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The Stonewall Riots that had started the modern gay movement weren’t ten years old until 1979. Īfter the early scary part of coming out, and the “no standards” wild phase, eventually I found love and acceptance in the gay world, and even started coming out to casual strangers if they innocently asked questions like, “You married?” In many parts of the country this casualness might seem routine today, but it was shocking in the late 70s. Coming out is a gradual process: you tell this friend, and that friend, and soon you suspect that everyone knows, even at work, and it becomes an open secret. I eventually did figure out gay life, though in the beginning I stayed deep in the closet. Fellini could have cast a successful movie from the ten patrons lounging around in the Kismet at 8 pm on a Friday night.
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The huge bar had only about ten people it: very strange people. That night I went to the Kismet (which I also looked up in the phone directory], but, not knowing that (particularly in those very homophobic days) gay night life didn’t start until after midnight, I arrived at 8 pm. After a brief pause, he snarled, “The Kismet,” slamming down the phone. “What’s the name of the gay bar?” I asked. When the bartender answered, I asked him if this was a gay bar, and, surprised, he said darkly that it was not. I knew it wouldn’t likely be a gay bar, but that didn’t matter. I solved that particular problem by looking up “Cocktail Lounges” in the Yellow Pages, picked out one on Gay Street (yes, there is such a downtown street), and phoned it.
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How to find a gay bar, for example, was a puzzlement. In January of 1976, when I came to Columbus as a Visiting Professor at the Ohio State University Law School, I also moved to the city to explore the gay world for the first time in my life (I was 32).