OK, just a few final words on Sontag, then I'll shut up. Michael
Bronski
writes in Bay Windows:
The more interesting question concerns Sontag herself. Given that we know Sontag was a woman who enjoyed sexually intimate relationships with other women (indeed, Sontag's friend Doug Ireland recalls in a blog post published the day Sontag died that, "We often talked about sexuality - she was quite amusing in recounting her own amorous adventures with women,") what does it mean that Sontag, given her feminism, her progressive politics, and her commitment to human rights - would not publicly identify herself as a lesbian?
One possible, even obvious, answer is that Sontag's career benefited by her remaining closeted.
That's the conclusion many are now reaching. And what it reveals is something interesting about the left - that the very identity politics it promotes can be so limiting that an intellectual of the left would actively dissuade public reporting of her being gay, so as not to be reduced to a "lesbian intellectual."
That might have served Sontag's career, but it unfortunately
reinforced some very negative cultural attitudes (not just, of
course, on the left) that must be confronted by those of us who are
openly gay and don't want that to be viewed as limiting whatever
else we may choose to accomplish in public life.