Farm Boys

Homosexuality is often seen as a purely urban experience, far removed from rural and small-town life. Farm Boys undermines that cliche by telling the stories of more than three dozen gay men, ranging in age from 24 to 84, who grew up in farm families in the midwestern United States. These men speak of the ways their farm upbringings influenced the course and character of their lives, especially with regard to gender identity and sexual orientation.

Whether painful, funny, or matter-of-fact, their plain-spoken accounts will move and educate any reader, gay or not, from farm or city.

Looking back on boyhood, these men recall how they experienced and responded to a variety of limiting conditions common to rural life: rigid gender roles, social isolation, ethnic homogeneity and racism, suspicion of the unfamiliar, sexual prudishness, religious conservatism, and scant access to information.

At the same time, many speak with pleasure of their accomplishments in farm and home activities, their love for the rural landscape and its elbowroom, and their appreciation of strong ties to family, church, and community.

Many of the men in this book no longer live in farm communities. From their urban homes, they consider their gains and losses in leaving rural life. Of those who remain in farm communities, some live quite openly in gay relationships or by themselves; others keep their sexual identity secret from their families and neighbors. Their stories reveal with candor and insight the diversity of gay men's lives and show how growing up gay in the Midwest has changed over the course of the century.