I don't see the need for a label as those are primarily used by living people to self-identify. He seems to have flirted with other men. Whether he had sex with them, or was primarily sexually interested in men, is something that we can probably only speculate about.

I suppose that resisting the application of a modern label could be read as a kind of erasure of gay/bi people from history. That's why in an edit I added the qualification that it would be equally anachronistic to call him 'straight'.

I really don't think using such labels as descriptors of a historical figure's sexuality is "anachronistic" - particularly when they're not even that old. The concept of heterosexuality and homosexuality surely existed when James did.

> I don't see the need for a label as those are primarily used by living people to self-identify.

Are they...? Labels are used by... everyone... straight or not. And I can assure you I wasn't the first one to apply certain labels to myself as a child...

I think the concept of a stable gender-based sexual preference that’s part of your personal identity is relatively recent. Of course people were aware that there were men who liked having sex with other men, but that’s not really the same thing.

And yeah I mean people obviously use labels as part of homophobic abuse, but that’s not going to be helpful as part of an argument that such labels are useful or valuable. I don’t really see why it’s necessary to decide whether Henry James is straight bi or gay just because those are the major classifications in our present social context.