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“Once he asked me what I thought had turned me gay."
"I hope you told him you were bitten by a gay spider," said Simon.”
― Cassandra Clare, City of Lost Souls

“Ball busting [a friendly form of humor]...contains a fundamental flaw, one that has done immeasurable harm to the male psyche, and basically eliminated dance and music as potential outlets for bonding.

That is the use of the term 'gaaay.'

It's a form of self-policing, some fucked-up safe word that got called out if any behavior approached a level where it felt intimate or affectionate. Really anything that felt 'feminine,' and that list was long.

It was not used to describe romantic attraction to another many--though it certainly insulted that entire idea in an inexcusable way--but instead was used to reinforce what Niobe Way, a psychology professor at NYU, calls the 'crisis of connection' among men. We so fear being called -gaaay- for making connections that are 'feminine' that we sacrifice intimacy for casual banter.

It's a huge disconnect, perhaps the central one at the heart of the problems of with modern male bonding. And unlike many 'male' things, it cannot be blamed on genetics. It's cultural. It's learned.”
― Billy Baker, We Need to Hang Out: A Memoir of Making Friends

“All the best ones, when you thought it over, were gay. It was much better to be gay and it was a sign of something too. It was like having immortality while you were still alive. That was a complicated one. There were not many of them left though. No, there were not many of the gay ones left. There were very damned few of them left. And if you keep on thinking like that, my boy, you won't be left either. Turn off the thinking now, old timer, old comrade. You're a bridge­ blower now. Not a thinker...”
― Ernest Hemingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls

“...And you have to remember that Edward grew up at a time when ... when homosexuality was illegal. Quite apart from being socially unacceptable--at least in the circles we moved in."

"That's ridiculous. You can't help it if you're gay."

"Reasonable people have always thought that.”
― Penelope Lively, Passing On

“With regard to Senator Strom Thurmond's attack on my morality, I have no comment. By religious training and fundamental philosophy, I am disinclined to to put myself in the position of having to defend my own moral character. Questions in this area should properly be directed to those who have entrusted me with my present responsibilities.”
― Bayard Rustin, Down the Line: The Collected Writings of Bayard Rustin

“What You are calling me to do, I can't do it on my own, but I know enough about You to know that You will help me," I said to God, my new friend. I didn't know that the confession of my inability to please Him and the shifting of my back away from the sins I'd previously embraced was repentance. Nor did I recognize that my resolve to believe that He could be to me what no one else could, was faith. But it was. Without asking me my permission, a good God had come to my rescue.”
― Jackie Hill Perry, Gay Girl, Good God: The Story of Who I Was and Who God Has Always Been

“My grip loosened on the wheel. Or was it, the world?

It was such a small, passing moment. Which is where many of our monumental shifts happen. It is not the grand stage, but the quiet kitchen, the silent dining room, the bedrooms, the drives home, where gayness, my gayness, reveals itself.

Drag shows are spectacles. Television shows provide a comforting illusion that life progresses. That we no longer need to live in fear. But we do. We do live in fear.”
― Taylor Brorby, Boys and Oil: Growing Up Gay in a Fractured Land