Today in matters of sex we may be said to be reaching a new kind of adjustment socially, better fitted to the homosexual and to our age generally. With the tearing of the veil, with which society has precariously maintained its balance between individual differences and rigid social roles, between expected sexual experience and the real experience, the sorts of control such as shyness and fear which regulated sexual behavior are melting away. People can face more frankly and more outspokenly the type of sex adjustment that may confront them.

A generation of young men who restricted their sex life, not from conviction but because they believed others did, have been left defenseless by the Kinsey report. Likewise, a generation of elders have been shocked to learn that Kinsey treated man as a somewhat dull animal, responding to no pattern except socio-economic, who when in search of temporary relief from tension, is more or less indifferent to what sexual object he chooses.

For homosexuals this means that as individuals or in pairs we must be well informed about the whole range of possibilities if we are to make intelligent choices. We cannot continue to rely upon parents, the church, psychologists, or the police to determine what we want or should expect from life. Homosexuality in its widest sense involves the whole of our personalities, and we should let it play a part in our life's choices; homosexuality in its narrowest sense, as a way of making love, is equally important. Perhaps to achieve life-long happy marriages is one of the things we want. Faced with the many opportunities for experimenting as we are, we should be working out a code of ethics which insists upon our rights to express our sexual development and generally share in the common enjoyment of life. We have the right to expect protection of our property and protection for the individual and homosexual family unit where it exists. We should probably expect military service, freedom of dress, and freedom from any sort of controls that link us with criminals and the maladjusted. Many homosexuals go into the life of a criminal, alcoholic, or tramp simply because they never have had a chance to learn how to have a happy, full life as a homosexual lover, friend, or life-long partner. As a lover they may have asked but never given pleasure, as a friend they may have felt they involved too much of the physical which society teaches is reserved for the opposite sex alone, as a life-long partner they may not have known ways of varying the monotony that comes with a monogamous marriage -or they may have wished to vary it beyond the limits of their partner's tolerance or understanding.

The pattern is old. Social order has been purchased by all sorts of human sacrifices. But today as society permits more freedoms, the homosexual should be prepared to say what he wants. He should free himself from personal disorganization before all else, and then use his intelligence and insist upon recognition of his overt behavior as one of the expected forms of deviation from heterosexual monogamy. He should also insists upon personal happiness, sharing things of the world, a defined position, and respectability.

Don Slater, Editor

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