Good viewpoint. However, I would like to add another angle. I am in China, a country where LGBTs are less tolerated than US. There are not as much advocacy for gay rights either. Interestingly, partly because of that, we did not have many taboos in my teenage years either (that was in the ’80s; I am not entirely sure about the current generation). I enjoyed a lot of male friendships in my high-school and university years. I remember once when two male classmates walked together, one’s arm on another’s shoulder, (probably one was comforting another for some sad affairs), someone commented that they would be regarded as gays in US. We just laughed it off and no one minded.
My point is that gay awareness was nearly non-existent in my teenage years, but male friendship prospered. When people began to realize being gay was a possibility and they did not like it, this might be the worst case. Even when gay rights are fully recognized, I can hardly see boys behave the way we did in the ’80s in China, as they may think: ‘I am not a gay. What could happen if my best friend was a gay …?’ For me, I had not that awareness altogether. In this sense, we probably can never return to that state, just like one cannot get back innocence once it is lost.