# Was Audie Murphy Gay? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 8, 2011, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-audie-murphy-gay/591994 "2011-08-08T21:30:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2011, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-audie-murphy-gay/591994/81 "2011-08-12T01:59:51Z")
Plutarch had earlier sources, and there are few primary sources for anything in classical history. I still don’t see what’s supposed to be “ironic” about that. ---
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2011, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-audie-murphy-gay/591994/82 "2011-08-12T02:00:31Z")
ETA: ‘Pussified’ in re: ancient sources, not SDMB posters. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2011, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-audie-murphy-gay/591994/83 "2011-08-12T02:34:39Z")
Plutarch’s stuff about Alexander liking guys wasn’t a smear in his cultural context. It was just matter of fact. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2011, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-audie-murphy-gay/591994/84 "2011-08-12T02:47:29Z")
[QUOTE=handsomeharry] Do you read history the same way you read posts? [/QUOTE] This wasn’t addressed to me, but I’m wondering if you read history at all. You do not seem to have much understanding of historiography. Had the primary sources from Alexander’s own lifetime not only survived but had one of them been entitled \*“I’ll Never Leave My Friend’s Behind: An Intimate Look in the Private World of Hepheastion and Alexander (aka Hephander)” \*how would you know for sure it was accurate? ---
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2011, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-audie-murphy-gay/591994/85 "2011-08-13T13:57:59Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > This wasn’t addressed to me, but I’m wondering if you read history at all. You do not seem to have much understanding of historiography. > > Had the primary sources from Alexander’s own lifetime not only survived but had one of them been entitled \*“I’ll Never Leave My Friend’s Behind: An Intimate Look in the Private World of Hepheastion and Alexander (aka Hephander)” \*how would you know for sure it was accurate? undergrad degree in History. Uh…do \*you \*understand historiography? Knock it off…you are married to the idea that Alexander the Great was a penis lover, and nothing will change that. hh ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2011, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-audie-murphy-gay/591994/86 "2011-08-13T14:38:51Z")
> [@handsomeharry](#): > > Knock it off…you are married to the idea that Alexander the Great was a penis lover, and nothing will change that. Are you married to the idea that he wasn’t? Like I said above, nothing is definite. But the inferences are pretty strong and fit in well with what can be discerned from the cultural context of the time. Doesn’t mean he didn’t like girls, either. The strongest evidence for that is that he apparently spawned a bastard son with an older mistress. Much better evidence than his official heir ( duty being duty ). ---
**Author:** ![jimpatro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b9e5f3/32.png) [@jimpatro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jimpatro)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2011, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-audie-murphy-gay/591994/87 "2011-08-13T18:29:54Z")
The definition of a “real man” is the same as of a “real woman”. So why would homosexuality have anything to do with it. Sounds like your friend probably thinks a lot of himself. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2011, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-audie-murphy-gay/591994/88 "2011-08-13T20:17:08Z")
> [@handsomeharry](#): > > undergrad degree in History. > Uh…do \*you \*understand historiography? Enough to understand that in the absence of primary sources the oldest secondary sources that cited them are given weight. There were any numbers of impossible legends about Alex- that he sailed the sky in a basket pulled by eagles, that he walked the bottom of the sea in a diving bell, etc., but the tales of Hepheastion and Bagoas are in a different league of believability. Given that there are any number of men-men-men-men-manly-men-men-men whose homosexuality is or was confirmed and in the modern era rather than one with more sliding sexuality scales Alex can safely be spared from the attached documents of the Gays in the Military Agenda. [QUOTE=handsomeharry] Knock it off…you are married to the idea that Alexander the Great was a penis lover, and nothing will change that. hh [/QUOTE] I prefer “cocksucker” to “penis lover”. And believe it or not it’s really not an important issue in my life one way or the other. I happen to think he probably was actively bisexual because the accounts indicate it and there’s no particular reason to doubt them on the topic, but if it turned out he was straighter than the path to hell it doesn’t affect my life or my beliefs one way or the other. It does seem important to you however to discount that he was. Not a rhetorical question when I ask, why the importance of disproving it? > [@Tamerlane](#): > > Doesn’t mean he didn’t like girls, either. The strongest evidence for that is that he apparently spawned a bastard son with an older mistress. Much better evidence than his official heir ( duty being duty ). May even have been as much pleasure as duty. Oscar Wilde was (to quote Pratchett) “gayer than a tree full of monkeys on nitrous oxide” and managed to knock his wife up twice in one year. Louis XIV’s brother Philippe was flaming- (literally- he once attended a court function in drag with a candelabra in his hair) and kept a notoriously gay court in Paris that included boys dressed as Ganymede, yet he had both legitimate children and bastards,. ---
**Author:** ![Audie\_Schonefeld](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dc4da7/32.png) [@Audie\_Schonefeld](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Audie_Schonefeld)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2012, 7:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-audie-murphy-gay/591994/89 "2012-03-29T07:52:30Z")
I am new to this group. I do not know either way if Audie Murphy was bi/gay. I’d just like to know since I am gay, my Father named me after Audie, and knew Him before He died. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2012, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-audie-murphy-gay/591994/90 "2012-03-29T18:03:19Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > Audie Murphy got drunk in a bar one night in Los Angeles. He was feeling rowdy so he got in a fight with very man in it, 86 in total, simultaneously kicking all their asses. He then proceeded to sleep with them one by one. When it was over, they had all turned gay and he was still straight. True story. And that boys and girls is how getting tossed from a bar came to be know as being '86’d. Note. That’s a joke. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2012, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-audie-murphy-gay/591994/91 "2012-03-29T21:49:59Z")
> [@Audie\_Schonefeld](#): > > I am new to this group. I do not know either way if Audie Murphy was bi/gay. I’d just like to know since I am gay, my Father named me after Audie, and knew Him before He died. Hello **Audie Schonefeld** , and welcome to the Straight Dope! The consensus seems to be that there is no known evidence indicating that Murphy was gay or bisexual, although of course there’s never any way to be 100% certain. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-audie-murphy-gay/591994.md?page=4)