As a young man, Lincoln was not particularly interested in the company of women

The documentary cites letters in which Lincoln’s contemporaries wrote about his general dislike of “the girls.” “There is ample evidence that Lincoln really wasn’t interested in women,” says historian Jonathan Ned Katz. “There is a surprising amount of commentary on this.”

Professor Michael Chesson of the University of Massachusetts cites “Lincoln’s avoidance or aversion to young women” and other evidence that he had little interest in the opposite sex when he was young. Historian Dr. Charles Strozier says, “I think this suggests that Lincoln was still a virgin at 33.” That was how old he was in 1842 when he married Mary Todd, who would one day become First Lady of the United States. The couple had four children together.

Balcerski, however, respectfully disagrees with Strozier’s assessment that Lincoln may have been a 33-year-old virgin. “We have no sources that show that Lincoln was ever sexually passionate with women before his marriage to Mary Todd,” he tells PEOPLE. “I don’t see these alleged romances that scholars have held onto for generations, including a fabricated romance with Ann Rutledge.”

He adds: “There are two theories: either he is a virgin, which I reject, or his sexual needs were met by men… I can conclude that Lincoln’s physical needs were met by contact with other men, and I can recognize this as a pattern in his life.”

In his early 20s, Lincoln slept in the same bed as a male colleague

Lincoln was in his early 20s when he moved to New Salem, Illinois, where he met William Greene, a clerk at a local general store. According to the documentary, Greene became the first important man in Lincoln’s life, and the two were inseparable for a time, even in their sleep.

Greene wrote in an 1865 letter shown in the documentary: “Mr. Lincoln and I worked together as clerks for about 18 months, sleeping in the same cot. And when one turned over, the other had to do the same.”

Chesson elaborates on the sleeping situation: “They slept pressed together so they wouldn’t fall out of bed – spooning position. I can’t imagine either of them would have borne to sleep like that if they didn’t like it.”

When Lincoln first met Joshua Speed, it was “lust at first sight”

In the spring of 1837, Lincoln moved to Springfield, Illinois, after passing the bar exam and officially becoming a lawyer. One of the first people he met there while looking for material for a bed was Joshua Speed, the co-owner of a local general store. When Lincoln said he didn’t have $17 to buy a mattress, Joshua Speed ​​said, according to the document, “Well, I’ve got a big double bed upstairs. Go upstairs and look at it.”

According to the documentary, an acquaintance of Lincoln’s, William Butler, offered him a single bed in his house, but Lincoln chose a bed with Speed ​​instead. Over the course of the four years they lived together and slept next to each other in that bed, “it developed into something much more than just lust,” Chesson says.

Speed ​​made Lincoln more presidential

Lovers of men suggests that Speed, not Lincoln’s wife Mary Todd Lincoln, was the person who really prepared Lincoln for the presidency. “Who is the real woman behind the man Abraham Lincoln? Joshua Speed,” Balcerski says. “Mary Todd deserves the credit. Joshua Speed ​​did the work.”

“Lincoln was a rough country boy, very folksy in his manners and his language. He wore high-water pants,” says Chesson. Harvard professor John Stauffer adds: “Lincoln always had a bad hair day.”

Speed ​​​​gave him a radical makeover, giving him a more metrosexual look – to use a modern term that didn’t exist in the 19th century – and a presidential look.

Lincoln fell into a suicidal depression when Speed ​​left to move back home

In early 1841, Lincoln learned that Speed ​​would be returning to his home state of Kentucky to help his mother manage the family farm following his father’s death. A period of dark “suicidal depression” followed, during which Lincoln’s friends are said to have “established a sort of suicide watch” by hiding all sharp objects and anything else Lincoln might use to injure himself.

After Speed’s departure, Lincoln wrote a letter to his law partner, John Stuart, in which he stated, “I am now the most unhappy man on earth. If what I feel were extended to the whole human family, there would not be a happy face on earth.”

Without Speed, Lincoln and Mary Todd would never have married

Before leaving for Kentucky, Speed ​​​​introduced Lincoln to Mary Todd, who came from a wealthy Southern slave-owning family.

According to the documentary, Lincoln began a relationship with Todd, much to Speed’s chagrin. They became engaged before Lincoln abruptly ended the relationship. “Lincoln realized that this relationship with Mary Todd had caused an estrangement from his closest companion, his bedmate and lover,” Balcerski says in the documentary. “So Lincoln decided to break off the engagement.”

While Lincoln was visiting Speed ​​in Kentucky, where he first saw the horrors of slavery up close, Speed ​​became engaged. After his marriage was consummated, he wrote Lincoln to tell him the news, the document says. “Joshua Speed ​​assured Lincoln at that moment that sex with women was tolerable for his own good,” Balcerski says.

What followed was a series of extremely passionate letters from Lincoln to Speed, which the future US president signed “Yours Forever”. In the spring of 1842, Lincoln courted Mary Todd again and married her in November of that year. “He was hesitant to marry, but Lincoln marries to the top,” says Stauffer. “That helped Lincoln a lot, and Lincoln knew he would be a better politician with Mary Todd as his wife. She was very important to Lincoln’s rise in politics.”

When his wife was away, Lincoln slept with a certain “Bucktail Soldier”

To describe Lincoln’s “emotional and physical intimacy” with his bodyguard, Captain David Derickson, the documentary cites a November 1862 diary entry by Virginia Woodbury Fox, the wife of Lincoln’s Assistant Secretary of the Navy. She wrote: “Here is a bucktail soldier devoted to the President, riding around with him and sleeping with him when Mrs. L is not home. What stuff!”

“What kind of stuff?” asks historian Dr. Jean Baker rhetorically. “What are we to make of it? I, for one, am glad that Lincoln felt strong enough in his own sexuality to have sex with the captain or simply let him hold his hand.”

Lincoln’s law partner and biographer admired his “perfect” thighs

William Herndon, a contemporary of Lincoln who was his law partner from the mid-1840s and later his biographer, wrote admiringly of Lincoln. Lovers of men quotes a passage praising Lincoln’s physical presence: “When I first saw Lincoln, he was well built and powerful. His thighs were as perfect as a human being can be.”

Herndon, who is considered one of the most important Lincoln biographers, is said to have had a strained relationship with Mary Todd. He died in 1891 at the age of 72 and was buried in Oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield, the site of Lincoln’s grave.