Part I. The setting. An identity community ; Expectations of intimacy: an individual view ; The web of talk ; A sense of history -- Part II. Parties and gatherings. Couples ; A subgroup ; Coming and going ; Mothers and children -- Part III. Bar women and political women. The outside world, I: work ; The outside world, II: families, friends, and straight society ; Privacy ; Postscript -- Appendix: Fiction and social science.