But when she was young, very young, she married a boy who wrote poetry…. He was extremely good-looking. I think Blanche didn’t just love him but worshipped the ground he walked on! Adored him and thought him almost too fine to be human! But then she found out… This beautiful and talented young man was a degenerate.
– Tennessee Williams
A Streetcar Named Desire, Scene 7. Themes of sexual desire and dependence on men are found in this speech by Stella providing context for Blanche’s past. A young Blanche married a boy that she worshipped and then discovered he was a "degenerate." Her husband Allan Gray – like the author Tennessee Williams – was a gay man in a 1940s America that criminalized same sex sexual activity.