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GAY AMERICAN HISTORY

Lesbians & Gay Men in the U. S. A.

A Documentary by Jonathan Katz

The history of homosexual women and men in the United States is the subject of this unprecedented volume, bringing together a large group of chronicles of American lesbian and gay male life. Fascinating to read, and intended for a general audience of all sexual persuasions, these selections reflect a new historical view of this once silent, invisible minority.

Including reports of varieties of male and female homosexuality among Native Americans, of colonial executions of homosexuals, of lesbianism in prison in the early Twentieth century, of interviews with victims of the anti-homosexual witch-hunts of the 1950s, and the mistreatment of lesbians and gay men by psychiatrists and psychologists through castration, lobotomy, and hormone treatment, this work documents four hundred years of homosexual oppression.

Love letters, diaries, autobiographies, and fiction are among the sources of materials on intimate relations between persons of the same sex, and a large group of notes and bibliographies make this the definitive source on American homosexual history.

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There's No Way

I Can Help

Him!

As I watched Ben go down the hall and turn toward the science labs, I was struck again with what a sweet kid he is. I was still warm from the intense way his blue eyes had held mine a moment ago. We had been talking about his sudden change of spirit toward school the last few days.

I noticed that he hadn't been the same lately. Gone was his easy chuckle as he walked through the halls, more alone

than I'd ever noticed before. He was not part of the usual flow of youthful energy.

He seemed uneasy as I asked him into my office. As he sat across from me, it looked as if the black plastic visitor's chair had captured him.

"I don't know" he said, avoiding a direct glance, "I guess the work has been piling up and it's finally getting to me. This is my junior year and grades are important for college, you know."

I tried to sound comforting: "Yes, I know all that. I may be totally off the track, but somehow I thought there was something else, something bothering you. Maybe I could be of some

help."

His tenseness eased, and he slipped lower in his chair as students always do. "It's funny you should say that. I don't

know, sometimes you can talk to

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people, to your friends, and sometimes you can't." He suddenly looked directly at me. "Everyone is an individual, right? Well, sometimes I just don't feel like talking to anyone." His eyes sank again. My suspicions were being confirmed.

"Whatever's disturbing you, I just hope you don't feel that no one around here cares about you or can be sensitive enough to listen to what you've got to say."

"Oh no, nothing like that. I have friends I can talk to, and I would if I wanted to. But I feel apart from them lately, like really different. They wouldn't understand me and I really don't want to have to explain." His eyes met mine and I could feel his virginity and a heartful of aching feelings in their crystal depths.

I had suspected that Ben was gay for a long time. I had

watched him over a period of years, his early puberty, his directness and concentration alienating him from the other rough and tumble adolescents, his one unnerving conversation with me four years earlier when he had asked me quite openly if I thought masturbation was O.K and if I was proud of the size of my penis!

"Sure, we're all different to some extent, but that shouldn't get you down." I tried to sound encouraging.

"Yeah, well this is just something I'm going to have to deal with myself, no offense sir." Again a curtain closed over his face.

"O.K. I can see that I'm not needed here now. But if you ever do get to feeling that you want to talk, I'm always ready to listen. As his glance fastened on me once more, I said, "Please don't hesitate to call on me

NOVEMBER 1976

Continued From Page 22

"Schattentanz" was a modern ballet with the dancers in bare feet and glittery, distracting costumes by Reed Thomason. The two were incongruous on the one hand, simplicity; on the other, lavish theatricality. It was a "sci-fi" journey into the creative mind, with eerie music by Penderecki.

"Take A Look," with music by Ibert, was a cutesy ballet with the trite message that we are all clowns after all. The pantomime was forced; the movement, boring. This nonsense belongs under a circus tent, not in the repertory of a serious company.

The costumes by Margaret! Howley in "Concerto" and "Take A Look" were undistinsuished, and the lighting design by Dale Seeds in the latter work and "Schattentanz" was serviceable, though far from spectacular.

David Connelly holds the B.A. in English and the liberal arts, summa cum laude, honors in English, from Mt. Union College, Alliance, O., where he was a finalist for Outstanding Senior Man. His senior thesis focused on the anti-woman strains in the works of D.H. Lawrence. Connelly also holds the M.A. in college student personnel from Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, Ohio, where he concentrated on bringing educational and cultural programming to out-of-theclassroom learning environments. During the 1975-76 academic year, he was a member of the student development staff at Southwestern University, Georgetown, Texas. Presently, Connelly is the movie-fine arts critic for the Dover-New Philadelphia Times-Reporter, a small daily that serves six Ohio counties. He has attended numerous dance workshops including one conducted by Marcia B. Segal, one of the most prominent dance critics in the U.S. This summer he plans to attend the Dance Critics' Conference in N.Y.

O.K.?"

"Yes, thanks. I will." He'd gotten up quickly and made a lunge for the door. "Thanks again, Mr. Davidson." He then glanced back at me, quickly left and headed down the hall.

If only he knew that I understood, that I had gone through it all myself so many years ago. If I could only tell him and the other young gays at school that I was there, ready to help them, ready to take away some of the loneliness and anguish.

But how can do it? How can I come forward for them without cutting my own professional throat? I hope Ben makes it, sweet kid that he is. I hope somehow he makes it. But there's no way I can help him and it kills me!

Rowe Davidson,