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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Suma who wrote (100888)	4/10/2005 11:02:53 AM
From: epicure	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

The Twilight of the Golds- I saw it. Very thought provoking. amazon.com

To: Suma who wrote (100888)	4/13/2005 4:30:04 PM
From: Grainne	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

I spent my whole adult life after college in San Francisco, Suma. It was the place that most gay people fled when they realized they were not heterosexual, at least in the seventies and eighties. Now I think there is more tolerance in general, but in those days typically parents would reject gay children completely and often actually kick them out of the house as teenagers. So there was a huge gay teenage runaway population living in the streets, as well as an older, more established gay community. It was all extremely sad. Being rejected by your family and society seemed to lead to really heightened levels of alcoholism, drug addiction and sexual risk taking that led to the enormity of the AIDS epidemic. There was a lot of promiscuity and self-loathing. I think as the society becomes more accepting, and now that gays are coming out much earlier as well, more of them will be healthy and not so destructively acting out. Because there were so many gay people in San Francisco, everyone had gay coworkers and friends, and we all heard their stories about growing up feeling different. I think most people who believe that gayness is a lifestyle choice just really haven't known a gay person as a close friend or family member. I think that if they did, they would realize their original assumptions just were not true.