India, Aug. 13 -- In your book, you write about the 40-year friendship between a gay man and a straight one. How did this happen given the panic that many straight men experience around gay men?

Yes, the panic was especially present in the early 1980s when this friendship started. Chris Maxey was a legendarily famous jock. I was already an out gay man and AIDS activist. He was a state champion in several sports, which is a big deal, and a nationally ranked wrestler. There are a lot of jocks and athletes who are charming, delightful, warm and lovely people. But there is a culture of hyper masculinity around athletes, and particularly in some sports. This hyper masculinity expresses itself in a kind of panic about being thought gay, about ...