I was a suburban Latina, the only Mexican family on the block. I never felt like I fit in with my classmates. I discovered the Smiths and Joy Division and New Order--I think this music saved my life.

As a sixty-five-year-old gay man, I never cease to be amazed at the way that kids have swiftly acted to reclaim the ostracism and feelings of persecution that traditionally have been attendant upon identifying oneself as homosexual. "This was the 1980s." Please. Would you like to try Grand Rapids, Michigan in 1957? Or, like my partner of twenty-eight years, Newton, Massachusetts in the early '60s. Give us all a break. So high school was difficult for you, dear? It is for everyone. It wasn't because you're a lesbian.

Hope to see more like this.

No question you're right that adolescence is hard on most of us, gay or straight. But can't you just listen to someone's story and find the truth in it for you without playing the "my pain is greater than yours" game?

"But then Nancy had an affair with her 40-something-year-old male English teacher, whom she later married, and I discovered the meaning of a new word: 'poseur.'"

What makes you say this? Maybe she was bisexual?

Yeah, bragging about having sex with anybody for any reason is poseur-ish, but that wasn't what it sounded to me like you were saying here.

Please tell me you're not one of those lesbians who thinks that bisexual people either don't exist or are evil, or confused, or anything except yet another orientation.

I've been like this since I was twelve. I'm 34 now. It's very much not a phase. :)

Real nice.

Annie Lennox still takes my breath away.

As a gay teen growing up in the late sixties and early seventies for me it was Paul Simon's music. I know there was no intentional gay theme in songs like The Only Living Boy in New York, So Long Frank Lloyd Wright and Me and Julio Down by the School Yard but they had that meaning to me. And so many of their other songs, even ones with obviously heterosexual lyrics gave meaning to my feelings of alienation and separateness.

why certain groups feel the need to claim a genre of music as their own?

I harbor no ill will toward the LGBT comminity (one of my cousins is a lesbian, so I'd be rather foolish to do so), but claiming dance, new wave, etc. as their own makes no more sense to me than African-Americans claiming hip-hop as their own or Caucasian suburbanites claiming rock as their own.

If any one of you looked in my iPod, by the logic of the subtitle, you would probably have a lot of trouble figuring out whether I was gay, straight, or just confused. My inclination towards various genres of music, including those the LGBT community would like to have exclusive claim to, is a result of me growing up in an urban environment in the 80's. An environment that did not allow for me to listen to one and only one genre of music. Nor did it allow any one group of people to claim it for themselves alone.

I suppose the 90's saw things shift towards a form of "rhythmic segregation" as radio stations started formatting variety out of the playlists. I suppose, in turn, that the associations of certain genres with certain demographics started to take root again.

she's just telling us her story. You're all so f**king sensitive about this article because she's gay. Ridiculous.

I'm of that same generation and I loved her descriptions of what the music meant to her. I was happily reminded of some of those albums which played a big part in my teenage life too. Now I'm watching my daughter go through a lot of the same angst, although she has had no shame in announcing to me that she's bi. I'm so happy that she feels so comfortable - things really are improving on that front.

Thanks Kera. I loved your story!

Did tat college station, by any chance, happen to be WNUR out of Evanston? i got there in 1986 - after the last of your playlist would havebeen in rotation - but volunteering there opened up a world to this geeky straight boy, too.

Fiding the music that tells your story is an amazing experience, no doubt about it.

I was biggest of all on Bowie.

To follow up with 9:03 -- I think what the author is trying to say is how strange it is that not only can music "memory lock" a certain time period in your life, music also has an inherent drawing power on a deep subconscious level (I know, too deep, but stick with me)...it is truly odd that so many young people gravitated towards Depeche Mode, Bronski Beat, Pet Shop Boys, etc., but the average 10-17 year old in the 80's/early 90's did not really understand why. For myself, it is even more confusing -- while all the rest of my friends were banging Metallica/Motley Crue/Alice in Chains in their F-150's in rural Wisconsin, I was searching down Flood remixes of Depeche Mode's "Happiest Girl" -- and I am f@#king straight. So it appears that my junior high music taste thinks I am gay????!!!???

Note to the author: check out the new album from Hercules and Love Affair -- I guarantee it is going to be your new favorite album.

Oh my god I just had the stupidest dream. Some self-absorbed whiner was getting paid to write articles for Salon.com.

"Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Oh my god I just had the stupidest dream. Some self-absorbed whiner was getting paid to write articles for Salon.com.

-- Jason G."

...and then there were the self absorbed whiners who weren't getting paid :) If you have a story, by all means, write it up and submit it. If you're lucky, you'll get published- make 50 bucks and get showered by all the love, too. Almost sounds worth it, huh?