Not all places and times deserve to be memorialized. If Philadelphia in the Aughts is a place and time which does deserve to be memorialized, it is because a unique spirit and ethos proliferated there. It had something to do with arts and culture, something to do with sex, and something to do with an essential looseness just settling in Philly, in the streets and bars. It was a loose enough place and time to almost seem disjointed, for those of us attuned to this zeitgeist. It’s not like Philly in the Aughts got any hype as a “Swinging London” level hotspot; all the ferment and sultriness was a secret (and the down-bound, jealous Philly press corps was eager to keep it that way). But the Philly bohemians of the Aughts were more unconstrained in our endeavors for our secret status. No one seemed to mind being a secret, either. Many of the best narratives from Philly in the Aughts were secret. Many of us led double and triple lives; some of us were forced by circumstances to do so. The four narratives included here, all based in Philadelphia in the Aughts and early teens, focus on secrets being unearthed.