![]() “I think the war has caused a great change,” one of the homosexual “Queens” in Gore Vidal’s 1948 novel, The City and the Pillar, mused while admiring a collection of marines and sailors at an all-male party. ![]() Facing an uncertain future and shrouded with the relative anonymity provided by a bustling urban hub, many sought to satiate previously hidden desires, finding solace in same-sex relationships. The city became a hub for homosexual activity in World War II, when men from all over the country found themselves in an all-male environment far from the families and small towns who knew and watched them closely. The streets are strewn with rainbow flags, and storefronts revel in double-entendres: “The Sausage Factory” is a restaurant and pizzeria, and “Hot Cookie” sells famously delicious cookies as well as-why not?-men’s underwear. The Castro neighborhood, the historic center of homosexual activity since the 1970s, is now one of the hubs of tourist activity. Homosexual men are also more numerous than homosexual women. ![]() The LGBT community in the Bay Area makes up 6.2% of the population, which is almost twice the national average of 3.6%. Ask almost anyone in the United States to list the first things that come to mind when they think of that glorious “City by the Bay,” San Francisco, and-along with exorbitant rent, candy-colored Victorian houses, and aging hippies- they will invariably mention: “gay or homosexual men.”
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