When my late partner, who was a generation older than me, would take me out to a nice restaurant in New York City, he would revel in behaving in a sort of old-fashioned chivalrous way.

When the tuxedoed server at the Rainbow Room stepped up to take our order, Lenny would say something like, “And the young man will have …” after of course making sure he knew what I wanted.

I think both of us sort of understood we were aping heteronormative culture in a way that was rooted in sexism.

But oh my, how we subverted that paradigm. Imagine the two of us stepping out onto that polished revolving dance floor in the mid-1990s. His Cary Grant to my Sal Mineo. First one of us would lead, then the other.

Dressed to the nines, we imitated sexist culture while stepping all over its toes — but never on each other’s toes.

(Well, mostly never. He was a far better dancer than I was.)