While sexuality, in general, has been an area of human life that has been the object of social regulation, gay sexualities have been disproportionately disciplined and oppressed in a way that both public and private life have been punished. This autoethnography addresses how experiences of relational intimacy have been a crucial factor in resisting public oppression against gay people. Through a narration of a coming-of-age relationship, the author argues that intimate ways of relating for gay men have been constructed around the fleeting opportunity, the unexpected place in response to intimidating, persecutory, and unwelcoming experiences of the public space. Harshness helped the author and his partner discover softness in unexpected places and, in turn, create intimate ways of relating that differed from the normative idea that gayness should be restricted to the confines of private life.