Jack, We hardly knew Y'a...

Not by coincidence, I'm sure, but a photograph of Jack Kennedy and his life long friend Lem Billings got posted on my Facebook Feed.

Of course they were just two guys horsing around. But the horsing just as obviously had a sexual inuendo. And what that means is that they were friends who did not let sex come between them.

You see, Lem was gay or, as they would have said back then and being as polite as possible, a "homosexual."

Considering the era and considering that Jack was Roman Catholic, I think it's amazing how enlightened he was and how he did not let the small matter of Lem's orientation preclude all the other things two men can agree on, share and enjoy with one another.

But the thing that drew them most to one another was one another. Lem actually repeated his last year at Choate so that he could graduate in the same class as Jack. After graduating the two took the Grand Tour together.

During the war the two were sent to different theatres but once the war was over Lem was back at Jack's side. He was completely accepted by the Kennedy's and was so much a fixture in the family that Ted Kennedy at first did not realize that Lem wasn't one of his older brothers. Nor did things change when Jack married Jackie. Lem was so much a part of the family circle that he did not even need a pass to the White House where he had his own room.

People inevitably wonder if Jack and Lem might not have had sex. Others state that Lem was asexual. I am not impressed by such agenda-driven inferences. As close as they were in the virility of youth it is not believable that the subject of their respective sexual desires did not come up. And what if they did engage in some sexual "exploration"... so fucking what? What the fuck does it matter?

Jack had no interest in Renaissance art (of that we can be sure) and Lem had no interest in politics (or so we are told). It is impossible to think that Lem was not sexually attracted to Jack. Kennedy was young and good looking; Lem was... well young and male. It is also hard to imagine a womanizer like Jack being sexually interested in guys. But who knows? maybe, for Lem's sake, he gave it a try, whatever "it" might have been. But again, so what? It certainly didn't change Jack's orientation and just goes to show the harmlessness of it all.

What we do know from what is obvious is that they enjoyed and therefore were interested in one another as... as what? as men, as just two guys.

Maybe Jack needed a listener... maybe Lem need to be confided in. Maybe it was simpler than that; maybe they just laughed at the same things. Laughter, the gift of the gods.

Looking at the photo, I'm glad they were friends and I'm glad they were being silly.

My only regret is that the relationship was not talked about or known. Given how Jack was so admired,think of how many gay men would have had their burden of shame and secrecy lifted, if they had only known that their hero did not hate them for what they were.

Jack, we hardly knew ya.


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