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

[Laurence Horn]

> On Jan 23, 2018, at 2:45 PM, MULLINS, WILLIAM D (Bill) CIV USARMY RDECOM AMRDEC (US) <william.d.mullins18.civ at MAIL.MIL> wrote:
> 
>> 
>>> 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.
> 
> 
Thanks, Bill.  If it were my entry, I’d have at least bracketed if not entirely omitted this occurrence, which I don’t see as having to anything obvious do with the sense glossed above,
'to admit (something) openly, to cease to conceal, esp. one's homosexuality’.  

LH

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