Gay Pirates Were Very Real, and We’ve Even Got the Sea Shanty to Prove It

If you’re someone who is extremely online, or just a general fan of TikTok, by now you’ve caught onto the sea shanty trend that’s been going around. In fact, a tweet proclaiming “2021 is the year of the sea shanty” has gotten over 300K likes at the time of this article — and it’s not hard to see why.

2021 is the year of the sea shanty pic.twitter.com/ohOAGvkbtC

— Tim – Poster of Hugo Pics (@Beertheist) January 11, 2021

Not only are they fun and catchy, but some of them also happen to be incredibly informative. Take this one from TikTok user Alyse Knorr:

@alyseknorr

seriously though it’s true. #pirateshanty #pirateshantytiktok #seashantytiktok #seashanty #shanty #shantytok #shantytiktok #gay #trans #queer #lgbt

♬ Pirates All Were Gay – Alyse Knorr

“The heteronormative pirate myth is a fucking lie,” she sings. “And they married each other on pirate ships, and kissed with the taste of rum on their lips, and they held hands while they raided towns, ‘cause pirates all were gay.”

Um … sounds good to us. So we decided to do a little research to find out just how gay these gay pirates were.

Turns out, the answer is very gay. In fact, some historians even believe that same-sex relationships between pirates were the norm during the 17th and 18th centuries. Gayety, in the article A Brief History of Gay Pirates in the Golden Age of Piracy, goes on to point out that homosexual relationships were very much illegal (and punishable by death) during this time — much like most other pirate activities. These people, who lived outside of the boundaries of societal norms, also apparently lived outside the boundaries of heteronormativity, and were a lot more progressive than they’ve been given credit for.

Some pirates engaged in matelotage, a form of civil union which started out as a financial partnership. If something were to happen to one of the pirates within this partnership, the other half would inherit the majority of their wealth. However, many matelotage relationships were also sexual in nature. The ceremony itself involved the exchanging of gold rings and a pledge of eternal union.

RELATED: This Gay Porn Parody Reminds Us Pirates Were Pretty Damn Progressive

There were also gay pirates like Mary Read and Anne Bonny who cross-dressed as men, and might have had a sexual relationship with one another.

As Knorr begins in her sea shanty, books, movies, and video games have painted a very different, very straight version of pirate history that is actually so much less interesting than the truth. Long live gay pirates

Who would you like to see cast in the gay pirates version of Pirates of the Caribbean?

Featured image taken from the Men.com film Pirates: A Gay XXX Parody

This article was originally published on November 22, 2020. It has since been updated.