Aardvark154 said:
There is a great deal of disagreement among scholars. Certainly there is no evidence that he ever acted out on it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walt_Whitman#Sexuality
-----------
Sexuality
Whitman and Peter Doyle, one of the men with whom Whitman was believed to have had an intimate relationship
Whitman's sexuality is sometimes disputed, although often assumed to be bisexual based on his poetry.[4] The concept of heterosexual and homosexual personalities was not identified distinctly until 1868, and it was not widely promoted until Whitman was an old man.
Whitman's poetry depicts love and sexuality in a more earthy, individualistic way common in American culture before the medicalization of sexuality in the late 1800s.[115]
As Whitman biographer Jerome Loving wrote, "the discussion of Whitman's sexual orientation will probably continue in spite of whatever evidence emerges."[5]
Though Leaves of Grass was often labeled pornographic or obscene, only one critic remarked on its author's presumed sexual activity: in a November 1855 review, Rufus Wilmot Griswold suggested Whitman was guilty of "that horrible sin not to be mentioned among Christians".[116]
Whitman had intense friendships with many men throughout his life. Some biographers have claimed that he may not have actually engaged in sexual relationships with men,[5] while others cite letters, journal entries and other sources which they claim as proof of the sexual nature of some of his relationships.[117]
Peter Doyle may be the most likely candidate for the love of Whitman's life, according to biographer David S. Reynolds.[118] Doyle was a bus conductor whom Whitman met around 1866 and the two were inseparable for several years. Interviewed in 1895, Doyle said: "We were familiar at once — I put my hand on his knee — we understood. He did not get out at the end of the trip — in fact went all the way back with me."[119] In his notebooks, Whitman disguised Doyle's initials using the code "16.4".[120]
A more direct second-hand account comes from Oscar Wilde. Wilde met Whitman in America in 1882, and wrote to the homosexual rights activist George Cecil Ives that there was "no doubt" about the great American poet's sexual orientation — "I have the kiss of Walt Whitman still on my lips," he boasted.[121]
The only explicit description of Whitman's sexual activities is second hand. In 1924 Edward Carpenter, then an old man, described an erotic encounter he had had in his youth with Whitman to Gavin Arthur, who recorded it in detail in his journal.[122] Late in his life, when Whitman was asked outright if his series of "Calamus" poems were homosexual, he chose not to respond.[123]
There is also some evidence that Whitman may have had sexual relationships with women. He had a romantic friendship with a New York actress named Ellen Grey in the spring of 1862, but it is not known whether or not it was also sexual. He still had a photo of her decades later when he moved to Camden and referred to her as "an old sweetheart of mine".[124]
In a letter dated August 21, 1890 he claimed, "I have had six children - two are dead". This claim has never been corroborated.[125] Toward the end of his life, he often told stories of previous girlfriends and sweethearts and denied an allegation from the New York Herald that he had "never had a love affair".[126]
