OUR BODIES, OUR MINDS by

HARVEY THOMPSON, M.D.

"LOOKS AT BOOKS"

Personal health care has always. been a problem for us gay folks. Finding a symphathetic physician is hard enough, but finding one who knows how to deal with specifically gay problems can be even harder. That's load to a rash of gay hoolth care books, and here is my opinion of three of the best-selling ones. Anal Pleasure and Health, by Jack Morin, Ph.D., Down There Press, Burlingame, California, 1981. 243 pp., $12.50. They say it takes three Californians to screw in a light bulb; one holds the ladder, one puts in the bulb, and one is there to share the experience. This book is written for Just that kind of audience.

I have nothing against the rectum (except maybe on Saturday nights), but then, I'm not deeply into it, either. (except maybe on Saturday nights). Dr. Morin seems to believe that lay people can't lay people without a book. He would have you look at your rectum, tolk to it, smell it, and even draw it. He would have you keep a Journal on all this (called, I suppose, The Anal Annals).

Morin's not going to be too popular with medical doctors with statemonts like, "The doctor probably knows far less about it (the rectum) than you do," and "Nobody fully understands the neurological

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processes which control these muscles,"

And, in regard to fisting, he says deep relaxation can be promoted by fisting and can actually be beneficial. I wish he would ask my patient with the colostomy if he agreed with that statement.

That's only the beginning of The End. He discusses the various "power trips" centered around the rectum, takes up the gay-1 lb banner, and closes with the inevitable chapter on venereal diseases.

The book is published by "Down There Press," an appropriate name for a company that wants to shed light on the dark and hidden rectun. It might better have been published by Crown Zellerbach on a 243-page roll.">> After all, the author emphasizes that the book is not for passive consumption, but for active use.

Morin often displays little tonguein-cheek (which, by the way, he agrees with)

Morin often displays a little tongue-in-cheek (which, by the way, he agrees with). I especially enjoyed his probably unconscious pun when he described the rectum as

... not a straight tube". Boy, did he say it all there!

Men's Rodles, Men's Selves, by San Julty. New York, 1979. Paperback, $9.95. This giant paperback is modeled after the highly successful Boston Women's Health Collective book, Our Bodies/Our Selves. It was a two-year project of Julty and other contributors, and it contains 13 chapters with extensive resource and reading lists.

There is much material in the "straight" book that is germane to gay men, even a large section on "Men Loving Men." The chapter is well done and with a sensitivity that must have come from the gay contributors, Terry and Jack, who are credited in the preface. There are many emotional coming-out stories, and one incredible horror story about an undesirable discharge from the Marine Corps. Excerpts of taped interviews with heterosexual men about their homosexual encounters are touching in their honesty.

NORTHERN OHIO COALITION 4th ANNUAL

FESTIVAL 82

SUNDAY

SEPT. 12th

11a.m.

till

Dark

INCLUDES BEER

and

SODA POP

TICKETS

$10.00 advance

$12.00 at gate

We Are Family

Food Concessions will be open

LIVE-JERRY & LOLA

Picnic Baskets Welcome

Grills Available

Wildwood Lake

Columbia Station on Rt. 252 between Rt. 82 & Sprague Rd. Lorain County, Ohio

ADVANCE TICKETS: P.0. BOX 663, LAKEWOOD,0. 44107