TOWARD UNDERSTANDING

The purpose of this column is to create a better understanding of homosexual problems through the psychiatric viewpoint.

BLANCHE M. BAKER M.D.. PH.D.

Dear Friends:

I am very much interested in your movement. I realize that you must be swamped with mail and so I am enclosing $1.00 to cover any incidentals and hoping that you will send me a personal answer to my questions. I would like to receive complete information with no double talk for as you will see I am being quite honest with you.

I am 35, single, and have little attraction to the opposite sex. I admire handsome young men, but I have never engaged in any kind of sexual activity with male or female. I have an obsession for male physique photos, and for pictures that are designed to stimulate the sex urge; I have no high minded ideals that I am appreciating art. Am I homosexual?

I love to be nude, and any nudity always excites me. If this is wrong

or if I need psychiatric treatment I would appreciate your opinion.

Dear N. F.:

Sincerely, N. F.

When you wrote to the editors of ONE some weeks ago, perhaps you were not aware that letters with questions such as you ask are referred to the "Towards Understanding" column to be answered. Thus, through this column other readers with similar questions can share in the answers. We also believe that publishing the parts of the letters to which answers refer makes for a clearer understanding on the part of all readers. This column is conducted as a serious service to persons interested in homophile problems rather than as an Exchange for spicy tid-bits. At the present time ONE is not equipped to give individual and confidential serv-

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