Also, I strongly suspect that changing attitudes towards homosexuality in the US plays a role, although I don’t have a precise understanding of how I expect that to work.
Speaking roughly: my intuition is that when X is bad, a lot of people who have minor suspicions that someone they trust is doing X are motivated to pursue those suspicions, but when X is really really bad, those same people are instead motivated to not think about their suspicions. And I think the ratio of people who think homosexuality is really really bad to those who merely think it’s bad is decreasing.
Not to mention, of course, that illicit relationships by their nature can’t be kept secret from everyone—the other person in the relationship has to know—and the more acceptable the class of relationship becomes in the broader community the easier it is for the other person to reveal it.
Yes.
Also, I strongly suspect that changing attitudes towards homosexuality in the US plays a role, although I don’t have a precise understanding of how I expect that to work.
Speaking roughly: my intuition is that when X is bad, a lot of people who have minor suspicions that someone they trust is doing X are motivated to pursue those suspicions, but when X is really really bad, those same people are instead motivated to not think about their suspicions. And I think the ratio of people who think homosexuality is really really bad to those who merely think it’s bad is decreasing.
Not to mention, of course, that illicit relationships by their nature can’t be kept secret from everyone—the other person in the relationship has to know—and the more acceptable the class of relationship becomes in the broader community the easier it is for the other person to reveal it.