Introducing 'Brother-Love': If 'No-Homo' Were Invented in the Victorian Era

Working off of information surrounding nineteenth century intimate male friendships provided by E. Anthony Rotundo’s 1989 article “Romantic Friendship: Male Intimacy and Middle-Class Youth in the Norther United States, 1800-1900,” as well as ideas of female intimacy of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in Julian Carter’s 2005 article “On Mother-Love: History, Queer Theory, and Nonlesbian Identity,” the concept of “brother-love” encompasses important components of intimate male friendships during the Victorian period. Hidden physical and emotional intimacy were vital to these intimate friendships, in ways differing from Carter’s “mother-love” as explored in this project. Anna Clark’s concept of “Twilight Moments” (2005) will help explain “brotherlove” as it is compared to Carter’s “mother-love.” “Brother-love” is a response to contemporary terms and concepts queer scholars use when focusing on historical moments, and it provides an alternative frame of reference for intimate and romantic male friendships while extracting contemporary influence of same-sex relations.