Depending on which source one cites, Thomas Spencer Jerome and Charles Lang Freer were bosom buddies of the closest nature in the truest sense or the intimate one. From supposed found incriminating letters to their removing to Capri being a honeymoon of sorts, the speculation that they were sexually involved seems more akin to prejudiced nuance than fact.
Personally, I think they were more likely involved in sexual escapades similar to Freer's friend Stanford White, the renowned architect who was murdered in 1906 by the jealous husband of a young woman whom White had been accused of raping. White, like another of Jerome's Capri inner circle friends Norman Douglas, was known to pursue adolescents. While Douglas preferred young boys White was enamored with more mature girls. While the social norms around 1900 allowed for adults to marry young girls, laws were in place to prohibit sexual contact between adults and children. Likewise, for homosexuals and libertines who flocked to Capri where a seeming lawlessness on the matter ran rampant along with prostitution.
Agnes Meyer, a friend of Freer as well as a fellow Asian art collector, recalled a remembrance of his which involved Jerome at the blue grotto of Capri. Jerome had organized a party in the picturesque tourist spot for the models of his artist friends to swim naked as the men observed their movements. The frolic was interrupted by a German scholar who happened upon the scene while studying the rock formations and became flustered by the immodestly attired "Naiads" and their zealous onlookers.
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