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Originally Posted by dissention
Yeah, but think of the times. To admit that you were gay back in those days, especially if you were a person of reasonable power, or to even admit to having sex with other men, is akin to someone saying today that they like sex with kids. The animosity and hatred that people had for gays back in the early eighties was just as bad as the hatred of black people in the Southern states. I think society contributed a LOT to the ways people like "Ray Cohen" viewed things, it was hammered into them that "fags" were pieces of ****, that they amounted to nothing. It really was sickening and it still goes on today, though to a much lesser extent.
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I must differ with you here. It wasn't THAT bad. It was that bad in the 60's, but the 70's changed so much of that. In big cities, this was not the case. Perhaps those raised in small towns had residue of this, but society by and large, especially in educated circles, had changed quite a lot by then. Ray Cohn moved in very moneyed, sophisticated circles. Come on, this was the New York charity crowd which lived to finance shows by the likes Mapplethorpe and other avant garde artists of the time. Sure they were slumming, but they were thrilled to be doing it. His failings as a man and a citizen were more about his character than the social pressures of the time.