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Copyright L. Craig Schoonmaker 1971, 1999 |
If you sent for information about Homosexuals Intransigent! (the organization) and received this in the mail, look thru it and you'll get a pretty good idea of what we are into. If some particular question remains, ask it and we'll try to get off an individualized response. But there may be a delay before you get an answer, because we are severely understaffed (like most organizations).
If you received this issue even tho we stated last issue that no more issues would be sent to anyone who did not ask specifically for a subscription, that is only because our mailing list got fouled up slightly, and it won't happen again.
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"There's only one thing I regret about being homosexual: I'll never have a son." If you have ever said anything like that to yourself, turn to page 7.
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[Page numbers are those of the original, hardcopy edition]
"Kill the Queers!" . . . Hets plan genocide . .
. by Don Jackson 17
Schoonmaker on abortion
19
News and Such 20
cc: HI!_'s Readers
25
Notes on the next issue
28
Epistolary Intercourse
29
"A Rose by Any Other Name . . . May Be a Peony" .
. . an exchange between Don Jackson and Craig Schoonmaker on
some key words 36
Subscription Form 40
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* An ongoing series dedicated to destroying that little heterosexual who keeps talking at us from inside.
Homosexuals and lesbians have always been defined, categorized, and stereotyped by others — by heterosexuals. And heterosexuals' definitions, categories, and stereotypes are, obviously, the products of heterosexual minds. It should therefore surprise no one that heterosexuality permeates and fouls those definitions, etc.
Heterosexuals lump male homosexuality and lesbianism together into one category and label them both "homosexuality". Remarkably, both homosexuals and lesbians have passively accepted that asinine single categorization. Well, baby, this homosexual thinks it's time for both homosexuals and lesbians to think for and define themselves. And the first task in this redefinition is to realize that homosexuals and lesbians are not the same thing.
How is it that men who love manhood, manliness, and men are equated with women who love womanhood, womanliness, and women! On the very face of it, the equation is absurd.
Very simply, this whole thing happened because hets (and I will, with great difficulty, refrain from saying anything about the intellectual abilities of heterosexuals) naturally placed themselves in the center of the universe and divided the world into "them" and "us". Homosexuals and lesbians both fit under the broad heading "them"; thus we were equated with each other. At the same time, homosexual and lesbian sexual acts were placed in the same category: "sodomy". But homosexuality and lesbianism are not alone in that category. "Sodomy" includes also bestiality (sexual acts with animals of other than the human varieties); heterosexual fellatio, pederasty, and cunnilingus; and various other things that good people don't do — good hetero people, that is.
Alas, all too many homosexuals and lesbians have passively accepted this second categorization too, so that they accept without question or protest, the notion that their "bizarre" sex practices equate with all other bizarre sex practices, and thus they are one with the shiteaters; sheepfuckers; feet fetishists; urine drinkers; child molesters; "bisexuals"; hetero assfuckers; whip kissers; dress wearers; camouflaged-eunuch, drag-queen "transsexuals"; and all the other true perverts of the world. There is nowhere a critical appraisal of any of these bizarre orientations, involving point-for-point comparison for similarities and differences, to decide whether in fact the various perversions mentioned above are truly comparable to either homosexuality or lesbianism. And the very word "perversion" is forbidden to homosexuals and lesbians who accept the idea that we are all perverts and so dare not criticize anyone.
Thus publications and sex services directed to homosexuals and/or lesbians almost invariably feel free to picture, describe, and advertize all possible grotesque variations of human sexuality, acting with clear, bland confidence that such presentations will be accepted without distaste or — certainly — protest.
Well, I for one have long since concluded that I am not a heterosexual or lesbian, nor am I any form of pervert whatever. And I am offended when I pick up a paper directed to homosexuals and find ads and articles soliciting for various disgusting and antihomosexual practices. I am offended at the thought of heterosexuals and lesbian women invading homosexuals' sex lives, viewing our bodies and reading vivid descriptions of our sex lives (usually of the most sordid, impersonal, and antihomosexual aspects thereof).
Homosexuality is distinct, separate, clean and pure. It is not bisexuality. It is not lesbianism. It is not lust for feces or degradation or perpetual, impersonal genital stimulation. It is the desire on the part of a man to live as a man, free of feminine tastes, dictates, and impositions, in harmony and love with another man who shares his enthusiasm for being, knowing, enjoying, and loving a man.
Clearly, that is a great deal different from lesbianism, which is a parallel condition — substitute "woman" for "man" and "masculine" for "feminine" in the definition above and you'll end up with as good a definition of lesbianism as I, a nonlesbian, can give. Let us go over the two definitions and clarify the differences, comparing both with heterosexuality when that may seem useful.
First, a homosexual is a man; a lesbian is a woman. In these two simple statements lies the basic difference between homosexuality and lesbianism. An obvious point? Well, follow it thru: homosexuality and lesbianism could be the same thing only if a man and a woman were the same. But they are not, so homosexuality and lesbianism must be different. Is this clear difference important, tho?
Is the difference between night and day important? It could be argued that night is merely the mirror image of day; that they are both parts of the larger phenomenon "a day"; and thus, one should think of and treat the one as the other. But different things are possible and different things happen at night than in the day. What exactly is the point of trying to deny the differences and acting as tho the two different things were the same? This is the basic question.
If we readily agree that homosexuals and lesbians are different, we must ask the question "Why should we treat them the same?" This question assumes greater importance as we go further into the definitions I set forth earlier.
"To live as a man (woman), free of feminine (masculine) tastes, dictates, and impositions". Despite the loudest protestations of Women's Libbers, "transsexuals", and drag queens, men and women are different not simply as a consequence of conditioning but rather because they are physically and genetically different in every single cell of the body. Different overall structures, different hormones, different sexual equipment and reproductive processes inevitably affect the way the two perceive and relate to the world.
In order to discuss this more fully, I now introduce a concept I call "physical determinism". This concept, obvious and common-sensible but nevertheless important to explicate, resolves to a single dictum: What and who you are determine what you can and will think and do. Thus, an ape does not contemplate the intricacies of calculus — because he can't. Nor does a squirrel play piano. Etc. We humans like to think ourselves unbounded, but we too are ultimately captives of our conditions: after all, we do not putt off a vacation for 150 years. Beyond the obvious, huge things, there are the subtle prohibitions, aptitudes and influences: a frail, brittle-boned child does not generally plan a career as a boxer; nor does a fellow of only average intelligence set his sights on the Nobel Prize in Physics. And the person who is tone deaf doesn't spend his leisure time writing concertos.
Because people are self-centered, they tend to see the world in terms of "like me / unlike me". The person with a high opinion of himself will tend to look highly upon things like himself; the person with a low opinion of himself will tend to prefer things unlike himself — albeit with envy, resentment, etc. This has consequences as unimportant as the style of furnishings and the colors one puts in his house and as hugely important as policy in race and international relations. Or the choice of a sex / life partner.
Any system of thought which does not at the outset take into account the rue nature of the creature man and the individuals that systems seeks to influence, is bound to fail. Thus all utopias have failed and always will fail that are based on a one-sided evaluation of human beings as selfless, gentle creatures. Similarly, any political and social movement based on the premise that homosexuals and lesbians are the same is doomed to fail.
Bringing this whole concept back to its applications to men and women, in some detail, we must note that women are (as general statements go, these are valid for the total population tho exceptions may exist) smaller than men, weaker, and less oriented toward personal involvement in acts of violence or situations fraught with danger. Women's hormonal make-up does not permit the formation of the massive muscular development men are capable of. Women are generally more passive than men; have greater manual dexterity and higher voices; are oriented at birth more to the red area of the spectrum while men are more responsive to the blue area; are absolute captives (unless surgically tampered with) of a very messy reproduction-oriented cycle; are incapable of getting their own physiological sexual release thru force alone used on an unwilling partner; etc., etc. Women also, because of the obvious and regularly repeated natural menstrual cycle originating inside their bodies, and sexual activities which drive inward, tend to feel sex a deeper and more consequential thing — in both physical and emotional ways — than it is generally viewed by men. While this sexual mood applies most importantly to hetero relations, it holds true for lesbians too. Lastly, women look, feel, and sound different from men.
Now, a woman who is aware of her womanhood, glad of it, proud of it; who seeks to live as a woman to the full, her life ordered to a woman's tastes, has very different attitudes and perceptions than does a man. She does not appreciate men's beauty and strength nor "the manly virtues". Conversely, a man who wants to live as a man, ordering his life to a manly lifestyle and tastes, does not share a woman's views or life. And he who likes the way a man looks, feels, sounds, and smells is likely to dislike the way women look, feel, sound, and smell.
When the two sexes are mixed, simple propinquity and the fact that each wishes to affect its environment, give rise to conflict. Men have to alter their lives to suit women, and vice versa. Heterosexuals must put up with this forced compromise, this coerced abandonment of their own tastes, in order to live with partners they feel they need. Homosexuals, on the other hand, have no reason to budge an inch toward feminine tastes and preferences, because they do not_ have to live with women. The converse is also true, for lesbians. But neither statement is true if despite the obvious absence of an emotional need for each other, homosexuals and lesbians intermix, out of hetero-past habit, a sense of expediency, or the conviction that that is the only "right" way (because hetero conditioning tells them so). And people who have no rational reason for imposing upon each other or permitting imposition upon themselves, tolerate this foolishness!
Some homosexual organizations that started out mixed have come to realize — if only incompletely — the terrible error of their ways, and have since split into men's and women's caucuses or altogether separate groups. But in evolving to this fully natural and necessary separation, such groups have been traumatize, and their members subjected to harsh words and bitter recriminations. ((HI! has never been sexually mixed. And while we were condemned when, 2 1/2 years ago, in forming, we mandated a nearly complete separation of the sexes, other groups have now come to adopt what we had in mind at the outset.))
Going further in the definitions, we come to "in harmony and love with another man (woman) who shares his (her) enthusiasm for being, knowing, enjoying, and loving a man (woman)". This segment has several parts, all related.
First, "in harmony". Heterosexuality asserts that man and woman are complementary; that neither can do without the other; and that two people of the same sex are incompatible. While that may be true for hets, it is assuredly not true for either homosexuals or lesbians. Hets base harmony on difference; homosexuals and lesbians, on essential similarity. To a hetero man, beauty is a woman, smooth, soft, soothing, and submissive. To a homosexual man, beauty is a man, strong, solid, stimulating, and challenging. It's a basic difference. But is not woman-with-woman also basically different from man-with-man?
Hetero harmony is two-part, high with low, strong with weak. Homosexual harmony is low with lower or strong with tough. Lesbian harmony is high wit higher (tho, all too often, because of a distressing tendency toward hetero-pattern role-playing among too many lesbians, it may also be stronger with weaker).
Further, "and love": too often, homosexuals — I don't know about lesbians — spend too much time in search of sex and not much time or energy in either a search for or a commitment to love. But surely if sex has any purpose, it is to impel people to join together in mutual pleasure and concern.
Intolerant society is able to intimidate homosexuals enuf to keep them from flouting convention in an ongoing love relationship, but society's intimidation is no match for the male sex drive. Thus men will have sex with men, even if they cannot bring themselves to defy society's prohibition on loving men. I think this is the real, base reason so few relationships emerge from so much sex. (Martin Hoffman — that bastard — makes this assertion in his book The Gay World_.) Further, I think that the need and desire for homosexual love among homosexuals do exist and that unhampered homosexuality would indeed be a form of love more than merely a form of sex. So too with lesbianism, I should think. But heterosexuality too is a form of love. So the basic similarity that may exist here between homosexuality and lesbianism is meaningless, since it is also a basic similarity with heterosexuality.
"With another man (woman)" — yes, that is singular — another. We have tried to satisfy deep needs with superficial sex. Of course, it doesn't work. Quantity in sex is no substitute for the loving quality sex should have. This too holds true for all three major sexual orientations, and so is not significant in either distinguishing or allying any combination of the three.
"Who shares his (her) enthusiasm for being, knowing, enjoying, and loving a man (woman)": "Enthusiasm" — while it is true that many homosexuals and lesbians are not well adjusted to either their gender or their sexual orientation, surely far more are pleased with both. "For being . . . a man (woman)" — that means that we have a sense of the marvelousness of our bodies and capacities. We know that hets limit themselves arbitrarily to what they think a man is supposed_ to be, whereas we let ourselves be all that a man can_ be naturally. The converse for lesbians. Our awareness of the full potential of a man or a woman and the natural limits and differences may be greater and sharper than hets'. "For knowing . . . a man (woman)" — a man can understand a man much more fully than he could a woman, and vice versa. He knows what happens inside a man, how things feel, whereas it would be the height of foolish arrogance for him to assert that he can understand menstruation or pregnancy, or for a woman to assert that she understands the orders a man's body and hormones give him (orders that drive him to risk grave danger, to frequent ugly and disgusting places, etc., etc.). Homosexuals know men fully; lesbians now women fully. Neither knows the other. "For enjoying . . . a man (woman)" — a man can enjoy a man in ways that a woman can't, simply because the equipment is different and the internal physiological, psychological, and emotional responses are different. The converse holds true too, that men cannot enjoy a woman as one woman can enjoy another. Of course, there are other dimensions to enjoyment than sex; but even here, there are differences, subtle and not so subtle, that make seemingly comparable situations different in reality. "For loving . . . a man (woman)" — a homosexual relates physically and emotionally to another man in ways that differ from both hetero and lesbian relationships. Heterosexuality is the relationship of unequals, roles being dictated by the fact of inequality, the dependence of the female upon the male, and the relationship of each male-female pair to the 'continuity cycle', the 'immortality thing', history, 'sequential egoism' or whatever you or I may call the reproductive bag and the society that arises from and lives around it. Homosexuals and lesbians are both separate from that society. Homosexual love is free of the immortality / sequential-egoism bad. So is lesbian love, tho the days-long monthly reminder each woman faces of her intimate tie to the reproductive cycle may cause generalized, ambiguous anxieties in lesbian relationships. Perhaps. But the love of a man for a man is surely not the same as the love of a woman for a woman, for all the reasons of mechanics, attitudes, physiology, and lifestyles mentioned above and others not mentioned at all.
A man who loves a man loves manliness. A woman who loves a woman loves womanliness. If those two things are the same, then sunshine is darkness.
Can homosexuals and lesbians work together? Well, for what?, is the basic question. Homosexuals must want a manly environment. Lesbians must want a womanly environment. If both groups work together, what kind of society will they end up creating?
Women's issues are different from men's. Their priorities are different. The world they'd like to create is different. On what do we have common ground?
We are both oppressed by hets. That is our only common ground. But if we adopt hetero forms of organization and work for a unitary society which must accommodate both men and women — and which can give neither an environment completely satisfactory to itself — will we not have lost the war before even starting the first battle? We shall have been forced to think and act as hets.
The answer is No, we cannot work together. We can perhaps each work on similar problems and projects, but from our own standpoints. We can, for instance, both attack simultaneously the sodomy and solicitation laws, but we need not do so together.
Oddly enuf, lesbians, tho less active in the movement than homosexuals, are much more aware of the importance of gender separatism. Daughters of Bilitis, the oldest women's organization, has from the outset allowed membership to women only. Women's dances and women's bars actively and unabashedly discourage or forbid men to enter. Yet men have, curiously, permitted, even encouraged lesbians to participate in men's functions. ((HI! is the only organization I know of, with the possible exception of the (defunct?) League of Gentlemen, that excludes women.))
The reasons for this curious double standard are several. Women assert that the presence of men would disturb the lesbianizing function of their meetings, because women are so indoctrinated into roles that the mere presence of a man would cause these women to act in an unnatural and unlesbian manner. They are quite right. But the exact same thing is true of homosexuals vis-a-vis women.
Note the behavior of men before and after a woman enters a men's bar or party. Note the change of conversation and vocabulary, the assumption by men of a courtly attentiveness to the woman (or avoidance of her), the drastic decrease in cruising or sex-oriented activity.
But men put up with this violation of the integrity of their environment, this interruption of their natural behavior. Why?
Because (1) most homosexuals still feel guilty about their homosexuality and feel they should relate to women in preference to men; and (2) homosexual, gluttons for unearned guilts, have taken it upon themselves to redress the indignities done to women by men in the past. But homosexual_ men are not responsible for abuse of women in the past or present. It is hets who reduce women to wives instead of persons; to baby factories; to cheap household labor; to sex objects; etc., etc. We_ have nothing to do with any of this. So it's time for us to say "Don't blame me for troubling your life. Right now, you are interfering with mine. I want to live my life among men and manly things. You don't belong. So get the hell out of my bar, my dance, my party, my life."
Homosexuals and lesbians are both outcasts — by the necessity of circumstance even if it were not also by legal and social dictates — from the heterosexual world. That is the full extent of their similarity.
In themselves, homosexuality and lesbianism are parallel conditions. But parallel is not the same. In many ways, for example, the United States and the soviet Union are parallel societies. But they are certainly not the same.
Finally, remember this simple axiom: parallels never meet. Let lesbians go their own way. We shall go ours.
Good luck to us both. [Return to index.]
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A son! A little boy growing into a man, fine and strong, carrying your genes, your life, but different, into another time. A tiny person in need of love and care and guidance, who can make his mark on the future and make some man of days yet to come, happy and secure. Do you want a son to hug and bounce and tickle and teach? to show off and feel proud of and watch happily as he discovers the joys and wonders of an earth that is still green and sky-blue, a world we will make better for him? Maybe you don't.But I do — several sons, for that matter. Many. But I have no intention of becoming straight just to have children. Uh uh. Fortunately, homosexuals do not have to give up fatherhood to be homosexual. And it's about time we realized that.
Homosexuals are not immune to the lure of fatherhood, nor to the temptations of semi-immortality, nor to the instinct to reproduce that Father Nature in his wisdom instilled in us. Nor are lesbians universally undesirous of being mothers. But most homosexuals and lesbians do not want to live as straights in order to be parents. Despite anything said in the preceding article that may have seemed to mandate absolute noncooperation between homosexuals and lesbians, I suggest that reproduction is perhaps the one area in which homosexuals and lesbians can cooperate to their mutual great advantage.
Neither homosexual nor lesbian culture requires people to have children. Our lives do not revolve around them. We do not deny justice in the present with excuses about gradual change being enuf because "our children" will have things better and that is all that matters. We do not exploit women as mere baby factories and nursemaids. Our lives are oriented toward a human, loving concern for the people who are alive now, and we are intent on making the best of our lives, on our time. But far from requiring that we be childless, our basic orientation makes it all the more important that we have children.
For we know that everyone is a person, entitled to live his life as he chooses. And we are concerned about the quality of life. We do not have to prove our manhood or womanhood by having children, for we know that our worth is personal and intrinsic, arising from who and what we are and do, not from the mere production of children who are to be viewed as possessions and status symbols. Our children would all_ be wanted_. They would be children of love, not of accident. They would be little people that we are privileged to be accompanied by and entrusted with. And they would have the chance to grow up with a strong sense of personhood and self, as well as a realistic, non-role-structured sense of their own manhood / womanhood. Thus, while both parent and child would know and appreciate the special physical tie that exists between them, neither would be captive of the uglier aspects of parent-child relationship that heterosexuality has tended to accent. (Of course, there is no guarantee that the pattern suggested above would prove the rule, but it seems a basically sound conjecture. A homosexual's or lesbian's ego needs are generally met by interaction with adults, peers, and thus probably would be less likely to impose demands upon our children.)
So my first point is that if you want children, you should probably have them. But before you act to produce children, make sure you have a good understanding of your motives and a good idea of how you want to raise them and what kind of life you want them to have while they are in your care.
You will have to get certain negative and hetero-induced notions out of your head before you are fit to become a homosexual father. One of the most destructive of these notions is that a child must_ have a mother present in the house if he is to grow up healthy. This assertion makes sense only if one believes that "healthy" means the same thing as "heterosexual". If you would not want your child to grow up to be homosexual, then you certainly must not have children unless you yourself convert to a hetero lifestyle. For you cannot very well set a hetero pattern in a homosexual household. And children learn how to relate to people first in the home.
Perhaps you need clarification at this point of exactly the kind of child-producing and child-raising arrangements I have in mind. O.K.
I am thinking in terms of homosexual-lesbian artificial insemination at this point in time, and until such time as great homosexual scientists make homosexual reproduction possible. More on the scientific promise later. Here is how it would work.
A homosexual who wants a child would give serious thought to several things: first, is he stable enuf to give a child the stability he needs? second, is he really ready, emotionally, to support and love a child? third, if he answers both of these earlier questions affirmatively, what kind of child does he want? If is highly inadvisable for a homosexual to raise a female child, or a lesbian a male child. Besides the obvious problems of sexual identity such a child would face, such a parent-child relationship would be of a vestigial-heterosexuality nature, and as such, antihomosexual and unhealthy. Moreover, a homosexual who wants a female child is demonstrating an unhealthy desire to be, thru identification with his "own flesh and blood", of the opposite sex. Such a person is not ready for homosexual parenthood, and would be advised to turn straight if he wants children.
In thinking about the kind of child he wants, a homosexual prospective father should realize that he is able to pursue a eugenical course in reproducing. I mean this in the truest and finest sense. Since he will have no emotional tie to the mother, he need not settle for just some woman's genetic background, but can "shop around". thus if he wants a smart child, he had better avoid an unintelligent mother; a straight-haired child, a curly-haired mother; etc. In making rough outlines in his mind of the kind of son he wants, a homosexual father-to-be should keep in mind that genetics is still a primitive science in humans and so one cannot be sure, even given the greatest care in selection of a parental partner, that the child of a reproductive agreement will be as hoped for; and further, he must consider the happiness of the child and its place in society and in the home. Thus it would be worth second thoughts if a homosexual wanted a child who is half of a different race, for instance, because he likes people of that other race. A prime question here is, Are you out to have a son or a sex object? If a sex object, you'd better not have a child at all, for your son is entitled to make his own choices of sex and love objects.
O.K. He has made a rough outline of the kind of son he wants. Now the problem is finding a lesbian who wants to be a mother, who has a compatible genetic background, and who is willing to enter into a reproduction agreement with him. Let's look into a possible agreement to examine its form.
The sex of a child is always a gamble, at least at this time [1971]. The odds are very slightly in favor of a boy, because (contrary to popular misconception) more boys than girls are born, at least in the U.S. (The figures are that there are 103.7 males per 100 females among persons under 15 years of age; this is due basically to the fact of more male births. Census figures show that there are more males than females in the population up to age group 15 to 24, and that only in the higher age groups does the proportion fall. These figures do not, however, clarify the role in this phenomenon, of immigration. Still, it seems reasonable to conclude that the only reason there come to be fewer males as time passes is that society finds many ways of killing off its men in hazardous work, war, and stud-image-inspired heroics.) A lesbian who wants a daughter is therefore taking a slightly greater gamble than is the homosexual in consenting to bear a child.
To compensate for this fact and for the pain and trouble a woman undergoes in bearing a child, a contract of financial support, specifying the obligations of the father toward the mother and clarifying the custody of the child would have to be worked out. Such a contract might specify that the mother be paid a certain specified amount for each month in which discomfort and increased costs (as for food) are encountered; further, that medical expenses for both prenatal and birth services, and possibly also for postnatal care within an greed period, be shared by the parties. Since the odds in favor of a boy are slightly greater than those for a girl, it would seem equitable that if the child is a boy, all expenses for the support of the child and postnatal care of the mother be borne by the father for the agreed period. The mother would be compensated in substantial part for lost wages due to the need to leave a job, for a period both before and after the child's birth as may be agreed between the parties, unless of course the mother's leaving her job imposes no financial hardship upon her due to other income or support, as from a lesbian "friend".
Upon the birth of the child, it would become the ward and financial responsibility (even if after an agreed period of shared support) of the mother if the baby is a girl, or the father if the baby is a boy. Reasonable rights of visitation may be incorporated into the agreement, coupled, however, [with a provision] that neither parent shall try to wrest the child by law or coercion or by any other means, from the custody of the agreed party unless he or she has ample grounds to believe that that custody is actually injurious to the child (and raising the child to be homosexual or lesbian would be specifically excluded from the concept of harm). In the event of the death of the parent exercising custody, the other parent should be granted first rights to custody unless he or she expressly waives that right on paper. Alternatively the other parent should have right of approval of any guardian designated by the custodial parent.
In order to minimize the ever-present possibility of outside interference from government, the parties may have to be legally married. such a marriage may be dissolved legally after the birth of the child, with the terms of the custody agreement embodied in a legal separation agreement drawn [up] before the divorce and specified as surviving the court decree granting divorce. In this way, the parties should have some security. Of course, the parties may choose to stay"married", as long as neither wishes to enter into another reproduction agreement. Such an agreement might be made for two children, to even up the odds. In any event, a marriage, even temporary, would save the child from any embarrassment over 'illegitimacy', and since it need not be a live-together relationship, it would seem a reasonably innocuous part of the arrangement, carrying minimal risk.
Both parents would have to agree that under no circumstances save imminent and grave endangerment of the life of the mother, would abortion be permitted. Both parents would have to realize that they are entering upon a solemn responsibility to the child, fully cognizant of the deliberate nature of their assumption of that responsibility, and that therefore they are denied any right to change their minds, either individually or jointly, about having the child. The child can be put up for adoption if the parents should decide after careful consideration, that they do not wish to assume responsibility for its future.
A miscarriage would be treated as a birth in determining financial responsibility for medical expenses, compensation in lieu of employment, etc. this, too, is one of the risks two partners of a reproduction agreement would be taking. Such an agreement should not be entered into lightly.
An agreement such as outlined above would make it possible for a homosexual
and a lesbian to join together in the least painful way possible to bear
the children they both want. It entails the virtual certainty of some
disappointment for one or the other party, however, and that fact should
be kept in mind. For occasional visitation may not seem adequate compensation
for the emotional investment a parent builds up during the months of pregnancy.
The loss of custody of a new baby would probably be harder on the mother
than the father, and perhaps some greater compensation of some form should
therefore be drawn into the contract on account of that eventuality.
In all respects, reproduction thru artificial insemination between parties who do not really care about each other is much less satisfying as prospect than true homosexual reproduction, in which two loving partners of the same sex can have a baby together. But for the time being, it is the only realistic prospect for either homosexuals or lesbians who want children but do not want to be straight. And after the initial tensions and disappointments, there will, after all, be a baby, beautiful, yours, himself; full of promise, hope, and joy. And such disappointments as disturb us one day usually fade in consequence rapidly with the passage into today and the planning for tomorrow. Thus the negatives will be forgotten and all the fantastic things about fatherhood (or motherhood, if the mother has a girl) will distract the parent's attention and fill his (her) life.
Will it ever happen, tho, that two men who love each other very much and would give almost anything to have a child together, to see the little things about each other that they so admire carried on and reflected in a little boy, can have a son? Or two women, a daughter? Maybe. But there are problems.
There are some species — many, for that matter — in which two sexes are not necessary for reproduction. Even in creatures as high as some amphibians, occasional reproduction from one individual alone occurs. But human beings have always, up to now, reproduced only thru the combination of a sperm cell and an ovum. the question seems never to have arisen in hetero-dominated societies, of whether it is possible for two gametes of the same sex to form a living offspring. Now, however, related questions are being asked by straights, and I for one wonder about homosexual reproduction.
Some hetero scientists working on fertility and eugenics are exploring ovum implantation, artificial environments, and other genetic and reproduction sleight-of-hand that suggests that the possibilities in human reproduction are much wider than has been blithely assumed.
Ovum transplantation involves the fertilization (albeit by a sperm) of a female gamete outside a woman's body and its subsequent transfer to the womb. This is artificial insemination taken one step further, inasmuch as the womb into which the fertilized ovum can be placed need not be the uterus of the individual who contributed the ovum in the first place! In this way, a sterile woman can perhaps bear a child, assuming that her uterus functions even tho her ovaries do not. Unfortunately, some scientists — and we all know how little respect for life scientists tend to have when pursuing their god, Knowledge — are thinking now in terms of preselecting a particular fertilized ovum for implantation in a receptive uterus and discarding all the others deliberately fertilized that do not seem to bear the "right" combination of genetic traits. This is eugenics in the worst sense, the sense Don Jackson was talking about. For each fertilized ovum is a separate human life, as proved by something else scientists are doing.
A CBS television documentary found that scientists in various countries are now working on perfecting an artificial environment to replace the uterus as the place where a child once conceived will grow thru term. In the U.S., scientists have managed to keep an embryo alive and growing on its own in an artificial environment from conception thru six days. In Italy, scientists claim to have kept a baby alive from conception thru 42 days. It would seem that a successful artificial environment, capable of sustaining a child from conception thru to birth, will be perfected with time. Such an artificial environment may make eugenics — of either the best or the worst sort — the way of the future. But might it not also end the need for abortion and, crucially, make heterosexuality obsolete?
In order to understand why I ask that last question, you may have to remind yourself of certain facts of human reproduction. First, all human beings have 46 chromosomes, which constitute two paired sets of 23 types of chromosomes. These 23 types of chromosomes carry all the directions necessary for building a human being, but two sets of 23 are necessary for each person, and it is the interaction between the genes on these two sets, from two different persons (so far — more on that later), that determines the genetic make-up of the resultant baby.
Now, inside each fertile person, certain reproductive cells divide in an unusual manner so that instead of the resultant cells having 46 chromosomes as all other cells have, they have only 23. The two sets of 23 types are divided so that each resultant cell has one set of all 23 types. The resultant cells are sperm cells in men and ova in women. When a child has been conceived, up till now, it has been so created by the union of a sperm and an ovum (or egg, if you prefer — I don't). This fact has led some people to believe that if a sperm and another sperm were somehow combined, they would perhaps have 46 chromosomes but that certain characteristics would be missing (for instance, maybe the child would have no genes for legs, and so would be born without legs). This is just not the case. Each sperm has all 23 chromosomes. The trick, then, consists in getting two sperm to combine; providing the resultant nucleus with enuf supportive protoplasm to enable it to survive, grow and divide; and to provide an environment which will enable it to produce a child all in good time. The trick with two ova would be slightly less complicated, consisting only in combining the two and providing an environment, for two ova put together would have a relatively huge amount of supportive protoplasm. Theoretically, from what I have been able to find out, these are the only bars to homosexual or lesbian reproduction. Let's examine them.
First, combining two sperm or two ova: some unknown mechanism operates to prevent two adjoining sperm from uniting with each other, or two adjacent ova from so uniting;' further, perhaps the same unknown mechanism prevents more than one sperm from entering the ovum's interior. Indeed, even the first can enter only with considerable difficulty; this introduces an element of natural selection, for only the strong sperm can penetrate the ovum's outer membrane. Once inside, the sperm seems to trigger a mechanism that hardens the ovum's outer membrane beyond the penetrating power of even the strongest and most adamant sperm. So the first step in causing homosexual reproduction or lesbian reproduction would seem to be to break thru the outer walls of two sperm or two ova and join their substances together.
Perhaps even if the cell walls are broken thru, some chemical would prevent successful union of the two cell nuclei. But we won't know that until we have broken thru the membrane. Then perhaps we can isolate and neutralize the chemical that prevents sperm-sperm or ovum-ovum fertilization.
We could work on a chemical means of breaking thru the walls, but perhaps it would be easier just to work physically and break thru the walls "surgically", with micro-pipettes. Micro-pipettes are little eyedropper-like devices which can be used to pick up microscopic amounts of fluid or protoplasm and expel it into a new location. Such devices have been used in various experiments in genetics, and have proved quite useful.
One such experiment demonstrates the importance of the quantity of protoplasm around a fertile nucleus, the second problem I discern as confronting homosexual reproduction; scientists have stated that any cell nucleus from any part of the body, that has the full complement of chromosomes can, given a friendly environment, produce an entirely new individual, genetically identical to the single parent. They have tested that thesis successfully by taking the nucleus of a body cell of an adult frog and substituting it for the half-complete nucleus of an unfertilized frog egg. The egg thus became "fertilized" by only one parent and did indeed hatch into a pollywog. They did this a number of times, always successfully enuf to reassure them of the validity of their assumption. Now they visualize an era of one-person reproduction in artificial environments. But the process apparently depends upon there being a large protoplasm mass around the transplanted nucleus. In heterosexual reproduction, the process by which an ovum is produced involves an unequal division of the cytoplasm of the original cell, so that only one of the resultant divided cells has a large amount of cytoplasm while the others have very little. The little cells are a fraction the size of the larger cells, and the little ones do not become functional ova, but are called "polar bodies". Apparently, polar bodies can serve no reproductive function because they have no cytoplasm to space to nourish a fertilized nucleus until it can divide and attach itself to the nourishing environment. Says my college biology book: "an unusually large supply of cytoplasm and stored food is allotted to the nonmotile ovum for use by the embryo that will develop from it. In fact, the ovum provides almost all the cytoplasm and initial food supply for the embryo. The tiny, highly motile sperm cell contributes, essentially, only its genetic material."
This suggests that if two sperm can be combined, the resultant embryo would starve unless a substantial amount of cytoplasm could be joined to it. So we men would face a lot of micro-pipette manipulation to join the two nuclei and then move the combined nuclei, now one, to a giant body cell, or alternatively to gather cytoplasm from various cells and lump it all together around the new nucleus in hopes that the nucleus, taking control, would order a cell wall to form around the entire complex (that seems to be within a nucleus's customary abilities and responsibilities).
A combination of two ova, on the contrary, would bring the embryo a relatively vast supply of food. Would this head start bring forth a "superbaby" or have no real effect? Who knows?
In any event, two men would face more manipulation and consequently more risk in having a baby than two women. And there is the question of whose cell (giant cell) to use for protoplasm if any one cell is to be used. From the emotional point of view, it would be better to combine cells of both fathers for both the nuclei and the cytoplasm.
O.K. Assuming everything works out up to this point, we face the third — and last? — physiological barrier to homosexual or lesbian reproduction: providing a safe and supportive environment. Clearly women have the advantage here, for the technique of ovum implantation in the womb, now being perfected, will ease their problem away. They could even both have babies simultaneously. They could have multiple births within one woman. Men, however, have a more difficult problem.
There seem to me three solutions to this problem: (1) give up on an absolutist position and have the sperm-sperm-cytoplasm embryo implanted in a woman's uterus, thus yielding very substantially to heterosexuality and ending up with a baby that is not quite the pure man that he might otherwise have been; (2) place the baby in an altogether artificial environment; or (3) try to work out a compromise with Father Nature, in the form of a semi-artificial environment. Of the three choices, I certainly vastly prefer (3).
How would this work?
While some people do not realize it, a child is not "created" or "grown" by the mother. Instead, the child grows itself, merely taking its nourishment, warmth, and oxygen from the mother (in a typical, present-day situation). The fetus is, in effect, a nine-month parasite on the mother's blood. He is usually a welcome parasite, but he is in any case a parasite.
The baby does not take any of the parent's blood into himself, however. What happens is that the embryo produces a structure he cannot survive without until birth but then leaves behind: the placenta. (Anatomically, we were all once more than we are now.) This placenta consists of a network of blood vessels which lie against a semi-permeable membrane. The mother, for her part, produces another part of the placenta, which is comparable in structure and lies against the infant's placental membrane. Thru this membrane pass only nutrients, wastes, and gases, to be picked up and moved by separate circulatory systems, the baby's and mother's. The baby's blood takes what it needs in the way of nutrients and oxygen, and passes off is metabolic wastes. The mother's body notices that it is running low of certain nutrients and directs the mother to eat certain things to restore the proper and necessary nutritional balance. But the mother does this not, in nature, for the baby, but for herself, because if she doesn't, the baby will still take as much as he can and she will be left malnourished. The baby may also become malnourished and suffer for it, but somehow the baby seems to get a higher priority in some things than the mother. Thus if a woman does not take calcium supplement she can lose a tooth or several teeth to the demands of her blood created by the baby's parasitism.
If the baby can get nutrients, oxygen, and relief from the metabolic wastes thru its placenta from some source other than a mother, it will survive. It will even furnish some of its own heat, thru metabolism. But it will probably need a great deal more warmth to survive. In creating a totally artificial environment, one must see to creating a delicate combination of temperature, chemical, and gaseous balances. The task is very, very difficult. Perhaps we can short-circuit the whole process by simply "plugging in" an embryo's artificial womb to the blood system of a living, breathing human being. In that way, the parent would maintain his own chemical balance and oxygen level, and the baby would benefit automatically and reliably! The only remaining problems would then be creation of a suitable structure in which to house the infant, a suitable area of semi-permeable membrane for attachment and communication of substances, and maintaining the proper temperature.
I can easily visualize a basketball-like plastic bag with an artificial network of blood vessels underlying a segment of semi-permeable membrane to which the manipulated embryo could be fixed, from which a flexible plastic shunt runs to a major vein of a father, and to which a similar plastic shunt tubing runs from an artery. The entire assemblage could be secured to the father by means of a harness or strap (if the desire is to carry it about as one would a diplomatic-courier's attache case). It could be thermostatically heated electrically by battery-pack portable gear or by plug into a wall. Of course it would be somewhat ungainly to carry as the child increased in size and so too did the accordionized plastic case, but might it not be quite completely workable? Of course, it would be inadvisable, given the myriad possibilities for complications over the necessary nine months (or a little less), for both partners of a homosexual love relationship to "carry" a child at the same time, for the one may be relatively immobilized in the last stages before birth.
This all sounds rather complicated, I know, and there are some people who — even if they agree that it would be fantastic to have a child with another man — feel that man should not tamper this enormously and obviously with "nature". But nature is what is possible. Rocks do not fall up — that is unnatural, for it is impossible. But if such homosexual reproduction as I speculate about above is possible, why should it be opposed?
Before concluding with some statements on attitudes, I should like to point out that while I have been talking here in the section about homosexual reproduction, as tho all babies born to two men would be male and all babies born to two women would be female, that is not necessarily the case. Two women would_ always have little girls, because maleness can be transmitted only thru men. As it works out genetically, femaleness is merely the absence of maleness (score one for Freud). Unfortunately, however, all men also produce many sperm that lack the gene for maleness and include the base gene that determines femaleness. In a certain (sad) sense, femaleness is a common genetic base in the human being. (Score one for female chauvinists.) It is a recessive trait that always yields to maleness, but it is there in everybody. In effect, men have something women do not. (At last, score one for men!)
What all this means is that if two sperm that both lack the gene for maleness should combine, the child will be — agh! — a girl. The chances of that happening are (I think) something like one in four. So unless we find some way of identifying and sorting out sperm by the sex gene, we shall have to take our chances. Fortunately, by the time we are able to do all the things involved in any male-male homosexual reproduction, we should also be able to weed out the sperm cells that do not carry maleness. Without science's intervention, I'm afraid that about one-fourth of all the hoped-for sons would be daughters.
If homosexual-to-lesbian artificial insemination is to become a significant means of satisfying the desires for fatherhood and motherhood, then obviously interested homosexuals and interested lesbians must have some way of finding each other. At this time, no matching agencies exist. This would seem a function that one of the better-staffed homosexual or lesbian groups should be willing to assume, but for reasons I shall summarize shortly, perhaps none will. So for the moment, there being very little apparent interest yet in such arrangements, I can offer such help as this organization is able to provide to interested homosexuals and lesbians. If there should be real interest in making such a project a major activity, then I shall have to ask assistance from not only other members of my organization but also from other organizations. We shall see.
Several serious attitudinal problems confront such a project, however.
First is the "sour grapes" argument that it is better to be childless. Of course childlessness is best for some people. But for others it is a major tragedy that ever prompts them away from allegiance and commitment to homosexuality or lesbianism and causes them to vacillate about orienting their lives to a completely homosexual or lesbian lifestyle. Sometimes the desire for children impels homosexuals or lesbians into ill-advised and troublesome heterosexual marriages, and they spend many years, sometimes even the rest of their lives, in duplicity, anxiety, and eminent dissatisfaction. So let's get this clear once and for all: childlessness and homosexuality / lesbianism have no necessary connection. It's not an either-or situation — either you be homosexual and childless or you turn straight and have children — no sir. Homosexuality is the love of a man for a man (men); lesbianism is the love of a woman for a woman (women). To have and raise children of the same sex is fully compatible with a completely homosexual or lesbian lifestyle, and can add immeasurably the happiness and stability of a relationship by removing temptations to heterosexuality, and eliminating the possibility of resentments arising that one's partner is keeping one from having children.
A second troublesome attitude is that which states categorically that artificial insemination or genetic manipulation are "unnatural" and therefore to be loathed. Homosexuals and lesbians should be the last people in the world to run screaming from anything labelled "unnatural". As I said earlier, that which is possible is natural. Only that which contravenes natural laws and is therefore impossible is unnatural.
A third obstructive notion is, "But artificial insemination — not to mention genetic manipulation — is so cold and mechanical. A child should be conceived in love." While one can readily agree that it is far better to conceive a child thru an act of love, that is not our choice. To convert to heterosexuality purely to give rise "naturally" and sexually to a child is to engage in an intricate fraud, for homosexuals and lesbians can only delude themselves into thinking that anything they feel for a sexual marital partner of the opposite sex is love. Further, and more importantly, is that a child must be raised with love, but when he is first conceived he has no awareness whatever to realize that his conception was methodical and deliberate but not sexually "loving". A child of such a deliberate and careful plan is very much wanted at his conception and will be loved thru his life. Surely that is more than enuf — it's more than most children get, for the sexual love that gives rise to children of hets does so only incidentally and often without either volition or desire, passion being directed to the partner. In too many cases, the arrival of a child is viewed as the arrival of a rival by insecure hetero partners. No, we have no reason to put down "artificial" means.
Fourth, relative to artificial insemination, there is the matter of distaste on the part of a lesbian for being impregnated by a man. I can fully appreciate that distaste. In this regard, again, the man comes off a little better than the woman, because he doesn't have to have any form of physical contact with the woman. But surely the mechanical insertion of a little fluid does not compare with the multi-sensual impositions that she would have to accept is she were to get married and undergo coitus in order to have children. Until such time as lesbian-lesbian reproduction should become possible, a woman who wants a child really has no choice but to accept artificial insemination, at the least.
Now, these objections have referred basically to artificial insemination, which is still genetically heterosexual. An additional set of objections arises to the prospect of homosexual or lesbian reproduction without the opposite sex.
The first and most basic objection likely to be heard is that such a prospect is "bizarre", "disgusting", and "insane". Underlying all these variations on the same theme is a primitive vestigial belief that heterosexuality is the only "right" way children may be conceived. While the objectors may talk about "love" what they really mean by that word is "heterosexuality". They have not yet accepted the idea that the love of a man for a man or of a woman for a woman is really love, nor that a homosexual father can truly love a son nor a lesbian woman, a daughter, in the way that a parent is supposed to love a child. There is no way of arguing this point logically. Either you believe that homosexuality is a form of love or you don't. Either you believe that you as a homosexual are capable of loving as a homosexual, or you don't. If you believe, truly, that the love you feel or hope someday to feel for that special person is as clean and pure and beautiful (at least)a s anything hets experience, then you can see nothing but beauty and wonder in the prospect of having a child together, a child who will truly demonstrate the union you have forged with each other and who will carry on the life each fills for the other.
Another objection may center on a role-playing problem: if a male-male child can be conceived and should be nurtured in a semi-artificial environment plugged into one father's circulatory system (rather than nurtured in a wholly artificial environment), there will inevitably be a certain difficulty in not identifying the nurturing parent as the "mother". If this should prove a real problem, it would be better for parents retaining this hetero-mentality notion to abstain from trying homosexual reproduction until a fully artificial environment is perfected. Homosexuals must not be misled into hetero-pattern role playing.
Fully homosexual reproduction will require a great change of attitudes on the part of homosexuals. (The same, of course, is true of lesbian reproduction on the part of lesbians.) The social problems would seem very serious as long as homosexuals are submerged in a heterosexual sea. This too argues for homosexual and lesbian separatism, so that we can establish communities where we are in charge and where the law poses no danger to our custody over children, nor do social attitudes endanger our self-respect or inhibit our progress toward homosexual-homosexual or lesbian-lesbian reproduction.
Artificial insemination by a homosexual or a lesbian is fully workable right now. It is the most painless and certainly the least complicated and mentally hazardous way in which homosexuals and lesbians can have children. It does still involve some possibility of legal intervention, but that can be minimized thru legal marriage and, more importantly in the long run, thru gay migration to a few major cities to change the political and legal complexions of those areas.
Homosexual-homosexual or lesbian-lesbian reproduction is not yet possible. Will either ever be possible? I don't know. Indeed, I daresay no one knows. And we probably won't know until great homosexual scientists devote their time and intelligence to finding out. If it is possible, there's a great day a-coming. But lesbians can't wait very long. If you don't want to die childless, you'd better do something about it now — as a homosexual or as a lesbian. [Return to index.]
By Don Jackson
Don Jackson is the originator of the Alpine County homosexual-takeover project. He and I both contributed to Gay Power newspaper — before it became a pornographic rag. HI! has no way of checking his claims in this article. But the subject is so alarming that we felt obliged to let you see his assertions. [1999: Don Jackson, who has two other contributions in this issue, was in 1971 a Los Angeles gadfly whose (over)statements could not always be trusted. It turned out later that he himself could not be trusted. He visited me in New York once, and my wallet disappeared with him when he left. It was later reported found in another part of town where I had not been — and tho he had been in semiregular contact with me theretofore, I never heard from him again. If he's still alive, be wary of him.]
"Psychiatry is waging a war of extermination against homosexuals", said Dr. Franklin Kameny ((of the Mattachine Society of Washington, D.C.)). "The psychiatric profession is the major enemy of the American gay community."
For the fifth time in a year, Gay Liberationists disrupted a shrink convention. This time it was the American Psychiatric Association convention in Washington, D.C. Enraged shrinks pushed and shoved at gays, as the gays forced their way into the convention hall. Veteran gay militant Dr. Kameny "liberated" the rostrum and told the shrinks that the disruption could be viewed as a formal declaration of war. "This is a declaration of war against you."
Kameny was answering a challenge by Executive Director O'Donnell of the National Association for Mental Health. Last November, gays disrupted the NAMH convention in Los Angeles. At that time, O'Donnell said "If you go against us, we'll set your movement ((Gay Liberation)) back ten years."
Since then, aggressive antihomosexual provocations by shrinks have increased. In December, they pressured the Nebraska legislature into declaring that all "incurable" homosexuals are "sociopaths", and as such can be incarcerated for life in state mental hospitals.
The American Medical Association, an NAMH affiliate, launched a vicious antihomosexual crusade in its magazines, Today's Health and the AMA Journal. Other shrinks busied themselves writing antihomosexual hate literature.
Castration under various guises came into common use as a "treatment" for homosexuality. Dr. Hans Orthner, a neurosurgeon, announced that he had excellent results "curing" hundreds of homosexuals by destroying the sex nerve center in the brain with an electric-shock probe. Other neurosurgeons boasted that their surgical methods to destroy the sex drive with various brain surgeries or by cutting the nerves leading to the genitals were equally effective. In California, atrocious "experiments" were performed on homosexuals in sate mental institutions and prisons. In most instances these atrocities were committed without the consent of the "patient".
Dr. H.B. Glass, president of the prestigious American Association for the Advancement of Science told the national conference of that organization: "There will have to be forced abortions to rid the world of uncontrollable defects such as mongolism and sex deviation". Dr. Glass, a geneticist, sounds more like a eugenist. His remark is almost identical in wording to a remark made by the late Adolph [sic] Hitler to the German Eugenics Association.
In April 1971, Dr. Sydney Margolese announced that he had discovered that homosexuality was caused by an endocrinological imbalance — an excess of the male hormone etiocolanolone. Dr. Margolese predicted that his discovery would lead to a drug for the "treatment and prevention of homosexuality".
Dr. Margolese's research was funded by the National Institute for Mental Health. It provides a way to implement Dr. Glass's "Kill the Queers" proposal. Since hormone secretions begin before birth, it will be possible to detect and abort homosexual fetuses.
Gay Liberationists take all this as evidence of a monstrous conspiracy for the genocide of homosexuals. Gays feel that the shrinks are angry because of the disruptions, and because Gay Liberation has exposed antihomosexual psychiatry as a hoax — nothing more than a semantic device to veil the religious beliefs of shrinks with the respectability of scientific terms.
Shrinks say that homosexuality is a disease because heterosexuality is necessary to reproduce the species. The fact that other primates are dominantly homosexual yet still manage to have a rampantly growing population does not impress the irrational shrinks, nor does the fact that dominantly homosexual human cultures survive and flourish shake their religious conviction that the human race will become extinct without universal state-enforced heterosexualism.
With equal logic it could be argued that since people need fuck
((heterosexually) only once every ten years to maintain a 0 population growth
((Editor's note: sexual intercourse is no longer, since the development of
artificial insemination many years ago, necessary to the propagation of the
species. See our feature on "Childlessness —
Wave of the Past", in this issue.)), heterosexualism is obviously a disease
and must be stamped out as a genetic strain lest people become as numerous
as cockroaches.
| Convert a straight today! Homosexual supremacy thru homosexual separatism and seduction-conversion! We've been oppressed because we're thought a social danger. As long as we are so punished, let's be the threat they fear! - LCS |
During the early part of this century, eugenics was a respectable and popular science. Eugenics is the science of improving the human genetic pool by encouraging people with "good" genes to multiply, while discouraging or preventing reproduction by individuals whom the eugenicists felt were inferior. During the 1920s, many American states, including California, passed eugenics laws, which provided for the compulsory sterilization of habitual criminals, sex deviates, the mentally ill and the retarded.
But it was in Hitler's Reich that eugenics reached its greatest prominence. Eugenicists proclaimed that Jewishness and homosexuality were genetic defects that had to be stamped out by the "final solution". Later, Gypsies, blacks and slaves [1999: that was probably supposed to be "Slavs" — which is, oddly, not as bizarre an error as you might think, since "slave" derives from "Slav"] were added to the list of "diseased" racial strains.
If the First World War was the war to "make the world safe for democracy", the Second World War was the war to make the world safe from eugenics. The outrages of the eugenicists united the world against the Nazis. Finally, the eugenicists declared that all non-Aryans were "untermenschen", an inferior, subhuman species.
The terrible science reached its culmination in the extermination of twenty million people in the crematoria of Belsen and Dachau. Now, the disreputable science is again raising its ugly head under the labels of psychiatry, neurosurgery, genetics and endocrinology. The neo-eugenicists, being mostly Jews, are free from anti-Semitism but are vehemently antihomosexual and, to a lesser extent, anti-black. Many of the neo-eugenicists involved in the anti-gay conspiracy are saying that blacks are genetically inferior and have smaller brains and I.Q.s than Caucasians.
The fact that the neo-eugenicists are almost unanimously Jewish is relevant. The antihomosexual taboo can be traced to the ancient Jews. Homosexuality was acceptable and commonplace in all other ancient civilizations. It has been suggested that the Jews adopted antihomosexualism (and circumcision) as a national symbol, like a flag, in order to distinguish themselves from their neighbors — and to increase their birthrate, thus gaining a military advantage over their neighbors.
Antihomosexualism became a patriotic attitude connected with the territorial ambitions of the Jewish kings. It became an obsession of the Jews, and permeated every aspect of their culture. It was carried into Christianity by Saul of Tarsus (St. Paul), who spews forth antihomosexual venom in the "Epistles of Paul", more than half of the New Testament. There is an antihomosexual taboo built into Christianity, but it lacks the intense patriotic fervor of the Jewish taboo. Gentile scientists seem to overcome their subconscious hate, but even Jewish atheists have such firmly rooted antihomosexual obsessions in their cultural heritage that it dominates their mental processes to the extent that they cannot view homosexuality rationally.
Hopefully, American cultural inhibitions against mass extermination will preclude a restaging of the last days of Belsen and Dachau. More likely, the neo-eugenicists will attempt genocide by murdering homosexuals while they are still fetuses — as they have already implied.
Either way, the genocide of gays will ((Don — you do mean "would", don't you?!)) be disastrous for the world. The ecology probably requires a certain percentage of gays for ecological balance. In addition, a high percentage of artists, composers and literary figures are gay. Gays such as Shakespeare, Da Vinci, Michelangelo and Tchaikovsky have brought beauty into an ugly het world.
* * *
I am delighted to see someone else empathize with the true innocent party in abortion: the fetus. Homosexuals are victims and captives of a lot of wrongheadedness. One would think that homosexuals, defenseless in large measure and in most parts of the world, would identify with the babies murdered by parents unworthy of the name. But, wrongheaded as many are about lots of things, like guilt about their sexuality, many homosexuals defend instead the killers. Don Jackson points out that our people can be killed off before we have even the chance to speak out or fight for our lives. Thru abortion.
Since this is the last issue of this magazine going to lesbian organizations and since my stand on abortion has made me something of a Public Enemy among feminist lesbians whose heads are more in the troubled straight world of unwanted pregnancies than in the pregnancy-free world of lesbianism, I'd like to set forth my attitude toward abortion now. I choose to do so in a segment of the poem (revised) that I quoted from last issue. This poem was originally Section 13.
Unknown
A teenage girl
Discovers she is a woman
When,
sometime after a moment of passion,
menstruation doesn't materialize.
And she knows that the precautions
unheeded
Have left her
impregnated
with the trust of life.
Sixteen and unwed is not good for a mother,
Nor her child, thinks she,
As even in panic
of parents, friends, s-o-c-i-e-t-y,
Responsibility,
She prepares her excuses
For murder,
As her child of light,
His child of joy
(Girl or boy, they'll never know)
Grows toward unprovoked destruction.
And the coos and gurgles,
the smiles and first tooth,
the crying all night and shitting in diapers,
the toddling through dappled bright spring sunlight
beside beaming mother,
amid admiring onlookers,
the boatrides and ponyrides,
the turtles and kittens,
the baby foods and pacifiers,
the remarkably swift growth of vocabulary,
the lifetime of sights and sounds and embraces and problems
and fights and forgiving
and grandchildren and photographs
For which barren women ache and cry aloud,
wetting their pillows in weeping,
lying with open eyes when they can no longer cry,
For which men lie awake at night, shock-still and sad-eyed,
Are smothered and wrenched with a painful mass of marvelously multiplying
cells
From the womb of an idiot child.
And the unseen trees and flowers,
the unfelt puppies and down feathers,
the unsplashed puddles,
the unsniffed daffodils
and unridden tricycle
and undisturbed beaches
and unknown friends
and unknown lover
Will never know their loss.
For the great promise rushing toward biological completion
Will never be fulfilled.
For clothes hanger or drug,
quack or trained "doctor" reviling Hippocrates
Smashes and squashes a beautiful human life,
Thinking not, knowing not, feeling not,
For the little blue eyes not yet open cannot implore,
The tiny, rubbery fingers cannot beseech,
The strengthless arms cannot thrash out,
nor the flexing legs kick
nor the untoothed mouth bite or scream!
And there is not even the dignity of passion to this crime,
As the child is pulled, methodically, senselessly,
from warmth, darkness, hope — life —
into the deathly air and chill and light and final
lightlessness.
And there is not even napalm to flash his passing into eternity.
Nor are there mourners or newsfilm.
What do they do with unborn fetuses torn from unworthy wombs?
Flush them down the toilet?
I should think the pipes would explode. [Return to index.]
CONNECTICUT'S NEW LAWS go into effect October 1st and allow consenting persons 16 years of age or older to have homosexual relations or lesbian relations (in fact, persons as young as 14 may have such sex if the other party is not much older). Seven Connecticut gay organizations are holding a "Regional Gay Festival" to celebrate this event.
The flyer describing the Festival (a march for more legislation, a gay arts festival, dancing in the streets, etc.) states in part "We realize that such laws have little to do with our real situation as an oppressed minority, and have in the past had little effect on the attitudes of police and other public officials. However, we regard this first small step worthy of our celebration, in that it lifts, officially at least, the weight of 'criminal' status off the minds of thousands of Gay brothers and sisters." The fact that all the planned events are sexually mixed indicates how meaningless the legal chance in itself is . . . But for the moment, let's all take a moment to celebrate.
* * *
THE BIGGEST "GAY" CELEBRATION in history, the second Christopher Street Liberation Day march and gay-in came off without a hitch since this magazine last appeared — but also without much zest, interest, or impact.
Tho the crowd was much larger (my own guess would be some 20,000 in the park; the media said 5,000, while granting that there were about twice as many people as last year — when they said there were 5,000 to 10,000!), but the march was slow, desultory, and without either focus or climax, in N.Y. Tho marches were supposed to have been held in many other cities, only those in L.A. and Chicago made headlines of any size in even the gay press. All the marches put together were not enough to warrant much press attention elsewhere. I was distinctly unimpressed and displeased with the results this year. GAY published a letter I wrote with my objections — at least a few of them — and if you're curious, look thru the August 16, 1971, issue of GAY. — LCS
* * *
BROADWAY UNITED CHURCH OF CHRIST SUPPORTS GAY BILL
At the September 21, 1971, meeting of the Board of Deacons of the BUCC, Deacon Larry L. Durgin (the Church's pastor, whose orientation we do not know) invited the Deacons to join with him in a statement on behalf of the civil rights of homosexuals in New York City. The statement he presented was addressed to the City Council's Committee on General Welfare and urged that Bill #475 be reported out of Committee for public hearing. The Deacons agreed to have the statement made on behalf of the Board of Deacons.
This organization opposes Bill #475 because it prohibits discrimination in employment 'on the basis of sexual orientation', not 'against homosexuals and lesbians'. In effect, homosexuals could not, were this bill passed, discriminate in favor of other homosexuals. Talking simple power politics and reality, this law would likely work against homosexuals: it is almost impossible to prove discrimination in a general business; it is much easier to prove discrimination in a business staffed by homosexuals and working with homosexuals. This law would thus require that if this magazine were to seek a paid secretary, for instance, we would have to hire a heterosexual female if a qualified one applied. Not all the laws in the world will protect us against discrimination if we do not have the economic and political muscle to shut down or seriously damage businesses that discriminate against us. Conversely, if we have such muscle, we don't need any law. This bill, were it law, could work very harmfully against the creation in N.Y. of a homosexual majority — even of a dynamically interhelpful homosexual community in which homosexuals in positions of hiring responsibility give jobs to other homosexuals. May it die in Committee. — LCS
* * *
GAA DENOUNCES JOHNNY CARSON, reports Variety, and the group has launched a letter-writing campaign to stop his "continued support of bias and bigotry by oppressive humor directed at homosexuals". Unconsciously supporting GAA's charges, the Tonight Show's producer, Fred De Cordova, said "we have had no continuing abuse of fag humor"! Variety comments, "He was . . . presumably unaware that the word 'fag' might, in gay-activist circles, provide an exact parallel with the word 'nigger'" (September 29, 1971).
De Cordova added "I don't need to give you a list of the sizable number of guests we've had on our show who are at least reputed to have gay tendencies." Isn't Johnny Carson one of those people? Is this another case of the thief crying "Thief!"?
* * *
NSA ORGANIZES "GAY DESK"
The National Student Organization, a college-level conference of student governments (somewhat controversial for its conservatism — or is it radicalism? or apathy?), recently established a subgroup to handle the problems of gay students: contact [then] Warren Blumenfeld, N.S.A., [address and phone number then]; Cable [then] — NATSTUD (my goodness!), if you want more information.
* * *
ROLLING STONE PLANS STORY ON HOMOSEXUAL-RIGHTS MOVEMENT
Toward the beginning of this year, a West Coast writer, Stan Brosette, sent out questionnaires to numerous homosexual and lesbian organizations to gather info for a story he was planning to do for Rolling Stone Magazine. HI! promptly responded, but we have not yet seen any story. Has one appeared? If not, maybe they thought the subject too dull or untimely, or maybe they just take one hell of a long time to get a story out. Rolling Stone is a rock magazine. You'd think they'd be with-it.
* * *
ROCHESTER GLF PLANS ANNIVERSARY celebrations in the form of a conference on the weekend of October 22-24 [1971]. They have invited several well-known speakers (anyone we know?), planned workshops and a dance ("Costumes welcome"!), prepared a chapel service, and organized a housing group for people who bring sleeping bags. This first-anniversary celebration weekend will cost participants $5.00 apiece, for registration, a concert and readings and the other activities. Anyone interested should contact the Rochester Gay Liberation Front, [in 1971 at] 201 Todd Union, River Station, Rochester, New York 14627; [phone number then]; at the University of Rochester.
* * *
JOHN FRANCIS HUNTER seeks paid helpers to compile The Gay Insider U.S.A., a national sequel to his N.Y. gay guide-with-a-twist (or is it "perversion"?) The Gay Insider. Hunter's (very straight) publishers, pleased with the success of the first book, are sending him off to tour the country. Hunter complains, however, "I can't spread myself all over the country in a few short weeks" — pity — "so we're soliciting contributions from writers all over the States who would like to submit information about the gay culture in their areas. We'd also like them to include personal experiences of an erotic nature that would lend authenticity to their information." "Lend authenticity" my foot. What he really means is "lend prurient interest" because that is what he intended his last guide to appeal to. J. Leonard Friend, in his review of The Gay Insider last issue, found Hunter's approach tedious. Perhaps the sexually repressed or deprived find it titillating, but if you don't like promiscuous perversity, you'd do well to steer clear of Hunter's books. Of course, if you can instead steer clear of the "erotic" wanderings from the guide, you might find its information useful — if biassed in a "would-be-East-Sider" way.
Hunter's real name, by the way, is John Paul Hudson, but he uses that for his gay-activist appearances. Odd.
If, despite everything, you would still like to contribute ("Honorariums will be paid by Olympia to writers who material Hunter decides to incorporate, with or without names or with pseudonyms, as the correspondents request", we are advised), write to John Francis Hunter [address then], or to Chuck Neighbors [address then]. (That's the Olympia Press, publishers of various erotic — mostly straight — books. Their hetero female typist must get quite a chuckle over the faggot perverts whose material they have to type.)
* * *
CERTAINLY THE STUPIDEST drive ever launched by any homosexual group was the petition campaign launched by Christopher Street West of Los Angeles to have the Congress and President of the United States declare the last Sunday in June an official national holiday, Gay Freedom Day! Surely the West Coast groups are not so rich in money, people, and time, and so poor in issues and genuine priority needs that they can afford to waste precious resources on stupidity like that. A nation celebrates only those things it approves of, and even then it does not give every worthwhile cause or leader recognition in the form of a national holiday. The blacks have been petitioning for years to have Martin Luther King's birthday declared a national holiday. King won a Nobel Peace Prize, stirred the soul of the nation, and died a martyr in many people's minds, but his birthday is still not a national holiday.
Naivete will destroy us all. [1999: What was preposterous in 1971 might be doable in 1999 / 2000. Has Congress or the President ever proclaimed the last Sunday in June "Gay Freedom Day", "Gay Pride Day", or such? Perhaps it's time. MLK Day did after all become a national holiday.]
* * *
ANOTHER INSTANCE OF GAY NAIVETE is the anti-draft drive that occupies many gay activists' attention. But homosexuals are immune from the draft. The only homosexual who is drafted is the homosexual who is (a) ashamed of his homosexuality and/or (b) ignorant of the aid various gay organizations provide to homosexuals wrongfully drafted. I have no sympathy for the first group, and we can reach the second thru better p.r. Yet when the draft expired temporarily, there were lots of gay activists trying to get gay people to write letters in favor of repeal of the draft.
The draft is not a homosexual issue. Homosexual organizations have really important gay issues to deal with. They must not waste their resources and use up their friends' time and good will on nonhomosexual issues.
* * *
A NATIONAL GAY-RIGHTS DEMONSTRATION in the nation's capital is contemplated by the Washington 72 Committee, [address then]. That group is circulating the following questionnaire, and we thought you might like to consider it:
"1. What are your basic views on holding a national gay day rally in Washington, D.C. on Christopher Street Day?"2. Should the national demonstration be held in addition to city demonstrations, should it be concurrent with them, or should the city demonstrations be set aside once so that the city organizations can concentrate a maximum showing in Washington?
"3. What is a minimum size for a national demonstration whose objective is to draw important media coverage and major political attention to gay rights demands? Can the gay movement achieve a demonstration of this size in Washington, D.C., in 1972? If not, when?
"4. A possible plan to consider is a one-day rally with platform speakers and entertainers in the manner of the great black rights demonstrations. What are the other possibilities? A march? A jamboree? Civil disobedience? What form or style of rally would be most effective, and which would you personally prefer? Please offer your suggestions.
"5. Should the rally be the climax of a week-long series of events, such as Gay Pride Week, or should it be planned so that demonstrators can be into the city and out again in one day?
"6. What are effective techniques of publicity and nationwide coordination for the demonstration? How can funds be raised for the minimum coordination work? What transportation plans would you suggest?
"7. How many people do you think would come to a national demonstration from your city next year? Would your group participate actively next year in a national demonstration? What particular problems would your group have in participating which we could help to solve from a national level?
"Please add any further suggestions or ideas you wish on additional sheets. Donations to help defray organizational expenses will be appreciated."
If you'd like to add your voice to the deliberations, clip the questionnaire from this Magazine and write your replies and name (and address, if you wish to be kept informed, assuming they are making a mailing list) and send it to the address that is given at the head of this item.
* * *
AN ODD QUESTIONNAIRE came to us some months ago. Supposedly for unspecified "sociological writing", a Larry D. Hardin — no title follows his name — has sent our or plans to send our 400 questionnaires of an intimate sexual nature to ascertain male homosexuals' sexual practices and attitudes. A few of us in HI! sat around one Sunday evening and read and answered the questions aloud — interesting. But not enuf info is given about the intent and audience for this survey, so we cannot recommend that anyone aid in it.
Frankly, more than one person connected with this Magazine feels that the sexual practices and feelings of homosexual men are nobody's business by homosexual men's. We feel about homosexuality much as the Mormons feel about their Tabernacle: outsiders, stay out. If there were some way of informing homosexuals of the results of this 83-question survey but keeping hets out, we could see some utility in the survey. But of course, there is no way to do that, for hets assume — arrogantly and offensively that everything_ is their business. If they could get away with it, hets would come, men and women together, to poke and peer thru the baths, trucks, parks, bedrooms, and meat racks. I am told that some straight men actually brought their girlfriends to the Meat Rack on Fire Island and left only when they were immediately confronted with a threat of severe physical violence from an outraged homosexual whose sense of sexual privacy and integrity was offended. Alas, many homosexuals have virtually no pride in their sexuality and sexual integrity. They are so anxious to receive heterosexuals' approval that they perform like trained dogs for hetero voyeurs such as Masters and Johnson. Since sex is very largely psychological and emotional, one must not rely upon Masters and Johnson's findings on male homosexuality, for no true homosexual would carry on for the entertainment and enlightenment of heterosexual busybodies.
Larry D. Hardin would seem himself to be gay, insofar as he says, "If you care to communicate further as friends, I am most willing to do so." But those people he's writing for . . .
Incidentally, it is possible that he is just satisfying his own curiosity, since he does not give his credentials or specify the nature of his project and forum. Tho he states "don't think that I'm just trying to be 'nosey' either — what you do is your own business — I just want the questions answered for the project — not my own interest!", one must wonder. Interesting.
* * *
QUICKIE: Charles P. Thorp, who calls himself "bold soul sister" even tho he is white and male, came to a realization that we found in the Cornell Gay Liberation Front News: You know what red, white, and blue are together? Lavender!
* * *
JEANNE BARNEY is an advice columnist in The Advocate a "Gay" newspaper based in L.A. she advises a basically male, homosexual readership on the most intimate problems. But she herself is heterosexual and a real woman — who does not even possess credentials in psychology or sociology (or anything) to qualify her to advise anyone on anything. You can imagine the kinds of problems she is adequate to (none). She's just some nut off the street.
HI! wrote to The Advocate to protest this insanity and offense, pointing out that she had neither the educational nor the experiential base to qualify her to advise even lesbians, much less homosexual men. And we sent copies of our protest to GLF L.A. and Charles P. Thorp's San Francisco State GLF to solicit their support for our demands (a) that she be removed from an advice-columnist capacity or (b) that The Advocate at least note in the address box accompanying her column, that she is a real woman, is heterosexual, and has no education whatever to qualify her to advise anyone on anything.
Morris Kight of L.A. GLF reports that he spoke in person with Dick Michaels, managing editor of The Advocate, had a long conversation about it, but found that Michaels was pleased with Jeanne Barney and had no intention whatever of acceding to either of our demands.
Oh for a wormer to rid the gay world of its parasites!
* * *
GAY SUPREMACY may become a significant trend of thought, even if it does not become a full-fledged movement. Don Jackson has felt distinct attraction to that position, and I too (LCS) must say that the idea has occurred to me more than once. That homosexual supremacy may have appeal to a large number of homosexuals is manifested by the fact that the chant head so often at last year's Christopher Street Liberation Day, "Two, four, six, eight; Gay is just as good as straight" was almost always supplanted with "Two, four, six, eight; Gay is twice_ as good as straight!" this year. We shall see.
* * *
A HORMONE IMBALANCE (it has been suggested) may be responsible for homosexuality. Thus a "cure" may be in sight. It has never occurred to hets, however, that it might be they who are "imbalanced". [Return to index.]
A Department to inform readers of letters sent by this organization
September 16, 1971
Liaison and Action Collective
Lesbian Center
c/o Daughters of Bilitis [now defunct]
[address then, in NYC]
We think you deserve the courtesy of a reply to your form letter and questionnaire on places for lesbians, even tho we cannot help you in compiling your directory.
Homosexuals Intransigent!_ is a men's organization with no specialized knowledge of lesbianism or of lesbian recreational facilities or publications.
As part of our growing homosexual awareness, we have realized the obvious fact (at last) that homosexuality and lesbianism, tho parallel conditions, are by no means similar. We seek a homosexual (male) society for ourselves and hope that lesbians can find or create a lesbian (female) world for themselves. We oppose sexual integration — meaning both gender and orientation — and tho we bear lesbians no particular malice, nor do we see any reason to treat them specially. So while we wish you well in your efforts to compile a directory, we are altogether unable to help, and even if we did have information — which we are sure you could get from other sources — we could not take much time or energy from our own projects to assist you.
The idea of a homosexual-lesbian alliance — much less "unity" — alarms and surprises us. While we seek ongoing liaison with other homosexual groups, we have no interest in mixed homosexual-lesbian activities of any kind outside the obvious political alliance that may — or may not — be necessary to revision of noxious law which, designed by heterosexuals thinking in terms of two sexes, affect both groups. . . . Our magazine, Homosexuals Intransigent!_, concerns men only and is directed only to men,. We shall send you this next issue, however, because in it we address ourselves exhaustively to the question of homosexuality vis-a-vis lesbianism. Our best wishes for your success on behalf of lesbians.
* * *
Governor [then] Nelson A. Rockefeller
State Capitol
Albany, New York 12224
Enclosed herewith is my reaction to a solicitation sent by mail to me and myriad other New Yorkers, I imagine asking us to contact you and the Attorney General to demand a crackdown on pornography.
I absolutely oppose any attempt to crack down on pornography that is privately displayed, that is, pornography which is not shown in store windows . . . or broadcast over radio or television or by loudspeaker. People have the right to read, look at, or listen to pornography themselves, but not to impose it upon others. That is the guiding principle I insist must be used to govern governmental restriction of pornography. Further, I support the right of pornographers to mail their wares, as long as the people receiving their brochures or merchandise do so willingly.
Interference by government in affairs that are none of government's business inevitably breeds resentment and alienation in people whose lives are meddled in by an overbearing governmental authority. The purpose of government is to protect people and serve their true interests as those interests are seen by the individuals who comprise the population governed. If government attempts to impose a lifestyle or morality that its citizens are unwilling to live by, it must inevitably fail, and in the process of trying to impose these things, turn the population — or at least that part of it unwilling to accept the imposition — against itself.
There is much talk of reordering national priorities, and I assert that such reordering must eliminate a crackdown on pornography from the list of governmental priorities, altogether.
((Now the enclosure.))
Mr. Charles H. Keating, Jr.
[address then, in Cincinnati, Ohio]
Today I received in the mail, unsolicited, a form letter from you, very expensively done, asking me to help with your efforts against pornography. I was sufficiently moved to write to you — opposing your extraordinarily ill-advised, evil, and asinine efforts.
Pornography , as the President's Commission reported, is harmless unless there is some deep-seated psychological problem in the individual exposed to it; in the latter case, all it can cause is an earlier or more obvious manifestation of that upset. Further, pornography, according to some reports, is actually a force against the true sex crimes: rape, molestation, etc. For pornography is used only by people who can acknowledge comfortably their sexual desires and sexual needs, and it is used in masturbatory fantasies or to "spice up" sex with a willing partner. Neither of these activities hurts anyone.
Exactly what "crimes" is pornography responsible for? I suggest that the only crime it commits is helping people to respond sexually and to enjoy sex as part of their lives.
Now, I myself do not use pornography. But not out of any feeling that it is wrong to use it. Merely because it is a bore and unnecessary. The real thing is readily available to me. Some people are not so fortunate, and it would be inhuman and immoral of me to want to deprive the sexually deprived of some comfort in their sexual isolation and loneliness. Why can't you be satisfied to run your own life and try to influence those people for whom you have some real responsibility and who care something about what you think? People like you are horrified at the thought that anyone, anywhere might actually think something you personally don't approve of. You cannot submit your view in open competition with other views because you know damned well that in free competition, your views will lose out. So you must repress all other views and all people who would dare oppose you. But thought control is not patriotic, sir. It is profoundly "un-American".
You ask "How long can New York and America survive if hard core pornography continues to increase at the rate of 800% every two years?" First off, the question is idiotic: there is only so much pornography that people will buy. Second, you fail to ask yourself a more important question which should have come to mind before that which you asked: Why do people buy pornography? And remember, sir, that pornography is not given away as a public service. But the answer to your ridiculous question is, "As long as either happens to survive the real threats to their existence". Pornography has nothing to do with the real threats to our country. Nothing . . .
You, good sir, would spend much of your time and money and have many other people spend much of their time and money trying to impose — not uphold, but impose_ — a moral code which many, many millions of people in this and other countries have declared bankrupt: a code in which poverty and racism are tolerated but sexual happiness is not; in which pollution and thought manipulation for sales are tolerated as necessary to progress and our standard of living — not to mention our "way of life" — while homosexual love is not. . . . Your morality is dead! It remains only to be buried. What takes its place will depend on various circumstances, including the actions you, its mourners, take. If you try to revive the dead code by making noxious attacks upon its pallbearers, you may just assure such profound resentment of every part of its substance that the real virtues will be lost to sight for many, many years. Already we see some of the likely consequences of the vain struggle to impose "good, old-fashioned morality" upon those who have rejected it: unborn babies are being killed legally in New York State; the obvious and real need for a strong national defense is being obscured by pacifistic dogmatism; etc. why don't you realize that the best thing you can do as a would-be "moral leader" is to help us find a new morality which sorts thru various moral codes to try to find agreement on what are the real virtues? Imposing sexual deprivation upon the lonely is not one of the elements of our moral heritage which we should retain.
You say "It's been proven . . . that when children or adults are exposed to a steady diet of pornography, they are seriously influenced by it." "Influenced" toward what? Toward having sex, thru masturbation or by seeking out a partner? Is that wrong? If you are married, you have secured for yourself a sex partner. Why should you resent that others want what you have? Of course, if you are not married by sexually deprived yourself, you probably just want to share your unhappiness . . . What you fail to prove is that there is any reason whatsoever to expect someone searching for a sex partner to take such a partner by force. Forced sex is bad sex, you know.
If you mean that people are influenced to think in terms of a more varied sex life which includes a variety of activities and not just the "missionary position", then you must prove that sexual variety is harmful. And that is an absolutely hopeless task, one which cannot be accomplished because ever sex expert says just the opposite: whatever loving partners choose to do sexually is their affair; and sexual variety may mean to them a richer and happier sex life — and life.
You say "Police officials have told me . . . that there is a direct relationship between pornography and crimes of violence and the lack of morals in our youth." But everyone knows that police are in general undereducated, malinformed, and overprejudiced. . . .
You do not quote sociologists or sexologist because you know that they will dispute your assertions.
The simple fact you cannot face because it raises anxieties you cannot cope with, is that people like and want sex. If they cannot get the real thing, they will try to get pornography. Or if they are not satisfied with the sex they are getting, they will try to find something in fantasy which is more exciting. Sensuality is human. That is not to say that there is nothing to human beings but sensuality. . . . But until and unless you can condemn without flinching and without hypocrisy, all forms of sensuality — for instance, the sensual delight with eating that has made most of our population overweight; the sensual preference for relaxation over exercise which has made most of the population sloppily out of shape; the sensual delight with color and texture that have made clothing, furnishings, packaging and such brighter and more handsome; etc. — then you will fail to move great numbers of people with your opposition to one area of sensuality.
You say that it was unfair of the Commission to assert that only 2% of the people of the U.S. think pornography a serious national problem, by objecting that the poll asked what people thought were "the two or three most serious problems facing the country today". Yet you ask in your letter: "How long can New York and America survive if hard core pornography continues to increase at the rate of 800% every two years? . . .
I am grateful for your sending me your anti-pornography literature. Now I know whom I must oppose. I am sending a copy of this letter to New York's Attorney General and to Governor Rockefeller and President Nixon, along with a brief statement of my total opposition to restraints on pornography. Too many things and too many people have been considered "obscene" for too long. Please note my title, below. (LCS, Pres., HI!)
As a point of interest, I had a run-in with the Citizens for Decent Literature once before, in early 1964 (when, of course, I was just a baby). The Red Bank Register, local paper in my area of New jersey (I moved to N.Y. shortly after this incident, by coincidence) ran an anti-pornography editorial and I, of course, wrote a letter in reply. This letter in a suburban J.J. newspaper was brought to the attention of the CDL in Cincinnati, Ohio, and an appropriate (stupid) response was made to the Register. It was quite a kick to shake up people that far away. Of course, I now get a chance to tick off people in most states of the U.S. and a couple of provinces. It's fun to be a writer.
* * *
I'd like to thank Merle Miller for quoting me in his review of Donn Teal's The Gay Militants and paraphrasing me in his second New York Times article and mentioning HI! in both places.
I regret to report that my brother, Alan N. Schoonmaker, has said some stupid and noxious things about homosexuality in his second published book, A Students' Survival Manual. This is the same noxious brother who has given me flack about my city. More about this . . .
J. Leonard Friend has put together a good-sized Second City department. Part of it was to appear this issue, but because of the need to address lesbians for the last time, we ran out of space. His patience and continued support are appreciated. . . .
"A Child's Garden of Perversions: Part I — Pedophilia", promised for this issue, will appear next time instead . . . , Maybe we'll include some fiction and illustrations next time out , . . and of course Epistolary Intercourse will be back. Keep those cards and letters coming, boys and boys! [Return to index.]
It was delightful to read your enlightened view of the heterosexual problem in "Heterosexuality in the Male" [in Homosexual Renaissance No. 2]. The religionist view that heterosexualism is sin is being replaced by the compassionate view of heterosexualism as a disease, thanks to scientific advancement. While it is true that many older hets start hanging around school yards trying to lure little girls into their cars with bags of candy, and a few later degenerate into psychopaths who cut babies into strips with knives, it is also true that many hets live respectable, law-abiding lives (except for their deviant sex practices).
I must disagree strongly with your assertion that heterosexualism is of benefit to the pathetic individuals suffering from this unfortunate condition. Schoolchildren should be given tests in the early years to detect heterosexual tendencies. Heterosexualism is a problem in the schools, nd to society as a whole, since hets have average I.Q.'s around 15 points lower than normal. While it is true that a few hets have made mediocre accomplishments in the arts, it is also true that the het artists usually copy the style of the great gay artists. Can you name any hets of the caliber of DaVinci, Michelangelo or Shakespeare? List only people you know to be hets — many of the rumors about famous historical and artistic personages being hets are unfounded.
Hets contributed little to history. The Egyptian Empire was created by Hatshepsut, a lesbian female-male transvestite. The Greek world was gay from the first strum of Homer's lyre to its fall. The Hellenic world was created by Alexander the Great, a homosexual; the Roman world by Julius Caesar, a homosexual. The Roman Empire was run by the twelve Caesars, all of whom were gay. It fell into decline during the time of the forty tyrants, almost all of whom were hets. Starting with Constantine, a series of het emperors maneuvered Rome into the final collapse, undoing the centuries of order created by the gay emperors and plunging the world into the 1,700 years of constant brutal war called the Christian era. The great figures of the Renaissance were so unanimously and notoriously homosexual, that for 300 years, homosexuality was called "The vice of Florence". The French nation was united and freed of foreign rule by Joan of Arc, a lesbian, and became a world power under the rule of Richelieu and Mazzarin, both homosexuals. The British Empire was planned by Wolsey, a homosexual, and Boleyn, a lesbian. Wolsey and Boleyn plotted together, exploiting Henry VIII's sexual perversion to reorient the English nation away from the continent and church and toward the Atlantic, thus turning the Atlantic into an English sea and sending England on the path of Empire. Wolsey and Boleyn ran the nation, diverting Henry's attention with het bitches.
The German nation was created by Frederick the Great, a homosexual; the Russian Empire by Peter the Great, a homosexual; and the Austrian Empire by Metternich, a homosexual.
The famous het monarchs were mostly imbeciles (like Charles V) whose only claim to fame was their throne — which they had acquired solely by heredity. Even the supposedly "grand monarchs" were only grand because they had clever homosexuals to run the nation. Louis XIV, for example, spent his time planning parties, playing croquet and playing in mazes. The affairs of state and the running of the government were left to Mazzarin, who was in fact the real ruler of France. Metternich was the brain of the dimwitted Maria Teresa, who like most of the female monarchs in history, spent most of her time having babies.
All this has led many authorities to conclude that hets are basically inferior, but a minority view holds that their apparent inferiority results from the fact that their energies are consumed raising brats, so they have no time for the better things.
Science is working on solutions to the heterosexual problem. Dr. Schrinkopf reports that he cured 687 hets with a combination treatment, consisting of electro-convulsive shocks, lobotomy and castration. Dr. Schrinkopf was delighted with the results. "Not one patient relapsed into his former perversions" the doctor reported. As of yet, the doctor has been unable to turn his patients into normal homosexuals, but the fact that he is curing them of their perverted desires is a step in the right direction. It would be much better if they could be turned into normally sexed people.
There is a school of thought which holds that heterosexualism is the result of environment. A group of Gay Liberationists in Los Angeles have opened a clinic to treat hets. The treatment consists of isolating the patient from other heterosexuals, and putting them in an entirely gay environment for six months. Although the program is new, many hets have been completely cured and are now living contented normal lives with their new friends and lovers.
DON JACKSON
Los Angeles, California
All of us must hope that somehow those who suffer from heterosexuality can be helped to overcome their problem. The thought of their empty lives inevitably depresses the compassionate. And I certainly did not mean to suggest that if heterosexuality can be cured, it should not. I just despaired of a cure. Don's assurances of success or impending success have brightened my entire outlook. ((If the above exchange has you a wee bit confused, you obviously didn't read the last issue of this magazine. Don't take chances of missing any others — subscribe by filling out the form on the last page and sending it and $4.00 [1971] to us TODAY.))
((We saw the following letter and reply in another organization's publication and thought it warranted your attention.))
Please remove us from your mailing list. We find the sexist, prick-power character of your paper revolting. Lesbians are learning that it makes no difference if the males are straight or gay — there is always the goddamn prick-worshipping and prick-power oppression.
ANN ARBOR REVOLUTIONARY LESBIANS
(Spectre) Ann Arbor, Michigan.
Gee, fellas, I'm sorry as all hell! We have a number of members who do not possess that particularly offensive appendage, and they seem to like us; we certainly like them. Fact is, we've bailed a few of them out of the pokey. But if you hate us . . . This is the last issue I'll send you. — Ed.
I was a bit surprised when I saw this letter, because I had always thought the publication in question, the Newsletter of the Homophile Effort for Legal Protection (H.E.L.P.), L.A., pretty innocuous. But I have always seen it thru male eyes. Looking thru it more analytically, I saw that it is full of nearly nude males in ads for places and services for men, and warnings about police action in various men's cruising areas. In short, the lesbians had a justified reaction. But both groups are wrong: H.E.L.P. for having female members and for distributing its definitely homosexual (as opposed to lesbian) publication to women; and the women for being so absurd and offensive in asking to be removed from the list. A men's group has every right to publish a men's publication. Separate, don't fight.
* * *
I like your point of view. In fact, by having a point of view, you make homosexuals think. That is long overdue. Of course in the past homosexuals thought their opinions influenced an esoteric audience — and therefore were dedicated to their pursuits instead of pursuing their dedication.
The dedication in the past was simply the search for self-respect — in face of fears, guilt, persecution and prosecution. The price for survival was often blackmail, broken homes, bankrupt businesses, exile, loneliness, nervous breakdowns, and alcoholism and its attendant diseases. The world changed eventually. The culture of our society changed. In this period of social change, the Homosexual Revolution was born.
The Homosexual Revolution did not change the lot of the homosexual. It changed the financial statements of the exploiters of the homosexual. Economics married profit — not morality. Profit was good to the bookmen, moviemakers, bar owners, record companies. The heterosexuals exploited the homosexuals. All was right in heaven — but very little changed in the world.
Yes, antihomosexual laws died in Germany and Canada. yes, the U.S. Army looked the other way to allow homosexual blood to fertilize the rice paddies of Southeast Asia. yes, New York's ambitious Mayor Lindsay ended police harassment of homosexuals. But the world changed very little for the homosexual. Appearances changed,but the life of the homosexual differed very little from the past.
The Homosexual Revolution — unfortunately — was only a revolution of appearances. The homosexual simply became a public person. This was not a revolutionary development — after exhibitionists. Oh yes, there is a well-publicized attempt to enact laws favorable to homosexuals. Oh yes, it is a lobby that has made waves in City Hall and Albany — and it made a ripple in Washington. And it made good graphic copy for the media ("Mom", his voice cracking as he shouted, "come here. Those homosexuals are on TV again."). Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus — in the Homosexual Revolution. To be kind, it was pure cosmetics — because on December 26, Santa Claus becomes your local Dirty Old Man, and the beard, red cheeks and costume revert to reality, the reality of pure cosmetics.
Where then does that leave us as homosexuals? Well, it leaves us — as people — great on action but short on philosophy.
Philosophy is by definition the love of wisdom. Now do not let it be said homosexuals lack either love or wisdom. They lack neither. They do lack a tradition of homosexual love and homosexual wisdom. Homosexuals do not have a philosophy. Now, a philosophy is all-encompassing — the Queen of the Sciences — it encompasses the totality of our lives. It is not confined to politics, the governance of people, but the lives of people from birth to death — and for those who choose to believe, the hereafter. This is philosophy on the grand scale. It has a beginning. It has an end. It encompasses a lifestyle.
Why a philosophy? Why not a philosophy?, I rejoin. This is not the stuff of bar raids, Mafia muscle, mass demonstrations — and all the ego trips of homosexual activism. No glamor, no temporary solutions for permanent problems. Now I am neither Socrates, Plato, nor Aristotle. Yet I think, therefore I am. Knowing that I am, I can ask the reasons for my existence, the meaning of my existence and the purpose for my existence. This I can ask within the scope of my homosexuality. To answer these questions is to have a philosophy. To answer these questions as a homosexual is to have a homosexual philosophy. This is the difference between shadow and substance. The Homosexual Revolution, in order to evolve and become a fact of our (or should I say of the culture in which we live — are imprisoned?) culture, needs such substance to create its own culture. A culture has the inner dynamics to constantly recreate itself, and the source for that recreation is a philosophy.
No one is volunteering to create such a philosophy. Mr. Schoonmaker, at least, is thinking that way and forcing other homosexuals to think that way. Despite my political orientation, I believe in the complete politicization of the homosexual — but along his party lines, not mine. Power knows no party designation. Power knows only power. Homosexual Power knows only Homosexual Power. Therefore homosexuals — who of all people must respect the sacred conscience of the individual — must also respect the political conscience of the individual. And these very individuals — in small, dedicated groups — must infiltrate and take over power within the political structures of their persuasion. It is of very little difference if the new incumbents are of a party different than mine. All that matters is whether the new incumbent is homosexual or not. If he is not homosexual — it matters very little what political stand he takes on homosexuality, simply because his public interests do not coincide with his private interests. It is a man's private interest that is paramount — and that is why incumbency and not political persuasion is important. In the ultimate, homosexuality knows no party; it knows only tyranny.
Therefore, let every homosexual join his party, run for party office, work to change his party and its philosophy. Let the individual be supreme, and soon the homosexual shall be free.
JOHN SULLIVAN
New York, New York
I'm glad to see someone else looking for a homosexual philosophy. That is part — an important part — of the homosexual culture I am so concerned we create.
As for politics, I must concur, strongly. Political naivete has proved costly to the homosexual. To give one striking example, let me talk about Mommy Abzug, darling of the Gay Activists Alliance.
Bella Abzug is a Congresswoman. She is such in part as a consequence of having received the support of a large number of homosexual activists in GAA (GAA itself does not endorse political candidates, as I understand it). In one speaking appearance designed to win herself votes, Mrs. Abzug pledged to march with homosexuals on June 27th, 1971, in the Christopher Street Liberation Day celebration. Craig Rodwell told me that he asked her specifically, to her face, in public during a meeting of the Village Independent Democrats, and she specifically and expressly pledged to be there. But when June 27th rolled around, you know what? She was nowhere around!
Now, I didn't want her there, for this was a march of homosexuals (and, alas, lesbians) to celebrate ourselves. But the point is that she did pledge to be there but did not show.
John (yes, we have met) said it damned well: "All that matters is whether the new incumbent is homosexual or not. . . . It is a man's private interest that is paramount — and that is why incumbency and not political persuasion is important." That's one of the reasons I have decided to run for Congress next year. (I was going to run last time, but hadn't finished college so found it impractical at that time.) My campaign manager suggests we announce publicly in January, but I want you to know first. [1999: I did not run; circumstances, mainly financial, did not permit.]
My campaign will not be a one-issue thing, but will deal with many issues. Anyone who thinks he might like to know my stands so he can decide whether he'd like to help should feel free to contact me. It will be a hard campaign, against serious odds. But not impossible. And should I win, I pledge here that the very first bill I introduce — and on the very first day of the new Congress — will deal with the rights of homosexuals; and that at all times I will speak out for our interests. I have to. I'm homosexual.
* * *
I have read the first issue ever received today with great interest. I fully agree that we HAVE to stand up and be counted, regardless where we happen to live.
I enjoyed "The Orange Separatist". I enjoyed the exchange between you and T.M., though I should resent being called a "shithead" by you or anybody else.
I wish to find a co-worker who will help me finish this place OR try another Alpine adventure and move with the majority of homosexuals. I sincerely believe this could be accomplished if handled well. It would take a manager like you with a damned good head on his shoulders. There is one small county in northeast Utah which could be taken over; but better yet, there are two adjoining counties in southwest Colorado (Hinsdale and Mineral) which could be taken over in a period of three to five years, completely. But it would have to be done with sense. In short, keep the bi's out and the screaming faggots out. But there must be a refuge for us people, and this is lovely country with magnificent clean air and water, not a bit of pollution. It is close to the famous Million Dollar Highway south from Ouray and the scenery is magnificent. In the fall the colors are something else. With such real estate, I think it should be comparatively easy to persuade gays to invest.
I am sincere about this and would like to get a very small group to investigate this in September when I had planned a trip West anyhow. I'd like an opinion since you cannot reasonably expect to make any sort of genuine takeover in such a city as New York, plus the fact that you are cutting your life span by twenty years living in such a dirty town and enduring such breakdowns, etc. Have you ever seen the glorious West? This is the real answer as I see this situation, and I should appreciate your response.
JIM LAUBAUGH
Malmo, Nebraska
Since you asked, I'll take this opportunity to present some arguments for homosexuals (men) to concentrate in New York rather than in other places.
1. New York is safe. Despite what may be said about dangerous streets, the hazards of air pollution, etc., we must recognize that for homosexuals, New York is the safest place there is. Gotham's police are the best of all big-city police in their deliberate ignorement of homosexuality events, activities, and solicitations. In large part, we can thank Mayor Lindsay's supervision for this phenomenon. While police in Los Angeles invade private homes, and cops in the Bay Area shoot homosexuals from time to time, N.Y.P.D. is on a short leash — in part because of apathy, in part because "contemporary community standards" here are much more liberal than virtually everywhere else, in part because Mayor Lindsay keeps an eye on the Department, and in part because the organizations here are ready and able to cause a big stink should the cops exceed their authority.
As for safety in the streets, N.Y. is more than three times as large as L.A., more than twice as large as Chi, and about eleven times the size of SanFran. Naturally one assumes that its problems are proportionally greater. But San Francisco has a higher crime rate! N.Y. is fourth in the nation. Fourth! That's bad, I'll grant you, but not nearly as bad as you might think. L.A. or chicago may be a little safer, but who the hell wants to live there?
2. We have a very good head start. N.Y. is the largest concentration of homosexuals in the history of the earth. Perhaps 1 1/4 million homosexual, "bisexuals", and lesbians live here already, natives of the city, folks from the suburbs who have moved, and people from all the states and many foreign countries who have come here tin search of peace, safety, love, and happiness.
3. Entire industries in N.Y. depend upon homosexuals. The garment industry, publishing, radio and TV, and various other segments of the economy know that they are heavily dependent upon homosexual employees and customers. Employment discrimination would be both unworkable and disastrous here. Other industries are influenced to substantial tolerance by the relatively tolerant or apathetic social climate that exists here. And homosexuals moving to a homosexual-majority society here would not have to give up their future to farming or welfare or tourism, because N.Y. is the Top, and there is a lot here for the man who is qualified.
4. New York is an extraordinarily important city. Thus our takeover will have to be noted. Straights cannot ignore our power and the social changes we implement if we take over N.Y., because N.Y. is
a. The communications / media center of the United States;b. the advertising center;
c. headquarters city of the U.N.;
d. capital of the lively arts;
e. financial capital of the West;
f. first port of the U.S.;
g. corporate HQ for many important corporations;
h. The Big City.
5. Even if they were so inclined — which many in N.Y. really are not — straights could not move against a homosexual-dominated N.Y., for the costs of all kinds would be too high. This is perhaps the strongest argument for takeover of N.Y. A homosexual N.Y. would be impervious to attack, whereas an Alpine or any small, rural community intruding into a hetero sea could be drowned thru boycott, blockade, or violence. We have some power here already. In addition to numbers, we have a spirit of defiance and a certain willingness to fight back. And when you are talking about a homosexual N.Y., you are talking about the sons of millions of influential straight people who won't let anybody get away with plans to blockage the city or in any other way hurt their boys. It would not be a question of the murder of a few weirdo hippies (as the Alpioneers were widely regarded) but of harassment of hundreds of thousands of All-American Boys, and would involve the possibility of a very messy civil conflict.
6. The need for housing in this city would be aided by the natural and continuing exodus of families from the city. Further, the nature of the present change of population aids our takeover: for middle-class whites, who vote most, are leaving and being replaced by lower-class blacks and others who vote least. As homosexuals become more and more numerous and more and more self-assertive, the rate of flight from the city of straight people of all types can be expected to increase dramatically, thus making ever more room for us.
7. Homosexuals moving in would almost all be adults, thus able to vote. Further, most would likely be white, middle-class types, carrying with them the voting patterns of their class.
8. New York is a city in crisis, a city in danger of falling into shambles because of heterosexuality: overpopulation, the cult of inequality, racism, etc. Homosexuals can save this city and thus demonstrate the superior value of homosexuality over heterosexuality in the new age of overpopulation and the world crisis of poverty.
9. Because in addition to voting habits, the overwhelmingly white, middle-class homosexuals moving into the city will bring with them not merely middle-class virtues like concern for cleanliness, but also those virtues either distinctive to or more typical of homosexual than hets: open-mindedness, creativity, racial and socioeconomic liberalism, joe de vivre, etc. These qualities will transform this almost-hopeless city into a sparkling, clean, prosperous, dynamic city.
Heterosexuality has bred a culture of inequality. Hets have excluded many citizens from the rewards and values of the middle class. While many of those values are unworthy of preservation, some are important: cleanliness, the willingness to work, duty to family and to self, respect for order, respect for peace and the property and human rights of neighbors, etc. By precluding many people from acceptance into middle-class society, our (hetero-dominated) society has made it inevitable that the good middle-class values be unknown or unheeded in he slums and among the people who create slums.
10. A homosexual city would have great advantages over a hetero city: for instance, (a) very few children will make it possible to cut drastically the expenditure for education for children, thus freeing money for education of adults; (b) virtually zero illegitimate births will end the unwanted-child, dependent-child business, freeing more money; (c) with all the money thus freed, we can then educate everybody better, rebuild or replace crumbling housing, and provide other opportunities of all sorts for those presently alive; and since homosexuals think in terms of their own lifetime, things which hets put off, we will indeed do; (d) if the accidental-birth population growth is eliminated and all children are wanted, we will at once both reduce the burden on society of a parasitic juvenile population and end for good the psychological damage done to children who are unwanted; (e) a homosexual majority will of course permit adoption of children by homosexuals, thus making more homes available to abandoned children; (f) since it is the burden of supporting the innumerable children that poor hets have because they have no other leisure activities than sex, and because only thru making babies can they prove the manhood or womanhood that society throws into doubt, ending this population growth while providing real education and real opportunity in a more liberal (homosexual) social environment will put an end once and for all to the poverty cycle in a homosexual city.
It has been demonstrated by innumerable heterosexual societies that population control is a problem which almost no hetero society has been able to solve without sexual frustration, physical mutilation (sterilization), or infanticide (obvious o hidden — abortion). Because hets are too lazy, stupid, or inconsiderate to take the proper precautions at all times.
Accidental births are virtually inevitable in heterosexuality without physical mutilation. And since but one careless hetero incident on anyone's part in ten years is enough to cause at least a zero population growth and possibly even an absolute population increase, "bisexuality" — that is, occasional heterosexuality in a dominantly homosexual sex life — is not adequate preventative to unwanted children.
Abortion has been increasingly resorted to by hets because they would rather punish thru death, the innocent child they in their laziness and lust conceived without intention. A homosexual society can with absolute righteousness stand in condemnatory judgment of this gross immorality of hetero societies. We can prove that there is a much better way to control population and make a truly beautiful society than thru infanticide; and that therefore infanticide, always reprehensible, is without any justification whatsoever. Thus we can turn the tables on those straights who have asserted that we are immoral, by pointing out the myriad irrefutable instances of immorality almost intrinsic to heterosexuality and certainly descriptive of most hetero societies.
But lessons are not learned that are not seen or heard. And so a homosexual society off in the wilds of the empty West will not influence much of anybody. Homosexual men can take over New York City, and should, for our own good and the good of homosexuality, but also for everybody's good. [Return to index.]
By Don Jackson
L. Craig Schoonmaker
Words are important. They ease or block communication. They both reflect and affect attitudes. Two homosexual supremacists, one from the U.S. West Coast, one from the East Coast, discuss their use of various words in the homosexual realm.
Don Jackson — Charles P. Thorp is more or less correct about the word "homosexual". It does imply that Gay is solely a sexual orientation. "Homosexual" is a fine word, but it should be used to describe the sexual orientation and not be used to refer to the cultural minority.
"Gay" will be defined in the new dictionaries as "a certain type of homosexual, bisexual, transsexual 'camp follower' and their subculture".
That is, Gay refers to the subculture and to persons who consider themselves a part of the cultural group called the Gay community.
Many homosexuals are married to honky-het women and have no contact with any of the social institutions of the Gay community, nor do they ever associate with or even know any Gay people. Such individuals are homosexuals but they are not Gay.
On the other hand, many hets have attached themselves to the Gay community and have in fact been culturally assimilated. For example, "fag hags" (older women who like to 'mother' Gays), "fruit flies" (young asexual women who prefer the company of Gay males), asexual males who attach themselves to the Gay community because they don't fit anywhere else, and het males that attach themselves to Gay bike clubs, social clubs, etc., because they enjoy the feeling of camaraderie and belong that they cannot find in alienated het society. Such persons are still hets — they practice homosexuality only because they must to be accepted in the subculture in which they choose to live.
On the Coast we have the development of the strange phenomena of heterosexual Gays. These individuals vary greatly, but can be broken down into several categories.
1. Heterosexual males who attach themselves to the lesbian subculture. This type spend their time in lesbian bars and at lesbian parties. They don't like sex with men. The only sex they enjoy is with lesbians.
2. Heterosexual males who attach themselves to the Gay male subculture, referred to above.
3. Heterosexual females who attach themselves to the Gay male subculture. This species comes in several varieties. The first two are fag hags and fruit flies, mentioned above. In the last two years, two new types have bred like flies: first is an older upper-middle-class-woman type. It has become fashionable in certain middle-high society circles to get facade by Gays. These women enjoy playing the sex-aggressor role with Gay males. They come around to Gay-Lib functions and Gay bars looking for young Gay men to pick up. They say they prefer sex with Gay men because they are so polite and undemanding. They let the women take the lead in sex. These women go into Gay bars and proposition customers. If the Gay turns her down, the woman looks shocked and says something like "I'll pay you well, honey". Lastly there is the Gay men's groupie. Usually these are hip young women. They are very aggressive sexually. They hang around Gay-Lib functions, wandering about the room groping guys. A number of these women have moved into Gay men's collectives and wander about from bed to bed at night. At least two of these women have got pregnant in this way. These women say they are Gay because they screw only with Gay males. Their activities in Gay men's collectives and organizations usually consist of manipulations to break up affairs. They don't like other women and are jealous of men having sex with each other. In one instance, one of these women blew the mind of a macho 17-year-old Gay cowboy from Montana. This boy had physically repulsed the advances of this woman on several occasions. Finally, he woke up one night to find her on top of him with his cock in her cunt. The next day he ran in panic to the nearest V.D. clinic and was referred to a psychiatrist after he told the doctor he knew something was wrong because he could feel the "pussy germs" crawling around in his cock.
I should like to hear your analysis and comments on these strange phenomena.
Craig Schoonmaker — I have several objections to the word "gay", which West-Coast writers especially tend to capitalize. For one, I think it is quintessentially used not for semantic clarity but to soften the sound of the idea "homosexuality". It is a euphemism for people who cannot feel comfortable saying "homosexual". "Homosexual" is too brutal, too frank, too outright and open. "Gay" is a gentle, playful word which suggests that there is something much "nicer" than just dirty, degenerate queer sex involved. People who use the word "gay" in preference to "homosexual" care very much what straight people think. They have no personal conception of homosexuality as anything but deviant sex, and we all know that such sex is disgusting and sick and immoral. But to avoid the word 'homosexual" is to avoid the truth of the matter: homosexuality is a form of sexual and emotional orientation which struggles for physical expression but dominates the entire consciousness in those who have taken the time and trouble to look into themselves. The sexual manifestation of homosexuality is ugly only if it is inhibited, exploitative, impersonal, and unemotional; when it is used as a form of domination or submission; when it expresses guilts, fears, and feelings of personal worthlessness. Then it is indeed ugly. But if sex is taken in its broadest sense — and its truest — as involving a whole complex of physical and emotional responses and involvements, as an expression of something more consequential and more human than superficial physiological release, then we see that it is beautiful. This is not the sex of trucks or baths or parks or orgy bars or private orgies, where sex is spectacle and the participants are actors taking roles for public consumption. It is the sex of open looks, smiles, embraces, caresses, warm and sensitive stimulation, fulfillment. It is the sex of mutually considerate equals, whether it happens once — even in a public place — or several thousand times. And it is the love of two men for the manhood that finds expression in physicality. I am not "gay" in the presence of someone who appeals to me — happy, relaxed, joyous, sensual, sexual, homosexual, yes . . . but not "gay". And I don't need a euphemism for my homosexuality, because I'm not ashamed of it and I recognize that sex is crucial when taken for what it really is.
Second, if we should need some word to refer to a culture — not subculture, but culture — arising from and servicing homosexuals, then let us find a better word, one that isn't plain, stupid-ass silly the way "gay" is. "Gay" means something other than "homosexual", and it is the crossing of the two senses that makes the term ludicrous. Invent a word if need be. Throw together some sounds that have not been combined before.
But I suggest that we don't need any such new word, because the word "homosexual" is just fine (tho it is perhaps a shade long). Look at its meanings and you will see that it not only describes but also suggests the form of a homosexual society: "homo" means two things — in Greek, "the same", the sense in which straights use it; in Latin, "man"; "sexual" refers both to gender and to the kind of thing I refer to above under my description of "sex". So the word "homosexual" means, if we use its fullest meanings: "the same gender, male, involved in a sexual bond". What better word could you want? It suggests that a homosexual culture is a culture of men only who are tied together by a basic physical-emotional-intellectual orientation that has repercussions in all aspects of their lives.
You will note that as I use it, "homosexual" refers only to men. That is because homosexuals and lesbians are different, as explicated elsewhere in this issue, so one can't use the same word for them. Fortunately, lesbians have their own word, "lesbian", which harks back to a great era in female-female love and culture. As I advocate the terms be used, then, "homosexual" never refers to women; "lesbian" refers to women's bond to women, and there is no generic term (except perhaps for things like "deviants" which, alas, have negative connotations that override their neutral denotation) covering both because the two are not the same.
Now as regards "the gay community" or "subculture", I regret to report that there really is no homosexual community or culture. Most homosexuals are not yet homosexual in anything but their sexual practices, and even then most of them are lousy, selfish, exploitatively inhibited bastards. Almost all people who practice homosexual sex are almost always in the closet, and even most of those who are out of the closet during leisure hours are followed around everywhere by little hets who watch their every action, monitor their every thought and emotion, and dictate to them how they should act — all from within their heads. "Gay consciousness" is a paradox and a dream. It is a paradox because if one arrives at a homosexual consciousness, he realizes that he is not "gay", that homosexuality and lesbianism cannot be covered by one term, etc., etc. It is a dream because until we can get people away from the constant bombardment of propaganda, they will never kill that pig het in their head.
A paragraph now about the antihomosexual parasites you described. A "gay" culture may embrace pervert straights; a homosexual culture never will. Men who are supposedly straight and engage in homosexual social behavior and reluctant — and certainly inadequate — sexual behavior merely for companionship have a severe complex of problems. I do not go along with the assimilationist shit that says that sexuality is intrinsically and overridingly multiple and involves a graduated scale of preferences. Rather I agree that a true homosexual who knows he is such will not tolerate impositions and a true het will not engage in homosexual acts. Because sex is not a mere sensation but a whole response and emotion network. We have allowed too many of our people to be brainwashed by a desperate desire for acceptance, into accepting a gradualism and anti-absolutism which breaks down heterosexuality but just as surely destroys homosexuality — and assaults homosexuals more viciously and devastatingly. thus it is that our bars and sex places are being "integrated" — invaded, destroyed — with no comparable yielding of straights' turf. Thus it is that the frequency of seductions and rapes grows ever greater, and confused people are kept perpetually uncertain of what they want for years and years at a time. People have to make up their minds what they are to be happy.
"Bisexuality" and integrationism are plagues that will ultimately be destroyed but in the meantime wreak grievous havoc upon our people. The sickie parasites who seduce and rape our people should be beaten, expelled and even —if they persist, as in the case of that sick, evil groupie — killed. Straights have for many years recognized that rape is a very serious crime. But "gays" — oh, even were I to accept "gay" as an adjective, I will never accept it as a noun — have been propagandized so much that they do not perceive forcible seduction and out-and-out sexual assault by a woman as rape. They are told that they must partake of any activity which offers sexual release — whether they like it or not — to be a man. But a man is not a sex machine, and if he gives up his sexual integrity and his own will as the guide to his conduct, he becomes but a stupid animal, losing his humanity.
Because there is no homosexual community, because we are not a community of lovies but rather a random bunch of bodies bumping each other around, not usually very kindly and certainly not often with any real concern for our tomorrows, I have another couple of terms which I use for the "gay culture" and its stalwarts: "faggot" and "dyke".
A "faggot" is a man who is homosexual in his body and straight in his head. A "dyke" is a woman who is lesbian in her body but straight in her head. "Faggots" and "dykes" constitute virtually the total population of the "gay world", and the "world" they have created stinks to highest heaven. Only a surging, proud, homosexual mentality can reshape our rotten complex of tawdry places and unsatisfactory "relationships" and make a homosexual life good and beautiful. Only a militant, thorogoing lesbian revival will reform the lesbian "world".
Don Jackson — I wish you would quit using the word "straight" as the opposite of Gay. Straight means right, correct, usual, ordinary, moral, truth, fairness, honesty, accurate, upright, reliable, and candid. Its antonyms are tricky, dishonest, crooked, swindler, abnormal, immoral, devious, dissolute, unnatural and vicious. When straight is used as the antonym of Gay, you imply that Gay is unnatural and abnormal. The continued use of the word "straight" has an undesirable subconscious psychological effect on the readers and militates against pride, self-esteem, etc.
Anyway, it has been banished forever from all West-Coast underground and Gay-Lib publications, and is going out of The Advocate too. I started using your word "het" — it is nonprejudicial — and it has come into general use on the Coast. Tony De Rose (L.A. Free Press) always uses the adjective "honky" as "honky het".
Craig Schoonmaker — While Don may have gotten the word "het" from me thru our correspondence over time, I doubt that I am the first writer to use it. It's an obvious enuf abbreviation. At any rate, I still do use the word "straight" in the sense of "and narrow"; not to suggest that it is virtuous but rather that it suggests tunnel vision. Further, a straight line is not found anywhere in nature except perhaps in stony or metallic crystals. It certainly does not exist in any living creature.
As I use "het", it is not exactly nonprejudicial. But then, whenever I refer to hets, I am somewhat prejudicial. I don't like them and don't approve of them. Indeed, had I a magic button with one push of which I could destroy all hets, I would push it. Yes. That is perhaps a shade extreme, but I see what hets have done to my people and to me, and what they continue to do to us. I cannot forgive it. Since destroying them all is unfortunately not within my power, I do have to refer to them from time to time. ["Destroy" here does not necessarily mean "kill", since it refers to heterosexual orientation, which can be destroyed without killing the people whose orientation changes.]
"Het" is the noun form. "Hetero" is the adjectival form. With "straight" and "heterosexual", the use of these terms makes for variety of language that might otherwise be restricted. Indeed, until a term I find acceptable comes along to replace "gay", I find the linguistic options in discussing homosexuality more restrictive. Even I use "gay" in certain (few) situations, as in phrases like "gay bar" and "gay world". But if I should refer to a "faggot bar" or the "faggot mentality", realize that I use the term in a fairly precise, derogatory sense distinct from both "gay bar" and "homosexual bar" or "homosexual mentality" — tho it may conceivably coincide with my view of the term "gay mentality" or "gay consciousness".
Two more terms deserve brief consideration: "GAY NATIONALISM / HOMOSEXUAL SEPARATISM" and "GAY SUPREMACY" / "HOMOSEXUAL SUPREMACY".
The West-Coast sponsors of the Alpine Project (which HI! endorsed, tho with reservations) started off calling themselves "Gay Nationalists". I as a person of generally similar mind in this approach, used the term "Homosexual Separatists" because I felt that "Nationalism" is a term too strong and comprehensive, with a specialized meaning indicating a struggle for a separate national state that would secede from the U.S. I felt that such a term — much less such a notion — was injurious and unrealistic. What I hope homosexuals and lesbians will do is separate themselves from and secure themselves from assimilation, but remain within the political and economic system of the U.S. — only as autonomous communities, respecting and cooperating with others only as they respect and cooperate with us. The opposite of either Nationalism or Separatism is Assimilationism or Integrationism — and those are both very bad words. While Don tends now to sue Separatism (Albeit "Gay Separatism"), I sometimes use the word "nationalism" to draw an illustrative parallel with the world movement of self-determination.
Both Don and I are homosexual / gay supremacists, believing that heterosexuality not only is not superior or even equal to homosexuality, but is inferior in various ways.
We trust this discussion of terms has proved enlightening and thought-provoking. We welcome comments. [Return to index.]
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