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Show 144 a transition between two largely unreconcilable worlds. In general, men experienced Salt Lake's gay subculture during the 1950s and '60s as both dangerous and exhilarating. Possible arrest, exposure, and physical violence were persistent fears, but also fostered shared identity and a sense of community in the interest of mutual protection. Salt Lake contained elements of both postwar American culture and the emerging gay subcultures, inflected by a religious tradition which inhibited sexual expression but also incited sexual rebelliousness.' As befits a small city, gay life in Salt Lake fell somewhere between the "rural/traditional" and "urban/industrial" models of homosexuality. Under the rural/traditional paradigm, homosexual behavior, but not identity, occurred secretly in the context of everyday relations and activities, while circumstances under the urban/industrial or "gay liberation" model permitted homosexual identity and specialized gay public space." In Salt Lake, a gay subculture sprouted on turf shared with heterosexuals, and given the proximity of blood relatives and work associates, gay men with reputations to protect looked over their shoulders more often than would be the case in major cities. Consistent with the gay liberation model, Salt Lake offered places which, with certain qualifications, gay-identified men could call their own. As with the rural paradigm, however, gay life occurred as a secret undercurrent to the city's daily affairs, deeply enmeshed in "life as usual" and all but invisible to the "Various authors have described how the LDS Church's "black or white" approach to nonmarital sexuality induces those who "cross the line" and "sin a little" to see themselves as "evil," and so go on to "sin a lot." See Brzezinski, 122; Harold T. Christensen, "Stress Points in Mormon Family Culture," Dialogue 7, no. 4 (Winter 1972): 27. "Howard, Men Like That..., xiii, xiv. |
