Editing Patricia Highsmith (section)

===Sexuality===
Highsmith's sexual relationships were predominantly with women.<ref name="Bradford2021" />{{Rp|pages=x, 57}} She occasionally engaged in sex with men without physical desire for them, writing in her diary in 1948: "The male face doesn't attract me, isn't ''beautiful'' to me."<ref name="Schenkar2009" />{{Rp|page=257}} In a 1970 letter to her stepfather, Highsmith described sex with men as like "steel wool in the face, a sensation of being raped in the wrong place—leading to a sensation of having to have, pretty soon, a boewl{{Sic|}} movement."<ref name="Wilson2003" />{{Rp|page=148}} [[Phyllis Nagy]] described Highsmith as "a lesbian who did not very much enjoy being around other women" and her few affairs with men occurred just to "see if she could be into men in that way because she so much more preferred their company."<ref name="gross2women2">{{cite web |last=Gross |first=Terry |date=January 6, 2016 |title=In 'Carol,' 2 Women Leap Into An Unlikely Love Affair |url=https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=462089856 |access-date=March 13, 2017 |website=[[Fresh Air]] |publisher=[[NPR]]}}</ref>

Highsmith called herself "basically polygamous"<ref name="Wilson2003" />{{Rp|page=166}} and was consistently unfaithful to her lovers.<ref name="Schenkar2009" />{{Rp|page=29}} She noted in her 1949 diary that she couldn't sustain any relationship for more than two to three years. In 1943 she wrote, "there is something perverted within me, that I don't love a girl anymore if she loves me more than I love her."<ref name="Wilson2003" />{{Rp|pages=102, 158}} According to biographer [[Andrew Wilson (author)|Andrew Wilson]], "She would be forever prone to falling in love but always happiest when alone."<ref name="Wilson2003" />{{Rp|page=89}}

Highsmith held varying views about her sexuality throughout her life. In 1942 she wrote that lesbians were inferior to homosexual men because they never sought their equals.<ref name="Wilson2003" />{{Rp|pages=99}} Later she told author [[Marijane Meaker]]: "the only difference between us and heterosexuals is what we do in bed."<ref name="Meaker2003">{{cite book|last1=Meaker |first1=Marijane |title=Highsmith: A Romance of the 1950s |date=2003 |edition=1st |publisher=Cleis Press |location=San Francisco|isbn=1-57344-171-6 |url=https://archive.org/details/highsmithromance0000meak/}}</ref>{{Rp|page=24}} In 1970 she wrote to a friend: "We all become reconciled to being queer and prefer life that way."<ref name="Wilson2003" />{{Rp|page=307}}

Highsmith refused to speak publicly about her sexuality, repeatedly telling interviewers: "I don't answer personal questions about myself or other people."<ref name="Schenkar2009" />{{Rp|page=xiv}}<ref name="Wilson2003" />{{Rp|pages=396–397}} When she finally agreed, in 1990, to have ''The Price of Salt'' republished under her own name as ''Carol'' she was still reluctant to discuss her sexuality.<ref name="Wilson2003" />{{Rp|pages=3, 441–442}} In 1978, however, she wrote a friend that after her death a future biographer must discuss her love life and "everyone must know I am queer or gay."<ref name="Wilson2003" />{{Rp|page=9}}