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NEWSLETTER OF

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Homosexuals Intransigent!/New York

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c/o Schoonmaker

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[old address and phone number]

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H   O   M   O   S   E   X   U   A   L   S
I   N   T   R   A   N  S   I   G  E  N  T !

 

MARCH 1971


Contents: "Understanding Homosexual Separatism";  "The Snakepit Remembered" by David A.; Personals; Canadian law reform; Two gay papers of interest; Albany demo; Alpine County takeover abandoned; New gay guide; June march; "Under the Harvest of Night" (poem) by Bill; ERCHO; NYU actions; "One Is No Number at All" (poem); Toronto group; Gay press growing; Man-to-Man dating service; A gay theology; EPISTOLARY INTERCOURSE (two-way letters department); Interview with Gerald Walker, author of CRUISING; VD epidemic; subscription form; organizational update.

UNDERSTANDING HOMOSEXUAL SEPARATISM

By L. Craig Schoonmaker

Homosexual separatism, the move to create districts where we constitute the population and determine the institutions, is a political doctrine sprung from desperation. Had society been tolerant of homosexuality all along, we who have become separatists might never have seen the need to do so. Perhaps we should therefore be glad that society has been intolerant, for only that intolerance has enabled us to revolt and set ourselves enough apart to realize that the minor changes we might have accepted really won't do: society is based on heterosexuality, and that simply isn't good enuf.

If all the world had been homosexual from the start, the word would be altogether different. Homosexuality would have given rise to different forms of organization and institutions, different lifestyles and attitudes, different art, different politics, different religion than have arisen from homosexuality. To be true to ourselves and our orientation, we must seek out those forms of organization, attitudes, art, religion, etc., natural to homosexuals. That is a major task, one we would not be willing even to contemplate much less begin had we not been shocked from lethargy by murders, beatings, name-calling, job discrimination, and so on.

But it's wrong to think that just because we were finally forced from our inertia by reaction and resentment, therefore homosexual separatism is a hate-motivated, negative drive. It's not.

It's just that we thought we were swimming when in fact we were drowning. We were swimming with the heterosexual tide, not realizing that that tide was going out, into a heterosexual sea, carrying us farther and farther from our homosexual native land. That at last we are swimming, swimming for home, doesn't mean that we hate the sea: we just don't want to drown in it. The heterosexual sea, as the ocean of our planet earth, shelters, nourishes, and protects most living things. But we are land animals, and to stay too long in the water means, if not death, at least profound distress.

And we are distressed, as individuals and as a subsociety. The "gay world" is a monstrosity, born in shame and raised on a heterosexual pattern. Year after year it works, slowly but inexorably, to destroy us, to lead us from the ideal of a lasting, loving bond of mutual respect and mutual care between two people of the same sex, away instead to tawdry, ugly one-night (or one-hour, or ten-minute) stands in which sensation takes the place of love; mutual contempt, the place of mutual respect; and mutual exploitation, the place of mutual care. It is this process which concerns us mst importantly, and which we explore now. You may not yet agree with our recommendations, but we hope you will understand the true emotions behind homosexual separatism.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * You want to know what homosexual separatism is all about? I'll tell you. It's about a kid. A kid who's new to this whole business of homosexuality, who is all vulnerability, all love, all need — and what happens to him. It's about the piecemeal destruction of a human being, first by straight society in its undiluted form, then by straight society in its distorted form — the so-called "gay world". And it's about salvaging that kid and millions of others like him — and you and me.

You know this kid. You were probably like him once. And at heart you would probably like to be like him again. But you know the chances against that's happening — not in this world. And that is the point of homosexual separatism: we must escape from this straight-dominated world and create another valid for ourselves.

Let's describe this kid. He's young, about 17 or 20,, I guess. And he's from a small town or suburb. He's known for some time now that he is homosexual, and after years of reading, dreaming, fantasizing, and asking himself questions, he has finally picked himself up and moved to the big city in the hope that here he can find happiness.

You meet him, and you recognize him, by his timidity and anxiety. Somehow you get him alone. You can practically hear his heart pounding, racing, and you know he's scared out of his mind and wants to get away almost as much as he wants to reach out to you. But he's paralyzed and can't run or reach or do anything but stand there and hope that this is really what he thinks it is. You come near him. Your face is only inches from his and you can see him shaking, you can see his chest move in and out quickfire and hear his short, catchy breaths. And his eyes are wide open and frightened and anxious and eager and uncertain and trusting and afraid all at the same time. In one electric moment you end your separation and move your head against his, temple to temple, sliding your hands around his back, and he grabs you and hugs you so tightly you're surprised. So you squeeze him a little tighter to reassure him, and he increases his grip on you until you can barely breathe. And you begin to think you're the only man he has ever held. You are. And you begin to worry, to back off inside from your contemplated sexual assault. It's not assault as in rape, of course, but suddenly the chance encounter you're so accustomed to takes on a new meaning. You're bringing the kid out. and what should be a joyous occasion for both of you makes you nervous, for bringing somebody out is a Responsibility — a heavy Responsibility. All of a sudden you realize that what ordinarily means nothing whatever could change this kid's entire life. What kind of life are you introducing him to? God! Will he really be better off, or is he getting into something that will mean perpetual unhappiness? That you can even wonder such a thing is what [homosexual] separatism is all about.

So you think of backing off. Still, he's such a nice kid. He'll find it somewhere if he wants it enough. And God, does this kid want it. So you think, It's a good thing he met me and not somebody else, who would exploit him and then throw him away without a care. Think further: why are there people like those others? That's what homosexual separatism is all about.

O.K. So you'll go thru with it. He's such a nice kid, you want to cry. But you don't. That's what homosexual separatism is all about.

Oh, you do cry a little! Gee, you're in better human shape than you thought. Good for you. But he asks what's wrong. And you smile and shake your head and say "Nothing, nothing", then press his head back on your shoulder. He wants to cry too. But he also wants to shout, to laugh, to jump up and down. He doesn't know what to do, he's so happy and turned on and, gosh, just doesn't know. A man! In his arms! A real live man, not a character in a book or a figure in a dream — a real man's body against his. Powerful, loving, holding him strongly. God it's good.

He kisses you. But he doesn't know how to kiss. He's never done it before, really. He's never had anyone he wanted to kiss. Well, he presses his mouth up against yours and sort of misses. You're embarrassed, amused, and delighted and you want to laugh, but you think he might take it as criticism, as mockery. Of course it's not — you're just remembering your first kisses, how bad you were. (You're an expert now, aren't you baby? At kissing and all those sex-pleasure things, huh? Years of practice. Does you lots of good, doesn't it baby, if you have nobody to make happy with them. And let's face it, most of us have no one, no one special.) So you pull back and take his face in both your hands; you part his lips slightly and move slowly back into position, the right way this time, gently, gently. Ever . . . so . . . gently. You start to move your tongue gently against his. But he's impatient. He pulls your tongue deep in and then pushes his out, thrashing madly. So you stop him. That's wrong, you say silently, your hands pushing back on his face and shoulder. And you start again. This time he takes the hint and you pull it off. His first correct kiss. You open your eyes and look at him. His eyes are closed even now, as you pull away. He likes it; he likes you; and he likes homosexuality. His eyes open slowly and a big smile forms on those just-touched lips. His body swings against yours again and his arms grip you in another bear-hug embrace and you squeeze him back and resole to spend the whole weekend with him. You want to squeeze him and hold him and caress him and kiss him until his embraces loosen and he relaxes. Until he knows he can let go and go away for a few minutes and come back and you'll still be there. Until he falls asleep at your side in perfect trust of this man-stranger he has opened his life, himself to. And you remember your loneliness before you came out. And you realize anew your loneliness now — still — despite years of sexual encounters and kisses and embraces. And you say to yourself that you've got to protect him from all the hurts that have assailed you from the harsh and terrible place known as the gay world. And you know that you are a separatist . . .

He's a bad lay. What can you expect? — he's never done this before. But he's so unselfish, so giving, so concerned with your needs and with the body he could never touch before. And because he's unconcerned with his own needs, you're concerned with his needs. He's trying so hard to please, surely you should please him. And he's a man, a good an, the kind of man you've always wanted to please. He hasn't learned to be ashamed of giving attention, of caring. He hasn't yet learned to be selfish and exploitive. But give him time in the gay world and he will. He'll learn to play a role — butch, you suspect; he respects himself and manhood too much to deny both — and to tone down the caring. He'll learn to treat a person as a thing and sex as a-sensation-and-that's-it. Oh, he won't like it, but he'll do it. 'Cause those are the rules: promiscuity, role playing, impersonality, detachment. Whose rules are they? They're the straights' rules for us, and we must obey. Because the straights define a man as a promiscuous, brutal, exploitive animal who takes his pleasure where he finds it and doesn't think of much but his pleasure. That's not your definition of a man? Well who the fuck are you, anyway? Just a stupid faggot. What do you know about men?

Our young friend will find lots of fems who bow down to this heterosexual deity of Man Brutal. They'll expect him to live up to it, and he'll try his best. But he'll still want a man like himself, not one who denies his manhood because he rejects brutality and insensitivity.

Will it end with this kid where it rests now with us?: one-dimensionality for the homosexual, his attitudes toward himself and his relationships with other homosexuals set by heterosexual fiats implicit and explicit? Or can we break from the notion of a heterosexual duality, Male-Female? Male sex roles and female sex roles. Male-female pairing, living arrangements, division of labor. Male traits and female traits. Male-female songs, shows, books, magazines, organizations. The idea that male and female are complementary but two men or two women are not. The notion that man without woman is incomplete, inadequate.

The whole world is built for men-and-women, but not for men or women. There is no place for us in the male-female world. There never will be. So either we create a place for ourselves or we will never have a place, but will continue to be ruled, from birth to death, from job to bed, by heterosexual notions of what is proper.

That, friends, is what homosexual separatism is all about.  [Return to Contents.]

* * *

THE SNAKEPIT REMEMBERED

By David A.

One year ago, on March 8, 1970, a gay after-hours bar named The Snakepit was raided. 167 people were arrested and taken to the precinct house. One of them was a resident alien from Argentina who seems to have panicked at the thought of his arrest causing him to be deported. So he jumped from a second-story window — and landed on a spiked metal fence. He was impaled on several spikes for a long time, until firemen could cut that section of fence free. It was later removed from his thigh in a hospital. "New York's Picture Newspaper" the Daily News arrived on the scene and took many photos of Vinales impaled on the fence and printed several the next day without mentioning once that the reason this man felt compelled to risk his life was fear of exposure and deportation as a homosexual.

David A. spoke for many of us when he wrote the following open letter to the Daily News, for publication here.

* * * * * * * * * * It was with pangs of personal disgust and social outrage that I read your coverage of the police raid on The Snakepit and the resultant ruin — to as yet an undetermined degree — of at least one life. Perhaps, had the article been carefully tucked away on page 100 and printed in the usual microscopic type accorded to news gauged to upset the equilibrium of the silent majority, we would have remained deeply angered and not outraged; resigned to an uncomfortable complacence and not so aware of our own abduction and molestation by the free press.

In choosing not to accord the report on The Snakepit raid the usual sad treatment allotted to gay news, you have ironically initiated an insidious exploitation of the homosexual community, and of all people concerned with an in need of social justice and truth.

Venality in regard to circulation, and prejudicial fearing regard to the bourgeois conscience have plastered the gruesome spectacle of your most colorful victim across your pages. On the front page of the Daily News of March 9,, 1970, and across the centerfold, lies Alfredo Vinales impaled upon an iron fence and photographed with enough detail to delight the eye of every sadist and jingle the dimes from the pockets of the IRT and BMT herd.

These optical stimulators were followed up by a sententious article on page four which carefully gave no evidence of why the bar was raided; which refused to comment on why 167 people were arrested; which most importantly dared give no hint of why Vinales felt compelled to make the leap which might have killed him.

It was the hand of a society arrested in its social and human development which arrested 167 people for an infraction of law for which the management of any straight bar would at most have been warned or fined. It is the hand of that society which points the way for gay people to The Snakepit and other such establishments, as the only place where they can meet and be themselves. And it is the hand of a repressed and savage race which pushes a young man to suffer upon its spiky, bloodied fingers because in his mind, association with any part of the gay community, when "discovered", is synonymous with social condemnation.

However, it is the avarice and prehistoric morality of a newspaper that allows itself to be molded by this hand, that pats it and pets it and ultimately is choked by it. For hate and greed and prejudice when surfeited with their prey return to feed upon themselves.  [Return to Contents.]

 


PERSONAL

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 that someone is reading this Newsletter.

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. [The following notices are from the original appearance of this newsletter in March 1971. They are reprinted here as examples of the kind of notices we would be willing to print now, and as reminders to people who knew us back then.]

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 conversation, people of all ages, boating, and is willing to expand his interests. [Old phone number]

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 Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York City. Please write to Donald Tomko, [address and phone number then].

COMMITMENT, one man to another. Companionship, night after day, of body and mind. Mae, 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, [old address and phone number].

We received one other personal notice but we would not print it: notices for transvestism, sado-masochism, role-playing, prostitution, and other activities which indicate a negative attitude toward homosexuality, have no place in this publication. We would be delighted to help transvestites, drag queens, sado-masochists, role-players, prostitutes, etc., break from past behavior patterns toward a more positive orientation, however. So if you want to get out of a bad bag and you don't know how, try this column. * * *  [Return to Contents.]

CANADIAN LAW
                                         was revised some time ago under the influence of Pierre Elliott Trudeau, the federal Prime Minister, who, rumor has it, has some homosexuality in his past. Whether the rumors we have heard are based in fact is uncertain. His recent marriage to a woman indicates that even if he is a homosexual, he certainly isn't a good one.

Anyway, present law (and criminal law in Canada is a federal area, so the change rules throughout Canada) allows two persons over 21 to "do what they wish together in private", according to the Newsletter of the York University (Metro Toronto) Homophile Association. "This still [leaves] a large area of activity classed as illegal." But according to another Canadian source, a Toronto gentleman who came to New York within recent months and talked to various New York organization heads (including Craig Schoonmaker and, informally, with Jay L. Friend, former officer of HI!), "private" seems to include private rooms in baths!  [Return to Contents.]

* * *

TWO PAPERS
                                  you might be interested in if you are a New Leftist-Gay Lib type are Lavender Vision and The San Francisco Gay Free Press (Gay Freep). LV is published irregularly in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and addresses itself to both men and women — a mistake — but in two semi-separate halves upside-down to one another, each having a front page. It is essentially a sexual-freedom sheet which manages to say a few interesting things but wearies this particular reader with tons of hetero-origin shitty commonplaces of the New Left-"Third World" type. I did not, of course, read the women's section — I figured it was none of my business, first, and second, that it couldn't be particularly relevant to my life — but the first page of that section contained this bit of malice: ". . . castrate-laugh-Masterbait . . ." while the men's front page bore no such malice in its parallel imperatives.

Gay Freep is under the editorship of "fire-queen" (gay militant who advocates violence) poet Charles P. Thorp. It too is basically a sexual-freedom sheet, which undercuts all its talk of creating a new homosexual mentality with an utterly vulgar, utterly heterosexual review of Ike and Tina Turner's Revue: "'come together, right now . . .' down my thigh. Oh Tina come on stage" etc., by the same "homosexual" militant (altho he curiously objects to the word "homosexual" — it reduces us to the level of animals, he says — while the words he writes time and again put him in the sensual-animal category), Charles Thorp.

Both of these publications show a certain hopeful try toward a homosexual mentality, but they are both produced by Children of Heterosexuality who spent much of their early life involving themselves deeply in the hetero sexual-freedom, anti-war, and other such movements and have not really begun to break free from their insidious and all-pervasive influence. With time, they'll probably do it, but right now they are too busy denying the word "man" because of the connotations hets have put on it, fighting other people's sexual and other battles, etc.

Contact them if you think you'd like to see them develop or if you would like to contribute to their publications and development: Lavender Vision, [old address, c/o Stanley W. Tillotson]; Gay Freep, [old address]. — LCS  [Return to Contents.]

ALBANY,
                       state capital of New York, is, the weekend during which this Newsletter is being printed, the target of a mass demonstration by homosexuals in support of several legal reforms. The main event, a one-mile march from a Unitarian church to the state capitol on Sunday afternoon, was preceded by a dance on Saturday night ("costumes welcome") sponsored by the GLF of the Tri-Cities (Albany, Schenectady, Troy), and on Friday in New York City by a rally at Columbia University featuring the Reverend Troy Perry of Los Angeles' Metropolitan Community Church and a showing of a film, "Gay and Proud".

The demands of the "Thousands of homosexuals from all parts of New York State and more than 30 organizations working for Gay Liberation" are unexceptionable. The Tri-Cities GLF includes one more demand than does Gay Activists Alliance of NYC, however. GA's five demands are "1) repeal of the sodomy laws 2) repeal of the solicitation laws 3) repeal of the impersonation laws 4) fair employment legislation for gays 5) fair housing legislation for gays." The Tri-cities group would also like to see repeal of loitering laws. Offhand, without seeing the exact wording of the laws they propose to replace current statutes, we of HI! could endorse all these demands.

BUT several things about this movement disturb me (LCS) enough to preclude my participation in this march: First, it is all very well to revise the laws, and I think this an indispensable base for subsequent change. But I just want to make sure that people don't expect everything to change right away merely because a paper on file in Albany says that we have the same rights as have straights. It won't happen.

Second, as a separatist, I challenge the idea that groups of people should not and therefore may not (legally) discriminate against forms of behavior that offend one's personal or one's community's sense of propriety or values. Each of us has only one life to live (to the best of our knowledge); why should that one life be marred by a billion compromises? Let the straights have a 100 percent-straight society if they want it, as long as we have a 100 percent homosexual society in which we can be happy. I am very much afraid that laws supposedly designed to benefit us — antidiscrimination laws — will, if they are phrased wrong, end up miilitating against homosexual separatism: if it is unlawful for hets to discriminate against us, then it is likely to be as unlawful for us to discriminate in favor of us. So a publication meant only for men may be required to have female (hetero) secretaries, and so on. No true homosexual can tolerate hets imposing their patterns, their standards, upon us.

Third, to appeal to hetero legislators to change the laws regarding homosexuals is to accept their right to govern us.

Fourth, I am not a "gay" but a homosexual. I object to the avoidance of the word "homosexual". I am homosexual — not gay — and I'm proud. I don't know where the idiot euphemism "gay" came from, but I see no reason except brevity to use any term but homosexual to refer to homosexuals. Hets don't seem to see any need to avoid the word "heterosexual".

Fifth, Bella Abzug, a female hetero Congresswoman, has been invited to join in leading the march to the state capitol. I think this a particularly sick and disgusting piece of momism: Mommy Abzug, come save us! From the start, GAA, which probably instituted the Abzug invitation, has shown an appalling momist (read "matriarchal", "matriarchist") tendency, addressing its first action to a woman (antihomosexual New York councilwoman Carol Greitzer) and going all out for Mommy Abzug later. I suspect that some prominent people in GAA feel very guilty about not wanting people who look like their mommies, and so spend an inordinate amount of time disclaiming that they don't like women or womanliness or whatever. Bella Abzug is a heterosexual. She is also a woman. As such she knows nothing of the life of a homosexual, and even less than nothing about the emotional life of a male homosexual. She has no place in a march of homosexuals. I have no patience whatever for people who cannot accept their humanity without even thinking about it, then move on to other things, but must always prove they are human by kowtowing to heterosexuals' standards of humanity. These people cannot march as homosexuals, but must recruit heterosexuals to march with them, prove their humanity, justify their existence and their protest. Shit on them all. I have no apologies to make to the heterosexuals who have so long mistreated me and others like me. And their stupid stereotypes cannot deprive me of my humanity. Whatever I do, I do as a human being. And I shall be a homosexual human being till the moment I die — however that may happen.

Sixth, it would seem from the flyers I have seen, that most of the activities of this weekend are integrated male-female. This is a heterosexual pattern. The integrationists do not for an instant see this, because they have not for an instant stopped to think about what homosexuality is and what it implies. They have rather tended to act upon a simple thought pattern of U.S. heterosexual origin: All people are equal (therefore) All people are the same (therefore) All people should be together; or Despite our differences, we are all people (and so) We should all overlook the differences and seek out the basic similarities (and) Once we see that we are all human beings/children of God (choose one), we know that we must love one another, no matter what our differences (of sex, race, creed, etc.). What the integrationists fail to see is that nobody really believes that shit. Nobody!

"Humanity" becomes important only when contrasted with the nonhuman. Since no nonhuman creature is nearly as intelligent as are we on this planet, and we have yet to contact nonearth cultures, "humanity" is really not an important, even a relevant concept. Accept it: all those creatures who look like people are people — human beings. None of them has to prove that to anyone. Given this common base of human beingness, what matters is not humanity (human beingness) but the nature of the person — that is, not our base similarity, but our particular differences. He who is ashamed of his difference is ashamed of himself. All homosexuals in our culture start out being ashamed of ourselves. Isn't it time we outgrew that?

Seventh, "costumes are welcome": isn't it time for us to stop hiding behind costumes and to come out as who and what we are? In the straight world, "costumes welcome" would mean Napoleon and Josephine. In the homosexual subculture (not counter-culture — for that does not yet exist — but subculture), it means Josephine. "Costumes welcome" is a stupid euphemism for "drag O.K." But drag is not O.K. It is the ultimate kowtow. It is a denial of one's manhood, a denial of one's homosexuality. Indeed, it is a denial of the validity of homosexuality at all — an agreement that only male-female is right.

Eighth, this march, preceded by a "pray-in" and starting from a church, is too involved with established (hetero) religion to suit my tastes. "God the Father" is a heterosexual deity.

And ninth, "celebration of gay brotherhood": "brother" and "sister" are heterosexual terms for relations who standardly arise from heterosexuality. Brotherhood is a heterosexual ideal. What's wrong with "friends", "fellows", "lovers"? Must we always be "brothers"?  [Return to Contents.]

* * *

THE ALPINE COUNTY TAKEOVER
                                                                                  has apparently been dropped. This bold plan to seize control of a sparsely populated county of northern California by the simple and quite legal tactic of having homosexuals move there and vote out the straight government to vote in a homosexual government, managed in fact to seize only headlines. Opposition by the present straight residents has apparently proved too great for many of those who originally advocated the project to retain interest in it. And there were indications that a lot of non-homosexuals who felt they had no place in our current society, were thinking of moving in with the homosexuals; the would have destroyed the project in another way, submerging the homosexuals in another alien culture.

From the start, HI! endorsed the Alpine takeover, with qualifications about the kind of community we thought should be set up, and reservations — great reservations — about the wisdom of taking over a rural area anywhere and especially in the frigid wilds of the Sierra Nevada. There is still a possibility that with the advent of warm weather, Alpine County will in fact be inundated by homosexuals. That would be good to see. But we of HI! have always thought it wiser to concentrate in the City of New York, where apathy and tolerance would expedite our takeover, than in a rural area where intolerance in surrounding areas would always endanger the homosexual community encircled.

If you would seriously like to live in a homosexual-majority community but don't know where to go now that the future of the Alpine project is uncertain, by all means come to Manhattan and help us take over this great and fabulous city. There are already a million homosexuals here, and the police are already wary of messing with us. Come on! * * *  [Return to Contents.]

A NEW GAY GUIDE
                                               is Michael's Thing, a weekly guide to places and things of possible interest to homosexuals both male and female. Published by Michael Giametta, formerly of Gay, the one issue I have seen manifest a very East-Side mentality: you know the standard faggot interests, the standard "now" words, an inclination to use the words "tacky" and "your own thing" every second sentence, etc. If that is your own tendency, you will delight in the reviews of places given in Michael's Thing and find them an accurate guide for your own attendance. If not, you may still find this diminutive publication valuable as a reference for the newest places. Michael's Thing is not mine, but if you'd like to judge for yourself, you can get it at various newsstands or thru the publisher located — much to my surprise — on the West Side!: Michael's Thing, [address and phone number then]. (If you want information on areas other than New York, look elsewhere.) [This small magazine is still — again? — being published. I see it in the bars from time to time. I did not see it for years, but perhaps it was being published all along, just distributed by means I would not have known about. — LCS]  [Return to Contents.]

* * * * *

JUNE 27TH
                            will see the next Christopher Street Liberation Day march up Avenue of the Americas and Gay-In at Central Park. For complete information about the event, contact CSLDC, [address and phone number then]. If you'd like to help prepare graphics for the event, contact Michael Sabamosh, [address and phone number then]. If you are in New York and would like to help with housing for out-of-towners coming in for Gay Pride Week, contact Bob Kohler of GLF at [address then]. If you would like to help with any of the other types of work the Committee must do, contact [the late] Craig Rodwell, c/o Oscar Wilde Memorial Book Shop, [address and phone number then]. Contact him also if you have materials or services to offer the Committee. If you can donate money, make checks or money orders payable to CSLDC and send them to [the late] Foster Gunnison, Jr.; Treasurer, CSLDC; Institute of Social Ethics, [address then, in Hartford, Connecticut].

Save these addresses. Spread the word about the needs of the Committee for money, materials, services, ideas, etc., to your friends, or in the case of organizations, to your members and the readers of your publications and mailings.

The next issue of this Newsletter will give more information on the nature of the event as it will have been clarified at the March 21st 1:30 p.m. meeting at the Community Center, [then at] 130 West 3rd Street (second floor) in the Village (IND 4th Street stop).  [Return to Contents.]

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

UNDER THE HARVEST OF NIGHT

By Bill

Under the harvest of night
Whispers come to you
Which remember the summer roses
And touch you with a thousand memories
As a beautiful friend who remembers
The golden night you shared in "love"
Under the leaves of the moon in the garden of love.
Do you remember the fragrant crimson larks of the goddess who questions the unanswerable questions of love?

I, the
Ghost of autumn who lives in the garden
And sees all who come in, comes to you in the night
Over the gray mockery of death thru the
Summer roses past crimson larks into the goodness of memories
And whispers to you answerable questions.

 [Return to Contents.]

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

ERCHO,
                     the Eastern Regional Conference of Homophile Organizations, recently ended its one-year period of suspension of its rules and experiment in formlessness. It remains to be seen whether the intergroup association will be revived in any form, however. At a meeting in February of the executive board of the association, most representatives of the six organizations attending felt that some form of interorganizational communication was desirable, but there was no desire to restore ERCHO — especially under that name — to its former structure. All agreed to sending out a notice of a meeting of all interested organizations' representatives to work out a new intergroup association. We'll let you know what is decided. *  *  *  [Return to Contents.]

ONE INTERGROUP ASSOCIATION
                                                                                 seems to have met with limited success. An Ad Hoc Committee Against New York University was formed after NYU broke a contract with the CSLDC of New York (a group which recently dissolved itself and donated its treasury to the regional CSLDC) and refused to permit that group or any other group to hold gay dances on campus. The Ad Hoc Committee met several times but could not formulate any policy because Gay Student Liberation, the campus homosexual organization, could not decide what they wanted to do. Nonetheless, it became clear that a number of New York's organizations — tho not all — were willing to cooperate to act against NYU's bigotry. A demand made by GLF/NY and GSL for a program of homosexual studies did meet with limited acceptance from NYU. The university's School of Continuing Education (adult night school) has instituted a course on the homosexual viewed from several academic disciplines under the leadership of a woman (of course) heterosexual (of course), primarily for hets (of course). *  *  *  [Return to Contents.]


ONE IS NO NUMBER AT ALL

By L. Craig Schoonmaker

My bed, my life are half empty,
And neither will be full till both are.
          One plus zero equals one half. 

A thousand men, singly and in groups,
have touched my life
And passed.
          One plus one thousand equals zero.
          One thousand equals zero.
          One equals one half.

I've been one of two, of three, of four and more
But always one.
          Four and more equals zero; one of zero is one; one equals zero.
          Two equals two, equals one.
          Three equals two plus two, equals zero; or two plus one, minus one
               equals two, equals one.
          But one if not two equals one half.

 One is no number at all.

 [Return to Contents.]


YORK UNIVERSITY HOMOPHILE ASSOCIATION
                                                                                                                 publishes from time to time a Newsletter [address in Toronto then]. You can leave messages for the Association by phone if you should want to contact them for any reason: C.Y.S.F. Office, [phone number then]. This particular campus group seems inordinately fond of the word "homophile", using it readily even to refer to persons. But their Newsletter has said some interesting things in its two-page issues. Here are a couple of quotes from the January 1971 issue:

"People were meant to be loved and things were meant to be used. Many of our problems in life can be traced to our tendency to love things and use people". — P.T.O.

". . . how is the term 'pathology' justified when applied to homosexuality? The truth is that no attempt is deemed necessary to demonstrate in any rigorous scientific way the pathological nature of homosexuality. Rather, clinical observations are amassed and all quirks thus revealed are then visited upon all homosexuals. But besides being laughable what would [Dr. Daniel Cappon, a professor in York's Faculty of Environmental Studies, author of Towards an Understanding of Homosexuality, a book]'s assertion that the homosexual's favorite color is yellow mean even if it were so? The author excuses all the wildly contradictory remarks about homosexuals by laying the blame on human nature 'which i itself complex and contradictory'." A good copout, not?

"Neither does he [Cappon] even believe in his own 'sickness theory'. Would he, or any man of feeling, stoop to categorizing epileptics or whatever in such a disparaging name calling manner?" (He was quoted as having said 'parks where only flowers are allowed to grow and fairies visit at night'.)  [Return to Contents.]

*  *  *

THE GAY PRESS
                                        is growing. It consists of several magazines and tabloid newspapers plus various newsletters. HI! has a list of addresses for more than twenty publications [as of March 1971] you might find interesting. If you'd like it, contact us.  [Return to Contents.]

*  *  *

MAN-TO-MAN,
                                    a supposed "computer'-dating service for homosexual men, was the object of complaints several months ago. If you have complaints, send them to us. We'd like to know how well or badly this service works. We can't guarantee any changes, but we'd like to know more about Man-To-Man for possible future action. Don't feel you have to have a complaint in order to communicate with us. If it has worked well, we'd like to know that too.  [Return to Contents.]


This is the original version of a thing I wrote as an answer to the theological argument that God created man for woman and that homosexuality has no God-given purpose. After I had finished it, I began to wonder! Donn Teal, a writer and charter member of Gay Activists Alliance, chose to quote it in his upcoming book (for release in May or June [1971]) on homosexual militants. [That book, The Gay Militants, was reissued in 1995 or so.] However, he made a slight change to keep me from sounding stupid, and in the process wiped out evolution! This is as it should rad. Thanks to Donn for letting me print it here — it will appear in a copyrighted work. Donn is a very smart man, by the way — he chose to quote me more than once!

IN THE BEGINNING THERE WAS ONE, AND THE ONE WAS GOD. God was One and the One was the Universe. God was alone, and grew lonely. So He parted the Universe from Himself, and there were Two.

God delighted in the Universe, for it was He, yet it was not He. God gave substance and detail to the Universe, setting forth all that was in Him. And as God created, he created in twos: earth and heavens, night and day, good and evil, life and death, the living and the nonliving, beast and Man, Man and woman. And all life He commanded to arise from One. The humblest he decreed will remain One thru their time, ending their solitary existence to repeat the miracle of One parting self from self to become Two. But each of these Two, innocent of God's plan, wanders from the other, and each is alone. But to ever more exalted creatures God gave ever more awareness of His plan.

At length, God created Man, his favored child, making of Man a microcosm of Himself, imparting to Man multifarious splendor, and rendering him able to sense God's plan. God created a creator, gave him dominion over the earth, and Intelligence that he might rule wisely.

In Man flowed on the pattern of Two: two eyes, two ears, two nostrils; two arms and hands, two legs and feet; two lips, two breasts, two buttocks, two testes — each of the pair like unto the other. But God gave Man one head, one mouth, one penis, one anus. And Man was incomplete as one, as was God's plan. For God intended that Man should not live alone but should seek out another.

And God divided the history of the world into two parts, the heterosexual and the homosexual, and He numbered their days.

He commanded the heterosexuals to go forth across the earth to establish Man's dominion over the world and build his numbers that he might thereafter create a Civilization worthy of that dominion God willed. Thru all this time of spreading and multiplying, the Heterosexual Era, God willed that homosexuals should dwell in the background, guardians of a future as yet unsensed; puzzle to the contemplative whom God was preparing for the New Era.

When Man achieves dominion over the earth, then shall God's will emerge and the puzzle be made clear.

For God commanded the homosexuals to halt the increase in Man's numbers; to restore Man to balance with all God's other creatures and with himself; to prevent Man from becoming a mortal plague upon the world; and to build from a hardwon culture, a Civilization reflecting God's wisdom and His will.

Man Multifarious shall merge into Man Multifarious, as each seeks out another like unto himself. And instead of numbers, Unity and Peace shall spread across the earth. Thus shall Man emulate God the Universe. Thus shall Man glorify the miracle and mystery of Two sprung from One, of Two being One yet being no longer alone.

The Homosexual Era will arrive when Man is about to destroy himself and the world God gave him mandate over, and will pass only as the world passes.

In the end, God will gather all His creatures to Himself, and He and the Universe will again merge, one into the other. All that is, will be One: The One will be God. god will be the Universe. And the Universe will be Peace.

*

I wrote this piece in November 1970, and I'm not sure I would write quite the same thing today. I see some heterosexual influences. But, then, it takes a long time to break free altogether from heterosexuality's myriad influences. — LCS  [Return to Contents.]



IS THERE A MAN IN YOUR FUTURE?


EPISTOLARY INTERCOURSE
— A TWO-WAY LETTERS COLUMN

A Transvestite Writes

I am afraid that you misunderstand us. Why should clothes belong to one sex? Is a woman a man when she puts on pants? I love the clothes and I would look ridiculous without tits. Clothes is Clothes. Homosexual is Homosexual, with or without clothes. I do not want to be a woman or a man. I am happy the way I am. I have a nice body. How can I show it with man's pants which I loathe. There are no looks in them. With high heels and nylons my legs are beautiful — and a dress too.

It's the spirit or life in us makes what we are, not a man or woman. Are there 100 percent men or women? I do not care for women, to imitate them altho I'll be friends with them. I just want to be myself.

If a person is a homosexual, he is not or have manhood. The opposite of man is woman. Man goes to woman and woman goes to man. The opposite. When homosexuals meet in bed, one is the aggressive, the male role, and the other, the female, passive. I'm passive and I like Greek Culture.

LESLIE PEARSON
Brooklyn, New York

Schoonmaker replies

Thank you for saying what I have been saying all along: behind transvestism is the idea of male-female compatibility, that it is necessary that a man relate to a woman; and if a woman is not available or desired, then to someone who looks and acts like a woman.

The first three paragraphs of your letter are revealed as simple sophistry by the last paragraph, which gets down to the nitty gritty: opposites attract; man requires woman; homosexuals are not men; aggressive-passive is the natural, necessary, and right pattern, and that means that one partner must be passive always and the other active/aggressive, not that passivity and aggression ar parts of us all. Transvestism, drag, are antihomosexual.

Schoonmaker v. Women

Brother Craig,

After reading your fine newsletter thoroughly and rereading and rereading it again, I sense a "mood" in your mind which reflects much bitterness towards your women sisters. I'm sure HI!'s women associates do not appreciate your stand. It is sad that you must detest women human beings so. That is the sensitivity (THEY — establishment) wish male homosexuals to cling to and has been the main reason we males have been divided and separated from our sisters so long.

I don't feel you realize clearly that social conditioning and attitudes of past and present regarding homosexuality and women have made you (and even I at times) bitter opponents of womanhood, and I would like to see your positive anger directed more towards those "root" issues which caused our oppression, than towards y(our) sisters who are as much a part of this gay lib movement as you and are striving just as hard, if not harder, for the same personal (gender) freedoms as you, I and all moral anarchist activists seek.

Explore an alternative to Gay Bars. You're on the right track! The reviews of bars and books are boring!

Embrace the Power of the Future we are inventing!

brother love from

RALPH HALL
anarchGAY

(anarchGAY is an upcoming "mood paper of opinion, comment, discussion and humor for the anarchist gay in us all" available for a bunch of 8¢ stamps from Ralph Hall, [address then]. 'No one will be denied a subscription for lack of bread or postage".)

Schoonmaker replies

Tho I respect you as a person, Ralph, I fear that you have not yet really become a homosexual person in your head. At best, women are irrelevant to my inner life. But they are not content to let that be the case. It is not women that I resent, nor even womanliness, but rather the constant, infuriating push from all sides for women to intrude upon my life. Heterosexual men and women must compromise their gender integrity in order to live with each other. But I do not have to live with any woman, and therefore I am free to object to all the things about womanliness that I as a man find objectionable. It would not be necessary, once again, for me to object to women except that they keep intruding upon my life. Because straight people demand that men live and work with women. Every time I step into and elevator and can't breathe because the place reeks of perfume, I am reminded that I dislike womanliness. Every time I walk down the street and hear a woman fifty feet from me setting a cadence with her incredibly noisy high heels, I am reminded of how much I dislike womanliness. When I am on the subway I am amazed to note that a six-foot, 185-pound man with an attache case can somehow manage not to crowd or even touching me while a five-foot, 125-pound woman takes up twice the space the man took up and somehow must crowd, push and bump me. You see, woman are promiscuous touchers. Men turn on by sight, and touch is a second step, a sexual thing. Women don't turn on by sight, but start at touch. So what men will only look at, women will touch — and that means anything and everything. And I don't like to be touched by just anybody, and especially by a woman.

And then there are the more obvious sexual come-ons. The ads that straight people put on television and in periodicals, always pushing women at men. I'm a homosexual militant and I make no secret of that fact. But that doesn't stop people from pushing women at me and women from making advances.

My brother asks me if I've ever thought of turning straight. My mother says "one of them" when I mention a homosexual, and makes it quite clear that she thinks I should be seeing women. But worst of all are the advances from modern woman herself.

I put a sign in my window — a lavender hand with the words "Gay Pride, Gay Power, Homosexual Militancy" about it — and some modern woman decided to take that as some sort of challenge, it seems. I was lying down one evening early when somebody rapped at my window. I didn't feel like getting up, so I didn't. Then I heard a knock at my door, and a husky female voice shouted "I want to fuck you, baby!" The next day, I found this note at my door: "I was knocking at your window last night and you weren't there but I have been digging your window sign for 3 months. I'm a chick and I want to bring my lady. Would like to join your party some time. I have watched sort of open house a couple of times [HI! meetings] and I've almost flipped because I had no way of communicating. You may reach me at my work: [a telephone number] and ask for Monica. You shan't be disappointed. It's the [Club Orgy] please."

And for quite some time, I was assaulted regularly by the sounds of a sex-crazed woman next door who screamed while getting fucked by her straight-stud common-law hubby. They knew I objected to their noise, but they didn't make the slightest effort to be considerate.

So even in my own home I am not free of women. I have only to turn on the television (oh, we got rid of the straight people next door) or radio and I am inundated by women and repeated messages: like women, want women, fuck women. How can I but rebel?

It is not the fact that women exist, nor even that they are women, that bothers me, but the fact that they push themselves and their tastes upon me. If people would just realize that each of us has the right to his own personal integrity, if we would only learn to let people live their lives as they choose, and associate ourselves only with those who suit our tastes, things would be a lot more pleasant for everybody. All I ask is that women not bother me. Apparently that is too much to ask for Children of Heterosexuality to accept. Homosexuals of both sexes realize that men are different from women. They rejoice in that fact and feel no guilt about their preference for one.

[Ralph Hall went thru various changes over time, some of them almost certainly chemically induced, and became quite hostile. It is my information that he developed AIDS in the late Eighties or early Nineties and died therefrom.]  [Return to Contents.]

*  *  *

An interview with the author of Cruising

"PEOPLE ARE LIKE THAT"

By L. Craig Schoonmaker

(This is a more complete view of the interview we had with Gerald Walker from which I selected some excerpts that appeared in the last issue of this Newsletter.)

Cruising is a terrifying novel about a madman who goes around New York killing homosexuals and then gruesomely mutilating the slim male bodies so like his own. What kind of man would write of such a terrible thing? We wanted to find out, so Jay L. Friend and I arranged to interview Gerald Walker. We present her excerpts of that lengthy interview, focussing on Walker's views of homosexuality.

We arrived around 9 p.m. at Walker's comfortable upper-floor, two-bedroom apartment in one of the dignified older buildings of Manhattan's West 86th Street. Walker had set that late hour so his nine-year-old son would be asleep.

Gerald Walker is a surprisingly pleasant-looking man (reminiscent of Farley [should be Stewart, not Farley] Granger at 42) who should knife the people responsible for putting so ghastly a photo of him on the book's jacket. He introduced his [then] wife, a striking, dark-haired woman who looks several years younger than he. She excused herself, Walker offered us a drink, which we declined, and then he settled himself into a comfortable upholstered chair with hassock. Jay plunked down on the couch and set up the tape recorder on the coffee table while I looked at the large green lizard in the terrarium in the corner, then sat down in an ascetic wooden chair, and we were ready to begin.

Walker interviews well. He gives well-modulated, conversational responses that are complete to the point of making it difficult to get a question in edgewise. As he talks in a pleasant, high-middle-register voice, he sips his drink, gestures occasionally, and shifts his attention from one of us to the other. We begin to wonder why he had been warned that we wouldn't like him. Maybe we were being conned, but he seemed charming.

He's telling us about a homosexual neighbor of his who was pleased that Cruising got a bad review in The New York Times (even tho Walker is an editor of The Times' Sunday Magazine).

GW: He said, "People ought to know what they're writing about." I understood immediately. He saw, "Walker's come in, he's written this cheap quickie to make an exploitative buck, and it's good that he got smacked down for it, that somebody's said he had the background wrong." . . . I felt I did know what I was writing about. I was writing about antihomosexuality, not homosexuality, and that's something I know about. He was being very proprietary about the whole area, and who the hell was I to barge in?

HI!: Did you expect that to be an unusual reaction?

GW: I hadn't even thought about that. It hadn't been any concern of mine. The only thing I had thought about at all, in terms of reaction, was I was fairly sure there would be some overt or covert wondering whether or not I was or was not a homosexual. This I was prepared for. But I wasn't prepared for an unfriendly reaction from a homosexual who felt I was barging in on private territory of some sort. That seemed peculiar to me. But I guess if one guy feels it, others will too. . . .

HI!: Are you in any part homosexual.

GW: No.

HI!: Have you ever been?

GW: No. But it's been a problem deciding whether I was or wasn't, as it is for many guys growing up in this country. Because there are many things that are ego problems, that are masculinity problems, which we interpret in a culture that is so sensitive on the question of homosexuality, as homosexuality.

There's a very good psychoanalyst named Lionel Ovesey who's written a series of very important papers. You know the name?

HI!: Yes. I don't know if I'd go along with "very good" tho.

GW: Well, I think he's very good, and I think it's very important what he wrote, because he came up with the concept of pseudohomosexuality, which I think is a very useful concept both for the patient and the analyst.

It's useful for the patient because if he goes to an analyst who has been affected by Ovesey's thinking, the analyst will not be treating him as a latent homosexuality, a covert homosexual, or a homosexual-in-training. He will treat him as a guy who has problems that he may perceive to be homosexuality but that really aren't. And this is a very useful concept for the patient because it relieves him of his worst fears about himself.

HI!: "Worst fears about himself . . ."

GW: Yeah. Because I think there are a number of things in our culture that one pays a price to be, and being a homosexual is one of them.

HI!: What kind of price?

GW: If you're black in this country, you pay a price. If you're poor in this country, you pay a price. If you're female, you pay a price. If you're under 21, you pay a price. If you're a homosexual, you pay a price. If you have long hair — you name a lot of conditions, and homosexuality is one of them

But it is one that is highly charged for many people, and it involves a great burden of shame. To find out that you are one is an awful discovery for a lot of people. While the gay-liberation movement may regard this as dated thinking, deviationist thinking, Boys-in-the-Band thinking, nevertheless it applies to a lot of people, both gay and nongay. There are many gay guys who are still ashamed, and there are many straight buys who are afraid to find out they may be gay. Because the way the social cards are stacked.

HI!: So pseudohomosexuality, the concept, serves whom, and in what way?

GW: It serves the patient because it allows him a way to interpret his fears, his emotions, his behavior, his reactions, and see them as being problems in just ego, self-confidence: the ability to go out and earn a living, compete with men in that area — just to feel that he's a mensch (German/Yiddish for "man" [or person]) . . .

HI!: Whereas he couldn't feel that he was a mensch if he were homosexual?

GW: It would be very hard for many people to do so, yes.

It also helps the analyst, because many analysts who go back to Freud, who are too faithful to Freud, will accept the doctrine that there is a certain amount of homosexuality in everybody: it's a phase in our development; you get arrested in it; you never get beyond it to true genitality and heterosexuality. And if a guy comes in with this kind of problem . . .

HI!: What kind of problem?

GW: A guy who's afraid he's a homosexual, and says so — that this is why he's in the office to be treated.

The analyst may either dump the patient, not treat him because many analysts find this uncomfortable to deal with, and they don't take homosexual patients as, they say, they don't take narcotics addicts — they all have their hangups and they make theories about it. That's one way in which it may be binding to the analyst. The other way is he may treat him for homosexuality, and he may try to help him adjust to his homosexuality since it is indeed, he believes, an inevitable part of everybody, because Freud said so, and therefore you can't cure him of it, you must make him comfortable in that.

HI!: And you don't agree with that?

GW: No, because he may be making a homosexual out of somebody who isn't. I don't say this: Ovesey said this.

HI!: Would there be something wrong with that?

GW: Yeah.

HI!: How could one become homosexual is one did not have the capacity?

GW: (Long pause) You know, you can perform homosexual acts and therefore think that has defined you definitely, finally, ultimately, unchangeably.

HI!: What is the ultimate definition of a man, then?

GW: I don't know. I'm still working on that.

HI!: Does it necessarily involve heterosexuality?

GW: No.

HI!: Well, that seems implicit in everything you've said before.

GW: No. How's that?

HI!: Well, let's clarify your views. Would the same problems a person had or would have had as a heterosexual, be treatable if he were homosexual? That is, his feelings that he could not compete as a man?

GW: They'd be difficult. But you would be compounding the difficulties by accepting a false definition of the guy.

HI!: Why is it any more false than a definition which involves heterosexuality and deals with the same problems?

GW: Suppose you went to an analyst and he decided that you were really heterosexual, and he started treating you on that basis. Would that be false or correct?

HI!: If I felt that I were heterosexual, it would probably be correct.

GW: I don't know. I've known gay guys who wanted to get married and have children, and wanted very much to be heterosexual.

HI!: Did they think they were heterosexual?

GW: Some of them.

HI!: Or did they merely want to be heterosexual?

GW: Well, I don't know. All I know is a couple made it, and some didn't.

HI!: Well, how many people want to be homosexual who think they are homosexual?

GW: I don't know.

HI!: I'm just curious about how you see the relationship between manhood and heterosexuality.

GW: Well, uh, there's no necessary link. I mean, heterosexuals are not the only men. That's not a prerequisite of manhood. But if somebody takes you for what you're not, it just makes the trip longer.

I really don't want to interpret Dr. Ovesey for you. The only book I'm an authority on is mine.

HI!: Do you think that homosexuality is curable?

GW: Well, I've known some guys who've changed, so I guess for them it works.

HI!: Would you accept the word "curable"?

GW: They would, yeah. They did it thru analysis, so I would too in their case. 'Cause they didn't do it by themselves. They went to a doctor, and the doctor helped them. In our culture, this means they were cured. . . .

HI!: The book was interesting because I drew from it several sorts of "morals" or attitudes. But how many of these were mine and how many were yours, is something I'd like to sort out now.

Basically, I was impressed by the book's intense ugliness. I might as well read my notes here: "The book is an extremely ugly book. Its depiction of homosexuality is utterly lacking in an appreciation that homosexuality can be a form of love. But heterosexuality comes off rather badly too."

GW: That's a funny comment because you know, the only two decent characters in the book are homosexual: David Hopper and Alfred.

HI!: I didn't even notice Alfred as a good character. "All the characters save one, the homosexual David Hopper, are ugly personalities, small-minded" — Alfred is basically a sort of picky, anal-compulsive type . . .

GW: Who may have been misinterpreted by Stuart.

HI!: Well, it's hard for the reader to see thru Stuart to the actuality that Stuart misperceived. ". . . defensive personalities, sick. Even David Hopper seems basically less than well adjusted." He makes comments which indicate a discontent with his sexuality. "There is no hint of love or significant affection anywhere in the book — not between Stuart Richards and his parents, nor between Stuart and his female sex partners, nor between Edelson and his wife, nor between Stuart's homosexual victims and anybody whatever, nor even between David Hopper and his lover, the latter of whom seems merely possessive not loving. Why is this?"

GW: People are like that.

HI!: "Was your purpose to suggest that heterosexuality is a sterile thing emotionally? or that only people who cannot love anyone can condemn those who love differently from themselves, or that violence grows from an inability to love? or something else?"

GW: I really wasn't out to portray homosexuality as anything special, just . . . I wanted to write a book, to say the obvious thing, which showed how some people with very bleak interior lives, hate to the point of wanting to destroy in others what they hate and fear in themselves. And it takes a certain kind of sterile person, to use your word, to feel this way and operate this way . . . It's sort of a self-selecting theme, where this kind of character draws other characters, but I wasn't out to prove that homosexuality is sterile any more than I was out to prove that policemen are necessarily sterile. . . .

My purpose was neither to portray it attractively nor unattractively. I mean, that's propaganda, and I was out to do more than propaganda. I was. . . .

HI!: I'm curious about where you got the theory of the motivation behind Stuart's killings.

GW: When I learned that there were people who beat up homosexuals and killed them and I stopped to think about it — you don't always stop to think about things that are happening around you: "Why does this occur?" — but when I did, it's quite clear.

HI!: Was it your own conclusion?

GW: Oh sure.

HI!: One does wonder, Why does a person dwell upon such things as murder and homosexuality if they do not weight heavily upon his mind? A novel which takes fifteen years from initial inspiration to completion, and five years in actual production — why would he spend all that time and energy?

GW: Well, you know, neurotics operate inefficiently sometimes. Part of the problem is a lack of security about writing. If there is something you want to do very much, like write a book — it doesn't matter what the book is about: it could be about sailing, not cruising — and you were confronting the White whale, you life's ambition, it is hard, always, to make the confrontation, and you back away. It may or may not have anything to do with the intrinsic difficulty of the thing itself. It may be that somebody's ambition is to get up and sing a song at the next college reunion . . .

HI!: I noticed that the victim who fought hardest for his life was a man who was partly heterosexual, was married and had children. Was there any moralizing there?

GW: I don't know if it's moralizing, but I was thinking there of the Columbia professor killed in Central Park, and imagining a little bit about him. I guess he had more to lose than a guy who did not have a double life. You know, he had two lives to lose.

HI!: It seems to me that a double life would be easier to lose . . .

GW: Then that's moralizing on your part.

HI!: No, because the burden of the double life is one of the most noxious and anxiety-producing among homosexuals. [Note: At some point Walker must have thought something similar, for on page 59, he has Stuart think to himself: "Stuart had read in the paper that Eric-Alec was married, kid and all. Why struggle so, then? You'd think he'd want out. But none of them ever did."]

GW: Well . . . I never thought of it as moralizing. I just thought that this is what might have happened: he did not want this other life of his to cost him the second, or the first or whatever. . . .

HI!: What about Stuart's family? From what did you derive that model? Was it taken from Freud or from people you know or what?

GW: From people I've known.

HI!: Was it a composite or . . .

GW: Yeh. (Pause) Nothing can be totally invented. Some things are more invented than others.

HI!: How much of yourself is in the book?

GW: Oh, a lot, a lot. But in very fragmented, oblique ways. But a lot. And I think if it weren't there . . . [he does not finish the sentence] Without being confessional, I think it's an honest book, because a lot of things in the book are things I either have felt or could feel.

* * * * After the interview, Jay and I conferred. Later, in reading the interview transcript with its just-right answers, I wondered why we both emerged from that comfortable apartment with its model family — intelligent, creative man; attractive, charming wife; nine-year-old son; aquarium with its chugging pump immortalized on our tape from the other room — thinking "That is one troubled, repressed homosexual." Wife, son, apartment, aquarium — and yet he had written that terrible book.

Perhaps someone with impressive credential should formalize in a concept of "pseudoheterosexuality" that which everyone talks about as latent homosexuality. Such a concept might demonstrate the pliability of the human mind: that one can be what he persuades himself he is. For I ma left with the impression that Gerald Walker is a man who has not quite met the enemy — homosexuality — yet nonetheless has defeated it. A man who entered the gay world not as participant but very interested tourist, acting as guide for the straight people — men and women — he brings with him to keep him in place as they wander thru parks and bars and homosexual men's baths; inviting everyone to peer and stare and marvel at the ugliness of it all, to reassure himself that it cannot be what anyone of any sense could want. He feels surprise that any of us who live in the gay world should resent this heterosexual intrusion, this deliberately planned tour of the worst parts of our existence, this degradation of our sexuality and invasion of our sexual privacy, as he walks thru the gay world, knife in pocket (his "research"), dragging along his heterosexual-body-guard as he views from the safety of distance (his "research" did not include investigation of what it feels like to be a homosexual wandering in a park late at night, etc.) and the disdain of aloofness, our nasty little lives.

Perhaps one need not actually knife homosexuals, to kill the homosexual in oneself. Perhaps one need only write a book about knifing homosexuals. Perhaps it is enough to commit character assassination.  [Return to Contents.]

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TO THINE OWN SELF BE TRUE.

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VD AND ME . . . AND HE . . . AND YOU

"You're living proof of the rising incidence of venereal disease", the public-health man said. True. I had had sex with perhaps 400 people before my first case of VD. I had sex with only 4 between my last two cases. Up until a year ago I had had VD only once. But I had it four times this past year! And I don't even have sex in sex bars or baths (usually).

It's time for some blunt talk about VD. I'm using myself as an example because it's one thing to say VD is nothing to be ashamed of, but quite another to mean it. Almost everybody s ashamed of VD. If you doubt it, try dropping the word "syphilis" when somebody asks why you went to the doctor yesterday. If you can say it to your parents and straight acquaintances the way you'd say "a cold" or even "hepatitis", you're a better man than I. Or how about 'rectal gonorrhea"?

VD bares your sex life to public scrutiny or private imagination. It's one thing for people to know as a generality that you are homosexual. It's quite another for them to know that you have had syphilis of the mouth or rectal gonorrhea. And if you wouldn't mind them knowing you've had VD as long as they also know you've only had it at your crotch — where your "should" get it — then you're revealing a heterosexual-masculinity problem.

The only thing wrong with feeling shame about VD is if that shame keeps you from having yourself treated. VD is serious. Sure you can cure it easily [AIDS is not VD; see massive info at http://www.virusmyth.com about what AIDS really is], but if you don't . . . ("the clap") left untreated can sterilize you and permanently damage your sexual organs. (If you think sterility in homosexual men doesn't matter, you're dead wrong, but I'm not going into that now.) Syphilis left untreated may eventually blind, cause baldness, destroy the mind, even kill. No joke. When you get VD, get treated. See a private doctor, preferably gay, if you can afford it. If not, go to your public-health clinics. These clinics are ugly, impersonal places run by hets for hets. Unless you are militant, you may be required to bare your body to a woman doctor and your sex life to a female public-health investigator. There are many homosexuals who don't mind this violation of their sexual integrity. I'm sure some are delighted to engage in this limited heterosexual sex and become thereby "party normal". But if you are unwilling to risk having to "make trouble", and equally unwilling to be treated as a heterosexual, go to a private doctor.

Don't think you will thereby avoid being reported to public-health authorities, tho. Laws requires doctors to report all cases of VD. The doctor may forbid public health from talking to his patient. If he doesn't, you'll be contacted by an investigator. Do NOT provide names and addresses of your homosexual contacts. Under the law, being homosexual is not prosecutable; but having homosexual sex is. In supplying the names of your homosexual contacts, you are risking prosecution of yourself and others. Under present law, public-health records cannot be obtained by public prosecutors. But laws change while records remain. do notify your sexual contacts yourself, or ask this organization to do it for you. VD is serious.

VD cannot be ended in the population until a vaccination is developed. You can be sure to avoid it only by not having sex. You can cut your risks by reducing the number of people you have sex with and avoiding sex bars and baths. If you've never had VD, don't think yourself especially virtuous. You're just lucky. If you can swing it, settle down with only one man and see that he is content to confine his sex to you. But since you cannot fully control anyone, even a stable relationship is no guarantee.

I'm almost afraid to touch anybody. We must bring this epidemic under control.  [Return to Contents.]

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Homosexuality is a form of love.

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

Homosexuals Intransigent! Newsletter is a publication with a purpose and a point of view. Our purpose may not seem to relate to your life as you plan it; our point of view may not be yours. On the other hand, maybe our purpose and point of view are compatible with your own, but you'd like to see some additions or changes to make this Newsletter more interesting to you.

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

The last issue (January 1971) went out to some 150 people in 17 states and one province. We're pleased to reach that many people in so many places, but we can't afford the luxury of sending to people who don't want to receive. Our costs have gone up, and so must the price of a subscription (12 issues). [This form is for historical purposes only. No mailing list is presently maintained.]

_____ YES, I want to continue to receive the HI! Newsletter regularly, and I enclose $2.00 for a twelve-issue subscription.   [My, how times — and prices — change! $2.00 really did cover expenses of a mimeographed and (third-class) mailed newsletter in 1971.]
_____ YES, I want to receive this Newsletter, but I can't afford to subscribe right now; as my financial circumstances improve, I'll send the $2.00.
_____ I'D LIKE
TO HELP,
with money ($____), typing ____, mailing ____, writing ____, copy-editing___, getting advertising ____, or other assistance __________________ in putting out this Newsletter.
_____ NO hard feelings, but please remove me from your mailing list.


(Name)


(Street address; Apt. No.)

(City, state & Zip/Province)
Home:

Business:


(Telephone: include area code)

 [Return to Contents.]

HI! IS ALIVE AND WELL AND LIVING IN NYTNOKNBPAFLNJ

Homosexuals Intransigent!/New York, the organization which publishes this Newsletter, celebrates its second anniversary on April 1st.

Chartered at The City College/CUNY, HI! was a student organization for its first year, then an under-35 group for a few months, and is now a group for homosexual men of any age or place. We've held dances (at The City College), given parties, campaigned for Mayor Lindsay, published this Newsletter, given rise to two other campus organizations (but not associated with HI!), aided researchers, and helped a number of young homosexuals come out and adjust better.

We've also alienated some people by pressuring them to change their attitudes, been robbed of our treasury by someone we entrusted with office before we realized how sick he was, and suffered serious setbacks.

Now we're rebuilding, as a hardline homosexual-separatist organization. Our stress is not on the homosexual's relationships with straight society, but on his relationships with other homosexuals and his attitude toward himself. The last Newsletter explained some of our proposals and projects.

The next issue will reprint some of the better things we've published in the past [these items will be hotlinked to their original location on this site rather than repeated in this online version 27 years later], plus comments people have who have been associated with us. We'd like to hear both analysis and criticism. A birthday is a time for looking back, examining the present, and planning the future. HI!'s birthday is April 1st.  [Return to Contents for this issue.]

[End of this issue] [Go to top of this page.] [Go to the Contents listing on the MrGayPride home page.]