A groundbreaking book which explores the family as the first place where all people - straight, gay and bisexual - learn homophobia. Written in the tradition of Susan Brownmiller's Against Our Will, which reconceptualised rape and transformed it from a private problem into an internationally recognised cultural crisis, Schulman uncovers the hidden crime of familial homophobia and exposes it for social and political scrutiny illustrating how societal homophobia is rooted in the family but reaches into all levels of social interaction, including how gay people treat each other.