BOOKS.

     THE GAY MILITANTS by Donn Teal, Stein & Day, [then] $7.95

In The Gay Militants, Donn Teal has written the authoritative history of the "Movement" post-Stonewall.

The book deals with the period beginning with the Stonewall Riots in late June 1969. It takes us through Christopher Street Liberation Day (June 28, 1970) and into late 1970.

The emphasis is on organizations. The major portion of this work is devoted to the Gay Activists Alliance (G.A.A.) and the Gay Liberation Front (GLF). The other, smaller organizations are not forgotten, though. In fact, they are dealt with quite extensively. I was quite pleased with the attention given to Homosexuals Intransigent! and its founder, Craig Schoonmaker.* [footnote: *For a better understanding of this organization and its extremist President, see pages 44-45, 60, 67-68, 79-80, 307-308, and 312-314 [of the original printing; the book has since been reissued].]

Books of this type are too often tedious. But Donn Teal has come up with an extremely readable and quite interesting history.

The Gay Militants is, of course, of particular interest to the homosexual community. The publishers have decided, however, to aim it toward a general (straight) audience. They are, in my opinion, to be commended for this decision. Perhaps the straights will react better if they understand what we're fighting for.

J.L.F. [Jay Leonard Friend]

          BOYCHICK by Leo Skir, Winter House, [then] $5.95

Boychick is a combination of Yiddish and English. It is the diminutive form of the word "boy". This makes an appropriate title for Leo Skir's first acknowledged novel, for what Mr. Skir has written is little and of no significance, i.e., diminutive.

I would go so far as to say that this is the worst novel (gay or straight) that I have ever read.

The book's main character is Leo, a graduate student at New York University. (Is the book an autobiography?) Leo meets and falls in love with Leroy, a teenager whom he affectionately calls "Boychick". The love is one-sided. It's an old story.

Leo Skir has been a news editor of Gay. Stick to news, Leo.

J.L.F.

          THE GAY INSIDERS by John Francis Hunter, Olympia Press, [then] $2.95

John Francis Hunter has described his new book The Gay Insiders as frivolous. Upon reading the book, I found this an accurate description.

The Gay Insiders is, however, the most comprehensive guide to New York's gay scene that has ever been written. It's all there — the bars, the baths, the parks, the organizations, and even the tearooms.

Mr. Hunter's book is an excellent starting point for those just coming out. It tells where to meet the kind of people that you are looking for.

What makes the book frivolous, in my opinion, is the author's recounting of his sexual escapades. John Francis Hunter is one of the most charming and interesting people I know, but I do not give a damn about any sexual escapades other than my own. I am sure that some readers will find this one of the book's strong points. I found it tedious.

The Gay Insiders is excellent when it sticks to what it is supposed to be, i.e., a guide to gay life in Fun City. But when Mr. Hunter digresses, it's a bore.

P.S. Different people will get different things from this book, so read it for yourself, and form your own opinion. [Editor's Note: HI!'s separatist project is mentioned briefly, we are pleased to note. FYI, this is a book for men; it does not treat of women's places, nor is it appropriate reading for women.]

J.L.F.

FIRE ISLAND TRIX

A new outfit, Trix Club, Inc., has set up shop to provide packaged tours of "fabulous Fire Island". Run by a member of G.A.A., the tour service offers transportation, reservations, American-plan lodging, entertainment program, and suchlike at what its brochure claims are the least-expensive charges. I know nothing about Fire Island's likely costs, so can't judge. If you're interested, contact the Trix Club, Inc., at [address then].

LCS

BARS

          THE STRIPED SHIRT, "A Happy Restaurant and Groovy Bar", [address and phone number then]

Just found their business card in my pocket one night after visiting a couple of bars, so I assume the place is gay. Haven't been there yet. — LCS

*  *  *

          SEX BARS RAIDED

The Exile, one of New York's most popular all-men's dance-sex bars, and The Zodiac (Downtown), New York's longest-lived sex bar, were raided in early May; no customers were arrested. While The Zodiac reopened soon after, the other bar was not so lucky: vandals broke in after the police and bashed up some walls and fixtures, necessitating a two-week shutdown to fix the place up. The Exile is due to reopen soon. The Zodiac has raised its admission fee from $1.00 weekdays (1 drink) and $3.00 weekends (2 drinks) to $3.00 weekdays (2 drinks, I believe) and $4.00 weekends (2 drinks, I know). I hope the excessive weekday charge doesn't last, but who knows. The Zodiac is on rare occasions the site of sado-masochistic scenes. Be warned. — LCS

* * * * * * *

A test: The correct statement is "If it feels good . . ."

     (a) ". . . it is good."
     (b) ". . . it is bad."
     (c) ". . . it feels good."

Answer: (c)

Marking: If you answered (a), score yourself a 0 and count yourself among the troops of the "amorphously polysexual revolution".

It you answered (b), score yourself 0 and count yourself among the sin-minded intimidated of the antisexual tradition.

If you answered (c), score yourself 100 and count yourself among the rational.

*

Condemnation of the antisexual tradition is so universal that we need not rail against antisexualism here. But a "new" view of sensuality has come into vogue whereby sensuality and sexuality of any and all types is imbued with positive virtue, even magic. The base axiom of this cult of sensuality is "If it feels good, it is good", and the strident imperative is "If it feels good, do it!"

But is everything that feels good, actually good? And should we really do everything that feels good? One would hope that everyone would jump to say "of course not" to both questions, and in the extreme cases, most would. Still, the liberal-sensuality movement has distorted many people's values.

What things feel good that are not good? That depends on who you are. If you are a Nazi sadist, it feels good to you to bash babies against walls. If you are a paranoid psychopath, it feels good to avenge mortally anything you perceive as an offense. If you are a white racist, it feels good to beat blacks, shout racist slogans at passing black children, and vote against all forms of aid or even justice to blacks. If you are a black racist, it feels good to vent your hatred by robbing, mugging, and beating whites — and it can be profitable too, which also feels good. If you are a heterosexual male chauvinist, it feels good to heap scorn upon faggots and "keep women in their place". If you are a radical militant homosexual, it feels good to impose your views on other homosexual organizations, to threaten violence or discord, to take over conferences called by other organizations and turn them to your own ends. All these things and others of a similar psychological-physical nature do happen, and they happen only because someone gets pleasure — often an almost sexual pleasure — from them.

That's not what the Sensualists mean.

O.K. Let's go into purely sensual-sexual things. It feels good to get one's own gratification. It often does not feel good to give another his satisfaction. And surely if the imperative is to do that which feels good, the corollary, not to do that which does not feel good, is meant too. Therefore one should take one's own pleasure always but give pleasure only when the act which gives pleasure is pleasurable to the giver also, right? And if one can get away with only taking pleasure, then he should do so, right?

Wrong. The Sensualist axiom and imperative as stated are rationalizations of an infantile orientation to sensation which, stripped of all the metaphysical bullshit, comes down to simple selfishness: me; I'm important; I should enjoy myself no matter what else happens and no matter who else suffers, for I am the center of my universe and all others exist only to gratify me. There is nothing new here, nothing revolutionary, nothing admirable. The Sensualist argument is sophistry of the worst kind, for it makes a virtue of exploitation.

That's not what is meant? Isn't it? Look around and you'll see conscious or unconscious followers of the Sensualist line everywhere. They're in the back rooms of sex bars taking their pleasure and then moving out. They are the devotees of the one-night stand, because you don't have to care about a one-night stand's needs or feelings. He is a disposable person — use once, throw away. People become instruments of pleasure and in so doing lose their humanity and importance.

Let's be generous and say that what the Sensualists really mean is that we should all actively seek out Sensation, taking and giving freely to all things. Then we end up merely with an inane ideal rather than an immoral value system. For psychic energy is finite, as is time. To seek out sensation in all is to have no energy or time for any. To value all is to value  none. To "love" everyone is to love no one. And to be part of everything is to be nothing. It's like throwing the whole world into a blender, liquefying every thing and mixing it with every other until it is part of Everything. Then there is no part of the mass which has any character of its own. One is all and all is nothing. The "melting pot" phrased differently. Denial of self thru assimilation.

And where is the Sensualist to find stability and meaning? How can he stay with any one person when each and every other beckons with promises of new sensations? Where do human beings fit in a Sensualist's scheme? Cats, dogs, sheep, goats, flowers, feces, melons, electric vibrators — all are worthy objects of unrestrained sexo-sensuality. Why should we value a human being any more than an earthworm or an electric blanket? The Sensualists call us to an idiot's paradise in which the only measure, the only dimension of existence is pleasure.

The Sensualist argument is an absurd counterpoint to the equally absurd opposite extreme of Antisensuality. Surely it cannot be taken literally. If its purpose is to get us to enjoy our sense in a rational way, it defeats itself thru overkill. It is one thing to suggest that a person take a moment to contemplate a flower in all its sensual aspects. It is quite another to suggest that a man must screw with men and women, tree frogs and alligators to live a full life. The Antisensualists would have us feel guilty if we enjoy sex and seek it out. The Sensualists would have us feel guilty if we seek sex only with men and only within the context of something more than sensation.

Both the Antisensualist and Sensualist fires should be snuffed out before they devastate us all. Both assert the primacy of the flesh, and thus neither is suited to the reality of a mind-body duality. Deny the mind only at the cost of losing it. Deny the body too, only at the cost of losing your mind. And if you lose control of your mind. And if you lose control of your mind, of how much value is your body? Face it, folks: we are neither incorporeal angel-spirits nor simple animals. To try to be either is hopeless folly, and only full adjustment to the reality of the human condition will assure us peace and pleasure. The mind-body or spirit-flesh duality must not be denied, for it is our greatest cause for joy.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

EPISTOLARY INTERCOURSE

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                                                A TWO-WAY LETTERS COLUMN
                                        <<<

The purpose of this letter is to offer a commentary of sorts on some of the positions and sentiments expressed by L. Craig Schoonmaker in the last two issues of HI! Mr. Schoonmaker is, obviously, a political partisan. Being myself not only a homosexual but a student of history, a person, and an observer of people, I would like to point out that obvious political partisanship has never really worked, no matter what the cause. I get the feeling that Mr. Schoonmaker's more vituperative statements (e.g., in "Bisexual, Fuck Thyself" and his reply to Ralph Hall) do not so much underlie his political partisanship as spring from it after the fact, the fact of his conscious political decision.

I do not at all wish to condemn or in any way cut Craig down for either is vituperation or his partisanship. From what I know of him I would suspect he is a better man than most, if only by virtue of his ability for concern, his open acknowledgement of his need for companionship, and love — and his guts. (Editor's note: I had wanted to delete all such personal references as this paragraph and stick to the ideas; but Mr. T.M. objected very strongly, asserting that they contribute to his tone, and that to delete them would distort his letter; thus I yielded, despite my view that my own virtues or faults are not an issue.)

He has assumed a self-appointed responsibility, and from what I've gathered, hasn't had too much help offered to him with it. Perhaps this lack of help encourages his vituperation, for I get the feeling that the root of his anger may be buried, quite understandably, among the phoniness, cruelty, and impersonality of much of the gay scene, rather than alongside women's high heels, which, I think, are not so much noisy as ridiculous, being detrimental to the health of the user, specifically to the spinal column. In fact, if one were to take Craig's statements about women completely seriously, one would think that women had actually gotten to him, for the sense of pushy presence that he attributes to the ninety-five-pound girl on the subway is a two-way commodity. All awareness of presence must have an active receiver as well as a sender. I suspect, however, as I already implied, that Craig not so much felt the presence as decided to write about it as a vehicle to give vent to his understandable anger — an anger we all share in, in one way or another.

This brings me to the problem of obvious political partisanship as I see it. The world, which is generally quite stupid, has one intelligent quality — it knows perfectly how to expose and mock the slightest weakness or failure. It knows that political partisans are people who have externalized a personal unfulfillment. It knows how to manipulate the superficial fact that anger — actual anger, is directed against someone or something that has gotten to you, that you care about, if only negatively. Now, I don't think that the vituperation Craig expressed comes off as genuine heart-wrenching anger — it notably lacks the depth and sincerity of his other writings — but others may choose to overlook that point, take it seriously, and decide he's a frustrated heterosexual.

I am not saying one should not express his prejudice and tastes. I don't like high heels or perfume either. I am saying one should not carry prejudice around in a totebag, ready to spill them on a friend's bedsheets. Why need a homosexual stress he is misogynistic unless he fears a woman may come between him and his man? By stressing it, he makes the female presence tangible. Reading Craig's comments on the screams of his "sex-crazed" woman neighbor could lead one to conclude that Craig himself had never felt sex-crazed, or had never screamed. Improbable.

In this modern, technological world, a world of ever-increasing population, any kind of separatism will soon be impossible, and I wonder whether it mightn't also be quite boring to live in a community where everyone — EVERYONE! — had the same sexual orientation, everyone held so much in common with everyone else. Personally, I sometimes like looking at horses, cats, four-year-old children, and ninety-year-old people, though I wouldn't think of making it with any of them. Besides, we can never be truly separated from the heterosexual world anyway. Where do you think your lover, you know the one I mean, that special guy — where do you think he came from? — and I don't mean Brooklyn.  That's right, friends — you guessed it.

None of this was meant to say that I disagree with, or don't appreciate very much, Craig's sensitive and compassionate understanding of our — and his — problems, nor, to try to make things clearer, am I apolitical. Nor am I completely opposed to the idea of separatism. As a phase, not a final goal, it could be very useful in clarifying matters and increasing our collective consciousness. What I am trying to say is that neither vituperation nor hyperbole have a place in a conscientious, responsible political approach, if only for the reason that such expressions eventually take their toll upon the mind and soul of their expresser. Then there's nothing — no politics, no truth, no love — no people. Have you ever wondered how William Buckley does his thing on TV? He instigates vituperation and frustration with his coldness, and his opponent in debate in immediately lost. Please don't lose yourself that way, Craig. You're goo good to go like that.

T.M.
Islip Terrace, New York

Schoonmaker replies

Let me preface my remarks with a few points of information: I have met Mr. T.M. We have both conversed and corresponded. I like him and, in a way, respect him. Nonetheless, I think he is an utterly heterosexualized shithead. There is no place in the world of ideas for going soft on a discussion and letting disagreements go for the sake of being friendly.

I wish it were possible to attack ideas viciously but not the people who hold them. It's not, tho. Because people are responsible for their ideas. I believe that people can control both their external life and, ultimately, their mind. Oddly, the second is harder than the first, even tho the first involves other people, and events beyond reach and control. But then, our minds are the product of external influences n large part, too. It becomes necessary, in seizing control of one's own mind, to shut out the others for a while, as completely as possible: to stop reading, watching, listening to other people, to the news, to philosophies and ideas of external origin, and to say "That is what they are about. What am I about?" But please finish this publication before you start shutting out others, O.K.?

Answering T.M. point for point, I should like to clarify my view of politics. My world is political. Perhaps I can best express what I mean by quoting that distinguished homosexual author, L. Craig Schoonmaker. In my freshman year of college I wrote a very long poem (or piece of lined prose) which says in part:

"There are tears for each of us and for all of us.
My tears and your tears drench the earth and evaporate instantly,
As existence mocks us
And bucks us up.

And all that's left is residue — salt, some chemicals.
And all that remains from our lives and our troubles, our triumphs and our intentions,
Is a residue, great or small, where we set hand.
Literature, art — life, of our children and their animal and plant companions
All reflect and affect the reality of our time.
But the greatest of arts, greatest of tests, is the form we shape our world into.
Our home, and the home of our children, dogs and cats, eagles, ivies, birches, irises, and reeds. . . .

16

Disillusionment, fury
Turned inward
Do violence to personality;
Expressed outwardly too openly
Lose friends
Unless channelled.

The viewer is a human being
A human intellect — intelligence centered and personalized to regard human affairs —
A body of emotion to give meaning and impetus.
The instructor is existence —biology, awareness, society, the world.
The lesson is realization.
The requirement is time and exposure.
The result is attitude.

The passion is politics."

Now, disregarding the question of whether it is homosexual to talk about children — and who says homosexuals in this day and age can't arrange to have children if they want some, thru artificial insemination or such? — I'd say that the above pretty well states my view of what politics is: concern with the shape of the world. A political partisan is, then, someone concerned about the state of the world who holds definite views about what that world should be. I am indeed a political partisan, and proud to be one. It is lunacy to say that political partisanship has never worked. Everything that has ever been done in the entire realm of politics has been done by political partisans: the Roman Empire gave the world centuries of peace, relative prosperity and civilization, only because political partisans insisted it do so. Surely that is a success for political partisanship. The United States revolted from Britain and established a new, dynamic government and concept of democracy which despite its myriad faults (and who knows better its faults than we?) has worked so well that it has been emulated, with varying degrees of success, by many other countries. Israel was established and survives to this day because political people willed it so. Etc., etc. A more reasonable statement than T.M.'s is "Obvious political partisanship tends to give rise to countervailing political partisanship, and thus tends to limit its own effectiveness." But if one refuses to try to do something merely because opposition will cut down what one is actually able to do, one will end up doing not the something that he can effect but nothing at all.

It is true that I have assumed a self-appointed responsibility. We don't have a hereditary monarchy or aristocracy here, so all people who end up influencing government and other people do so at their own instigation. Very few people are really dragged into positions of responsibility, but assume positions where they will be seen if they want to be "drafted".

It is also true that I am getting very little help — pitifully, infuriatingly little help, indeed. How long I shall continue to try to help people depends in large part upon how much help I get. Altruism takes one only so far; and then one wants to hear people say "Thanks, we appreciate it. Keep working; you're on the right track." But I'm in this organizational and writing business out of self-interest too; I have to live in the gay world, and I don't like the way it is today, so either I try to change it, and try to get other people to help, or I shall continue to be unhappy.

As for women, I keep trying to avoid them in the flesh and in the things I write and say, but people won't let me. So I'll take the cow by the horns: women are irrelevant to homosexual men, at the very best; but at worst, women are destructive to homosexuals. I'll explain.

T.M. prefaced his remarks in part by saying that he is "not only a homosexual but . . . a person". I've heard a lot of people say that, and related things like "It's not the sex but the person that's important" and "You should relate to people regardless of sex and sexuality". And it has finally occurred to me why one hears this all the time from gay people — not homosexuals, but "gay people" — and scarcely at all from hets: gay people really do not believe that they are people. Being human is so completely identified with being heterosexual that homosexuals have had to talk themselves into believing that they are people:

The argument they use goes like this — "It's not the sex but the person that matters. If a person is beautiful and you really groove on each other, it shouldn't matter that that person is a man and not a woman." Now this argument works both for the "person" one desires and the "person" one is. One becomes a "person" rather than a "homosexual" by this sleight of tongue. If you investigate, however, you will find that the self-same "persons" who can justify their homosexuality only in terms of relating to "persons" in point of fact do not and often cannot relate to persons at all but only to bodies. No matter. If they can persuade themselves thru this mental trickery that they are human beings even tho they are homosexual, maybe they are ahead of the game.

But the argument works the other way around, too, and that is why it must be discarded: if it is the "person" and not the sex that is important, then one "should" "relate" to "persons" who are female, too. Uh oh . . . you don't want to relate to women fully, intimately, i.e., sexually? But you must, to be consistent. So one ends up in a bisexual bind, which is in essence a heterosexual bind, the exact same thing one started with.

The simple fact is that if one is to be homosexual, one must actively avoid women: it is so easy to be heterosexual and so hard to be homosexual, that if one does not yield to the ubiquitous pressures and settle for the easier way, one must be avoiding those pressures and avoiding those entanglements. Simple honesty is all that is needed to see that avoidance of women is essential to homosexuality in a heterosexual society. Most homosexuals who are "out" into gay society do not, in point of simple fact, tend to socialize with straight people or women of whatever orientation on a regular and voluntary basis. When they do so associate, it is usually for the sake of appearances. But instead of acknowledging freely and simply that they much prefer the company of men who like men, they go about making excuses for their not liking women.

Now, I have never for an instant doubted that I am a person. That is not important to me. Everybody is a person. It is important to me to be a man, which I have not always been, and to be a homosexual, which I am trying hard to be. I used to be a boy, not a man, and a person. Around age 20 I said to myself "I am a man" and didn't believe it. "I am a boy" I believed. Now I know that I am a man, and I'm very happy about it. But what is a man? What would a man naturally be if he weren't influenced to be something else by contact with women? There can be no doubt that the effect of women on men in substantial, even on men who don't like women. This is the problem, T.M. The main danger from women, the main trouble they cause is not that they can come between a man and his man but they they can come between a man and himself. Whether thru direct influence and subsequent emulation or thru antipathy and subsequent overreaction, women have an influence upon men. That's why we find so many homosexuals fucked-up about their sexual identity.

An odd think about women, "the submissive sex", is that they impose themselves upon people. A woman must announce her existence not merely by sight but also by sound, smell, and touch: thus noisy shoes, perfumes, and bumps. Perhaps because they cannot just force others (men) to give them sexual gratification, they must interest them, and in order to interest men, they must first be sure they grab attention. In the process of grabbing attention, they impose themselves upon others.

T.M. is, I have noticed, not strong on subtleties. In objecting to high heels, I did not object merely to the noise of those shoes, but rather to the wearer's "setting a cadence" with her shoes. That is very different. Everyone has his own very personal rhythm, the rate at which he breathes, walks, talks, thinks, reads, etc. Everyone is entitled to live by his own rhythm, the rate at which he breathes, walks, talks, thinks, reads, etc. Everyone is entitled to live by his own rhythm, yielding it only by conscious decision; thus you will notice that people walking together often walk in-time. But to have someone you neither know nor want to know setting a cadence for you is an intolerable imposition. Now, a woman marching in high heels is not exactly shouting "Hut-two-three-four", but she is making a definite impression of cadence upon everyone within hearing. It's as tho you are humming quietly to yourself and somebody nearby starts whistling another tune or the same tune in a different key or rhythm: it messes you up.

Men do not find it necessary to impose their rhythms, olfactory preferences, etc., upon others. Perhaps we would be better off if they did, for as it is, we end up with women imposing their tastes upon men and men not responding with assertion of their tastes. Ultimately, then, one must come to have a clearer idea of what is womanly than of what is manly. In our matriarchal society, where the man is basically absent during the child's waking hours, this becomes an especially vexing problem, and not just for homosexuals. Heterosexuals are lucky enough as to have traditional answers to the question "What is a man?", but those answers inevitably reflect and enforce heterosexuality. Homosexuals have nt yet invented their answers. And until we can isolate ourselves from female impositions and heterosexual traditions, we never shall.

How aggressive is a man? How passive? Is pink a feminine color or is it masculine too? Is fucking the only manly way to have sex? Is cocksucking feminine? Is it? Or is it masculine? Is rimming natural in homosexual men? Or is it an attempt to reproduce the act of cunnilingus and thereby reduce one's partner to a woman and make oneself therefore a man, heterosexual-style? Is a man gentle, or is he rough? Or is he both, at different times for different reasons? What is a man?

Even if you yourself have found satisfactory answers to these and other such questions, the likelihood is that other men you meet will not have found those same answers. Thus women can come between you and your man in more than the obvious sense. How many times have you met a man who wanted desperately either to emulate what he considered the proper female role or, conversely, avoided anything that even remotely equated in his mind with the woman's role? There are entire cultures which define certain homosexual behavior "feminine" while not placing that title upon other homosexual behavior and the designations differ from culture to culture. So many homosexuals are so uncertain that one can be a man and an enthusiastic, giving, homosexual at the same time, that it is very difficult to find a good homosexual for all the bad heterosexuals wandering around the bars and other "gay" places.

Every time we identify with a woman in a human sense, we throw our own gender identity into doubt. Every time we view a heterosexual situation, such as a play, we are moved, as human beings, to identify with the people in the play. With whom do we identify in a male-female situation? The man always? The woman? As long as we remain in the heterosexual sea, inundated by propaganda that we must respond to "people" not to a sex, we will never know who we are and will never be able to answer in full, validly to our homosexual selves, the most important question there may be: What is a man?

Why is it important? Well, if it is important to be oneself, it is important to be a man.

If one is not sure of his own identity as a person, he moves out of reach of the dominant personalities who have submerged his own personality, in order that he might find out who he is. But even having found out what person one is, one is still left without knowing what he is as a man. To answer that question he must move away from women. In tim,e time to ourselves, homosexuals will be able to sort themselves out and emerge with a confident, stable sense of self and of homosexual manhood.

As for a sense of pushy presence that T.M. talks about as being "a two-way commodity:" pish, tush, pooh, and piffle. By T.M.'s reasoning, rape is a two-way business. (There are people who believe that, too.)

T.M. says that "The world, which is generally quite stupid," — I concur — "has one intelligent quality — it knows perfectly how to expose and mock the slightest weakness or failure." I don't regard that tendency as admirable. Chickens peck to death any defective chick that is born into the flock. It keeps the breed strong. But it's not human. People should be better than that.

None of us likes to be hurt — not really, not even sado-masochists, really. (Note the joke: Masochist - "Hit me." Sadist — "No.") Yet we are forever in danger of being hurt, so we build defenses. Sometimes our walls get so high and so thick that nothing, not even love, and no one, not even one we could love, can get thru.

I am a political partisan because I care about the things I see and want to do something about them. Some of those things hurt me directly, others only vicariously, as when I identify with the little kids who starved to death in Biafra and continue to starve elsewhere.

To say, as T.M. says, that "political partisans are people who have externalized a personal unfulfillment", is like saying the only reason a person becomes a philanthropist is out of guilt: it doesn't always work. It may in my particular case, but my personal unfulfillment is a function of a societal situation that makes it very difficult, if not impossible not merely for me to find anyone to fill my life, but also for millions of others so to do. If I were just to sit around and lament instead of trying to change that social situation, and for not trying, guarantee my unending unhappiness, I'd be a fool. I am not a fool. If it takes personal unfulfillment to make people care about people, we should be very glad that there are unfulfilled people.

T.M. suggests that in this mass society of ever-increasing population, separatism of any kind will soon be impossible. That asinine objection is not even worth discussing [2001: the breakup of the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, and Czechoslovakia in the years since 1971 have proved this point beyond contention].. He wonders if "it mightn't also be quite boring to live in a community where everyone — EVERYONE! — had the same sexual orientation, everyone held so much in common with everyone else." Well, T.M., you do live in such a community: it's called The World, and everybody who lives in it is straight, didn't you know? You're straight, all the neighbors are straight, all the busdrivers and shopkeepers — EVERYBODY's straight. Or so the straight people think. We once wondered ourselves if it were not so. And the straight people, you will note, are very happy that it IS so. You see, common sexuality is a beginning, not an end. There is sufficient variety among homosexual men to make a fully satisfying community. To doubt that is to manifest the doubt most homosexuals feel that they are wort a damn. Homosexual separatism will give us a glittering, brilliant world where we can live full lives. If you doubt it, prove me wrong: move to Manhattan's West Side and help me build a homosexual-separatist community, then judge for yourself.

*  *  *

          Unattached? Rather not be? Most homosexuals, including the very nicest, are unattached at any given time. Maybe someone you'd like is looking for someone like you but doesn't know where to find you. And maybe he's reading this.

We'll print personal notices of up to fifty (50) words for FREE. But don't send any notice for a one-night-stand type of "involvement". We won't print it.

CARL, 28, is blind but can travel about the city to visit. He'd like to meet people for long-term relationships. Tho he cannot receive visitors, he welcomes telephone calls. Chatty, he enjoys conversations, people of all ages, boating, and is willing to expand his interest. [Phone number then]

MALE, 23, 5' 4", 135 pounds, light brown hair, blue eyes, very sincere, fun to be with. Looking for a lover or friends who are sincere and honest. Caucasian, 23-30, from Pa., N.J., N.Y.C. Please write to Donald Tomko, [address and phone number then].

COMMITMENT, one man to another. Companionship, night after day, of body and mind. Male, 26, 5' 10", 150 pounds, brown hair/eyes, attractive, intelligent, misogynistic, aggressive, gentle, needs warm, intelligent man, 24-30, much the same, cheerful, stable. Appearance IS important. Blond preferred. Craig Schoonmaker

Ads for role-playing, S&M, tranvestism, drag, prostitution will not be accepted. * * *

CC: HI!'S READERS

From time to time, letters and statements are sent out over the signature of the organization Homosexuals Intransigent!/New York. When such might be of interest to our readers, they will be printed in this column.

March 30, 1971

To PLAYBOY Magazine

Only with difficulty could I wade thru your noxious and basically uncomprehending symposium on homosexuality.

First, the entire topic is none of your business. There is a pathological tendency in the straight culture (the busybody syndrome) whereby hets assume that everything that happens in the world is their business, even if it is the most-personal sex life of another human being. How desolate your lives must be that you need to invade ours — tho retaining your foreignness, not really understanding, and imposing your own judgements. If you want to understand homosexuality, you must be homosexual. You must know what it is to be caressed by a man you care for who cares that you in particular are there in all your maleness, who rejoices in the physical and emotional relationship he has managed, by chance or design, to form with you — for however long it lasts, ten minutes or ten decades. And you must know what it is to be an isolated and despised alien in your own country — and every country.

Second, much of your symposium is but an exchange of ignorance. "Dr." Bieber and other psychologists declare themselves scientists and their discipline a science. In fact, they are no such ting. In science, one observes something systematically, gathering all available information and seeking out information not readily available. Only when all information is in and all of it points to a conclusion does one set forth a law. Hypotheses are checked against fact, and if even one hard fact does not fit the hypothesis, it is the hypothesis which is discarded, not the fact. Bieber and his ilk, however, start with an ideological stand — homosexuality is sick — and then seek out information that affirms that stand. Information that does not fit their assertion is explained away as being but a vagary of human behavior 'and we really don't know enough about human behavior to make all-inclusive laws.' To call Bieber's psychology a science is to call something a mathematical system in which two plus two sometimes makes four and sometimes does not. Indeed, all "psychology" is based on inadequate information. Leaping to conclusions without sufficient evidence is a natural tendency (for instance, we all "know" that no two people have the same fingerprints and that no two snowflakes are the same, just as we know that all homosexuals are sick), but surely we must deplore this tendency, not worship it. Assertions about homosexuals by heterosexuals are about as intelligent as would be an assertion by me that all men are homosexual because every man I have ever known intimately, i.e., had sex with, has been homosexual; my information base is skewed — and so is the good doctors'.

The panelists were also basically oblivious to their heterosexual bias. Dr. Simon says "the homosexual community is in itself an impoverished cultural unit" without realizing for an instant that the only reason for our impoverishment is cultural rape: heterosexual society forces our writers to write hetero works, our artists to produce hetero art, our actors to play hetero roles. Homosexuals constitute a dispersed minority hidden as much from each other as from heterosexuals. We have been denied social unity and individual integrity, even identity. Heterosexuals cannot realize what this means. Try — try hard — to turn everything around; immerse yourselves in the horror of what your situation would be if things were reversed.

How would heterosexuals fare if all society were homosexual, and heterosexuals were the dispersed, oppressed, reviled minority? if every book, play, religious work, painting they were raised to idealize and revere were homosexual? if every television and radio program, every song on every record in every jukebox were homosexual? if all men lived in New York and all women lived in California? if every force of society were geared to turn every child (by artificial insemination, mind you, or advanced science) into a homosexual and to suppress heterosexuality and make heterosexuals feel sick, sinful, criminal? if heterosexuals were hindered in meeting one another; harassed in their gathering places; enticed into robberies, beatings, or arrests; denied the right to public affection or public identity; denied the right to marry? How rich would your culture be? How well would you relate to other heterosexuals? How much interest would you take in your work (contributing to the homosexual culture)? In su, how well-adjusted would you be? And "adjusted" to what? How could you be well-adjusted as a heterosexual in a society organized exclusively for homosexuals? The very idea is absurd.

Your symposium concludes, "the futures of homosexual and heterosexual are inextricably linked — and we all stand to profit.' that's heterosexual propaganda, and simply not true. We are not linked to you. And only you stand to profit from a continuing interdependence. We can only lose by being integrated into a heterosexual society in which our private sex lives are permitted to deviate but our heads are saturated with your values, your esthetics, your religions and philosophies, your institutions.

Homosexual separatism is where we are headed, not merely as a defense (tho a powerful defense it will be) but because as we become more aware of what homosexuality is, we realize that it must pervade our values in all spheres of our existence, just as heterosexuality pervades all spheres of yours. It is very easy for hets to assert that homosexuals place too much stress upon their sexuality. But until you realize that your entire lives are organized on a sexual basis, that you could not function as people unless you had already established a satisfactory heterosexual culture and heterosexual relations of permanence, you cannot understand that we can never settle for being relegated to being homosexual in bed only.

So understand that when we mass together in New York and san Francisco and make these into homosexual cities, that we do so not because we hate you and everything you stand for — altho we sometimes may — but because we have finally begun to realize that you are irrelevant to our lives and that our homosexuality really is more important than anything else.

Frankly,
L. Craig Schoonmaker
President
Homosexuals Intransigent!/N.Y.

To Cornell Gay Liberation Front

First, congratulations on having abandoned the name "Student Homophile League", but I fear you've abandoned one euphemism for another. Has it never struck you that "gay" is a great deal easier to say than "homosexual" — and that the difference is greater than can be accounted for merely by the difference in phonemes and in number of syllables? Part of the reason for this avoidance of the brutal word "homosexual" must be discomfort. You will find that Homosexuals Intransigent! tends to avoid the word "gay" unless "homosexual" is just too ungainly in a given context.

It would seem that despite your name change, you are still very much an integrationist organization, welcoming straights to your dances and meetings. We do not, as you may know. Some straight people wandered into our second City College/CUNY dance by mistake and wanted their money back; we were delighted to give it and get rid of them. College regulations required us to permit entry to any student willing to pay the admission price. At off-campus activities we are, of course, free to throw them the hell out should they show up. But even some members of my group are content to accept the double standard: straights throw us out if we dance and behave according to our own pattern, but we homosexuals must never throw straight out when they dance and behave in their pattern. Shit. How can you ever expect to win points when the straights always have their own way, wherever? We have nothing to bargain with. And the offense is all one-sided: we are always wronged and pushed around; they, never. Of course, my own view is that they should have every right to be closed-minded in their insistence that everyone who lives in their communities abide by their rules — we should have our own communities where we enforce our rules.

The final, glittering capstone ((of an SHL newsletter)) was, for me, the fa________ letter [our file copy is unclear here] from the blathering lunatic from the West Coast. This phenomenally clear statement of the absurdity of the advocates of "polymorphous sexuality" asserted that we must let our bodies dictate to us in all things; that we should "contact . . . all flesh, dogs, cats, flowers, all things, and any and all sexes." (All sexes? I thought there were just two!) Mr. Dorr might be interested to note that not even dogs and cats seek sexual union with all these varied things, and they are not 'cursed' with a highly developed, directional intellect as are humans. Those of us who have experienced Eros unleashed within a homosexual context know the emptiness of bodily contact and experience unless there is something going on in the heads of the people making contact. Perhaps the major point of confusion is the lumping together of love and sex and sensuality, all under the heading "Eros." They are not the same, dahling, and if you doubt this pronouncement, take your flowers to bed with you; feel them caress you; greet them in the morning; call them from the office; talk to them over dinner; see their concern when you're sick or depressed; listen to them make up after an argument; etc. Maybe ((Mr. Dorr)) hasn't experienced much in the way of sensation. Those of us who have can tell you it's a kick for a few years — very few years — and then you realize that there must be more; that if there isn't more, then life is a very grim joke, not worth living. That "what there is more" is a relationship: one to one, through all the joys and the troubles, the kicks and the hurts. The growing together of two separate people into two different people approaching one in their own different ways.

So let Mr. Dorr and all the people like him "Fuse Together" into one tangled and meaningless mass with the flowers, worms, feces, heterosexuals and all the others of God's creatures. I'll settle for one man.

(LCS, but not on behalf of HI!)

REPRINT SECTION

During the two years that the organization Homosexuals Intransigent! has existed, we have produced various signs, leaflets, and newsletters. Many of you have never seen these things, and they are well worth your attention. So, to celebrate our second anniversary, we now reprint a few of the more noteworthy items, starting with a piece from Homosexual Renaissance (predecessor to this publication) No. 2, due to appear in We're Freaking on In, a paperback anthology of gay writing compiled by Leo Skir.

HETEROSEXUALITY IN THE MALE:  An analysis
[2001: This item appears elsewhere on this site. To read it, click here. But be sure to hit your browser's "back" button to return to this area]

A: Heterosexuality.

BARGOERS' MOTTO

Nor rain nor sleet nor gloom of night shall stay these faggots in the completion of their disappointed rounds. — LCS

Every wrong permitted makes it easier to accept the next.
Every wrong righted makes easier the next.

— All from HR No. 2

YOU'RE NOT QUEER

just because you're drawn to people of your own sex. Because homosexuality is not queer, but common: Kinsey found that 1/6 of U.S. men are at least predominantly homosexual, and 1/4 of those (some 4 or 5 percent of all men) are exclusively homosexual. Translated to numbers, that means that 19 million U.S. men are predominantly homosexual; more than 4 million, exclusively homosexual. And that's just the men! [2001: the figures today would be over 23 million men predominantly homosexual and over 7 million exclusively so.] With 1/8 of women being mainly homosexual too, another 12 1/4 million people, we get a total of some 31 1/2 million predominantly or exclusively homosexual people in the United States alone!  So if homosexuals are queer, then blacks are outlandish, and Jews unheard of. [2001 figures would be about 17.5 million lesbians, for a total of gay men and lesbians of about 41 million. This piece was written in late 1969 or early 1970, before we had broken free of the heterosexual definition of "homosexual", which includes lesbians, a definition we no longer accept. Lesbians have their own word and identity; they don't need ours. And trying to boost numbers by including people who don't belong weakens us rather than strengthens us.]

You don't believe that so many people — one of every seven — are homosexual or bisexual-leaning-toward-homosexual? Well, we didn't make up these ratios. Dr. Kinsey's investigations found that this is what people have admitted to doing — he didn't even include what people have thought about but not dared do.

Sure it seems incredible — until you look at yourself and realize how powerful an attraction homosexuality can exert. If our society didn't campaign so hard against homosexuality, there's no telling who would be in bed with whom!

So don't feel bad about your homosexual desires. You're not alone. You're not queer. You're not immoral. You're not inferior.

You are homosexual, at least in part, and you can be happy. Let us help you find yourself and your self-respect.

— A leaflet intended for college and high-school students

HI! will take a positive attitude toward homosexuality as a valid and enjoyable way of life — with no apologies whatever. HI! will fight bigotry and work for homosexual self-respect and reform of the gay world to make it warmer, more stable, and more fully satisfying. HI! will work for liberation — liberation of gay people from guilt, liberatoin of society from prejudice. We advocate not a homosexual revolution but a homosexual renaissance in which gay people can live fully and contribute fully to society.

Notices about this group put up on open bulletin boards have been torn down repeatedly. Who has been tearing down these notices? The bitterest enemies of homosexuality are people fighting a battle against it in themselves. Homosexuals Intransigent! hopes to make the approaching transition of such people from straight to gay a little easier on us all.

— An early sign before the group was chartered at The City College/CUNY

(We made a few graffiti-style signs for the group early in our history, and posted them on buletin boards on campus. One of the college newspapers called the number given on the sign and sounded very irritated, as tho this was not something a serious group should do, and was it a gag? When they found out we were serious — but not somber — they were cooperative enough. Realize that these lines were written in all directions, sizes, etc., graffiti-style; but that's a little hard to do on a mimeo stencil [2001: or in HTML], thus the typewriter.)

WOULD YOU LIKE TO BE QUEEN FOR A DAY?!
[a reference to a TV (television) show of the time]

GAY IS GOOD — IF YOU DO IT RIGHT.

Take a faggot home.

"Wait till your son turns nelly . . ."                   Lavender Power!

          GAY POWER!                                   Liberte, Egalite, Sororite?

Homosexuality if a form of love.
     Love is beautiful.                                                       Homosexuality is a form of fun!
          Homosexuality is beautiful.

Let it happen.

To thine own self be true.

"Homosexuality" is not a four-letter word.
("Dyke" is. But so is "Love".)

SEND THIS BOY TO CAMP.

Out of the closets and into the streets — burn your closets behind you!

"Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife." You may, however, covet your neighbor.

BATMAN
L.
ROBIN

"Homosexualtiy is a disease." — Irving Bieber, M.D.
"Irving Bieber is a disease." — Craig Schoonmaker, Fa.G.

* * *

We demand nothing but our rights: the right to be ourselves — everywhere; the right to make a living; the right to love and carry on with one another. We feel that — correction, we kow that — homosexuality is fully as moral as heterosexuality. And society must respect our right to lvie as we choose. On these basic points there can be no compromise. We must be insistent — intransigent. And we must organize ourselves to fight bigotry, here, now, before open-minded young people close their minds and lock in on the prejudices they will carry with them to the grave. That is what Homosexuals Intransigent! is all about.

— From "A message for the 'Love Generation': HOMOSEXUALITY IS A FORM OF LOVE", the very first, organizing leaflet which led to the chartering of the City College Chapter

* * *

First psychiatrist: You know, I thnik Dr. Bieber is right about  homosexuality being a sickness — a lot of homosexuals come to see me, and they are all very disturbed.

Second: A lot of heterosexuals come to see me. — HR No. 2

* * *

Pseudonyms: self-respecting homosexuals are proud not only of their homosexuality but of themselves — not some phony person with a phony name, but themselves! I am L. Craig Schoonmaker, not Craig Lee (the pseudonym I used very very early in the game, and my stage name for those rare occasions when I act. That's Schoonmaker, a Dutch name, the name of my father — a good man, not a great father for a little kid, but a good father for an adult; a man I am no longer angry with or ashamed of, because I know him now a little better than when I was just a little boy; the name my mother chose to take, ungainly as it may seem, because she would rather be Mrs. Schoonmaker than Miss Wynne. Schoonmaker — a name of a family which has been in this continent since long before the U.S. was a country — the 1640s or earlier. I don't have to give up my family just because I'm a faggot. They haven't given up on me, and they know I am a homosexual. I just wish everybody would esteem himself as much as he should be esteemed. We'll get there. It will take work, but we'll get there. A homosexual who refuses to use his own name calls down shame upon himself, his family, homosexuality and homosexuals generally. Stop being such damned fucking cowards, and discover that you are a man or a woman not just of this moment but of a whole line of human beings from the infinite past up till today, a line of people who exist because they see something worthwhile in existing, in being what one is. Millions of years went into the creation of each of us. Why should we knock it? The name we bear is a trailmark, a sign of our past, our origin, the peoples and energies, the feelings, the love, that went into our creation. Why should we abandon all this? Let no one — no one — try to deprive me of my name, my family, my heritage! I am L. Craig Schoonmaker and you are you, and each of us has his reasons for joy. — From HR No. 1, November 12, 1969

How can we who are homosexual convey what it means to us to be gay, how much we want respect not just for ourselves as individuals but also for the form of human relationship without which we would be wretched and useless to ourselves and others? A young man who finds sensual and emotional delight in burying his nose in the soft short hair of another man's temple, in feeling the grating of sandpapers as his jaw sweeps across a rough male cheek to firm, full lips seeking his own; who finds greatest comfort and security in tennis, swimming, tumbling with another solid male, in holding hands with, sleeping near someone who wants him near, to reach out fingertips to touch fingertips, lock hands, and sit watching television on a rainy evening — such a man knows that there is a great deal more to homosexuality than restroom sex; that homosexuality need not mean a life of inescapable loneliness and shame . . . .

We want, not to suppress heterosexuality, but rather to bring homosexuality out of the shadows to share the sunlight. — From a leaflet, May 1969

[2001: The photo above, found on the Internet, was not in the original 1971 publication but seems perfectly to embody the sentiment of this selection, so we have added it. If the photo is copyrighted and the copyright owner objects to this use, we will remove it on request.

* * *

It is 1980 and the new homosexual has emerged from the Seventies. No longer looked down upon as the screaming effeminate he was thought in 1970, the new homosexual is the stalwart of masculinity — tough, respected, and looked up to as a model for men. The homosexual is free. Free from restraints, free from harassment, free from discrimination.

Thru the eight decade a new phenomenon arose from the bitter struggle against society: the homosexual neighborhood, for example New York's Upper West side. Police, shopkeepers, firemen are all homosexual, and homosexuals control the churches, hospitals, etc. The emergence of this free community has brought an influx of homosexuals to Manhattan, and now, according to the 1980 census, 80 percent of the 2 million people residing there are homosexual. And there are such communities in all the other boros and even in the suburbs. — From "The New Gods", by Paul Guzzardo, in HR No. 2

* * * *

"I AM HOMOSEXUAL"

[2001: This important piece, the lead article of Homosexual Renaissance No. 1, the first issue of our newsletter (issued November 12, 1969), appears in full elsewhere on this site.  In the 1990s it was excerpted by the late Randy Shilts in his bestseller, Conduct Unbecoming. Click here to go to that item, and to the three that follow it (WHY "HOMOSEXUAL RENAISSANCE"?, WHY "HOMOSEXUALS INTRANSIGENT!"? and INTRODUCTION TO THE SECOND CITY, which were also in the reprint section of this issue) then use your browser's "back" button to return to this issue.

* * *

THE SECOND CITY IS NOT CHICAGO. — From an early sign

* * *

GAY'S A GROOVE (not a rut, ditch, or sewer). — From a leaflet, May 1969

* * *

We hope that all organizations will understand the positive thrust of HI!'s brand of homosexual separatism. Homosexual separatism is a move first to evacuate people from the loneliness of isolation in a hostile environment; second, to end the violence ot our individual and collective psyche done by heterosexual pressurs; and third, to reform the world we live in so that it is truly a gay world and not merely a distorted remnant and reflection of the straight world.

— From a leaflet (interorganizational)

* * *

I hereby declare that I am at least in part homosexual, that I agree with the essential principles and purposes of Homosexuals Intransigent!, and that I wish to belong to the organization. I pledge that I shall answer frankly any questions about my sexuality and true identity directed to me by any individual, group, or collective entity at any time. I hereby grant/refuse (choose one) to Homosexuals Intransigent! the right to release my name (address, etc.) at the discretion of any of the officers of the organization. I reserve the right to rescind this permission by written instruction, and I promise to protect the identity of persons who do not want their membership or homosexuality known by nonhomosexuals.

— The full-membership pledge of this organization, instituted April 1969 and still in effect. Let us hear no one say "more militant than thou" until they have people signing their names to pledges more strenuous than this in order to belong fully to the group.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

ABOUT THE COPYRIGHT on this magazine: tho I have, with the permission of HI!, copyrighted the entire contents of this publication, parts of it may be used by others subject only to their submitting a written request for such use. My intent is not to steal other people's writing — I shall permit use of others' writings freely, subject to their permission — nor to restrict the circulation of tings I have written, for purely mercenary reasons. Of course, if a publication can afford to pay, it should. But my major intent is to secure credit for my writings and achieve an element of control over where my writings appear, and under what circumstances. I am a serious writer, and that this magazine may be mimeoed should not suggest that its writing is second-rate.

* * *

ABOUT THE ORGANIZATION

Homosexuals Intransigent! is two years old. We hope that after reading this issue, you wil agree that we have reason to be proud of our organization, the oldest of the new, militant homosexual organizatoins. But you may still be unclear about what exactly we are into and what we want to do. Well, we're into CHANGE, internal and external, thru homosexual separatism

"I'm going to live the rest of my life in the gay world." If you feel that this statement is true for you and the thought leaves you less than ecstatic, maybe you should join HI!

Some people in the gay-rights movement imply that all gay people are perfect — the only thing wrong with us is them (hets). If you agree with that view, you won't be interested in HI! Because we know that we have faults, and we are working to change both ourselves and homosexual society.

We're tired of first-names-only; the secret life; role playing; impersonal, exploitive promiscuity; bitchiness; misperception of self (nelliness, self-degradation); shame. And while we may defend the right of gay people to go in drag or beat one another in sex games, we don't pretened that drag and sado-masochism are healthy.

Granted, our troubles originate in the fact of our submersion in a heterosexual sea, we still bear responsibility for seizing control of our lives and salvaging our futures.

We have to get our heads together and create a homosexual society that will make us reasonably confident that we will find peace with ourselves and lovign and meaningful relationships with other homosexuals. Here are some things we'd like to do:

* Take over the City of New York, starting with the 19th and 20th Congressional Districts (the First Gay-Power District), which comprise most of the Village and West Side. By "take over" we do not mean carrying off a bloody coup. That's not possible in the U.S. But it is easily possible for homosexuals to move from the farms and villages, the suburbs and smaller cities (and that means every city) and make this greatest concentration of homosexuals in the world the base of a powerful and scintillating homosexual culture. A homosexual majority will enable us to elect our own outspoken representatives to public offices at all levels of government, and to create social and cultural institutions valid for homosexuals. And imagine the joy of living in an all-male, all-homosexual City of Smiles, ManHattan. [March 2001: Paris just elected a gay man Mayor — ahead of New York.]

* Establish a Housing Referral Service, first components of the Housing, Employment, Legal, and Psychological Services program (HELPS), to facilitate creation of the First Gay-Power District.

* Hold frequent Coming-Out Workshops to help young homosexuals get the information and reassurance they need to come out without excessive anxiety.

* Institute a news and feature service for the newsletters of homosexual organizations across the country; this would be the first project of an intergroup community for gay-world reform that we hope will emerge, the Coalition of Homosexuals Acting for a New Gay Environment (CHANGE).

* Begin a semi-formal leadership-training program to draw qualified people into positions of responsibility.

* Organize social activity groups, to enable homosexuals to pursue their favorite recreational activities with other homosexuals and thus meet three-dimensional compatible people.

* Take celebrity ads, to get prominent homosexuals to declare themselves homosexual publicly and urge an end to legal and extralegal discrimination against us.

* Innovate self-recognition days, on which homosexuals will be encouraged to wear an innocus symbol that would let other homosexuals recognize them as such, in order to help us realize how numerous and potentially powerful we are.

* Put on a variety show for homosexual performers only, both professional and amateur, to encourage homosexual creativity to express itself openly, in homosexual terms.

* Extend media monitoring, to commend favorable comments on homosexuality and rebut slanderous or ignorant remarks in the media.

* Assist in organizing college and high-school homosexual organizations, as well as organizations for adults.

* Hold dances and parties both on and off college campuses; but these social affairs must do more than merely bring people into proximity — they must help people meet.

* Establish, in cooperation with other organizations, a regional speakers' bureau to promote interest in speakers on homosexuality and provide good speakers.

* Seek a media voice for the homosexual, either as a regular feature in heterosexually-dominated media (as a column in The New York Times or a special-stress program on ABC radio and TV) or in the form of a hmosexually-owned and operated broadcast system.

* Rate gay bars, baths, etc., on multiple criteria, and publicize not merely the overall rating but also a detailed evaluation.

* Form a militant group to patrol and protect outdoor cruising areas from incursions of muggers and fabeaters and thus instill confidence and physicla pride in affected homosexuals (the Lavendar Guard, we could call it).

* Formulate and disseminate safety rules for outdoor cruising until such time as a Lavendar guar can be organized and as a compleent to it once it is established.

* Basically, to cause homosexuals to seize control of all areas of the gay world and free it from the exploiters and parasites.

* Ultimately, to organize a homosexual-muscle organization to force change if there is no other way than violence to effect needed changes (the Lavendar Hand).

* * * * HI! intends to concentrate much of its recruitment attention on the intelligent and intellectual omosexual. Because the basic tasks we set ourselves, working for a homosexual mentality and building a homosexual culture in the long term, are intellectuals' responsibilities; further, the homosexual intellectual has been largely ignored or at least neglected by other organizations. Homosexuals have had to go to the general (i.e., hetero) culture for meaningful intellectual stimulation and companionship — or do without. Let's face it, you can't expect to find a mind-partner by sight in a bar, dance, or baths. Organizations involve but a tiny fraction of homosexuals generally, so how many of their members are likely to be intllectual peers or intellectually compatible? Besides, most organizations are compatmentalized in thir single-minded dedication to either political or social activities. But the homosexual intellectual has both political and social interests, not to mention cultural and sexual needs. HI! will work to provide for the total man, the multidimensional, homosexual intellectual.

If you think we are trying to run a recruitment campaign on "snob appeal", go right ahead. But we feel that the intelligent homosexual has a lot of work ahead of him in building a homosexual society and should be able to turn his attention to these important matters without having to sacrifice socially.

We are not an organization for phonies, and not all of us are intellectuals. But every organization should have a delineable orientation. Ours is to militant, separatist homosexual intellectualism.

Homosexuals Intransigent! is ot for everybody. Is it for you? If you tink it might be, contact us. We are not a mass organization, and our membership is very small. We know eath other by first names, and nobody is anonymous and ignored. Help us build our membership while retaining this quality.

MEETING: Come meet us and explore what we can accomplish together. Attend our Gay Pride Week meeting on Sunday, June 20th [1971], at 7:30 p.m., in the Basement Front apartment of 127 Riverside Drive [then, in 1971], at the southeast corner of West 85th Street in Manhattan. HOMOSEXUAL MEN ONLY.

* * *

TWO AMENDMENTS
                                       to the constitution of Homosexuals Intransigent! are being submitted to the full members of the organization: the first will limit membership of any category to homosexual men only (the constitution provides for an equal but semi-separate women's division — which has never been organized); the second provides that if the grup dissolves, its moneys shall go to CARE, Inc., for food (the present provision is for its assets to go to MSNY).

* * *

MEMBERS OF HI! AND SUBSCRIBERS and close friends of the group are being asked, in the mailing that includes this magazine, to fill out a questionnaire on sports activities that a researcher at the Unviersity of Maryland is circulating thru various homosexual organizations. Anyone who does not receive one but would like to fill one out should contact us. Helping researchers is one of this group's more important functions.

* * * * * * * * * *  * * * * * * * * * * *

IN THE NEXT ISSUE OF HI! . . .

Don Jackson, Gay Separatist and Gay Supremacist — a man after our own heart — writes about what Dr. Franklin Kameny of the Mattachine Society of Washington (D.C.) hs called "a war of extermination against homosexuals" being waged by the psychiatric profession, in "KILL THE QUEERS" . . .

"A Child's Garden of Perversions: Part I — Pedophilia" . . .

Homosexuality and Lesbianism: Parallel but Not the Same — part of the continuing "Still That Little Het in Your Head" series . . .

Epistolary Intercourse — Don Jackson and Craig Schoonmaker, separatists and supremacists both, discuss the words "homosexual", "gay", "stright", and "het" . . . plus any other letters of interest . . .

The Second City . . . The Media Monitor . . . CSLD march and gay-in impressions.

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YES OR NO: DO YOU WANT TO CONTINUE TO RECEIVE THIS MAGAZINE?

One way or another, we'd like to hear from you (in any correspondence, let us know if we may print your letter and if so, whether with your full name or just initials).

This special issue is going out to the people on our mailing list (about 150 in 19 states and 2 provinces); to some 300 other individuals thru the Oscar Wilde Memorial Book Shop and a couple of organizations; and perhaps to another 50 or so organizations or individuals thru bookshops in other parts of the country. We're trying to see if there is enoug interest in the kind of things we're writing and work we'd like to do to justify expending the great amounts of energy it takes to produce this magazine every month or so. Usually the magazine runs some 20 pages, ot 38 [the original printed size, on 8 1/2 by 11" paper, of this issue]. But it's still a big project. Frankly, we have other things to do with our time if nobody wants to rad us. And we have to support this publication financially ourselves too, unless we receive more money from subscriptions — and we sure as hell have other things we can do with our money.

So please let us hear from you — whether you are pro or con. If you have been receiving this publication for free and we don't hear from you, we shall remove your name from out mailing list forthwith, automatically. If you are not certain whether you have or have not subscribed, ask us. We won't remove anyone from the mailing list who actively wants to remain on it, on account of money — at least notyet. But we must know, right away.

Only men may subscribe. We want to reach men, and we want to feel free to talk as we wish about any subject at any time.

The new postal rates have caused us to sit down and analyze costs. that analysis reveals the need for us to raise the subscription rate to $3.00 for twelve issues [1971 rates]. Present subscriptions will be filled for no additional charge (tho if you'd like to send us the difference, we'd appreciate it). If you are willing to receive HI! by second-lcass mail, let us kow. It would save us some money.

SO, WHAT'S IT GOING TO BE? [2001: The subscription form below is presented for historical purposes only. We no longer publish to paper but only to the Internet.]

_____ YES, I want to continue to receive HI! Magazine regularly, and I enclose $3.00 for a twleve-issue subscription.

_____ YES, I want to receive this magazine, but I can't afford to subscribe right now; as my financial circumstances improve, I'll send the $3.00

_____ I'D LIKE TO HELP, with money ($          ), writing_____, copy-editing_____, typing_____, mailing_____, getting advertising_____, or other way _____________________.

_____ NO hard feelings, but please remove my name from your mailing list.  ((Sorry, but we cannot refund any money on cancelled subscriptions.))

______________________________          ___________________________________
(Name)                                                           (Street address; Apt. No.)

______________________________          Home:                       Business:                      
(City, State & Zip/Province)                            (Telephone: include area code)

[Note: I have had to neglect the Mr. Gay Pride website for many months in order to tend to other websites (most particularly for the organizations Expansionist Party of the United States and United States International . Much remains of the original papers of Homosexuals Intransigent! to be uploaded to the Internet, as time permits. — L. Craig Schoonmaker, Webmaster

(This is the end of this issue.) [Return to the top of this issue.] [Go to the Mr. Gay Pride Home page.]