During our teen and college years in the early and late 1970s, one word that we used to define the friendship whenever we were seen talking to a boy or a girl was ‘platonic.’ In majority of the friendships between two opposite sexes this was true because whether a boy or a girl would not dare cross that line. And a few boys who did cross the line were affectionately called Casanovas but the girls derogatively referred to as nymphomaniacs.
However, the same sex relations were hardly discussed as it never came out in the open. But if a boy acted like a girl he was called a pansy and a girl who behaved like a boy a tomboy. Nobody ever commented on gay or lesbian relationships and if there were people with such inclinations it was all closeted that hardly came out in the open.
