer" is not some kind of medico-legal definition....its a term used to sell books.

"Serial killers" wasnt attracting enough punters so slap "sexual" on it to really get them in.

So applying it to our man is tenuous. For a number of reasons:

1. Looking for emissions at the crime scene implies that for the crime to be sexual requires such deposits. When we know that sex does not always mean leaving it behind by choice or by biological/psychological inability. So deciding he was or wasnt "sexual" on that basis is invalid.

2. That he wasnt going for the lady bits. Thats flawed as well. Perhaps he was well into a bit of turd play or liked something else. Eminently sexual just not as we understand it.

3. Im still not sure that a) he got the chance, or b) the doctors could fin....anything he happened to leave behind. As weve argued.....10 cc's in a stomach contents or on a floor of a blood soaked room or in Kellys stomach cavity might not be noticed among fish and potatoes.

4. He may not have sought out his victims with sex in mind but then it got sexual in some way for him. Therefore he isnt killing for sexual thrills but is getting thrilled in some way as a side effect.

5. Erectile penetrative sex is not the only kind of sex there is.

6. Perhaps the killing of Eddowes etc wasnt sexual but he needed the bits he took for successfull sex later. Does that make him a sexual serial killer?

7. Caligula or Nero or someone was known to squat in the warm body cavities of freshly killed youths masturbating with handfulls of intestines. That was eminently sexual for him. Why not for our man in a similar vein?

8. At any rate.....Im still waiting to see any evidence our chap was a "serial killer" at all.

p

[Currerbell]

I am actually surprised that so many people on here have voted that they think he may have been gay!

[Stan Reid]

I voted for 3.

Homosexual serial killers tend to murder men exclusively but there are exceptions like Ottis Toole and Thierry Paulin. Each had at least a sometime partner so I don't know if that was a factor or not.

[Currerbell]

Ahh thats changed things! LOL, the favourite one was the second before.

[Dustin Gould]

Homosexual....Bi-sexual...Pansexual..."gay for pay"...(i.e. a "rough trade" hustler). With just some of these options, maybe Jack wasn't even sure himself.

[Brad McGinnis]

Its my perception Jack was asexual. His drive was fueled by a hatred of East End hookers or maybe hookers in general. Theres no evidence of sex with the vics. Perhaps he was in some way hurt by a hooker. Look at the Unibomber. I think Jack could have been the same sort.

[ferret]

I voted 2- seems the most sensible vote! I think if we wander into the sexual killer territory we wander into that slightly prurient Colin Wilson territory...........IMHO!!!

[Jane Welland]

no, I don't think so...

And so, I voted no!

Hmm, seriously, I wouldn't have thought so - too interested in women!

Jane x

[Celesta]

Its my perception Jack was asexual.

Hi Brad, I've thought so, too, from time to time. Maybe not for the same reasons, but I think it's possible.

[Currerbell]

I cant believe these results still, I dont think Ive read anywhere that he was potentially gay!