"Although gay males were largely without maps for guidance in building their lives at midcentury, with each subsequent decade thereafter, maps of various sorts began appearing: greatly increased visibility and acceptance of gay men, even a few of them in couples, in literature, popular culture, and real life: greatly increased opportunities for gay men to strengthen their own identities through interacting with one another in open acknowledgement of their sexuality. It would - it did - get better, for the gay males in couples, and for those living singly, but at midcentury nobody knew, sometimes feared even to dream, that would happen."