Link to the n*de men
In high school I read Escape to Utopia by Everett Webber, about Icaria, New Harmony, and the many other attempts to create a perfectt society that sprang up in 19th century America. They were usually founded by a reincarnated Jesus Christ, or God himself (or herself). Most were communal, s*xually adventurous, and, at least according to Webber, wacky.
The Koreshans believed that "we live inside," on the concave surface of the cosmic egg, even after the Messiah Cyrus Teed failed to come back to life three days after his passing.
Thomas Lake Harris and the Brotherhood of the New Life worshipped Lady Pink Ears, queen of the rabbit fairies.
The Shakers practiced a radical separation of the men and women (they could never touch each other) and regulated everything (climb out of bed on the left side, with your right foot hitting the floor first). Their energetic dance-worship drew the attention of many ghosts, iincluding Founding Fathers George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, who chatted with them and recited poetry.
Could we go back to the "never touch a woman" rule?
I read more about the Shakers later, and visited one of the restored Shaker Villages, Sabbathday Lake in Maine. And last night I saw The Testament of Ann Lee (2025), a sort of musical biopic about the founder of the Shakers.
Yes, it has gay interest.
Ann Lee was born in Manchester, England in 1735, and went to work in the cotton factory when she was five years old. She had seven siblings, but she was only close to her younger brother William, who followed her everywhere.
She longed to be close to God, but didn't know how. The rituals in the Anglican Church were meaningless. Women were not permitted to learn to read, so she couldn't consult the Bible. All she knew was that a barrier of some sort kept her broken, unable to experience Divine Love.
One night Ann saw her father (Willem van der Vegt) engaging in marital relations with her mother.Points for showing all of Dad's body and none of the wife's..
It was a sordid, bestial act; she imagined the Serpent tempting Adam in the Garden of Eden. The next morning, when Ann called him out on his sin, he beat her.
Years passed, and the young adult Ann took a job as a cook in an infirmary, where she was overwhelmed by human suffereing. But she also heard about the Shaking Quakers or Shakers, a radical group that believed that God was male and female, so men and women had equal access to the Divine.
Ann and William had found a home.
She married a fellow Shaker, the blacksmith Abraham (Christopher Abbott, top photo), but was disgusted when he insisted on performing the same sordid, bestial act that she saw her father performing years ago.
One of his apprentices loaned him a book about b*ndage and s*x games. Maybe adding pain to the act would make it a sort of penance and ease her disgust? But she didn't enjoy the n*de spanking.
Ann bore four children, but they all passed away in infancy. This proved that the act could never be holy.
More after the break
Meanwhile William (now played by Lewis Pullman) found a boyfriend, played by Hungarian dancer Gergely Cserhati (below).
Ann did not disapprove of men loving men, but advised that if they gave in to their carnal desires, the love they shared would be destroyed, just as her love for her husband Abraham was ruined.
William didn't listen, and took Jacob into his bed anyway.
The Shakers believed that because God was incarnated as a man the first time, She would be incarnated as a woman the second time. When Ann announced that she was that woman, the New Christ, her congregation eagerly accepted her.
A problem arose when she tried to preach at the Manchester Cathedral. She expected a mass conversion, but instead she was arrested and charged with blasphemy. Although she preached to the judges in 12 languages (or 72), she spent 14 nights in prison.
While incarcerated, Mother Ann had a vision of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, and finally she understood. The barrier that kept humanity broken was carnal pleasure! The only way to truly unite with God was to abstain from all such acts forever.
Only eight Shakers agreed to the new rule of permanent celibacy, including William, who reluctantly said goodbye to his boyfriend (in a n*de scene), and Ann's niece Nancy, who agreed to never touch her fiancé -- until they were discovered engaging in the act in the privy, and ejected from the group. Ann's husband obeyed for awhile, but then angrily rejected her and chose a "new wife."
Seeking relief from the constant harassment, the Messiah and her followers moved to America and formed a new community in Niskayuna, upstate New York. There they drew many new members, including Methodist pastor Reuben Wright and James Whitaker (Matthew Beard, right), who became Willliam's new special friend.
But there were many bigoted unbelievers in the new United States. In 1783, an attack left William dead, Mother Anne severely injured, and her special friend Mary blind in one eye. About a year later, the new Messiah was taken up to Heaven.
After Mother Ann: The Shaker Movement took off, reaching the height of its popularity in the 1840s. There were over 6,000 Shakers in a dozen communities, practicing racial and gender equality, welcoming single mothers, orphans, and queer folk attracted by the freedom from the pressure to marry. Some formed what Walt Whitman called "adhesive friendships," either maintaining the rule of celibacy or reasoning that it applied only heterosexual relations. Partners Rebecca Cox Jackson and Rebecca Perot founded a Shaker community of African-American queer women in Philadelphia.
As of 2025, there are only three Shakers left (one a recent convert), but several Shaker villages are active as historic sites and venues for concerts, artist retreats, and religious services.
My Grade: The dances were extraordinary. I didn't expect so much gay content, especially the long, lingering gazes at n*de male bodies. But some of the brutality was hard to take. B.
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