Bonus! This book is impressively wrong about absolutely everything involving gays

Hey Matt! The story about messages passed on toilet paper reminded me of its depiction in one of my favorite movies from when I was coming out, Get Real (1999). Thanks for all you do, I’ve been binging your work on my day off.

1. The strap and shirt combo sounds like some kind of dance belt? 2. Christine Jorgensen already was a public figure at this point, no??

I always look forward to Locomotive Engineer night at the gay bars lol

"Feather Quill pen into the bowling alley bathroom!" Genius! That's a new part of the hanky code. In the left pocket you write tp notes on the right, you are a bowling alley pen pal! You know when he says that "homosexuals don't care about each other and get off on danger" it sounds like someone got freaked out on a visit to the leather bar. It was probably the Eagle.

Matt, my progressive parents gave me their copy of EYAWtKaSBWAtA (it just rolls off the tongue!) to read when I was in fourth grade, only a few years after its publication. It was eye-opening, to say the least. I was kind of horrified at the chapter on homosexuality and feared that it was a peek into my future. But since none of Doctor Reuben's proclamations lined up with my own feelings, I intuited that they were horsecrap. I did take his bowling alley story as a recommendation of how to meet others of my kind, though, and was pretty successful at it—and I can absolutely attest that during the 1970s, it was really quite common for men to pass notes beneath the stalls using toilet paper and a ball-point pen. It was pretty usual to carry a pencil or pen in one's pocket in those device-less days. One would double or triple-up on folding the tissue, scrawl a heated request, roll it around the writing implement, and brandish it beneath the stall partition. I passed hundreds of these notes in my youth and can attest it really was a ordinary form of silent communication in a sexually-charged public cruising space. To be fair, Reuben didn't make heterosexuality sound all that attractive, either. I still have nightmares about the story he told about the fellow who got trapped in his girlfriend's vagina and had to be extricated by the fire department.

"Doctor" indeed. I'm curious where he got his license.

I genuinely wonder if David Reuben had an authentic gay source who just fed him more and more outrageous "facts" to see what he'd believe. But also confident white men writing reams about things without research or expertise is a whole literary genre. Men Are From Mars, Outliers, Hillbilly Elegy, John Forester's urban cycling manifestos.

Thank you Matt for finding this outrageous piece of trash and pointing it out!! Bless you!! I too read the chapter on "homosexuals" and even as a kid, found it outlandish, wrong, suspect and untrustworthy. The sad part is the rest of the book was very enlightening for straight people, helping them to overcome the prohibition and lack of information on sex that had been so prevalent up to that time. It also reveals the hypocrisy that's underscored mainstream progressivism -- that certain groups are still fringe and unacceptable and okay to be demeaned or disrespected. That attitude of disregard for gay men has always existed in American liberalism, and it's interesting even now the shakeup that Heated Rivalry is causing in the straight world.

Also funny that they seem to talk about gay people like David Attenborough talks about penguins Time to move it to the Fiction section if it's going to just be the authors Fantasy

I remember reading this book in my younger days. It was the only book I could find that even mentioned homosexuality. It was certainly bleak for a 12 year old. It destroyed a lot of my hope for happiness. I was also given a book by a catholic priest when I mentioned joining a protestant church. Amongst all of the fire and brimstone for all kinds of things, there was a chapter on homosexuality I read it in the bathroom so I wouldn't get caught. After reading all that going to hell stuff I decided to forget the church. I used to "cut" church and go to Tower Records and books. I felt a freedom I needed and haven't been to a catholic church since.

This is giving me "the author's barely disguised fetish" material.

Do the Queen's wigs always have to be blond? Because I've seen some pretty magnificent Queens, and they were definitely not all blond.... Also, try as I might, I can't imagine what that genital-holding apparatus might be, but it sounds like it could be a fun Saturday night, minus the not being able to bend over part... Just to get serious for a second, as much fun as it is to look back and laugh at this, I do have more than a twinge of horror for all the young Queers who read a copy of this book back in the 70s and 80s hoping and praying that they would read something about themselves, and finding this staring back at them. A message that among other things, identified them as a mental defective, and as a person who was doomed to be never be loved. This wasn't a small, niche book. It was a Number 1 best seller in over 50 countries, with 55 week atop of the New York Time best seller list. It allegedly reached over 100 million readers (according to Harper Collins, who published the book). David Reuben became one of the first internationally known celebrity doctors, appearing multiple times on the Tonight Show, and this book actually inspired a hollywood movie, directed by Woody Allen and released in 1972. The point is, people knew this guy as a trusted authority, this book was promoted and was present in homes and libraries across the world, and as a result likely tens or maybe even hundreds of thousands of Queer people read this book during the 70s and 80s. With all the horrible messages that they might have been receiving from schools, churches and in their own homes, this was just one more official sounding voice telling them that they were basically sub-humans. It does make you wonder sometimes how people were able to summon the inner strength needed to make it through that era at all.

I came out in the late 70s and definitely heard 'seafood' used when referring to sailors. Who knows if he originated it but it stuck around with some people

My mother had a copy of Everything You Always Wanted to Know … in her bedroom when I was a kid. As I became aware of my own sexual leanings in the early 1970s, I studied it — the chapter on homosexuality, in particular — as a kind of guidebook for navigating what might lay ahead. I was a very horny pre-teen. So I was willing to look beyond the dismal future he predicted for me if he could just offer some clues about where to get some of what he described. (And, like every young homo at the time, I already understood that I was a disgusting violation of nature’s foundational principles, so it was easy to ignore that part.) It’s eye-opening and very encouraging that the world Reuben describes sounds completely bonkers to a gay man today. Yes, his understanding of gay life in the late 1960s is warped by his poor research, his selective mangling of the details and his clear hatred of everything homo. But some of the specific items that struck you as the most weird aren’t completely untrue. Engineer Costumes While not the standard costume, I saw a few locomotive engineers at gay bars in the late 1970s, along with the usual construction workers, soldiers and police officers. Just as with today’s leather men, it was all costume fun. Remember: the Village People didn’t spring, fully formed, from the head of some opportunistic music promoter. They were just trying to make a buck off of what they saw every weekend in their local bars. (And now they play at Trump rallies.) Tea Room Sex I studied Dr. Reuben’s instructions for how to find sex in public restrooms. And yes, the toe-tapping, inscriptions on the wall, homemade glory holes and even notes on toilet paper were all real. While it’s not impossible that someone would go to a tea room specifically to watch someone take a dump, watching men pee was clearly popular. Lots of those stalls had holes facing the urinals. And that was more often a spectator sport than one of mutual participation. You’re right: writing on cheap toilet paper is not easy, especially with a Bic ballpoint pen. But sexual arousal is a great enabler. Dress Shirt Jock Strap I remember ads in the back of porn magazines for underwear that showed off a man’s body to its best advantage. Most of those seemed like tight shirts made from stretchy 70s miracle fabrics. But one item was a shirt with a brief attached. (I think it fastened in the front.) The advertised objective was to keep your form-fitting shirt tucked in no matter how you moved. It had the added advantage of holding your junk together and keeping it front and center. That’s not exactly the jockstrap that Reuben describes. But it’s not hard to imagine that, as with so much else, he mangled the details on this one. Fear & Sex A lot of my sex in the 1970s, both as a teen and in college, was in public places. And Reuben isn’t all wrong that the drive to connect can override a reasonable fear of arrest. The danger can even become part of the appeal. But in many places, the authorities were either oblivious or decided to turn a blind eye because it was just easier. That wasn’t always the case. For reference, you might look at the Mansfield, OH sting operation that William E. Jones covers in his exploration, entitled Tearoom. https://www.themoderninstitute.com/artists/william-e-jones/works/tearoom-2006/50 Gay Men, Food and Sex Even when I was 10 years old, this part seemed entirely nuts. We’ll probably never know whether he was riffing on things he’d heard from patients, hoping to add pages to his manuscript or just trying to shock his audience at the urging of his editor. “… clearly food ovesrhadows much of homosexual behavior.” How do you even make sense of that sentence?

I'm old enough that when I was coming out, this was one of the books I opened to learn about homosexuality. I was horrified. Then a therapist my religious leader ordered me to see had me read "The Unhappy Gays" by Tim LaHaye. That book was so ridiculous that it started me wondering if the folks demonizing gays might be bonkers. Next, I was ordered to consult with an ex-gay minister, who told me he used to have sex with men because he liked to degrade men, that this was the only reason men have sex with men. I knew right then I was done with that nonsense. I returned to my Mormon bishop and told him to excommunicate me, that I was going to live and love as best I could.