It's very self-affirming to read stories about how others have dealt with coming out and how this absolute act of courage is being done at an ever-younger age. People born just a few years younger than me act like they were born in a different generation with respect to the societal acceptance of gays. And yet, it's still very difficult for me to acknowledge my sexuality in my world, which I'm sure I will think of as unique from these others.

But is there really a difference between "my world" and that of my homosexual peers? Every time I am with my new gay friends, it seems like a world away from that that I'm used to. I matured in very establishment institutions, Oxbridge and Ivy League universities and now work in another mainstream world, Wall Street. I like learning about men or women who built great businesses, people like Kay Graham, John Rockefeller Sr., Bill Gates or Warren Buffett. I admire entrepreneurial men, those who carve out their own worlds that are distinct from convention. And I especially admire those who do so whilst keeping their values intact, those values being integrity and rationality.

There is a debate between those homosexuals who wish to be "normal" and those who wish to flaunt their gayness. They disdain each other, one arguing for assimilation and the other for flaunting their gayness. I was probably in the "normal" camp before, as I could not relate to and in fact was repulsed by many aspects of gay life that I felt did nothing to help the cause of gay people. Now I don't think the answer is so simple as picking one camp over the other. Any answer should speak to the right for people to be themselves, and to be normal in order to assimilate into the mainstream or to flaunt one's gayness are likely to be symptoms of a deeper insecurity.