Sydney is a city of many charms, not least of which is its large and very visible LGBT community. And it’s been that way for many years: for example, as early as 1984 the annual Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Parade was drawing tens of thousands of spectators.

Despite its rather belated decriminalisation in New South Wales (in 1984), most people were comfortable with the issue of homosexuality long before that. At least that’s what I thought, when I first arrived in Australia in 1987.

Thanks to Paul Kidd for the image

It came as a bit of a shock, therefore, when I started to check the local papers for accommodation in gay households.

Apparently the media, despite devoting many pages to the coverage of the annual Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, weren’t comfortable with mentioning the ‘g’ ( or ‘l’) word in their Classified ads. It was necessary instead to use the expression ‘broad-minded’.

Needless to say, this prudish practice generated both hilarity and misunderstanding (and hilarity arising from the misunderstandings) by the truckload. There were genuinely a few naive heterosexual souls who thought that a liberal outlook was all that was being sought. Apparently, some people got quite upset when the real situation was explained to them.

Of course most people knew what was being said (even if, like me, someone had to explain it to them first!) and the ads generally attracted gays and lesbians in search of accommodation. But not always.

When my housemates and I advertised for another ‘broad-minded’ person to join us, I answered the phone one day to be met with the invitation, “Do you wanna wank?”. Always the gentleman, I politely declined – in my best and most formal English accent. Then I hung up and spluttered an astonished explanation to my housemates.

“Oh yes,” said one of them, quite nonchalantly. “I had one of them this afternoon.” Apparently, ‘broad-minded’ was also a signal to those seeking a bit of telephone sex, something which advertisers could see as a ‘perk’ or otherwise, depending upon their proclivities.

Which only goes to show, if you try and make us invisible, we won’t just find a way around it – we’ll turn it to our advantage!