self-acceptance and the resolution of conflicts within.

There are no gay coffee bars or clubs or meeting places where one could shed the veneer, exchange views and get to know people of one's own kind who are not interested in just the mere sex of it. The article "The Single Homosexual" in one of your issues struck a very disheartening note. Is there no such thing as a reasonably stable attachment which, to a large extent, precludes promiscuity on the part of either party?

Is the union or fusion of sex and love so inherently non-homosexual? Is there no hope for those of us to whom deep bonds of friendship and love are as important as sex? Is this need to belong to your loved one, this need and hunger to have filled the emotional vacuum within so peculiar, so rare and so completely contrary to the average homosexual constitution and way of life?

BOOKS

THE PLAGUE OF LUST

by Julius Rosenbaum, Freder. ick Publications, bibiography and index, 1955, 325 pp.

Dr. Rosenbaum, a German physician, traces in this work the history and alleged origins of the venereal diseases. The present edition, subtitled A Handbook of Classical Erotology, is a somewhat clumsy translation from the original German edition, first published in 1893. Apparently reprinted from earlier plates (perhaps of the 1902 edition) its pages are crowded and typographically confusing, with an excess of footnotes and varied type-faces.

However, none of this nullifies the usefulness of the work for the student of Greek and Roman homosexuality. In the manner characteristic of German scholarship of the period the author piles citation upon citation, albiet carelessly documented at times, under such headings as Paederastria, Scythian Effeminacy, Fellation, Sodomy, etc.

He protests loudly and often at the distastefulness of his "vile task," yet manages to compile the most lurid passages from such sources as Herodotus, Senica, Lucian, Aristophanes, Martial, Juvenal and scores of others. The motives of our learned medic might be questioned, but the value of his work in bringing together so many

one

Mr. E.

BOMBAY, INDIA

relatively obscure documents is undeniable. Also, his extended discussions of the translation problems occasioned by certain passages throw much light on disputed points.

The following, from Philo of Alexandria, will illustrate but a single aspect of the citations given: "At any rate, these men-women may be seen constantly strutting in the Agora at the hour of high market, walking in procession at the sacred festivals, sharing, unholy as they are, in holy offices, participating in mysteries and sacrifices, even engaging in the rites of Demeter . . . and now clad in purple robes, as if they had done some great benefit to their country, and surrounded by a body guard, they enter in state, all eyes fixed on them."

Students are fortunate that this curious work, long available, if at all, only in a costly two-volume edition has now been made generally available in this reprint.

THE FLAMING HEART

W. L.

by Deborah Deutsch, Bruce Humphries, $3.75, 271 pp.

This is a story of two people who had the course of their lives changed at an early age, due to an unfortunate incident in their childhood.

Linda, at the tender age of fifteen was married off to a neighboring

30