When I read the subheadline about the gay generation gap, I assumed it was about the missing generation that died of AIDS. One thing I often wonder about is what life would be like today if no one died from AIDS. Would gay marriage have been made legal a long time ago? Would there be more equality? Less stress about coming out? Or is it silly to think that those who died would have become footsoldiers in the fight for gay rights. Maybe their deaths brought about more progress for gay rights than their eventual lives would have. Someone should write a story about an alternate future in which AIDS didn't exist. How would things be different?

I feel I missed out.

I came out in 1981 London after years of trepidation whilst growing up in a strict boarding school in the UK.

When I finally got to drama school in London it was exciting because I was accepted as gay and wsn't burnt at the stake as a heretic.

Then AIDS came along and fear began all over again. I only had one year's respite from my own fears and the overt aggression from bigots.

Aside from the fear engendered by the disease and subsequent backlash from society, AIDS ripped through London robbing us of our friends and stealing their lives.

To me, a missed generation means the horror of young people losing their lives coupled with those of us who lived with multiple bereavements - a psychologist once said it was like the bereavements suffered during wartime. Added to this, uncaring governments, scathing media and abandonment meant you had to find some kind of inner strength to survive.

The nice thing is gay people never forgot how to dance the night away.

I remember feeling lonely and lost as a young gay man, and hearing older people say "I wish you had known X, I think you would have been good friends." And, of course, X was invariably dead.

It was strange coming out in the early 90's (I was in my early twenties). The bars were filled with mostly older guys and only a relative few my own age. It was hard to find people to relate to. And there was still the question of what was safe sex. That is, it was the most intense time of safe sex practices, where you didn't have the slightes sexual contact without a condom (some people were even having jerk off parties, where sex was predicated on never touching another person), and even then you worried what if it has a tear?

And though I'm a fan of Andrew Holleran and Edmund White (the latter especially, big time), gay literature didn't help because not only was it not written by people my age, it was written by people who had initially come out before Stonewall, and I think their writing still reflected that mentality (as does Larry Kramer's Faggots, which Holleran is correct in saying was unjustly attacked). It was odd to read all this stuff about how you had to have short hair and preppy clothes and a buff body to even survive in the gay community, when I was living in the time of grunge. But then, they were behind the times enough that they didn't even acknowledge gay images in the pop culture of the 70's and 80's. Not one of them mentioned David Bowie, Lou Reed, the New York Dolls, Boy George, George Michael. So even though they articulated some things extraordinarily well, and created works that I love, they still seemed to be out of the past, and not very helpful.

Of course, who says the goal of literature is to make anyone comfortable or enable socialization?

And then the younger generation came along, I mean the one after mine, and suddenly there seemed this explosion again. And they grew up going to gay youth group meetings, and they are part of online communities, and sports teams and social events. Their parents often are glad to know their children are gay, and accept it; they have high school romances.

And I just sat there lost. Happy for them, very much so. But I feel like I drew the unlucky card. Not the pre-AIDS world of a defined alternative culture where sex equalled pleasure rather than death. Not the contemporary world where people are raised with a good understanding of safe sex and have fashioned a strong social world. Rather, the no man's land in between. Geesh, how Gen X can you get?

You "missed" a generation where there were no rules, was no self-respect, where true human relationships meant nothing. Excuse me while I don't lament your narcissistic losses, gentlemen. I am sorry it took AIDS to instill this push for safety, for common sense, for sex to be a part of, instead of all of, a relationship. Were it that we could have made this so on our own, without all the disease and death.

To writer of "Boo Fucking Hoo..."

Your teenage response to this reveals more about you than it does about the people you speak of.

Clearly you have very little life experience and I suspect you are some bored, recalcitrant teenager with too much time on his hands.

You sign off as 'your self respecting brother...' but no-one who said what you said can have any self respect and in your rant you were simply expressing your own hatred of yourself.

I pity you and your lack of compassion. I pity your narcissistic sense of superiority - and most of all I pity your life partner. If you are as virtuous and monogamous as you say you are, that poor woman is in it for the long haul.

Don't hold your breath though - because if the scales fall from her eyes and she suddenly sees you for what you really are, she'll drop you like a hot potato, sweetie, and kick you out on your sorry little a**

Take a long cold look in the mirror. Tell us what you see. . .

I came out in the 1970s as a teenager and lived through it all. I feel extremely fortunate that I am HIV-, my history certainly did not tilt the scales in that direction. I lost many dear and wonderful friends, who made great contributions to my life and to the lives of many--important contributions to fields of science, medicine, and the arts. Now, I'm in a long-term monogamous relationship. Not out of fear, not out of an intense desire to settle down. I just found the right guy and wanted to spend my life with him. It's easy to judge what went before in the light of today's knowledge and through the lens of our current culture. But that is a mistake that keeps us from learning many important lessons. For me, being a gay man does set me apart in many ways. As gay men, we have additional history and additional culture, which we cannot deny. Just as we cannot deny the effects of our "mainstream" history and culture on our lives. I'd like to think the lessons we learn are about compassion and acceptance. Too many fought too long for what we have today and for a future filled with promise. Heterosexuality is the norm and, like it or not, we are "the other." Hence, it likely will continue to be difficult for many to come out. I look forward to reading Holleran's new book.