As for me

Few "As For Me" items have evoked as much response as the letter to "Dear Joe. printed in the February, 1957 issue. Following are two of

the replies:

To Joe's Advising Friend

"But love held me back," you wrote. Love has held us all back at one time or another, whatever our opinions of homosexuality. The more we love the more reluctant we are to offend the beloved. I wonder how well you knew the "Joes" you passed in restaurants, bars, etc., or was this a manner of speaking? If you got no closer than that, you didn't get very close, did you? In effect, you advised "Joe" to try to change his sexual inclinations. You gave the usual reasons except that you left out God and morality. I grant that there is much truth and force in your argument: Yes, it is a heterosexual world, and homosexuals will meet with ostracism in some form and some degree. This ostracism gives them the opportunity to become true individuals; but few would deny that if something is gained, something is also lost. Those on the borderline would do better to step across on the heterosexual side, if they could. If this can be accomplished by the power of will then good.

But you, "adviser," who also have the "disease" and who, very likely, HAVE seen a doctor, brought to your argument a concept familiar but of doubtful validity. No, I don't mean the one about what is natural and what is freakish, although that one is doubtful too. I mean the one about homosexuality being a stop this side of maturity. If you had written, "this side of conformity," you would have made a true statement. We would generally agree what "conformity" means and would agree that in certain essentials the homosexual does not conform. But you cannot equate "maturity" with "conformity." If the word, "maturity," has any meaning, it has such within the terms of an individual life. That peach, or you, or I, reach or do not reach maturity. It is not the orchard or the community that reaches maturity. And who knows what is maturity for another? Sure, our bodies reach maturity; but what about our minds, spirits, and souls? When and how do they reach maturity?

It is my opinion that no one knows this, about himself or about others. All we can say is, "I think Joe is more mature than he used to be," or "I think I am more mature than I used to be." Suppose that homosexuality is a fixation that occurs in adolescence, it might be sexual maturity for some. And I hardly need to add that sexuality, except the most gross, is not merely a matter of the physical.

No, "adviser," do not pity your lost brothers; for, if they know their own souls, they are not wholly lost, even though they stumble into blind alleys. And I think, "adviser," that you know your soul but you have denied it.

Ric

P. S. If, advising friend, YOU are the doctor "Joe" should see, good luck with your patients. But if you are, as you allege, one faltering between the worlds, have courage whichever road you take, it will not be as bad as you think.

Dear Anonymous:

Yes, I bought ONE.

I bought it for the same reason I buy the trade journals of my occupation. It stimulates my thoughts; it prevents my thinking from crystallizing in the same old grooves; it balances the preponderantly heterosexual attitudes of my

one