Bloomsbury Group in LGBT history Monk's House, she would meet Vita Sackville-West, writing her Roman à clef about her. Woolf also met the LGBT people around her, including Harold Nicolson, Sackville-West's husband, Benedict Nicolson, their LGBT son and Violet Trefusis, her former lover. Composer and suffragist Ethel Smyth was another later acquaintance of Virginia Woolf. Bloomsbury Group in LGBT history The Bloomsbury Group plays a prominent role in the LGBT history of its day. While still in the Bloomsbury area LGBT activity was all very much in a single group. For example, Duncan Grant, a homosexual with bisexual leanings, had affairs with Maynard Keynes, James
Virginia Woolf and his group of "Neo-Pagans", pursuing socialism, vegetarianism, exercising outdoors and alternative life styles, including social nudity. They were influenced by the ethos of Bedales, Fabianism and Shelley. The women wore sandals, socks, open neck shirts and head-scarves, as Virginia does here. Although she had some reservations, Woolf was involved with their activities for a while, fascinated by their bucolic innocence in contrast to the sceptical intellectualism of Bloomsbury, which earned her the nickname "The Goat" from her brother Adrian. While Woolf liked to make much of a weekend she spent with Brooke at the vicarage in Grantchester, including swimming