I was a senior at Youngstown State University, conducting an experiment on the impact of gay male love letters on attitudes toward homosexuality, and homosexual people.

(YSU has awesome penguin painted fire hydrants)

My basic reasoning was that many people lack exposure to gay males in love with each other. So perhaps, if people had some exposure to gay male love letters, their atitudes would change,

So, I had participants (fellow YSU undergraduates to me at the time) read a love letter written by a man. Then I either told them it was written by a homosexual man for a man, or a heterosexual man for a woman. Then I assessed their attitudes toward homosexuality in general (e.g., "is homosexuality moral?": "is homosexuality dangerous to society?") and their sympathy for gay men if they were verbally or physically assaulted.

I found that when people read a love letter written by a man for a man, it did not impact their attitudes toward homosexuality. But when women read a gay male love letter, it did increase women's sympathy for gay people being physically or verbally abused,