Last night I went to see Brokeback Mountain. this movie really had an impact on me. That was my generation, kinda. I was in grade 7 - 11 in Great Falls, Montana in the 60's. I lived on a military base all my life. I was very sheltered. I had feelings but didn't understand them. I was attracted to women, but I dated 2 boys in high school. I look back at them and see they were more fem than butch one was an artist the other a musician. I usually wanted to hang out with boys rather than girls because it was much safer emotionally for me. The movie brought back those feelings of not understanding what I felt and the denial that was necessary to be accepted. I think this is probably one of the reasons I ended up with my first live-in (the abuser) In fact research shows that there are a lot of teen pregancies proving you are straight. Thank goodness I didn't take that route. I wanted the appearances of being normal but didn't want the sex. This made my life very difficult.
In the middle 70's I dated a few women but the whole thing scared the shit out of me. The women who were attracted to me were very butch with a capital B. They were more masculine than the men I dated. When I met my children's father this big ol Dyke (a 6 ft tall Prison guard who was more masculine than he was) was persuing me. He rescued me from that situation, unbeknownest to him. He knew I lived with 3 gay men was involved in the gay world but fell in love with me regardless. I also fell in love with him, at first I think it was the idea of the relationship, but I grew to love him. In fact I still do, but as the father of my children not as a partner. Having 3 children in 20 months defintely made the relationship different, along with some other issues that were resolved many years later.
I stayed away from gay people for many years until I got sober and my mother died. We seperated shortly after that time. Again I had to deal with the dating issue and who do I date. The major thing for me was how do you meet women in the town I lived in. I could have gone to SF to meet someone or even Sacramento but I had 3 babies. The women I met were not healthy, but then neither were the men. Eventaully I met and married the last man in my life. A very short lived relationship.

At this point it was the 90's and being gay wasn't quite so bad. I did do some dating with other sober women, I became friends with sober women and eventually met my wife of 11 years and partner of 13 years.

The movie made me thankful for those who have made being Gay Ok in that a main stream movie about Gay love would be winning awards. it was great to see older straight couples watching the movie. I would have loved to the world (kind of) of role models being out there, of society being able to see us as people first then as sexual beings. I never dreamed know what they thought about it. I am sure the sex made them uncomfortable, but that's how I feel about straight sex I see all the time in the media.