Since the 1950s Richard's sexuality has become an issue of wider interest and controversy. Victorian and Edwardian historians had rarely addressed this question, but in 1948 historian John Harvey challenged what he perceived as "the conspiracy of silence" surrounding Richard's homosexuality.[119] This argument drew primarily on available chronicler accounts of Richard's behaviour, chronicler records of Richard's two public confessions and penitences, and Richard's childless marriage.[120] Roger of Howden tells of a hermit who warned, "Be thou mindful of the destruction of Sodom, and abstain from what is unlawful", and Richard thus "receiving absolution, took back his wife, whom for a long time he had not known, and putting away all illicit intercourse, he remained constant to his wife and the two become one flesh."[121] This material is complicated by accounts of Richard having had at least one illegitimate child (Philip of Cognac), and by allegations that Richard had sexual relations with local women during his campaigns.[122]

Leading historians remain divided on the question of Richard's sexuality.[123] Harvey's argument has gained support[124] but has been disputed by other historians, most notably John Gillingham.[125] Drawing on other chronicler accounts, he argues that Richard was probably heterosexual.[125] Historian Jean Flori claims that contemporary historians generally accept that Richard was predominantly homosexual.[124][126] Flori also analysed contemporaneous accounts; he refuted Gillingham's arguments and concluded that Richard's two public confessions and penitences (in 1191 and 1195) must have referred to the "sin of sodomy".[127] Flori cites contemporaneous accounts of Richard taking women by force[128] and concludes that Richard probably had sexual relations with both men and women at different stages.[129] Flori and Gillingham nevertheless agree that contemporaneous accounts do not support the suggestion that Richard had a sexual relationship with King Philip II, as suggested by some modern authors.[130]