ON THE ELEVENTH NIGHT of February 1967, over 200 people from all walks of life-artists, teachers, factory workers, bankers, street cleaners, retired military men and women-filled the corner of Sunset and Sanborn in the heart of LA’s Silverlake district. Legal experts, clergymen, and local activists spoke on police brutality and homosexual rights while protestors waved signs demanding “No More Abuse of Our Rights and Dignity,” “Abolish Arbitrary Arrests,” and “Peace!” Across the street, nervous police clutched their batons while unmarked squad cars circled the protest like vultures.

For me, the relevant question is this: what is the real reason these figures, these masturbatory images, fascinate gay men so powerfully? And the fascination extends to gay men far beyond the demarcations of leather quarters, including even some who disdain more conventional pornography.

“AS HOMOSEXUALITY becomes more socially acceptable, we may even begin to find families based on homosexual ‘marriages’ with the partners adopting children.” So said Alvin Toffler in Future Shock, the 1970 publishing sensation that introduced Americans to “information overload” and assorted other innovations he predicted for the coming years.

IT’S HARD to pinpoint exactly the way in which the computer has changed gay life. The gay community as we knew it in the 1970’s and 80’s would have vanished anyway (though it’s hard to admit): AIDS, assimilation, generational shifts would have accomplished that. And, of course, the computer has been famously liberating: …

… IT USED TO BE that going to a gay bar meant being in the thick of gay community, gay culture, and gay activism. There would be fliers up on a bulletin board somewhere near the pay phone. There might be a fundraiser for the local LGBT community center or there might be some political conversation. … While the Internet is a powerful tool for organizing and for getting the word out about GLBT issues-from news on legislation to advice on how to bypass heterosexist adoption laws- I worry that it’s lulling us into a false sense of security. …

FAN FICTION, in its simplest definition, is fiction written by the fans of any popular narrative, be it a novel, a TV series, or a film. While private fan fiction may be as old as fiction itself, its origins as a genre for public (albeit esoteric) circulation can be traced back to the start of fan magazines or “fanzines” in the 1970’s. With the advent of the Internet, the genre has suddenly become available to a mass readership, and this has alerted more people to the phenomenon and to its possibilities than a fanzine could ever hope to do. .