NBA center Jason Collins recently announced he was gay in a cover story for Sports Illustrated¹ . In other words, he “came out of the closet.” This expression for revealing one's homosexuality may seem natural. Being in the closet implies hiding from the outside world, and the act of coming out of it implies the will to stop hiding. But though the closet has long been a metaphor² for privacy or secrecy³, its use with reference to homosexuality is relatively⁴ recent.

According to George Chauncey's comprehensive history of modern gay culture, Gay New York , the closet metaphor was not used by gay people until the 1960s. Before then, it doesn't appear anywhere “in the records of the gay movement or in the novels, diaries, or letters of gay men and lesbians.”

“Coming out,” however, has long been used in the gay community, but it first meant something different than it does now. “A gay man's coming out originally referred to his being formally presented to the largest collective manifestation⁵ of prewar gay society, the enormous drag balls that were patterned on the debutante⁶ and masquerade balls of the dominant⁷ culture and were regularly held in New York, Chicago, New Orleans, Baltimore, and other cities.” The phrase “coming out” did not refer to coming out of hiding, but to joining into a society of peers. The phrase was borrowed from the world of debutante balls, where young women “came out” in being officially introduced to society。

The gay debutante balls were a matter of public record and often covered in the newspaper, so “coming out” within gay society often meant revealing your sexual orientation⁸ in the wider society as well, but the phrase didn't necessarily carry the implication that if you hadn't yet come out, you were keeping it a secret. There were other metaphors⁹ for the act of hiding or revealing homosexuality. Gay people could “wear a mask” or “take off the mask.” A man could “wear his hair up” or “let his hair down,” or “drop hairpins¹⁰” that would only be recognized by other gay men。

It is unclear exactly when gay people started using the closet metaphor, but “it may have been used initially¹¹ because many men who remained 'covert¹²' thought of their homosexuality as a sort of 'skeleton in the closet.‘” It may also have come from outsiders who viewed it that way. It seems that “coming out of the closet” was born as a mixture of two metaphors: a debutante proudly stepping into the arms of a community and a shocking secret being kept in hiding. Now the community is the wider community, and the secret is no longer shocking.“Coming out” is a useful phrase, but it need not imply a closet。

NBA中锋杰森·柯林斯最近在《体育画报》的封面故事中宣布他是同性恋。换言之，他“出柜”了。这样揭示一个人是同性恋的表述看起来很自然。在衣柜里则意味着逃避外界，而出来这个动作意味着将会不再躲藏。尽管衣柜一直是隐私和秘密的隐喻，有关同性恋的用法也是最近的事。

据乔治·昌西对整个当代同性恋文化历史一书《纽约同性恋》的记录，“衣柜”一词直到上世纪60年代才被同性恋者用作隐喻词。在这之前，这并没有“在同性恋运动记录，或者是同性恋小说、日记、信件中出现。”

“出柜”一词尽管一直由男同群体使用，但这个词的最初的意思是“某些与现在不同的”。“一个男同出柜最一开始指的是正式地在战前男同社会举办的最大的集会中出现。这些集会规模庞大，与主流社会举办的年轻上流女子聚会和化妆舞会相媲美，通常在纽约、芝加哥、新奥尔良、巴尔的摩以及其他城市举行。” “出柜”一词并不是指从躲藏的地方出来，而是加入到同伴之中。这个词从上流女子舞会里借用过来的，因为在这种场合中，年轻女子正式介绍到社交圈会时，都称作“出柜”。

男同的初次社交舞会一般都有公开记录，也经常出现在报纸里面，所以“出柜”一词在同性恋圈里通常表示在范围更广的社交圈中表明你的性取向。但是这个词并不是表示，你还没有“出柜”的情况下，你仍然将此当作秘密。另外还有一些其他表示隐藏或公开同性取向的隐喻词。同性恋者可以“带上面具”或者“脱下面具”。一个人可以“挽起你的头发”或者“放下你的头发”，又或者“脱下发夹”，这些动作只能由其他男同看得出。

男同使用“出柜”一词作隐喻的确切时间并清楚，不过“它最初开始使用时，是因为很多男士对他们的同性恋身份仍然保持着’隐密‘思想，认为他们这像是’见不得光的秘密‘。”它也可能是外面的人这样想像的。看起来“出柜”（come out of the closet）的出现是两个隐喻词的汇合：公开参加同一群体的社交活动，以及一个隐藏着的惊人秘密。现在的社交群体更加宽泛，秘密已不再让人惊奇了。“出柜”是一个有用的说法，不过并不暗指隐秘。