Got you beat. My mom is gay, and my Uncle was. And yes, gay men do flaunt it more than gay women.
In my family we had a few great aunts that were Spinsters. They never married and all ways showed up at family reunions with some gorgeous male. Then the life long bachelors in the family that were oh so attentive to the older woman and flirted his heads off with the younger ones.
My generation never gave this a second thought thank heavens, I was well into my 20's before I began to wonder, to become curious about those in the life style.
Very difficult for the over 80 people to accept this life style in their lives, some how as long as the family member does not tell them they are able to find excuses for what is going on under their nose.
Got to admit I have had some wonderful times in school with gay male nurses, the few woman I knew about were friendly but definitely standoffish to me, got to remember this was the 80's and people lost jobs for being gay.
Perhaps I am a prude in some ways, I understand the men that feel weird about that Broke Back Mountain, I skip the sex parts in the books I read as I feel like a voyeur, like I am watching them through a window and feel I really don't need to see, read, this.
There has to be a physical thing going on here for the men, Barney Frank for instance, his speech patterns and the slight lisp. Capote the author had an odd lisp some what like Franks. Why, Rock Hudson spoke without the lisp, as did the former Governor of N.J. .?
I cannot understand woman like Chez who has their body altered publicly, in your face, telling us stuff we don't want to know.
Then the Gay Parades, one of my favorite entertainments.
Darn they are interesting, like the old time freak shows, the time and money put into them, the floats that make your jaw drop, almost like the men need to feel like a man and they do this by shocking the heck out of us.
So this cannot be a choice, this for men seems to be more of a statement that as they cannot be what society says is normal, so they make the most of what they are. Perhaps a subconscious rebellion against the way they were born.
Heck I am an old lady trying to understand human nature.