a world for themselves that was nourishing, queer, and workable within the larger, heterosexual socioeconomic world in Oklahoma City. Private affairs allowed a safe, controlled atmosphere for socialization where men expressed alternative sexual preferences within their peer group. Thus, private parties could function as springboards for upper-class men into the gay and bisexual world and also as key markers of subcultural development. The virtual lack of public information about these parties is a testament to the effectiveness of the secrecy that the community used, yet this party network was obviously functional. “There was the ‘in’ crowd as they called themselves. This was back in the 1940s when I first came (to Oklahoma City). They had their own parties and such,” related a working-class bar patron who was regularly excluded from those affairs. In much the same way that southern men in Atlanta formed communities in the face of increased hostility, so too did gay and bisexual men in Oklahoma City.7 With threats to one’s reputation or economic livelihood so close at hand, members of this subculture operated under a rather thick veil of secrecy. Ironically, because of this secrecy, it could be difficult for upper-middle-class gay men to explore the inner sanctum of same-sex socialization networks. Joe, a financial analyst for a large investment firm, spent much of his early adult life immersed in work as a way to avoid dealing with his sexuality. Joe frequently worked long hours and almost every weekend to avoid 7
For a discussion of how valuable private parties were to queer subculture formation, see David K. Johnson, “The Kids of Fairytown: Gay Male Culture on Chicago’s Near North Side in the 1930s,” in Creating a Place for Ourselves: Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Community Histories, ed. Brett Beemyn (New York: Routledge Press, 1997), 112-113; J.L. Asher, interview by author, Oklahoma City, 9/10/2002; John Howard, “The Library, the Park, and the Pervert: Public Space and Homosexual Encounter in PostWorld War II Atlanta,” Radical History Review 62 (1995): 166-l87. Howard discusses the private world of entertaining that occurred in Atlanta in the face of increased hostility in the 1950s and religious intolerance. See especially footnote 50. 205