It draws on data generated by a 30-month project undertaken as part of an Economic and Social Research Council (Great Britain) initiative on violence. The data for this discussion came from the second in a series of six focus group discussions with gay men in Lancaster. Other data came from an exchange in one of the lesbian group meetings in Lancaster, and additional data were obtained from two recent studies of violence against lesbians and gay men. These three data sources address a particular relationship between experiences of safety and danger, security and insecurity, and location. They draw attention to the significance of a particular imagined location, i.e., "home." They point to the importance of "comfort" as an attribute associated with "home" in the generation of experiences of safety or danger, security or insecurity in the face of violence, and the fear of violence. In the conversations in the focus groups, it was clear that a sense of security or being "at home" was associated with being in a place where judgments about being gay were absent and there was no sense of threat from people in the immediate environment because of one's sexual orientation. For gays and lesbians, they generally do not experience safety and security in civil society. This chapter draws implications of these findings for the creation of safer public spaces. 3 notes and 75 references