CurtainPulldowner, I just gotta clarify a few things in your post. Clyde was initially written as bisexual in the original screenplay. He was to have a mnage trois with the nymphomaniac Bonnie and the C.W. Moss character, who was a composite of two members of the Barrow gang -- D.W. Jones, a childhood friend of the Barrows who idolized Clyde and was their getaway driver, and Henry Methvin, who joined the gang after Jones' departure and whose father betrayed the pair in order to get leniency for his son.
Anyway, Beatty was all up for playing the part as bisexual. I have the Ultimate Collector's Edition and in it Beatty and screenwriter Robert Benton discuss their first meeting, how Beatty showed up unexpectedly at his home and was willing to do the part without having read the script. Benton told him to read it first and then decide 'cause he wasn't willing to make changes. So Beatty took it home and called back later that day still wanting to do it.
In fact, it was Arhtur Penn who nixed the triangle aspect. He reasoned, they were already outlaws and murderers, and if they were also a threesome it would label them as "freaks" and he was afraid audiences wouldn't be able to sympathize with them. Benton reluctantly agreed and Clyde was thus changed to impotent, which was also taboo at the time.
Clyde wasn't really impotent. That was a Hollywood creation to explain Clyde's fascination with guns, the ultimate phallic symbol. In other words, shooting a gun becomes a substitute for ejaculation. Benton mentions that Bonnie and Clyde couldn't just be happy bandits together; they had to have something that kept them apart. Not the police, not the Depression, but each other. Bonnie loves sex, but the man she loves isn't able to satisfy her. So he picks up a gun and she follows, and robbing banks and shooting up people replaces sex for them.
In reality, Clyde was a hoodlum who was in trouble with the law from a very young age. He was never able to escape that lifestyle, even when he tried to go straight after being released from prison, but that was a half-hearted attempt. Bonnie joined Clyde mainly 'cause she was lovesick (her estranged husband had recently left her for good), but she was also a lonely waitress "bored crapless" as she put in her diary. They also had a normal sex life. I don't believe Clyde was gay or turned gay after his assault at Eastham prison; in fact, it only made him bitter. His family noticed a drastic change after his release. Clyde's main motivation was to get back at the law, especially Eastham, where he eventually carried out a daring prison break, releasing several prisoners and shooting a few guards. Unfortunately, one of the prisoners they freed was Methvin, who would become their undoing.
Incidentally, are either D.W. Jones or Henry Methvin mentioned in the musical?
Salve, Regina, Mater misericordiae
Vita, dulcedo, et spes nostra
Salve, Salve Regina
Ad te clamamus exsules filii Eva
Ad te suspiramus, gementes et flentes
O clemens O pia
