All eyes on us.

From Newsweek to Seventeen, mainstream magazines have begun to see lesbians and gay men as we really are

It was a week before the 1996 presidential election, and Newsweek had to decide what to run on its November 4 cover. Yet another Bill Clinton-Bob Dole pairing? No, thank you. Newsweek chose a more marketable couple: lesbian moms-to-be Melissa Etheridge and Julie Cypher. There they were, snuggled cheek to brow, beaming from the cover at 4 million-plus readers under a headline loudly heralding WE'RE HAVING A BABY.

If there's a trend to watch as the millennium draws to a close, it is the regularizing of gay culture. For gays and lesbians still reeling from the passage of federal legislation banning same-sex marriage, Newsweek's bold display - including a 7 1/2-page inside spread on gay families was nothing short of astonishing. Those with a sense of history marveled at the distance traveled in media light-years since the days, a mere generation ago, when headlines spoke of "homos," "queens," "lezzies," and "perverts," when they spoke of us at all.

The most remarkable thing about the magazine's treatment may have been its unremarkableness. True, the public seems to remain insatiably curious about us, much of it having to do with loving to hate us. But a random sampling of media images in just the past year confirms that as gays and lesbians become more visible in the mainstream, they are being depicted as more a part of the mainstream. If the straight media is a reflection (or harbinger) of our nation's cultural topography, there is no denying that a profound change is happening.

You might recall that Newsweek "discovered" lesbians just three years ago with its overhyped and somewhat naive LESBIAN CHIC cover. That article read like an archeological expedition to exotic Lesbos. Now we have Etheridge and pregnant mate Cypher telling Newsweek readers about wanting a whole passel of kids and how Cypher's father is building a cradle for the baby and Cypher's mother is crocheting a blanket.

Then you pick up the November issue of Life magazine and find a seven-page color-photo spread about a gay male couple in Dallas, leading off with a double-page photo of middle-American "marrieds" Mark Sadlek and Steve Habgood engaging in pillow talk, their frisky poodle on the bed between them. In other views we see Sadlek and Habgood trimming the lawn in front of their lovely detached colonial, holding hands in church, and smiling for the camera amid Sadlek's straight fraternity brothers and their female spouses at a reunion. For those of us who remember the hauntingly similar Life spreads of the '50s showing postwar hetero couples setting up housekeeping in the expanding suburbs, the depiction of Sadlek and Habgood carries a sense of triumphant deja vu.

There on the stands not far from Newsweek and Life is the November cover of Harper's magazine showing a mixed-race male couple accompanied by the legend WEDDED TO AN ILLUSION: DO GAYS AND LESBIANS REALLY WANT THE RIGHT TO MARRY? Inside is a 5,000-word take on the subject by the brilliant gay novelist Fenton Johnson. He argues that the gay-marriage issue is subversive because it brings into question the essential inequality of the heterosexual marriage model, which is based on property rights and male domination. Thus, Harper's readers are being told, gay marriage is not a gay issue; it's about everyone.

Suddenly it's not surprising to find Elizabeth Birch and Hilary Rosen amid a 12-page layout on "America's Most Intriguing Power Couples" in the October issue of George. Birch is head of the Human Rights Campaign, a gay lobbying group, and Rosen is president of the Recording Industry Association of America. As a couple they fit the George mode seamlessly, along with hetero U.S. representatives Susan Molinari and Bill Paxon, political consultants James Carville and Mary Matalin, and broadcast news stars Steve and Cokie Roberts.

Nor does it seem strange to see ourselves in People magazine, which in July casually snapped Elton John "and his beau," David Furnish, at a fashion show. In September, under the headline FAMILY VALUES, the magazine featured Barry Goldwater's gay grandson, Ty Ross, and his lover, Gary Ragadio, in a "candid" at-home shot.

You might say that's par for the course for celebrity magazines and general-interest Publications. Since The Wall Street Journal broke the story about Rolling Stone founder Jann Wenner's fling with a male Calvin Klein model and nobody so much as curled a lip, the door was opened to increasingly intimate glimpses of the gay and lesbian rich and famous.

But the trend is showing up in niche publications that are traditionally far less hospitable to gay subjects. Most surprising, it is happening in youth magazines. The November issue of Seventeen promotes on its cover a piece titled "I Can't Tell Anyone I'm Gay." Inside is a balanced and sensitive five-page account with pictures of the experiences of eight teenage girls (first names only) in various stages of coming out.

What's more, in September the 2.3-million-circulation magazine published a book with Simon & Schuster called The Seventeen Guide to Sex and Your Body, which includes a chapter on gay and lesbian issues titled "Who Do You Love?"

Equally compelling is an article in the January 1996 issue of YM, a 2-million-circulation magazine that targets adolescent girls. Tucked among puffy titles like "One-Night Stands - Why Guys Kiss and Run" is "I Kissed a Girl," a first-person account by a small-town Ohio girl named Megan Dalby. This is amazingly gritty stuff. Dalby discovered her sexuality at 15, struggled for `balance when rejected by parents and schoolmates, and finally tried to kill herself by slashing a wrist. She survived, found support, and took a girlfriend to the junior prom. Now at Smith College, Dalby says at the conclusion of the article, "I've accepted myself.... I know now that I am completely human and completely lesbian and that I can't separate the two."

Christina Ferrari, YM's editor in chief, says this was the magazine's first major feature on lesbian issues, "The time just seemed ripe," she says. "The subject was in the news. Celebrities like Melissa Etheridge and k.d. lang - people who are role models for our readers - were coming out. It's become part of the social fabric and didn't seem like a big risk at all."

Seventeen associate editor Sabrina Solin agrees: "We were getting increasing numbers of letters from girls with lesbian friends or who were lesbian themselves or were confused sexually. It's become a more open issue of interest to our readers, and that makes it interesting to us."

The impact of articles like these in mainstream publications, where young people struggling with their sexuality can find themselves mirrored, is incalculable - and possibly lifesaving. To a youngster coping with issues of self-worth, the Etheridge model is good to have, but it is the reflection of the Megan Dalbys in the media that can turn lives around.

Clearly these topics trickle down to the niche publications as a result of the attention given them by Newsweek, People, The Wall Street Journal, TV networks, and other news outlets. Programs like an hour-long November segment of ABC's Turning Point, which with whimsy and charm tracked the wedding odyssey of five real-life gay couples, doubtlessly help raise the comfort level with such traditionally taboo subjects.

But those who seek the ultimate in gay hip crossover can turn to the inside back cover of the November issue of Mad, that long-running Jonathan Swift-cum-borscht belt satire magazine. There, the traditional "Mad Fold-in" asks, WHAT PROPOSED MERGER IS THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT MOVING QUICKLY TO BLOCK? Is it Time Warner and Turner? ABC and Disney? When you fold the corner leaf so that "A" meets "B," you discover the real answer: SAME-SEX MARRIAGE.