They were walking along the Malecon sea wall at dusk, arm in arm, their bodies twisting together in motion the way only lovers' can.

The two guapos, handsome young men, with jet-black and blue coifs, were donned all in leather with lots of strategically placed silver zippers.

This is an unusual sight in Havana, public displays of gay affection, and I think the only reason it happened was because these guys were tourists.

Tolerance is supposedly on the upswing on the island nation, but it's not Key West.

A taxi driver told me there is a lesbian bar around Calle 23, the main strip, and a BBC article in 2008 mentions a weekly, word-of-mouth "gay night" at one Havana nightclub. There's supposedly a gay beach a half-hour's drive from Havana.

That's it. That's about the extent of public homosexuality there.

A Cuban intellectual who emigrated to Key West in 2006 said the only thing he ever saw or heard about different types of sexuality was a documentary on transsexuals shown to a select group in 2002.

American gays and lesbians will have to do a Normandy when it opens up.

When Fidel Castro's revolution began, many homosexuals were sent to forced labor camps for "re-education and rehabilitation," the BBC article says.

Can you imagine?

And after the allegedly short-lived camps, gays still often were denied certain jobs as "ideological deviants," according to the same article.

But it's changing -- little by slow, as they say in Brooklyn -- and one of the main reasons, surprisingly, is a Castro.

Mariela Castro, daughter of President Raul, niece of Fidel, has taken up the gay rights cause with gusto.

She's probably one of the only people who could.

On May 16, she led a gay rights march -- OK, OK, a conga line -- around two city blocks complete with drums, costumes and stilt-walkers. There also were educational panels, conferences and literature on gay rights and diversity, according to Cubaheadlines.com.

"We're calling on the Cuban people to participate ... so that the revolution can be deeper and include all the needs of the human being," said Mariela, who heads the government's National Center for Sex Education. (Of course it's the government's -- everything there is the government's.)

She has particularly focused on the rights of transsexuals; she probably had a part in my friend being able to see that ground-breaking documentary.

Cuba isn't stuck as much in the 1950s anymore; it's to the early 1970s, albeit with dashes of the 21st century (a few cell phones nobody can afford to operate).

However, there's a myth I must break about Cuba's HIV/AIDS population.

For years we've heard that this communist country quarantines these poor people in isolated outposts -- like camps, no?

An AIDS worker on a bus from Matanzas to Havana told me that isn't so. Those horrible things happened when the epidemic was first rippling through the community.

Those days weren't the summit of compassion in the United States, either.

Remember the stories of nurses shoving food trays under hospital doors to lonely, suffering, dying AIDS patients? That was U.S.

We've come a long way since then, and this AIDS worker told me that Cuba has, too.

He was returning from a three-day conference in which the latest advance in testing -- the three-day finger-prick test -- was shown. I told him we had a saliva test here and he was impressed.

This worker works in small communities and tests, counsels and obtains meds for HIV-positive and AIDS patients who live, work, have families and homes in their own neighborhoods.

What else?

When I was hanging out by the Malecon one night, amid crowds and crowds of laughing and singing locals, there were big, gorgeous drag queens parading in pairs about 10 yards away.

They looked grim, I thought, as they walked, arms linked, up and back the same asphalt route.

I don't know if they were making a political stand, working or what, but if it's illegal, the three military police guys on watch across the highway didn't do anything about it.

"Why on earth didn't Your Woman in Havana interview these drag queens?" you're thinking. This trip was all about being an observer, for one, and I was scared to approach them. I figured I'd only cause them trouble. A tourist, especially an American, talking to "different" people -- much less any other Cuban -- in front of the cops only brings trouble.

I've lived in gay communities for 20 years -- New Orleans, Key West, Manhattan -- and sometimes I forget how lucky we are here, especially in Key West, to be among the enlightened.

Someday the rainbow will break through those Cuban clouds of ignorance.

srodriguez@keysnews.com

Stacy W. Rodriguez, night editor of The Citizen, shares her personal experiences in and insights into Cuba every other Sunday in Solares Hill.