Editing Gore Vidal (section)

===Sexuality===
In 1967, Vidal appeared in the [[CBS]] documentary ''[[CBS Reports: The Homosexuals]]'', in which he expressed his views on homosexuality in the arts.<ref>{{cite AV media |people=CBS/Mike Wallace |date=March 3, 1967 |title=The Homosexuals |medium=Television |language=en |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2UNcDHa5ao | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140413115353/http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2UNcDHa5ao&gl=US&hl=en| archive-date=April 13, 2014 | url-status=dead|access-date=March 13, 2016}}</ref> Commenting on his life's work and his life, he described his style as "knowing who you are, what you want to say, and not giving a damn."<ref name=Freethinker0812/>

However, Vidal often rebutted the label of "gay," maintaining that it referred to sexual acts rather than innate sexuality. During the 1980s and 1990s, he did not express a public stance on the [[Epidemiology of HIV/AIDS|HIV/AIDS crisis]]. According to Vidal's close friend [[Jay Parini]], "Gore didn't think of himself as a gay guy. It makes him self-hating. How could he despise gays as much as he did? In my company he always used the term 'fags'. He was uncomfortable with being gay. Then again, he was wildly courageous." Biographer Fred Kaplan concluded: "He was not interested in making a difference for gay people, or being an advocate for gay rights. There was no such thing as 'straight' or 'gay' for him, just the body and sex."<ref name="gay">{{cite news|last=Teeman|first=Tim|date=July 31, 2013|title=How Gay Was Gore Vidal?|url=https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-gay-was-gore-vidal|work=The Daily Beast|access-date=July 14, 2020|archive-date=September 27, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200927201215/https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-gay-was-gore-vidal|url-status=live}}</ref>

In the September 1969 edition of ''Esquire'', Vidal wrote about [[innate bisexuality]]:<ref name="esquire_sept_1969">{{cite magazine |author=Gore Vidal|title=A Distasteful Encounter with William F. Buckley Jr.|magazine=Esquire|date=September 1969|page=140}}</ref><ref name=Freethinker0812/>
{{blockquote|We are all bisexual to begin with. That is a fact of our condition. And we are all responsive to sexual stimuli from our own as well as from the opposite sex. Certain societies at certain times, usually in the interest of maintaining the baby supply, have discouraged homosexuality. Other societies, particularly militaristic ones, have exalted it. But regardless of tribal taboos, homosexuality is a constant fact of the human condition and it is not a sickness, not a sin, not a crime&nbsp;... despite the best efforts of our puritan tribe to make it all three. Homosexuality is as natural as heterosexuality. Notice I use the word "natural", not normal.}}