Is it necessary that we know a composer’s sexual orientation to really appreciate his music? “The public sexualization of Benjamin Britten by scholars represents a nightmare come true for those who have spent decades grooming the composer’s image as an Everyman sort of genius. It has also shredded the genteel tissue of euphemism that allowed even the frankly homoerotic lust of Death in Venice to be described in asexual (“Dionysian”) terms only.”