#also did you know that pirates often were in gay relationships it was called matelotage and in this essay i will—

[charcoalstardust]

tinman! also grimjaw + jock w/ some lysander & xephos dropped in

[intolerablexsacrifice]

HEADCANON.  (cw for talk of homophobia, both societal and internalized. also i use the word ‘homosexuality’ a lot in case that bothers anyone; I just didn’t know what other word to use to help it flow better fkcnjfnfg bc ‘gayness’ didn’t seem to fit/work with the...wording. the word ‘queer’ is also used once or twice.

cw for some unhealthy mindsets re: sex during the second half, specifically related to dissociation during The Scene with miranda.)

EDIT: ALSO the things talked about here are why I tend to have Flint reject propositions unless I know the mun of the other muse very well. Since it can be argued that Flint may not be in a healthy mindset to be having sex if he consented (especially if he was drunk), I would obviously prefer to only write that with a mun who would a) be comfortable with such a potentially complicated issue and b) acknowledge its complexity and the potential problematic aspects it poses.

THIS GOT REALLY LONG (it’s... it’s over 1000 words long, Heaven help me) so I’m putting it under a cut, but it’s about:

1. Nassau’s leniency re: gay pirates 2. How Flint responds emotionally to all the rampant gay sex these pirates are having 3. How he reacts to propositions from other men

SO I was talking with a friend (hi Harri <3) about like... the widespread acceptance of homosexuality among the pirates of Nassau, both at sea and on the island itself. And naturally, things are far more lenient at sea because Necessity(TM) or whatever the fuck else (whether that’s genuinely what it is or whether that’s the excuse will vary between individuals, I’m sure), but it’s clear that homosexuality isn’t seen as a sin among the pirates/traders on the island. 

Canonically, we only actually have evidence for that among the women, because Black Sails never gives us any other mlm aside from James and Thomas: Max, Eleanor and Anne are never ostracized for engaging with other women. Although it’s clear that Anne suffers from internalized shame and the effects of compulsory heterosexuality, those are likely things that came from outside of/before Nassau that she carried there with her. 

Now, it could be argued that the inhabitants of Nassau aren’t actually more lenient of homosexuality- from the sources I’ve been reading for a dissertation lately, homosexuality between women wasn’t really punished in 18th century... whatever the fuck it was called at the time (the New World? whatever I don’t care about the history I’m sorry). Not to the extent or with the frequency that male-on-male homosexuality was, for sure (though even that wasn’t really punished as often or as severely as the law apparently should’ve dictated, with the death penalty being rare and floggings/exile being more likely- which would explain James’ “don’t be naive” comment, and Miranda’s insistence that political motive meant they could be hanged). It’s possible that it was a case of like “hmm well it’s women and there’s no penetration involved or pregnancy so it doesn’t count!” nonsense or whatever the fuck else. 

BUT I’m going to argue against that, because fuck that, and I genuinely don’t think canon gives us any evidence that there wouldn’t be acceptance of male-on-male homosexuality in Nassau considering the complete lack of any adverse reactions to it among the pirates. Like, even with that one guy who’s like “:/ listen I’m gonna go fuck Charlotte or I’m gonna fuck you”, there’s no ‘ew that’s gay’ comment/joke, it’s just kind of like “i see your point, go have fun with Charlotte”. 

I’d argue that the Puritan farmers/etc of the interior are most likely against homosexuality based on how Pastor Lambrick or w/e his name acts after he literally seeks Miranda out to fuck her - but the pirates and traders in the street, and on the beach? Nah son.

ANYWAY I’VE KIND OF BEEN TALKING FOR LONG ENOUGH let me get to the fuckin’ point I wanted to make: how Flint reacts to all the gay sex his crew are having onboard.

Because like... that’s absolutely happening, right? Someone literally fucks a goat on the ship, there’s no g-ddamn way they aren’t also fucking each other (thank you Harri for pointing that out). And they’re at sea, and situational homosexuality is a thing even if the men are otherwise straight or whatever the fuck. So one way or another, there are men fucking on the ship. There are men fucking on the island. There’s matelotage (whether it’s actually used between partnered queer couples or not). There are canon WLW couples whose relationships are acknowledged by other people, and I choose to believe the same applies to MLM. 

Flint has internalized shame surrounding his love for Thomas. We know this. We know that it’s a small part of him- he still believes whole-heartedly that the rest of the world was wrong, that what he and Thomas had was good and right. It’s just impossible for that to be the whole of it- Flint could not come out of the trauma and exile he went through without some part of him being made to feel like a monster because of how he was treated, even though he knows that they were wrong. 

That shame, as well as his grief and guilt and trauma, is part of what prevents him from seeking out other men even though he could. Trauma/PTSD also adversely affected his libido in general as well as his capacity for building relationships, so it’s not like it’s something he feels like he wants to seek out (except for when he does, and then the guilt comes crashing back down on him). We don’t see him make advances on anyone in canon. The one person he does sleep with is Miranda, and I’ve talked before about how that’s not because of an attraction to her, nor do I believe it to be the case for her, either: they’re doing it because it’s their only connection to Thomas (again, thank you, Harri). The only way they can still love him is through loving one another. 

And unfortunately, to me, Flint is dissociating throughout that scene, at least to some degree, just as I don’t think Miranda wants to be sleeping with him so much as Thomas (hence why she then sleeps with Lambrick- he looks a lot like Thomas. That has to be intentional). I don’t think sex is something he does with a completely healthy mindset. Not just with Miranda - which is the point I’ve been trying to get to, because ultimately I think if Flint has had sexual contact with other men, he was either:

a) Drunk, which points to a bad mindset in itself as discussed in this headcanon post here b) Otherwise in a bad mindset/just kind of going with the flow//desperate and upset

So while Flint is obviously accepting of men being gay as hell on his crew, etc etc, there’s a bittersweetness that comes with that and there’s definitely an aversion to engaging in sexual contact with men himself. Harri asked me how he’d react to being propositioned by a member of the crew, and the answer is most likely that he would essentially shut down, reject them, and flatly conjure a story so that the two of them wouldn’t speak of it again (as he did with Kili when propositioned - he essentially told him ‘you’re drunk’, which he wasn’t, and ‘you’ve mistaken me for someone else’, which he hadn’t, so that they’d never talk about it).

Now part of this is because of all of the shame and guilt and trauma I’ve been talking about, buuut it’s also because there’s the chance that whoever’s propositioning him isn’t doing it because they like men, or because they like him. He has no interest in being someone’s physical gratification when, were they on land, they would choose a woman and be disgusted by the thought of being with a man. Flint left that shit behind (welcome to the Navy) the second he found Thomas, and he’s genuinely afraid of it happening again. He’s afraid of trusting someone like that--because there is a trust involved, even if it’s just a clumsy fumbling of hands in the dark--only to later realise that they’re not the same after all, that whoever he just slept with finds him monstrous. 

So he avoids that possibility at all costs. This has been my 1000+ word headcanon post about gay piracy thanks for coming to my TED talk.

[thetiniestcicada]

OK, so pirates were actually a super advanced society when it came to sexuality. They actually had the option consenting unions between sailors for one, and they didn't shy away from turning to one another for sexual pleasure. I mean heck, you're out at sea for months with no contact with the outside world, why not enjoy it right? So it really wasn't that people joined pirates to be free of homophobia but rather pirate culture was already in a way that was more accepting of it.

And did you know that the term mate, or matey was derived from the progressive culture aboard pirate ships, and technically refers to the union of two sailors. It originated in French from the term matelotage. Which back in the 1600's was used as term to represent a formalized union between two men

And to be clear it was a thing. Men turning to pirate life in order to escape homophobia, death, and ridicule for being gay. In fact it was a common thing in English fleets where homosexuality was punishable by death.

Sooo all in all, the answer to the whole thing is yes. Men did become pirates to escape, but also because relationships based on honest affection could be legalized and formalized under the pirate fag, thus essentially allowing open gay marriage to happen in a time where death was likely the other side anywhere else.

-- there weren't any women on the ship (there was a superstion that a woman on board brings bad luck, too) and most of the pirates weren't the ones with a lot of virtue, so acts of so-called-then-sodomy happened quite often. The same goes for Navy sailors and marines ( I'm talking about 18th and 19th century now for this is my field of interest) and the same goes for Roman Empire soldiers, whom were even encouraged to bond closer with their army bros because they were more efficient in the fight

yooo holy shit thank you so much for the pirate facts everyone!!! this is super fascinating!!!!