#Denny Laine

[gardenwalrus]

Wings at Checkpoint Charlie, Berlin, March 1976

[strwbryfeels]

[sgtpeppers]

Paul McCartney, Linda McCartney & Denny Laine in the Spin It On music video, 1979.

[rolloroberson]

Paul McCartney with Wings

[beatleswings]

Official Theatrical Trailer for ONE HAND CLAPPING.

[paulic]

the most fabulous throuple of the century is now a one man act. I need to sit down

[fortheturnstiles]

shots from the music video for Helen Wheels by Wings (1973)

[tavolgisvist]

And...

[thegroovyarchives]

1976 Wings European Tour Poster (via: Heritage Auctions)

[chernobog13]

Jack Kirby drawing of Magneto with the rock group Wings (Paul and Linda McCartney, Denny Laine, Jimmy McCulloch and Joe English), probably inspired by the group's 1975 song Magneto and Titanium Man.

[bambi-kinos]

I'm going to ask some meaningless questions. Do you think Paul has had sexual relationship with other men? Do you think John was his first male sexual partner? Sometimes I think it could be, because they are best friends. Sometimes I don't think so, because John's control over Paul is too strong, leading Paul to have a strong defensive mindset towards him.

Tl;dr - I do think Paul has hooked up with other men and maybe even dated but I don't think it's anyone that he was publicly friends with.

When it comes to Paul and sex with other men, that's still a black hole making us go "wtf." Technically Paul's first sexual experiences with other men were the group circlejerks and that's actually a very common initiation experience for guys. (All men are spiritually gay. Joking...or am I?) That being said it's pretty safe to say that John was Paul's first one on one experience with another guy. John is the only person Paul trusted enough for that, Paul otherwise does rapid risk assessments and usually (though not always) decides that it's not worth it. Paul does like physical risk and adrenaline but that's more like stuntman stuff. I don't think Paul has sex with other men unless he trusts them absolutely or otherwise has reason to think he won't be harmed by it. That narrows Paul's candidate pool considerably.

I think Paul is really too canny to hook up with anyone he had public ties with. He has a quote floating around where he makes fun of the press because he knew they were looking for a secret flat and a secret mistress hidden away in it and that he was proud of strategizing around that by living with the Ashers for as long as he did. He said that all of his hook ups (with women) were done by going back to the lady's home and doing it there. So he dodged media scandal by simply not having a secret flat with a mistress and a love child hidden away.

I think that Paul would handle his male hook ups the same way. I think that he would be similarly cold and calculating like he is with his female hook ups. He makes sure there is no smoking gun. I find it telling that we only have two real examples of potential datemates for Paul that aren't John: Robert Fraser and Denny Laine. And I believe they're both disqualified based off of what we know about Paul's preferences and his canniness, at least in the context of this specific question.

I don't think that Paul had sex with Robert Fraser because 1) they were friends and 2) Bob was gay. That meant he was the obvious choice for public speculation about Paul having a gay fling. Which meant he was no choice at all in real world terms. That's not to say Paul didn't enjoy manipulating Fraser or that he wasn't willing to dangle the chance at sex in front of him as a carrot to make Fraser do what Paul wanted, but something I've noticed about Groovy Bob is that he was extremely sycophantic and a wet noodle. Paul doesn't respect a suck up. Paul respects people who are good at getting what they want and that wasn't Fraser. He didn't have much in terms of what I would call a backbone, though that doesn't mean he wasn't strong in other ways.

Paul "liked" Robert Fraser the same way Paul "loves" Nancy. Not because he is swept up in some sort of powerful emotion but because Fraser::Nancy are conduits to something Paul needs (that "need" being high society and influence.) And they happily allow Paul to dictate all the terms of their relationship with him. No matter how much of a control freak Paul is, he does not respect people who knuckle under like that. Fraser never stood up to Paul, he allowed Paul to belittle and humiliate him sexually when Paul interrogated him about his sexual experiences at school. Paul took Fraser to Paris with him explicitly to piss John off, a remarkable demonstration of how far Paul was willing to go to use another human being as a game piece in his sex games with John. And Fraser went along with it, demonstrating that he was happy and eager to be controlled and used. And look there's nothing wrong with that if that's your thing but it does indicate to me that he was not trustworthy enough for Paul to have sex with. And Paul is smart enough to know that. Paul likes people with a backbone which is why he put up with Heather Mills for so long. That's not to say that their friendship wasn't genuine or that the quote about "Robert meant freedom" wasn't based in genuine emotion, but Paul always talks about Fraser in materialistic terms. Who Fraser introduced him to, what paintings Fraser got Paul, how useful Fraser was to the Beatles business. Which says a lot about what exactly Paul meant by "freedom."

The other credible candidate that we know of is Denny Laine. It's common speculation that Denny was in a threesome with Paul and Linda which I guess would qualify him as a sexual partner to Paul? But I'm actually hesitant to award that because I don't think a threesome counts as a gay experience due to the presence of Linda. I also think that Paul would not have fucked Denny due to the same reasons he wouldn't have fucked Fraser. If Paul and Denny had sexual contact than Linda was the mitigator and Paul wouldn't have done it one on one. I respect Denny as an artist but he's not someone capable of standing up to Paul, he was permanently on the backfoot because he owed Paul his career. They both knew that and since Denny wasn't willing to give Paul attitude well... Nothing in Paul's character or behavior makes me think he would deign to fuck a sycophant. Which a Denny was, despite his talent and work ethic.

And again there's a big disqualifier that includes both of them: they were men with public ties to Paul, therefore he can't fuck them because that's a liability. Paul has sex with men who take him back to his flat and that he doesn't otherwise know and who don't necessarily care about him.

I don't think there will ever be a satisfactory answer. It's not just John's hold on Paul to consider (though I agree that matters) it's the question of "is Paul willing to fuck or be fucked by a man that isn't John?" And looking at what a control freak Paul is, how wary he is of scandal, it doesn't seem very likely that he'd hook up with other men often if at all. If Paul does have sex with other men then it's in the form of hiring male sex workers and then giving them NDAs that are longer than The Lord of the Rings. And why would he go to all that trouble when he can just have sex with a nice lady, which keeps his reputation intact?

And then there's the question of sexual fidelity and loyalty. I wonder if John was so special to Paul that he doesn't have sex with other men because he feels it would betray John and what they meant to each other. Paul was jealous of John's relationships and I feel safe assuming he hated it when John had sex with other people. So I wonder if Paul would avoid sexual encounters with other men out of loyalty to John and the tattered remains of what they once were.

Personally, I think that Paul does have sex with other men. There's one candidate in particular that I think he was enamored with and would have had a relationship with if things had gone right for once in Paul's life. But the identities of these men will never be known because Paul knows better than to leave evidence behind for anyone to find. And I think it would be infrequent because Paul would feel like he was betraying John and the exclusivity they never had.

I do wonder if Paul and Ringo started having sex in the 1990s but it's not based in anything except that they would be two injured animals comforting each other.

As you can see my answers are all over the place, I've tried to make this come together (lel!!!) into a cohesive whole but it just kind of...refuses. And that's because Paul has done such a good job of keeping this shit locked up tight.

[gardenwalrus]

Christmas card sent from Paul & Linda McCartney to Wings bandmate Denny Laine, 1970s (x) Merry Christmas + Happy Boozy Year Paul Linda Stella Mary Heather

[strwbryfeels]

[frenchcurious]

Bristol KSW5G 1953. Bus de la tournée 1972 des « Wings Over Europe » et Paul McCartney. - source Car & Classic.

[foryouwereinmysong]

I just went to see One Hand Clapping. It was so cute!

Some random thoughts I want to capture:

- I want Paul’s sweater with the daisies

- I love the saxophone player, he’s so happy to be there and be micromanaged by Paul

- how is Linda pulling off this fringe again and again

- Denny really was a cutie

- kudos to David Litchfield for showing the orchestra being bored to death while blasting Live and Let Die (the man with the glasses?!?)

- Paul is singing Baby Face about himself and he knows it, he’s behaving especially cute

- Paul going from Twenty Flight Rock to Peggy Sue … couldn’t help but wonder if John would’ve booked the next flight to London if he’d seen that tape (probably not but I wrote a whole ff in my head during that)

- Paul answering Geoff’s criticism: »chaotic, but also aggressive and fun!« (I think it went like that, plz correct me if I’m wrong)

[beatleswings]

Wings. 1972.