NOVEMBER 1976

HOWARD BROWN, M.D.

Familiar Faces

A BOOK ABOUT

GAYS FOR STRAIGHTS

by Mitchell Menigu

(Howard Brown, M.D. Familiar Faces, Hidden Lives: The Story of Homosexual Men in America Today. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1976. $8.95)

The late Dr. Howard Brown has written a book that both the gay and straight worlds have long needed. He tells what it has been like to be a gay man coming to full maturity and finding a personal and professional life in the years since 1940. He speaks well for men and, suspect, for many others too. I intend to ask members of my family and some of my straight friends to read this book.

Brown gained national prominence in 1973, when he made a public declaration of his homosexuality. He was already widely known as New York's first health service administrator, appointed by Mayor John V. Lindsay. He begins his story with the deception he practiced at his swearing-in ceremony of pretending to be only a friend to the doctor who had been his lover of many years.

In tracing his life to that high professional moment, Brown focuses on the deceptions that shaped his life, notably the selfdeception of his youth which led him, deceived by stereotypes of homosexual men that did not fit what he knew about himself, to reject what he suspected, that he was gay. Further, he traces the need he felt to keep his homosexuality secret from most of the world except for the small group of gay men that he had gathered about him as friends. Most importantly, he discusses the damage that ignorance and deception caused him to suffer.

Brown uses his own story as the primary example of the hidden lives led by men whom the world at large would never think of as homosexuals. He demonstrates the validity of presenting his experience as typical by telling also the stories of a variety of men he knew during his years in the closet and of others who

flocked to him for advice and confirmation of their own human worth after he had declared himself publicly.

Of particular interest to readers of High Gear is the fact that Brown lived in Ravenna, Ohio, for part of his childhood, attended Hiram College as an undergraduate and had his medical education at Western Reserve University. Details of his confused youthful years will seem familiar to many readers from this area.

The book is fascinating as autobiography, but it also analyzes the situation of the gay man under such chapter titles as "Parents," "Homosexuals in Small Towns," "Married Homosexuals," "Long-Term Relationships" and "Work." For example, after describing the circumstances of several married homosexuals, Brown discusses what leads gay men into situations that would seem so contrary to their real feelings; "It is the rare and fortunate homosexual who, discovering his gay impulses, is not struck with fear and horror of them; one's own body, it seems, condemns one to membership in some sordid underworld where all human values and decent satisfactions mean nothing."

Central to Brown's purpose in writing this book is countering such negative images of what it means to be a homosexual man. He achieved this end by telling of the feeling of freedom he gained when he announced his being gay, the reactions he got from straight and gay people afterwards and the gratifications he felt when he realized that he was serving as a positive role model for younger homosexuals. His experience may influence others in similar professional positions to declare themselves.

Undoubtedly the most important chapters in the whole book are the three near the end, "Religion," "Psychiatry" and "The Law," in which he analyzes with convincing reasonableness and affecting indignation the influences of those three institutions in fostering damaging

HIGH GEAR

negative images of homosexuality. His discussion of the failure of many psychiatrists to use sound scientific methods in their research gains credibility from Brown's experiences both as medical man and patient. In discussing the various means by which law permits and supports abuse of gays, Brown is realistic in pointing out that "A homosexual still runs a greater risk of being arrested in any large city in Illinois, which has repealed its sodomy laws, than in New York City, which has not."

I can find no fault with Dr. Brown's book. The only criticism I can imagine would be based on the fact that the experiences Brown describes are those of someone who grew to adulthood a generation ago, that the younger gay he came to know in his last years represents another kind of experience. While it is true that the men who created the gay liberation movement which Brown joined perceived themselves differently from the way Brown had viewed himself, appeals that he received from many young gays after his declaration suggest that the difficulties Brown experienced are still being felt.

In the epilogue, in which ne looks into the future, Brown is cautiously optimistic. He cites as evidence of acceptance of openness about homosexuality the recognition at Kent State of the Kent Gay Liberation Front as an of ial student activity and Oberlin's having among the staff of its students counseling center an open homosexual.

Howard Brown died in February, 1975, at the age of fifty-one. The last year and a half of his life saw his emergence as a hero of the gay liberation movement. Familiar Faces, Hidden Lives is fitting and valuable bequest to his gay brothers and to the rest of society who will profit from Brown's perceptions.

EGYPTIAN GAY MARRIAGE

Traditional and public gay matrimony is rare in the world but not unheard of.

Accepted homosexual marriages can be found in western Egypt. In the Siwah Oasis, for example, all normal men and boys participate in homosexual acts and establish gay relationships. People in this area talk about homosexuality freely and openly, and their society emphatically condones same-sexed interaction.

Although Western influence has recently threatened the institution, legal marriage between men is possible and it is heralded by an extravagant marriage ceremony. The marriage payment for a man can be as much as fifteen times the payment for a woman! Unfortunately, like many contemporary societies, Siwah society is sexist and female-to-female relationships are less glorified.

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