The years between the gay liberation movement at the beginning of the 1970s and the onset of AIDS a decade later are viewed in a certain strand of gay nostalgia as “the golden age”. It’s hardly surprising that those who lived through the period might see it this way; in retrospect all youth is golden. What is surprising is the extent to which men not then adult — perhaps not yet born — have accepted the idea and are slightly disappointed when I try to disillusion them.
