Just saw, for the first time, Vito Russo's (and I think Lily Tomlin's) The Celluloid Closet,

now just, since 1995, twenty years old--and a lot has happened in the past two decades which makes the movie (in a good sense) somewhat dated.  I had forgot a lot of the homophobic savagery (that at the time I mostly just ignored) of Silence of the Lambs, Mr. Goodbar, and JFK (I knew there was a reason I've never seen that movie).  Living, as I mostly did, in San Francisco through the mid-sixties to the early eighties, without contracting HIV, while yet partaking, whenever I wanted to, of the ultra-Babylonian male homosexual profligacy which characterized that City in those Times, and which was there, openly laid out, for the enjoyment-of and the indulging-in, to men as young, comely and fit as I then was; besides my being, as a wide reader of history, well aware of what, in historical terms, a precarious anomaly such Good Times always turn out to be, I was, and was always consciously, a Monk devoted to Truth and to the Pursuit of Wisdom, not to put too fine a point on it.  I spent a lot of time reading, and--without quite realizing that's what I was doing--meditating.  I virtually memorized Vivekananda's Raja Yoga, as well as the Lotus and the Lankavatara Sutras, and I maintained my discipleship with 'my' Zen Master of Hermetic Philosophy, from whom, in fact, in due course, I received the Direct Transmission of the Dharma. And always I listened to (and 'meditated' on) the best, most uplifting classical music, and whenever I got a chance, practiced it--Mozart, Haydn, Scarlatti, Purcell, Couperin and, always and always, Bach.  And always, I disdained to listen to, or think about, anything else. My regimen, or rule, combined with my hygienic practices, suited just me--and the men and youths (and yes, a few times, young women) with whom, from time to time, I had hot, uninhibited, and perfectly vanilla sex.  So, as I have said elsewhere, I imagine that the fact that I have never contracted HIV has something to do with the fact that I have also never left skid marks in my shorts, nor ever encountered shit, nor the least odor of it, in my, perhaps paradoxical, yet not unenthusiastic enjoyment of anal sex.

And it were well to note, I think, that the only time I ever encountered a fart when fucking was in doing with a female lady-person (which, yes, several times I did do), who did indeed, in a most unlady-like fashion, in the midst of our embraces, cut the cheese, long and loudly--but fortunately not (that I could tell) stinkily--causing both of us to giggle inordinately; but which did not prevent or much delay our eventual earth-shattering simultaneous orgasm.  And I swear that I am not making this up.