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Comment by zabzonk | Hacker News Reader

My Dad shook the hand of Turing when Turing was working at Manchester University, after the war. Dad was a good-looking rugby player who was interested in logic - I don't think he understood (at least at the time) why Turing was interested in him! Later on his own security clearance as a V-bomber captain might have been compromised, so he only talked about it to the family.

So I have shaken the hand that shook the hand of Alan Turing. Which always makes me smile, and is my single claim to fame.

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Is there more detail to the story, or could it have been simply a common interest in logic and the like? As a gay man I can assure you that we aren't attracted to every allegedly good-looking male.

(I really don't mean this to be snarky, but I know forum posts have a way of making it seem that way.)

Of course, neither I nor my (late, so I can't ask him) Dad knows what Turing's motivations were.

These are just my possibly incorrect assumptions, following later conversations.

V-force security checks were however a real thing when it came to homosexuality, and to certain extent heterosexuality - V-force liked nice, safe married couples with kids - but they certainly didn't always get them.

According to the biography on which the movie "The Imitation Game" was (very loosely) based ("Alan Turing: The Enigma"), Turing was rather direct when expressing interest in the men he knew. Much more so than I would expect for that time. There were several times where he straight up propositioned acquaintances. So it wouldn't entirely surprise me if there was an actual expression of interest in the original story.

Of course it's quite possible that's what Turing was doing in this case. I'm not saying it wasn't.

My gentle objection from long experience is that gay men's motivations are so very often over-sexualized by people who are not gay men. Without good situational evidence, it's not a good idea to make that assumption.

I can't agree more - it seems very disrespectful to imply that Turing was only/primarily interested in OP's father due to his sexual preferences. I think the over-sexualisation is quite evident if you simply consider changing the gender here - "Mother was a good-looking football player who was interested in logic - I don't think she understood (at least at the time) why Djikstra was interested in her!"

I am two handshakes removed both from John von Neumann and Alan Turing (via different people) and wish even 0.001% of their genius was thereby transmissible.

There are plenty of people still alive with handshake distances of 1 or 0, however, if we’re making a metric out of that.

None of the genius is transmissible, but perhaps some of the joy is.

Yes. It’s a nice anecdote to have :)

Shaking the hand of Tesla could be a hair raising experience!

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