MovieChat Forums > The Miracle Worker (1962) Discussion > Did Helen Keller ever have sex?

Did Helen Keller ever have sex?


I'm being serious here, I always wondered that for some strange reason. She did everything else a normal person did, so why not sex? I think she's one of the greatest women that ever lived and should be an inspiration to everyone.

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I bet she did...

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Why not? I know I would've plowed '62 Patty Duke at least

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A rather dodgy thing to say, Patty Duke was 15.

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Actually, she did. I'm being serious. It turns out she had sex with your grandfather. Have you ever wondered why you have that learning disability and speech impediment? Now you know.





Remember When Movies Didn't Have To Be Politically Correct?

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Har har har you're hilarious.

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Brilliant response, ABetterDay!!!! Love it!

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[deleted]

No. She did have gentlemen suitors though. According to "Helen Keller, the Miracle Continues" (which I believe is based on her second memoir), she was legally engaged but Annie talked her fiance out of it.

I'm sure she got kissed, but if you're talking about SEX, no.

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Dear Friends, you mmust remember the times in which she lived ...

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>>> remember the times in which she lived

?


Spoilers!Spoilers!Spoilers!Spoilers!Spoilers!Spoilers!Spoilers!

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Don't think so, but if you ever watch Helen Keller: The Miracle Continues (if it's accurate), she did consider marriage herself but was talked out of it by her mother and Anne.

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Kate was the one who manipulated them out of marrying, not Annie. Annie always respected Helen's decisions. I've read that Kate, James, and Arthur later became jealous of Annie's close relationship with Helen and never liked that Annie took Helen north and that Helen liked it up there.

But I do think Helen and Pete probably had sex at some point. Of course, in those days, it was not discussed. I know Annie and John Macy were sexually active shortly before they actually married.

I suspect that actually Annie's parents were not married when they had Annie.

Although it was kept a "dirty" secret, unmarried people did have sex and they did have children without marriage.

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Kate was the one who manipulated them out of marrying, not Annie. Annie always respected Helen's decisions. I've read that Kate, James, and Arthur later became jealous of Annie's close relationship with Helen and never liked that Annie took Helen north and that Helen liked it up there.
Jealousy had nothing to do with it. It had more to do with the belief and customs of the South back then.

Remember Helen's family were from the south. So they believed in very old sexist values. Like daughters staying at home with their families forever. The thought of an educated and independent woman back then was frowned upon. Which is why Anne was treated like such an outsider. Frankly I'm surprised Helens family allowed her to be highly educated and live as an independent woman. It shows how much they loved Helen that they didn't allow their old beliefs to get in the way of her happiness.

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Quite honestly it does not matter to me at all whether she had sex or not but your post did get me to thinking....

Helen's public viewed her as virginal. I would bet that Helen would have gone to great lengths to keep her public persona. Sex was an unmentionable thing back then in polite society. Men rarel even cursed in front of women. It was considered scandalous for a man to even see a woman's ankle. Any sex that helen would have had would have been done very secretly.


There have been rumors about her sexuality but I don't think any of them were proved beyond a shadow of doubt.


I know that nowadays we see movies that supposedly depict that frame of time that have a lot of sex, violence, and cursing. That's just modern day producers inserting the mores and values of our time into a movie. Even when I was growing up in the 50's and 60's a kid could get spanked for saying a word as mild as darn. Why? because that was too close to cussing. You can imagine what would happen if a child said a sexually related word back then. It have been a beating instead of a spanking.

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This thread got me thinking :D Thanks to all.

Here is a pic of her as a young woman.

http://myloc.gov/_assets/Exhibitions/braille/ExhibitionItems/Assets/23 661v_standard.jpg

She is quite lovely and anyone who sees that can easily imagine her having male suitors. :D


Dr. Kila Marr was right. Kill the Crystalline Entity.

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To cbgbrb: Be careful of thinking that films or TV from, say, the 1940s and 1950s, are realistic depictions of how most people lived. For example, rules forced movies and shows to pretend married couples always had separate beds when that was hardly the case. Folks have always had sex outside marriage, some happily, some with unfortunate results, but any depiction in Golden Era films of an independent woman had to have her suffer for her choices. Another example: In Abe Lincoln's day, it was quite normal for men in a boarding house to save money by sharing a bed, most likely for sleep only in most cases. But can you imagine such a scene in the great Henry Fonda depiction of young Abe Lincoln? Ha.
Also, not all kids got spanked or beaten for saucy language. My brothers and I would usually get just a vocal reminder if we were dumb enough to use "bad" words within hearing range. I did once get my mouth introduced to soap when I insisted on repeating such a word at dinner, but that backfired on Mom when I said it tasted good and everyone started laughing. She soon surrendered in that unwinnable war.

I have seen enough to know I have seen too much. -- ALOTO

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Someone stuck a hot dog up her hoo haw and she didn't know the difference.

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She did but she never told anybody.

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"While in her thirties Helen had a love affair, became secretly engaged, and defied her teacher and family by attempting an elopement with the man she loved."[35] He was the fingerspelling socialist[8] "Peter Fagan, a young Boston Herald reporter who was sent to Helen's home to act as her private secretary when lifelong companion, Anne, fell ill."

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