Concealing Sexual Orientation
Recognized usage of "beard" applies to a person who serves to camouflage another's sexual orientation. An example is the woman a gay man pretends to date in an effort to conceal his sexuality. Though beard entered wider use in the 1960s, many of the reported lavender marriages of 1920s in Hollywood, and the similar reported romantic marriage of Rock Hudson (mid-1950s) employed the same usage. In Hudson's case, Phyllis Gates acted as his beard, to avert the perceived damage that the disclosure of Hudson's homosexuality might have on his career.
Read more about this topic: Beard (companion)
Famous quotes containing the words concealing and/or orientation:
“This laudable quality is commonly known by the name of Manners and Good- breeding, and consists in a Fashionable Habit, acquir’d by Precept and Example, of flattering the Pride and Selfishness of others, and concealing our own with Judgment and Dexterity.”
—Bernard De Mandeville (1670–1733)
“Every orientation presupposes a disorientation.”
—Hans Magnus Enzensberger (b. 1929)