Two Men, 58 Years and Counting. A Love Story.
In the last apartment they are likely ever to live in together, Kenneth Leedom and Peter Cott were talking about eros and the public life of New York — which is to say, sex on a moving subway train. Mr. Leedom is 88; Mr. Cott is 89.
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“The pattern now seems to be, everybody has to reveal, ‘I’m gay!’ ” Mr. Leedom said. “But the word didn’t exist in our life, and we just were. It wasn’t something you had to ever articulate. It didn’t matter. Both of our families embraced us wholeheartedly, without any questions. My parents adopted him and his parents adopted me. I don’t even think my mother and father knew we were gay. They just knew we were close friends.”
Mr. Cott said his only conflicts were with children who harassed him on the way to Hebrew school, sometimes because he was gay, sometimes because he was Jewish. But in their memory, homophobia was never a force in their lives.
“It depended largely on how you comported yourself,” Mr. Cott said. “If you were a fag,” he said, drawing out the word for emphasis, “then people would attack. If you were straight, then you were safe as could be.”
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http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/08/nyregion/58-years-and-counting-a-love-story.html?pagewanted=all
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