This sexual world included gay men too, and gay as an adjective in the sexual meaning goes back at least to the late 1930s. A gay woman was a prostitute, a gay man a womanizer, a gay house a brothel. The word gay has had various senses dealing with sexual conduct since the 17th century. The sexual orientation meaning of the word gay has become so predominant that people hesitate to use the term in its original senses of “merry, lively” and “bright or showy.” But the word's association with sexuality is not new.
