Ted Heath

[Hu]

For what it's worth... I was poking through some archives and found this, from last year.

Why can't we accept the fact that Ted Heath just had no interest in sex?

Express, The (London, England) - April 26, 2007

Author: Andrew Roberts

WAS Edward Heath, prime minister between 1970 and 1974, an active homosexual who used to seek sex partners in public lavatories? Brian Coleman, a Tory London Assembly member, has made the claim that in the Fifties Heath was caught cottaging by the police and it was only the threat to his political career that ended his practice of soliciting men for sex. It is a remarkable accusation to make, on the basis of no proof whatsoever, beyond what Coleman claims was common knowledge in the Conservative Party. In fact, far from there being any common knowledge on the subject, Ted Heath's sexuality was for decades a standard topic of speculation among his closest colleagues. It is a safe bet that if he had been in the regular practice of picking up young men in public places and having sex with them a practice that carried a jail term in the Fifties someone, somewhere would have remarked on it on some occasion in the past half century, not least once Heath had become prime minister. Even in the days when the police force did not leak information as they routinely do today it is unlikely that such a scandalous story would stay secret for 50 years. In the opinion of many who knew him well, Heath was neither heterosexual nor homosexual but in fact asexual. In an age obsessed with sex, we too often forget that it is perfectly possible for some people to be utterly uninterested in that whole side of life. Yet common sense and everyday experience tells us that there are many people in our society for whom sexuality simply does not matter. TO ASCRIBE repression or homosexuality or as Coleman does repression and homosexuality betrays a profound misunderstanding of what a large number of people are really like. As Heath's biographer, John Campbell, points out: "It is a delusion of our time, promoted by the popular media, that sex is a matter of dominating importance to everyone." The thing that took the place of sex in Ted Heath's life was politics. It was to his political career that he dedicated the passion, commitment and attention that other people concentrate on their partners and love lives. "He was too single-mindedly preoccupied with pursuing his career to spare much time for much social recreation, " writes Campbell, "let alone the encumbrances of a wife and family." I once asked Sir Brian Warren, Ted Heath's doctor from 1959, about the theory that Heath suffered from a rare form of thyroid complaint that made sufferers put on fat around their chin and jowls, become ill-tempered, speak in a deep voice and lose their libido, all of which symptoms seemed to apply to him in acute form. Warren said he had never tested his patient for it but certainly did not discount the possibility. A total or neartotal loss of libido would explain Heath's lack of a sex life far better than unsubstantiated claims that on becoming a Privy Councillor he gave up his practice of gay cruising. Asexuality is not an unusual phenomenon among politicians, although few of them take it to quite the degree of Heath, who quite possibly died a virgin. Most politicians do get married and it is only afterwards their spouse discovers that the true love that their politician husband or wife bears is not for them or even for a boyfriend or a mistress but for their own careers. Indeed, of all the psychological oddities that drive someone to want to exercise political power over the rest of us, asexuality is one of the least dangerous and weird. Megalomania, a yearning for public recognition, social inferiority complexes, mother fixations; all these can be seen daily on all benches of today's Commons chamber and many more disorders besides. The attraction for gays to out dead statesmen as having been homosexual, often on little or no evidence, is that by doing so they create the impression that very many public figures were repressed homosexuals who would have been openly gay but for the social conventions of the day. Heroes of the past such as Lord Kitchener, Robert BadenPowell, Lord Wavell, General Montgomery and many others have thus been confidently appropriated by the gay lobby when in fact they were either heterosexual or asexual. Because there is no asexual lobby, who demand no rights and want no special privileges from society but just wish to be left alone, no one argues their case. Instead, great British statesmen are co-opted posthumously into a cause that they would not have supported when alive. Although Heath was no hero and a spectacularly unsuccessful premier, he should not be the latest victim of this baleful phenomenon. AMONG the prime ministers that have been claimed as being gay are William Pitt the Younger, Lord Rosebery, Benjamin Disraeli and Harold Macmillan. Although it is true that the first three did form close and strong friendships with men throughout their lives, and Macmillan left Eton under mysterious circumstances thought to be connected with sex, none was in fact gay under any modern understanding of the term. Often, misunderstandings arise from the surprisingly personal, romantic-sounding way that Victorian men sometimes addressed one another, with playful nicknames and expressions of affection. It did not mean that same-sex physical relations were ever on their mind. (Rosebery and Disraeli had remarkably happy marriages; Macmillan's was more problematic but it lasted. ) Of course, since the dead can't sue, it is legally permissible to say anything one likes about the sexuality of any deceased public figure. Yet it adds a new terror to death that someone can be accused of performing then-criminal acts such as cottaging on the proof of absolutely nothing besides hearsay.

[iff]

interesting. thanks for posting

[asexual1976]

Yay ! Finally someone who who understands that not everyone that isn't heterosexual is automatically gay ! Let's give this guy our "Asexual Visibility Award" for the year :)

[Eddie7]

The Express making sense? Something has gone very wrong.

[Sally]

"becoming a Privy Councillor he gave up his practice of gay cruising." In public bathrooms? Privy councillor -- bathrooms -- oh well.

[Shaggy]

"becoming a Privy Councillor he gave up his practice of gay cruising." In public bathrooms? Privy councillor -- bathrooms -- oh well.

LOL Sally, ... I think it maybe just us ... the old ones ... :P

Great article though Hu, ...

Ted Heath also shared my passion for Ocean Racing,

and here I was going to insert a wee nautical double-entendre, ... but I won't. :D

[Beardless]

Sally, it does appear that the old ones are indeed the old ones. In the case of puns, anyhow.

An article where asexuality comes up, but is not the subject (the subject is mutterings about Ted Heath). I think that asexuality has just proven that it is more known than we expected.

[ily]

<i>Because there is no asexual lobby, who demand no rights and want no special privileges from society but just wish to be left alone, no one argues their case.</i>

Ha, obviously they haven't met me. ;)