ABSTRACT
I heard once, in a graduate class, that those of us who conduct research do so to answer questions about ourselves, to try to solve problems that confront our personal lives as well as confound our professional analysis. Certainly, in my mind, I now see a clear route from the boy who tried to figure out who he was by consulting first an encyclopedia and later scores of research and theory about the lives of those who were not straight, to the sometimes queer, always gay man who conducted this study. The research, too, is closely related to the boy, slightly older, sitting in the winter moonlight of the Florida Keys, asking questions of a stranger, comparing and contrasting emotions, experiences, excitements.
