In Their (Comfortable) Shoes

Forty years ago, turning on a television to witness any reference to homosexuals of any sort was unheard of. Today it seems every other person has had an encounter with at least one gay person, often times befriending this abnormality upon the realization they are alike despite their sexual orientation. As the times are indeed changing, honest and accurate portrayals of today and tomorrow are finally becoming more common than the naive and stereotypical portrayals of yesterday. Homosexuals seem to have become more comfortable with themselves, and when they are more comfortable, it is easier for the public to get more comfortable.
In the novel The Color Purple, Alice Walker dares to introduce lesbian tendencies with the way Celie and Shug “sleep like sisters” together. The relevance of the publishing date, 1982, is relevant because the novel had quite a voice for a novel of its time. While other novelists were writing about love between two people of opposite sexes, Walke...