“When people assume that the Mafia is particularly homophobic, they’re looking backwards through the lens of the closet,” he says. “They’re looking at how the Mafia was in the ’80s and ’90s—and the fictional portrayals of them—and more broadly Italian-American culture. But what they’re forgetting is that earlier on, it was very different. Same-sex activity was unusually high among Italian immigrants because it wasn’t considered gay or homosexual, it was just sexual release.” And as Hortis points out in The Mob and the City, mobster “Crazy” Joey Gallo “talked about how ‘normal, natural, and unremarkable’ homosexuality was in prison.”