and again been given a sense of guilt just because they weren't dogmatic, persecutory. Gentle and friendly, they have actually wished out of courtesy and the natural humility of the undogmatic to see if they could oblige by conforming and so become captives and slaves. This danger does confront the homophile unless he has a clear understanding of his nature and his place, of his gifts and his contribution.
For the homophile is so impressed (as was the pre-Westernised Japanese or Polynesian) by the offer to be treated as other than a semi-beast or a fantastic zany that he longs to show that really he is quite normal save for a small private quirk similar to some men's liking for an occasional geisha affair or a woman's taste for lacquering her toe nails. So he sallies out in hyper-male tweeds, Ivy-cut suits, a crew-cut (that shorn head that was always the convict's mark of disgrace) and a phallic pipe between his teeth. As "Tea and Sympathy" showed he teaches himself the lurching gorrilla amble of the muscle-bound. This is absurd and as harmful as the mistaken violence with which parents used to compel their left-handed child to use his right. But worse, because more cowardly-cruel, is the way in which most homophiles seem bent on currying favor with the cultists of hypermaleness by continually throwing contempt on any who do not wear the present dismal male livery or carry themselves with the tough-guy slouch and so look, sound and smell indistinguishable from the mass.
ONE's sib the Mattachine Review, in its October number does raise this issue. But the attempted distinction between "effeminate" (which the article says is to be tolerated) and the "affected" (which is marked as "offensive") is, as a moment's reflection shows, quite indefensible. The more homophilia is studied with adequate
anthropological and psychophysical information the clearer it becomes that the inborn homophile's inherent desire is to be a median type. Insofar as he is driven to play the woman, this is simply due to the fact that, in the present male muddle-headedness, freedom of decor and style have been retained by the female and she has made the male into a dismal foil by calling him effeminate if he dare relieve the dreary monotony of his servileness. This is an unnatural transversion of the two sexes' roles, as we see in nature, where the male exhibits. and the female is inconspicuous.
Today men who want to stress their male independence are at last counterattacking. In that enigmatically clever magazine Esquire that cultivates the males' revolt, not only is there a steady and skillful advocacy of more malerevealing dress but in last August's number appeared a brilliant article. by two doctors titled the "Smell of Love." It showed, what every naturalist and psychophysiologist has long known. that smell is the surest symptom of vitality. The rhinecephalon nerve the nose nerve that picks up a scent and transmits it straight to the emotion centre of the brain-tells us more about a person's health, tone and mood than can any other sense. The doctors advice: don't try not to smell: that's devitalised nonsense: smell well and smell strongly. We've long known about "the smell of fear" that makes dogs bite people who fear the dog will bite. That smell reaction is because the fear has made the suprarenals alter the normal sweat smell. Now we know this smell has a positive side. The rise of the use of incense in religion, the Egyptian Book of the Dead tells us, was to assure the worshippers in the dark that the God had materialised and was friendly because his sweat smelt so sweet. Animals, and man because physically he is an animal, can always be attracted
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