Word: gayness
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...siblings, only my 15-year-old sister, apparently too young to be burdened with society's foolish conceptions of masculinity and prejudices about sexuality, was able to speak to me without great awkwardness. Only she shared any gut feeling of injustice concerning society's treatment of gay people. The rest of my family treated my homosexuality as an imposition upon them and their phony peace. I am acceptable only as long as I keep my sexuality at a distance from them, "play straight," and speak not thereon. Out of sight, out of mind...
Some people need less time. Before coming back to Harvard for my senior year, I had decided that I was not going to hide my sexuality anymore--from anybody. So by now, most of my friends--all of my really close ones--know that I am gay. Their reactions have been comparatively good. They are non-hostile and, even if cautious, somewhat approving...
Time magazine, in its schizophrenic--half scientific, half manic paranoid--cover story on gay life in America (September 8, 1975), referred to coming out as a "rite of passage." So it seemed to me--until I began to come...
...straight friend of mine asked toward the beginning of the semester where I went on Wednesday nights. So heavy is the presumption that any given person is heterosexual that when I told him I went to Gay Students Association meetings, he asked why. Any gay person would have thought it rather obvious. This friend had known me only casually for more than three years, and I was afraid he would become cool toward me. In fact, he has become my closest friend...
...seemed to grasp a certain continuity: I was a nice guy when he thought I was straight; the fact that he now knows I am gay does not change that. I did not rape and molest him before, I would...