Lavender sons of Zion: a history of gay men in Salt Lake City, 1950-79

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158 other and the guys were dancing with each other ... but no one touched.'?" Such strategic alliances support the frequent observation that lesbians and gay men mixed better in Salt Lake than in other cities. However, when Rita Kelly's hairdresser came out to her in 1964 by taking her to Radio City, the lopsided sex ratio provided her first clue that it was no ordinary bar: I really felt kind of strange because I'm looking around thinking, these are all men. I said, "All right, explain," and Bobby said, "I like men just like you like men." I said, "Okay, so if! have a boyfriend you're going to take my boyfriend? ," and he said, "No, I like men that like men.'?" While the small size of the community fostered closer ties between gay men and lesbians, men had greater wherewithal to act on their homosexuality than women, which at least partly accounted for the LDS Church's preoccupation with male homosexuality. For lesbians who did participate in the subculture, a preference for the Broadway Lounge in the 1960s demonstrated their need for a space of their own, and separatism became even more common in the 1970s.35 Thus, while many of the narrators in this study attested to lesbians and gay men socializing together, they also characterized the Crystal and Radio City as primarily male preserves with relatively small contingents of women, many of them straight women who did not mind dress codes requiring dresses and nylons." Dress required adaptations from men as well. At the bars and among gay 33Mattingly, Holbrook, Jeffries interviews. 34Kelly interview. 35Madsen; Tim Stratton [pseud.], interview by author, Tape recording, Salt Lake City, 9 January 2005. 36Holbrook, Jeffries interviews.