''staying Bush'': the Lives of Gay men in Rural Australia

This study explored the experience of what it is tobe a gay man and to live in a rural community. Thefindings of this study show that these men were able to live in rural locations by effectively employing a diverse range of strategies to both combat the difficulties of rural life and to enhance its advantages. The bush was the place in which these men could find themselves, be themselves and also find others like themselves. This book documentsa largely unreported aptitude and adeptness by ruralgay men to live contented lives in rural areas. Itsuggests that their close affinity with place givesthem a sense of belonging. It also suggests thatthese men had the capacity for agency - theindividual''s ability to exert autonomy over hislife - that drove their determination to control andimprove their own lives and live them the way theychose. This is a perspective that has been untold in previous narratives of rural gay men. That gay men can live fulfilled lives in the very places they are too often said to have fled evokes an innovative understanding of what it is to be gay in the bush.