Romantic friendships (as they called them) were common in the 19th and early 20th century, with people exchanging gifts, writing what we might call love letters, kissing hands (as Sam does to Frodo), all without any sexual overtones at all.

It does say more about us than it does them, sad to say.

Perhaps the telling point is that we can’t conceive of two men having an intimate relationship without being gay and we can’t conceive of a gay relationship without obsessing about gay sex.

As far as the homosexual overtones, it is interesting to read Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Team of Rivals. Many of the men of that time wrote of the love that they had for other men. Goodwin says that it was common for those to enter intimate relationships with other men. However, it is unlikely that there was any sexual aspect to those relationships. Her conclusion is that our view of such relationships says as much about us as it does about them.

Funny enough, I’m finding that Sam isn’t nearly as servile in the books as I remembered him. Sean Astin’s version seems very close to how Tolkien portrayed him. Maybe that’s just the films coloring my memory though.

One thing to note about male love in Tolkien and etc is that (and I can’t explain this as well as my sister the medievalist could) it is also a reflection of an earlier ethos. In societies where marraige had to do with contractual economic and political alliances and sexual desire was just that, desire (not romantic love between theoretical equals), and furthermore in societies where men’s and women’s lives did not necessarily overlap on any kind of intellectual or emotional level, the strongest emotional attachment a man might have would likely be to other men. Were there, at times, sexual relationships attached to these emotional bonds? Sometimes, sure; other times, not - but I think that it isn’t in the context important. We invest it with a sexuality that may or may not have been present and which would have seemed secondary in any case.

So I think we have to be careful about viewing some of these relationships through our modern lens.

Me, on the other hand, I never liked the Sam and Frodo relationship because Sam’s servility really stuck in my craw. I must admit (heretic!) that I preferred (mostly) how Jackson depicted Sam to how Tolkien did, just like I love how Jackson dealt with Boromir (Sean Bean helped a lot). I have loads of problems with Jackson’s movie, but it’s clear to me he did read carefully and - as my sister the medievalist said after seeing Fellowship - Jackson unashamedly retained the strong male bonds that reflect the medieval ethos Tolkien was so familiar with.

That certainly true. Having read it, however…
I’ve enjoyed following along your Revisiting series, whatever disagreement I might have.