a right to expect a balanced picture of lesbians. Nowhere do I find a picture of relatively well-adjusted lesbians, who live together quietly and creatively, don't date men, go to their jobs, pay their taxes and otherwise live like any other normal pair of happily married people. THESE PEOPLE DO EXIST. . . and... if Aldrich had been a lesbian for 15 years like she says, she would have found them. . . unless she had lived all these 15 years in the society of the bar habitues. The book would lead us to think otherwise, that Miss Aldrich's morals and mind were much too fine for this. What about her own loves and experiences .? One would think that the "subjective insider" would be more "subjective" about his own experiences and less "objective reporter" of obvious types to be found in bars and mixed parties where anyone is free to observe and draw his own conclusions. Miss Aldrich gives us nothing of her childhood and parental relationships except to paint a horrifying picture of the all-female boarding school which she supposedly attended. We can but assume that it was the boarding school which did her in . . . in her estimation. She gives us nothing of any adult loves which she may have had. She apparently does not feel that any homosexual is capable of a mature love for one of his own sex .. but is an immature being, trapped in the mirror of his past and fleeing from one infantile love object to the next. This may be true of many of us. It is also true of many heterosexuals.

Miss Aldrich's position on homosexuality is no different from that of most of the "enlightened heterosexuals" I have ever known . . . and not as good as some of them. "Homosexuality is a sickness . . ." she tells us in the chapter, "A Word to Parents," (which was excellent except for this). That's good to hear from one who should know better . . . from one who speaks, presumably, for all of us. If she considers herself to be sick, she should not speak for all of us, but for herself alone. The statement is not qualified anywhere to say that homosexuality may be a symptom of mental illness, but is not necessarily. If she feels that homosexuality is a sickness, why then hasn't she gotten "cured" of it long ago? "A lesbian can be cured. . ." She tells us in the chapter on this matter, ". . . many of them have been." What's holding her back then? Dark mysteries. She doesn't explain, so we can figure out our own answers.

. . .

I think Ann Aldrich is sincere in thinking that she is helping us, but I don't think that she knows what she is talking about. You cannot write about something you have not experienced. She doesn't try . . . instead she gives the "professional outsiders" opinions which she said that she was going to supplement. Fortunately for us some of the "outsiders" opinions aren't too bad: for example there are Dr. Helen Deutsch and Dr. Clara Thompson's opinions on how to help "incurable lesbians," and that is to get them to accept themselves!

Read the book. It is fuel for many fireside discussions, and, if nothing else, one of the best collections of "professional" opinion you'll ever find. Sten Russell

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