NEWS

from gays as from straight men talking about women.

Let me back up for a minute. Naturally, I don't expect to "love" everybody I have sex with. That schmaltzy notion of sex as the highest expression of melting romantic love is just plain silly. But we deny our own natures if we try to interact with people between rigid limits such as sex alone.

For example, you're in the supermarket. Rationally, you're there to get your groceries and get out. But will you talk to the checker anyway? Of course you will. (At least you will if you're the kind of person I think you are.) You recognize that s/he is a human being like you, and you have a little "unnecessary" social contact. Most people like to relate on more than one level at a time; it's one of the things that makes us human.

The same thing applies, } think, to sexual relationships. Sure, getting your rocks off can happen without talking to him or her afterwardor before, for that matter. But I'll get my rocks off with another human being, thank you, not with somebody I treat like a sexual robot.

Let's look at it from another angle. If being gay means anything at all, it means demanding, and living, the right to relate physically and emotionally to whomever we wish including, of course, persons of the same gender. And having made that demand, we (most of us) also demand the right to choose how we will do that relating. If somebody wants a succession of bodies then I respect that choice for that person. But I refuse to let anybody tell me that I have to choose that same way.

Whatever happened to good old-fashioned tolerance? Let others respect our feelings and needs as we respect theirs. Just because the only people we want physically are people we spend time with out of emotional and intellectual attraction, nobody should call "unliberated" or worse or we shouldn't accept it if they do.

us

Not too long ago I heard a man say that somebody needed to "get past monogamy". Why? Why can't he encourage that man in the lifestyle he's comfortable with, instead of condemning him out of some new counter-prudery?

Lewd Friendships?

A man named L. Rust Hills had an idea for simplifying sex, and with your permission (or perhaps entirely without it), I'm going to pass it on to you.

His idea is to develop a lot of "lewd friendships", where you have a good time sexually with people you already know you enjoy in other ways. You don't have to tour the bars trying to pick up strangers, and you never wake up and realize that you can't remember the name of the person's who's next to you.

The only trouble is, Hills said he couldn't get this idea to work out in practice and for that matter, haven't had great results either. What's the problem? In other words, why do So many pairs of close

HIGH GEAR/JUNE 1977

A COLUMBUS WOMAN'S LYRICS:

DESCENT

Lonely nights; soft lights and yes,

you may sleep here on your way down.

I watch your body hug

my bed and your hair sprawl my pillow. Side by side we lie

yet I wonder where you are and

why you go there; you don't come back happy...

I ache to reach you and for you then my touch falls on sweat-flesh

warn and still.

I turn over helplessly as my

desire cools and my hurt burns in equal parts for you and us...

Having you here isn't enough when

all I see and feel is an outline

while your spirit

hangs in

transient suspension between fantasy and reality.

You begin to stir and mumble and

I wait for you...

long for you... You're coming from a realm I

never travel. Why do you?

To slip early away? To find what you need and don't have

or lose what you have and don't want?

Why?

These answers are so hard to find,

I'd like to spend an evening in your mind.

POEM FOR SUSAN

Come

journey with me and we will travel behind the sun. It is safe there. With no inhabitants we'll have space to ourselves. Let's play in the shadows while the cool quiet calm

WET JOCKEY SHORT

DANCE CONTEST July 16

$10.00 Cash

prize for

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draves us velvet.

Later, when we wish to emerge, hand-in-hand

we will walk toward the sun. This warmth will contrast our previous existence

and we'll smile from the glow. Come

journey with me.

It could take us days to get there but it'll be all right.

BULLETS

PAGE 7

I had heard the words "shot down" before... but never did 'feel them until tonight.

Thursday was never so cruel.

Your words did to my feelings what a 357 Magnum would have done to my flesh. The pain was so intense I bled tears.

This emotional hemophiliac was silently screaming... "how do I stop the bleeding?"

I created a new ocean and the water is precious.

Your verbal volleys are unfounded, woman.

So before you lay your Magnum trip on some other victim, examine your conscience.

There is enough resource there to build a physical empire. Leave Love City alone.

Lady O

June 18

THE WATER

THE

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MAIN

friends resist the idea of having sex together every so often? Some think that sex would change their friendship somehow. I think they really mean sex would spoil the friendship. But it's hard to see how, unless they think sex is somehow bad or disgusting and nobody thinks that any more, do they?

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The next line is that they're not attracted to each other physically. But obviously they are in other ways, and if they wouldn't try to live in compartments maybe they'd find some physical attractions Besides, I'll bet you can name at least one person you've tricked with who was not as goodlooking as one of your friends.

too.

Sure, if you're a little insecure it's easier to "do" some body you won't have to deal with

again. But doesn't making a friend sound like more fun than doing a stranger?

by Lady O

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