[Ads-l] Antedating of "Come Out of the Closet" (Homosexuality)

Tue Jan 23 19:45:08 UTC 2018

> 
> > On Jan 23, 2018, at 2:01 PM, MULLINS, WILLIAM D (Bill) CIV USARMY RDECOM AMRDEC (US) > >
> >
> >
> >>
> >> come out of the closet (homosexuality) (OED 1972)
> >>
> >>
> >> 1968 _Berkeley Barb_ 15-21 Mar. 12/1 (Independent Voices)  HAY
> >> FRUITS!  Come out of the closet long enuf to attend the East Bay Gay Discussion Group Fridays.
> >>
> >>
> >> Fred Shapiro
> >
> > It would be nigh-on impossible to search for, I suspect, but I wonder when "of the closet" started being dropped, and when "come out"
> started being applied to characteristics other than homosexuality ("come out as a Republican", etc.).
> >
> >
> The OED, s.v. _closet_ 3(d),
> 'to come out of the closet: to admit (something) openly, to cease to conceal, esp. one's homosexuality’, with reference to the antonymic
> ‘in the closet’, provides this cite
> 
> 1973   Times 4 June 14/1   It will be nice if those of us who have been slightly shamefaced addicts [of horse-racing] for years can at last
> come out of the closet
> 
> —only one year later than their first unambiguous sexual-orientation-related cite (granted, 4 years later than the Berkeley Barb hit above):
> 
> 1972   Pride of Lions (Columbia Univ.) Apr. 2/1   For those who have come out, tried it and like it, read no more. For those, ‘in the closet’,
> you need to read on, get right on!
> (Cute, that “pride of lions” reference, that being Columbia’s mascot/nickname)
> 
> There’s also this but I don’t know the broader context of the excerpt:
> 
> 1963   S. Plath in London Mag. Jan. 16   Come here, sweetie, out of the closet.
> 
> It’s not bracketed, so I assume it’s metaphorical in one sense or another.
> 

The Plath cite is from a poem:
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/57419/the-applicant

and I am not able to tell what the author meant by this use.

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