In an op-ed published in Monday's New York Times, IGF
contributor Bruce ("A Place at the Table") Bawer has this to
say about the closing of New York's famed Oscar Wilde Bookshop
(1967-2003):
Today's young gay readers, viewing their homosexuality not as a perplexity or a tragedy, but as a matter-of-fact part of their identity, are less likely to need the affirmation and reassurance (and company) that specifically gay books once provided. Increasingly, they know who they are. They're happy with who they are. They think of themselves as a part of the larger world. They may love to read -- let's hope they do -- but the hole in the soul that places like the Oscar Wilde Bookshop once helped to fill is no longer there. And that's not a terrible thing.