family.

"The enormous popularity of TV Westerns cannot be explained away with a shrug and a smug 'they've always been popular.' They've been popular, yes. But never with the same appeal for people of both sexes, all ages and every social

status...

"In a Western, Americans are given the vicarious security of watching real manly men and real feminine women in the days when there was a clearcut distinction between the two. Men and women today, muddled together in an increasingly neuter society, find it comforting to identify with the past

"Men today are afraid they will not be men enough, and women are afraid they might be considered only women . . . Children are simply confused."

So the "child of confusion" strikes back blindly at society, swinging between physical violence and overt homosexuality, with a resulting large increase in the latter. Yet the majority remain "good kids," following their weakling fathers' footsteps, "falteringly into a new life of subservience to little women and big business."

VILLAGE VOICE, July 22nd, carried a curious item by Adam Margoshes about poor Nancy, who "is always attracted to homosexuals." Margoshes rightly says this is a very common problem, and not just due to ignorance on the part of girls concerned, but to special qualities which he says make homosexuals doubly attractive. "The truth we eventually have to learn to live with is that they're also more than men. They have something we haven't got: gaiety, sensitivity, grace, and above all, lightness . .

"Why don't the rest of us ever have it? I think it's because we're burdened down with the Atlas-yoke of sexual guilt. That's why our

one

shoulders are stooped, our brows knit, our muscles tense, and the climate of our souls overcast. This is our legacy as civilized Western men -the White Man's Burden.

The great civilizations of the East don't bear this burden-that's what makes Zen so attractive. Nor do the primitive peoples of the world. It's ours-all ours. Even many American Negroes have largely escaped it into a desperate irresponsibility. And among intellectual Negroes there is a spectacular flight into homosexuality: though I think this is coming to an end with the emergence of 'authentic' intellectuals like Wright and Ellison . .

Describing how Dave, a witty, charming, light-hearted young man was being chased by Nancy, who was being chased by the author, who was being chased by Dave, Margoshes continues his weird theory. Dave, not yet understanding himself, once kissed Nancy laughingly. "At the time I was shocked. I didn't know then that there's room for laughter in love. But that's the only part of love he ever reached. The deepest, most serious, infinitely quiet, infinitely sweet and joyous heart of love, eluded him. He flew over it too lightly-too lightly. And by now he's flown away from the laughter, too-since the time he finally learned who and what he

was.

"Perhaps they can teach us to fly, but we can never, never show them how to dive. For that you need the ballast of the White Man's Burden -and they throw it overboard at the age of three. . . .

If Mr. Margoshes is saying that homosexuals (and all non-whites) know only the lighter, gayer aspects of love, and none of the deeper, more joyous aspects, he is talking through his hat. He places too much emphasis on the flippancy of Dave's fumbling flirtation with Nancy if he

20

ย