No, Sal Romano is a real person to me, too. And to me, as Mad Men depicts him, he's as historically accurate as a fiction can be (and what depictions are not fictional?) (OMG did I just say that, I am going to get struck by historian lightning) (ANYway) Plenty of people in his life did understand him to be gay, though - that horrible guy who got him fired, for starters. And Don. Just not his wife or mother. And then we only saw him for a few years - I hope the very worst years - of his life. I hope and expect that he goes on from that moment when we last saw him, heading off to cruise in Central Park, right? to find a life that makes sense for him. Which may or may not include a sense of himself being in, or coming out of, the closet.

I'm not saying that "the closet" wasn't a really important metaphor when it was first used, or that it's not an important metaphor now. It just - the metaphor might obscure as much as it reveals, especially when applied anachronistically, is what I think I might mean.