Nietzsche never married. Nietzsche proposed to Lou Salomé three times, but his proposal was rejected each time.
"Nietzsche's and Nietzsche and Lou Andreas-Salomé." Nietzsche's and Nietzsche and Lou Andreas-Salomé. The Nietzsche scholar Joachim Köhler has attempted to explain Nietzsche's life history and philosophy by claiming that Nietzsche was homosexual. Köhler argues that Nietzsche's syphilis, which is "usually considered to be the product of his encounter with a prostitute in a brothel in Cologne or Leipzig, is equally likely, it is now held, to have been contracted in a male brothel in Genoa". Köhler also suggests Nietzsche may have had a romantic relationship as well as a friendship with Paul Rée. Köhler's views have not found wide acceptance among Nietzsche scholars and commentators. Allan Megill argues that while Köhler's claim that Nietzsche was in confrontation with homosexual desire cannot simply be dismissed, "the evidence is very weak" and Köhler may be projecting twentieth-century understandings of sexuality on nineteenth-century notions of friendship. Other scholars have argued that Köhler's sexuality-based interpretation is not helpful in understanding Nietzsche's philosophy. Some like Nigel Rodgers and Mel Thompson have argued that continuous sickness and headaches hindered Nietzsche from engaging much with women. Yet, they bring other examples in which Nietzsche expressed his affections to other women, including Wagner's wife Cosima Wagner.