But the truth is, in reality, people are living lives increasingly dependent on friendships, not love. They marry later, they divorce, there’s much more intermingling. The women’s movement and feminism, i think, - in some ways the greatest achievement of feminism is the expansion of the possibilities of friendship for human beings. Because, what it has done by the creating the possibility for - the first time really - the greater authonomy and freedom of women and also understanding, that men and women can relate on equal terms. It has actually made the friendship between men and women possible for the first time on a mass scale in human history. It’s an astonishing achievement and something, that feminists should be much more interested in talking about. Women among themselves had always had this enormous capacity for friendship. And gay men have, too. Partly because they were denied marriage. But straight men increasingly have a terrible time constructing friendships, that they are not panicked about. They always have to be “doing something”, when they are together, in case someone might construe a possibility that they are just spending time with one another. How many times do heterosexual men go out to diner with each other? They’re terrified. And that’s another way how the hatred and fear of homosexuals plays into this. This is why the friendship is related to some level with homosexuality. Because the homophobia and the fear of homosexuals has actually restrained straight men’s capacity for friendship, inhibited them, made them afraid of it. And they need it! And they’d benefit enormously from it. Which is why the campaign to destigmatize homosexuality is not a campaign for gay liberation alone - it’s also a campaign for straight people liberation. It’s a campaign to allow men to have friendships, that are real and deep and emotional. And what do you think promise-keeping is about? Promise-keeping is about friendship! It’s about having bonds that these straight men can live with and enjoy and feel proud of and not ashamed of. But even there they’re so afraid, that they only have these touchy-feely emotional friendships in a context of brutally homophobic ideology. Because the closer you are in that context the more emphatic you have to be that you’re not gay. And that also has to do with many organizations you see in the world that are all-male or have intense opportunities for male-male bonding like the military or the church. That it’s those organizations where the capacity for real friendship among men is at greatest, so there has to be the most brutal inforcement of homophobic ideology. What a shame! What a loss! And what we are fighting for is to make their lives more rich and more deep.