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126 / The New York Art Networkclass, “One of the ƒrst things I did was a male nude!” 48 The similarity betweenthe photograph and the painting is further evidence that Neel had absorbedthe tradition of the unidealized male nude that Eakins had established.By the 1970s Neel was no longer alone in exploring this genre, however, asmany feminist artists were turning to the subject, Sylvia Sleigh prominentamong them. Although as a curator, Perreault’s interest in the sensuous malenude in art was established with his 1973 exhibition, and Neel’s portrait is anunambiguous celebration of his eroticism, Perreault would not announce thathe was gay until 1980. At that time, he began to directly address the issue of gayart in his critical writing. His article “I’m Asking—Does It Exist? What Is It?Whom Is It For?” in Artforum in November 1980 probed the subject in question-and-answerformat, distinguishing between a pre-Stonewall homosexualartist, who would re„ect oppression, and a gay artist, who might express his orher liberation. Perreault noted the contribution of feminism to re-eroticizingand repoliticizing art, providing a space for the emergence of gay art, and then,in speculating about why “the art world has not welcomed gay liberation,” explainedthat the continued silence on the part of the mainstream artworld was“economic.” 49John D’Emilio agrees that feminism assisted the cause of gay liberation inthe 1970s:Feminism’s attack upon traditional sex roles and the afƒrmation of a nonreproducutivesexuality . . . paved a smoother road for lesbians and homosexuals who werealso challenging rigid male and female stereotypes and championing an eroticismthat by its nature did not lead to procreation. Moreover, lesbians served as a bridgebetween the women’s movement and gay liberation . . . Feminism helped removegay life and gay politics from the margins of American society. 50A contemporary Adonis, Neel’s John Perreault rides the crest of the wave madeby feminism and gay liberation, openly celebrating at last modern art’s debt tothe gay community.