The End of Gay Culture II

It's happening in South Africa too. I should add that I have mixed feelings about this development, and certainly don't see it as some dreadful retreat. It's a sign of cultural integration, which is something I've been fighting for most of my adult life. And integration need not mean the end of all difference. There is a critical distinction between integration and assimilation. After the Castro post, some of you asked for a link to my essay on the subject of two years ago. Here's a pass-thru link courtesy of TNR, if you're interested. Money quote:

Slowly but unmistakably, gay culture is ending. You see it beyond the poignant transformation of P-town: on the streets of the big cities, on university campuses, in the suburbs where gay couples have settled, and in the entrails of the Internet. In fact, it is beginning to dawn on many that the very concept of gay culture may one day disappear altogether. By that, I do not mean that homosexual men and lesbians will not exist--or that they won't create a community of sorts and a culture that sets them in some ways apart. I mean simply that what encompasses gay culture itself will expand into such a diverse set of subcultures that "gayness" alone will cease to tell you very much about any individual. The distinction between gay and straight culture will become so blurred, so fractured, and so intermingled that it may become more helpful not to examine them separately at all.