Word: gayness
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...first meeting of the next year, people there would just figure I was a freshman, and would not then conclude that I was just coming out, just getting it together. As unfounded as my fear was, it was genuine, and I am convinced that many, perhaps hundreds of gay people at Harvard who have not come out share the same fear...
...secretive. Its posters announced date, time, place--period. No mention was ever made of what was done, who should come; no encouragement was extended through the keyhole of my closet door. When a poster appeared--"HRGSA meeting, 8 p.m. Wednesday, Phillips Brooks House"--I assumed that all the other gay people knew precisely what went on at meetings, and responded, en masse, as if to a secret signal in the posters...
Another fear had nothing to do with gay people, but with men, generally, at Harvard. Harvard men are the most threatened, most insecure men in the world. Harvard men are incredibly afraid to be less than totally masculine, cool, heroic, with it, sophisticated, charming. They try hard, too hard, to compensate for their insecurity by posing as confident and self-assured. And because Harvard men are highly skilled socially, they largely succeed. But in the process, they scare the hell out of each other--each one is convinced that everyone else's calm front is real, and that only...
...waited through sophomore year and went to the first meeting junior year. Apparently, many, many gays at Harvard shared my fears. If Kinsey's estimate that almost 10 per cent of Americans are predominately homosexual is applied to Harvard, there are roughly 600 undergraduate homosexuals. (There are 180 people in Matthews, 18 gay Matthews residents; 140 marching band members, 14 gay bandies. Gay people are not "them," somewhere "out there." If you live in a quint next to a quint, one of you is probably gay, whether you know it or not, whether you like...
...there were fewer than 25 people at the meeting. When four or five people I had already known walked in, I thought in amazement, "He's gay?"; "She's gay?" Gays, just like straights, are unable to tell at a glance who is gay--we have no secret radar...