I am not defending these laws, just trying for an accurate representation of what the laws said/say and how they operated and still operate. As Wolf found out, it's a mistake to draw conclusions about what life was/is like in any historical period or country even now based solely on the letter of the laws that were/are on the books in any given time and society. Life is much more complicated than that.

For example, many people in previous generations did plenty of marijuana, cocaine and heroin even though/when these were illegal. The USA made LSD illegal in 1968, but that didn't stop many people from that point on from doing a whole lot of it - and without fear, either. Similarly, plenty of girls and women in the US (and elsewhere) sought and used birth control and had abortions when all these actions were still illegal. And look at Prohibition: when the USA made drinking alcohol illegal, drinking alcohol only became more widespread and popular.

The history of laws criminalizing sodomy in the US illustrate that people's "lived experience" is more complex than what laws on the books at any given time might seem to suggest - and that gay men, lesbians and bi people in the past didn't necessarily obey all the unjust, homophobic laws on the books, and thus were weren't as constrained by them and as lonely, unfulfilled and as miserable as you seem to think. Many homosexual people in the US did indeed have same-sex relationships, including live-in ones - and they lived lives they and others considered "normal" and fulfilling - even as these awful, unjust and just plain wrong homophobic laws were still in existence. SCOTUS declared laws prohibiting same-sex sex acts unconstitutional only in 2003; at that time, 14 states still had them in place.

The state where I grew up - New York - only got rid of previous laws criminalizing same sex sexual activities in 1980. But NYC had a very lively gay scene and lesbian scene prior to then. There were lots of gay and lesbian bars and other gathering places back then, especially for the men who had tons of bath houses and sex clubs. And plenty of out and proud homosexual people in the 70s and even before lived "normal" lives with plenty of sex and partners, a great deal of love, joy and fulfillment.

In fact, in NYC in the 1970s there were more lesbian bars, lesbian-run bookstores and cafe, and businesses run by out and proud lesbians than there are today. Today, homosexual acts are no longer criminalized by the state, but the homophobic and misogynistic gender ideology that is now fashionable and the dominant ethos has turned lesbianism into a state that many young lesbians are ashamed of, in denial of and are fleeing from in droves. Going solely on the basis of what the laws say and don't say, it would seem that 2021 is a good time to be a lesbian. But taking in the whole picture, that's clearly not the case. Life for many lesbians is more difficult in a number of ways today than in the 60s, 70s and 80s.

Rhode Island did not decriminalize homosexual sex acts until the mid-1990s. But trust me, there were a lot of people in the state - and at schools like Brown and RISD - who lived openly as homosexuals prior to then, including those who lived with their lovers.