Having been raised in the South by my grandmother, I was taught there were topics that were inappropriate to discuss in public. There often was a culture of silence around issues of sexuality, marital infidelity, homophobia and other forms of sexual difference, poverty, neglect and abuse, and specific health problems people were experiencing. It wasn’t that people didn’t talk about these matters; they just didn’t regularly talk about them in public spaces. Instead, we whispered about them in safe, private spaces with people who shared our sensibilities. Any public talk that would expose, embarrass, alienate, or bring harm to a member of our family or close social network was avoided. While some of this silence was meant to be protective, there were unintended negative health consequences that emerged.