Quote:
Originally Posted by KewlDewd66
Living in a culturally speaking 'eastern mediterranean' society during my college years really meant that very, very few people were openly out. There were no gayborhoods, and everybody including most of my buddies and yours truly thought that no one would really want to be gay, live in a gayborhood, least of all, publicly admit that he was having sex with other men.
By far, most of my college buddies depended for their survival on their parents who were most certainly going to be very much against anyone being openly gay; as would be all your friends - not that the concept carried much weight in those days. Being gay, caught, outed etc., simply was NOT an option.
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Although I grew up in a North Eastern USA small city my experience was much like KD rather than infopop...
There was not a "gayborhood" and really no one was "out".
For the most part everyone acted as if it was "temporary" and they expected when they got older to get married and settle down.
Being openly gay was left for the "fruits and nuts" in California.
Gay sex was something we did - it was not considered who we were. Even in college I do not remember there being anything like a "gay / straight alliance", and if there had been I would not have had the courage to join it, but now you find clubs and organizations like that even in Junior High schools!
Basically we just lived our lives like everyone else acting just like the rest of the gang - except after everyone else had left when alone we would have sex. There was a degree of emotion involved but nothing overwhelming and certainly nothing public.
Quote:
Originally Posted by KewlDewd66
...the true nature of our close friendships was certainly no secret to anyone with some basic life experience but the society as a whole decided that raising the subject to any level of public discourse was really both entirely unnecessary and fully uncalled for.
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Very much the case with us - it was truly "don't ask / don't tell". Families had "bachelor uncles" that never got married, "Bob's" brother and his roommate shared an apartment, even though it only had one bedroom. But it was not talked about.
What was frustrating about no one being open or talking about it was when you would find out someone was into it years later. A guy I always thought was cute as hell in high school ended up getting caught and outed in college - and all I could think of was "If only I had known back then he was into guys!"