As gay men took to the streets in annual Gay Freedom Day parades and protest marches, dance floors were heaving with a new influx of out-and-proud men, expressing their newfound freedom and exploring the intimate ins-and-outs of gay life. The music was the sound of gay liberation, whose political launch had taken place at the Stonewall riots of 1969 (and, in San Francisco, the Compton’s Cafeteria Riot of 1966), but whose sexual implications were playing out in gay discotheques and steamy bathhouses.
