In which The Gay Recluse updates his informal but rather telling quantitative analysis of Modern Love, the weekly Style Section (of The Times) column in which openly gay writers almost never appear, and even less frequently describe a romantic relationship.

This week’s piece: A Wedding Invitation for a Mom Long Gone by Julie Buxbaum

Subject: As a woman gets married, she ruminates on her dead mother. Unfortunately we found this column rather long-winded and depressing to the extent that the writer seems to want us to believe she is not conventional — because she orders wedding invitations from Costco and is aware of the “wedding-industrial complex” — even while she rather aggressively embraces a “destination” wedding. Far more interesting and moving to us were the descriptions of her relationship (both past and ongoing) with her dead mother, which we tried to emphasize in our gay and impressionistic alternative to the piece.

Filed under: Straight Woman on “Family”

The updated tally (or why we feel like animals in the zoo): 7 out of 178 columns by openly gay writers; 2 out of 178 on female gay relationships; 0 out of 178 on male gay relationships. In what is arguably the “gayest” section of The Times, more women have written about gay men than gay men have.

Straight Woman on Relationships iiiii iiiii iiiii iiiii iiiii iiiii iiiii iiiii ii (42)
Straight Woman on Family iiiii iiiii iiiii iiiii iiiii iiiii iiiii i (36)
Straight Woman on “Looking for Love” iiiii iiiii iiiii iiiii iiiii iiiii iiiii (35)
Straight Woman on Breaking Up iiiii iiiii iiiii iiiii iii (23)
Straight Man on Relationships iiiii iiiii i (11)
Straight Man on Breakup iiiiii (6)
Straight Woman on Gay Men iiiii i (6)
Straight Man on Family iiiii i(6)
Straight Man on “Looking for Love” iiiii (5)
Gay Man on Family ii (2)
Gay Woman on Relationship ii (2)
Gay Woman on Family i (1)
Gay Man on Self-Hatred i (1)
Gay Man on Prom Date i (1)
Ambiguous/Nurse on Drugs i (1)