I don't mean to be sick, but, did E.A. Poe ever have a sexual encounter? It's just that I'm confused, others say he was a "sex-pervert" and others say he " found women to be ideal and pure" rather than doing that. I also heard he never had sex with his wife (Virginia) because he thought her as "Ideal and pure", and also the fact that she never had kids. Just wanted to know:)

-- Anonymous, May 15, 2001

Answers

What evidence there is suggests that a) he eventually had a healthy relationship with Virginia b)little else, though the groupies he attracted were much less innocent and pure, and sometimes vindictively jealous.

He needed to be married. He needed female companionship to discuss literature. He needed to personify his ideal of Beauty as a woman, his better soul.

I think Poe would be horrified at how much his personal life has been ghoulishly picked over by modern times he would certainly consider perverted and demeaning.

-- Anonymous, May 16, 2001

There is absolutely NO reason to think that Poe was a sexual deviant. The majority of our concern about Poe's sexual interests is the conflict between Victorian propriety and our own modern obsessions with sex.

-- Anonymous, May 20, 2001