Throughout most of his story, he has gone to one therapist or another to ''cure'' himself of homosexuality. I was exhausted by always bumping up against this big lummox I didn't really know, myself. The effect of this is to maneuver the reader into an unusual position. So powerful are the narrator's descriptions of his urges compared with his tortured attempts to deny them that we begin to side with Dionysus against Apollo. Instead of wanting him to find the ''cause'' of and the ''cure'' for his homosexuality, we find ourselves wearying of his search and wishing him simply to accept his desires.
Relief then comes in a disconcerting way.
The police raid the Stonewall, a Greenwich Village hangout that the narrator and his friend happen to be ''turning a trick'' in, but instead of running away in shame the inhabitants stand fast and begin to riot.