Maurice Ravel and George Gershwin: Rethinking Sexuality Through the Asexual Spectrum (ChatGPT)

(why?) - I'm demisexual, and comparisons to Gershwin are a constant in my life. Read Feinstein debunking the gay rumour, but realised that there was something to those anecdotal suggestions of queerness. Abstract

Maurice Ravel (1875–1937) and George Gershwin (1898–1937) remain enigmatic not only as composers but also as men whose private lives defy conventional categories of sexuality. While both have been variously labeled “confirmed bachelors,” “womanizers,” or “closeted homosexuals,” the historical record contains no verifiable evidence of sexual relationships. This essay proposes a reframing: understood through contemporary categories, Ravel and Gershwin exemplify orientations on the asexual spectrum, or “grey ace.” Situating them in this context clarifies biographical ambiguities, dispels myths, and broadens our view of sexual diversity in cultural history.

Introduction

Biography often struggles when faced with silence. For both Ravel and Gershwin, the absence of documented lovers, children, or confessions has encouraged gossip to fill the void. In the twentieth century, their bachelorhood was read through hetero- and homo-normative frameworks: Ravel as a “closeted homosexual” (a claim rooted more in Alma Mahler’s anecdotes than fact) and Gershwin as either a “ladies’ man” or, by rumour, a covertly gay figure. Neither interpretation withstands scrutiny when compared against primary testimony.

This essay suggests a different frame. By applying the lens of asexuality studies, particularly the concepts of grey ace and demisexuality, we can more accurately describe their lived realities without forcing them into binary categories.

Ravel: Privacy and Aestheticism

Roger Nichols, in his authoritative Ravel (1987), emphasizes the composer’s discretion, noting that “of his sexual life, there is not a trace.”¹ Contemporaries confirm this impression. Roland-Manuel, his student and friend, wrote of his elegance and wit but made no reference to intimacy.² Manuel de Falla recalled Ravel’s presence in brothels but suggested he remained aloof.³ Marguerite Long and Hélène Jourdan-Morhange, close collaborators, likewise describe affection and friendship but omit romance.

Alma Mahler’s gossip about Ravel’s supposed crossdressing is often repeated but lacks corroboration.⁴ More reliable is the consistent silence of his inner circle, which collectively portrays a man absorbed in music, style, and friendship but not sexual partnership.

Claude Debussy, Ravel’s contemporary and sometime rival, once remarked that “composers are men who write music, and nothing else.”⁵ In another image, he described music as “the mistress who will not be faithful to any man.”⁶ Both remarks resonate with Ravel’s life: a man wholly given to music, with no mistress or partner but art itself. To his friends and to posterity, Ravel appears as the archetype of Debussy’s aphorism — faithful only to a faithless muse.

This profile fits comfortably within what today would be called asexuality or lifelong celibacy.

Gershwin: Sociability Without Consummation

George Gershwin’s life presents a different puzzle. His charisma and sociability are well documented: he was constantly surrounded by women, including composers, actresses, and socialites. The most enduring attachment was to Kay Swift, who later reflected, “I was very much in love with George, and he with me, but he was not a man to marry. He was too restless, too absorbed in his work.”⁷ Swift also called him “the most important person in my life.”⁸ Yet, like Ravel, she never described sexual intimacy.

Oscar Levant remembered Gershwin as a “ladies’ man,” but his memoirs (A Smattering of Ignorance, 1939) are satirical and anecdotal. Ira Gershwin, his brother and closest companion, left no mention of romances. Biographer Howard Pollack notes: “Despite his many companions, there is no clear evidence of sexual activity.”⁹ Richard Crawford similarly stresses the “curious absence of intimacy” in Gershwin’s life.¹⁰

Gershwin himself described his devotion in strikingly exclusive terms: “I want to be doing music, all the time.”¹¹ Music was not only his vocation but his substitute for intimacy, as if creative work consumed the energy others might devote to marriage or sexuality. For Swift, this explained why he was brilliant but “not a man to marry.”

Rumours of homosexuality emerged posthumously but remain unsupported. The record suggests instead a grey ace orientation: emotional attraction without consistent sexual activity, possibly aligning with modern definitions of demisexuality (attraction emerging only from deep bonds). Testimonies and Silences

Composer	Close Circle	Evidence of Romance	Evidence of Sexual Intimacy	Scholarly Consensus
Ravel	Roland-Manuel, de Falla, Long, Jourdan-Morhange	None	None	Asexual/celibate
Gershwin	Ira Gershwin, Kay Swift, Oscar Levant	Multiple companions (esp. Swift)	None	Grey ace/demisexual

Conclusion: Reframing Sexual Diversity in Music History

Both Ravel and Gershwin resist conventional labels. The absence of lovers is not proof of repression or concealment but evidence of orientations outside normative expectations. Interpreting them as “grey ace” does not reduce their mystery but clarifies it: they represent historical instances of asexual spectrum identities, long overlooked in cultural biography.

Such a reframing expands our understanding of intimacy, showing that great art need not be tethered to sexual passion, and that the spectrum of human desire includes forms of connection more muted, selective, or elusive than traditional narratives allow.

Notes

1. Roger Nichols, Ravel (London: Dent, 1987), p. 104.

2. Alexis Roland-Manuel, Maurice Ravel (Paris: Éditions du Tambourinaire, 1938).

3. Manuel de Falla, letter quoted in Arbie Orenstein, Ravel: Man and Musician (New York: Columbia University Press, 1975).

4. Alma Mahler, Mein Leben (Vienna: Paul Zsolnay Verlag, 1959).

5. Claude Debussy, quoted in François Lesure, Claude Debussy: Biographie critique (Paris: Fayard, 1994), p. 312.

6. Debussy, in correspondence, quoted in Edward Lockspeiser, Debussy: His Life and Mind (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1962), vol. 2, p. 45.

7. Quoted in Howard Pollack, George Gershwin: His Life and Work (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006), p. 511.

8. Ibid.

9. Pollack, George Gershwin, p. 508.

10. Richard Crawford, Summertime: George Gershwin’s Life in Music (New York: Norton, 2019), p. 310.

11. Gershwin quoted in New York Times, 1936 interview, reprinted in Pollack, George Gershwin, p. 492.