Word: afraid
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...came to Harvard mortally afraid of being discovered. I worked very hard at adopting masculine mannerisms, eliminating anything I though was effeminate. I was exploiting a nearly universal prejudice; the belief that only effeminate men are gay. I figured that no one would ever know, as long as I didn't "look gay." As far as I know, I was right. No one--straight or gay--ever knew I was gay before I told them...
...depart. Nonsense, we are told by his granddaughter, he doesn't really mean it, Tomorrow he will be fine, he won't even remember what he said. Still, we are uncertain. It seems ungrateful to stay in someone's house after he tells you to leave. Besides, we are afraid of him. So help me, we decide to spend the night in the suite above his garage. We tell ourselves that we wish to avoid awakening him in the morning by stumbling into the pack of dogs, but all we really want is to get out without seeing him again...
...When her car gets stuck in a blizzard, she chooses to walk home through the storm rather than appeal to anyone for help. Such isolation is intrinsically neither sick nor ugly. If Claire were a real person, we might guess that she had been hurt in love and was afraid of getting hurt again. If she were a character in a Swedish movie, we would assume that she was courageously accepting the metaphysical lonliness of modern man. But Claire is a character in an Oates story, and so the reason for her self-imposed solitude turns out to be that...
Some homosexual leaders are afraid that the excesses of the national anti-Anita campaign may cause a public backlash against the gay rights movement, and claim that this is exactly what she is seeking. "She's willingly making herself a stalking horse for the ultra-right and trying to set up homosexuals as scapegoats," contends Howard Wallace, a founder of the Coalition for Human Rights. Adds Bruce Voeller, co-executive director of the National Gay Task Force, "Gays have traditionally been the victims, not the perpetrators, of violence...
Hunt said. "I was out there screaming when she went by me because I was afraid she didn't realize how close...