the only classes I ever cut throughout my schooling were Gym.

In my early twenties I began to realize that my unhappiness was partly of my own making. Apparently I did not really understand myself. I had no moral, religious, or philosophical concepts, except those geared to a heterosexual society, to guide me. This only increased my loneliness. Then I began, very slowly at first and not without pain, to accept myself and my homosexuality. But how was I to evaluate this fact? Was I really indecent, lewd, immoral? Such an assessment was hard to accept. I knew it must be untrue. I could not believe that impulses and desires which were so sincerely motivated, so right and so natural for me, could be wrong or improper. This realization only left me with the feeling that I was a social outcast unjustly cramped and forced into an unnatural mold for me by a hostile society. And I was resentful of it.

It was during this period that I was sometimes approached in public places, as every man occasionally is, and these incidents were great trials for me. One part of me urged acceptance of these offers, while another part repelled such advances. The latter part always won out. I began to wonder "what sort of paradox am I?"

In school I met a young man for whom I felt no particular like or dislike. We went to his room one night to do homework, or at least I naively believed this was our purpose. After we were there a while he made an open proposal and told me he loved me. I knew this wasn't true. But I forced myself to accept his offer to spend the night a bleak, disappointing night. I was numb, unfeeling and unresponsive. I went away in the very depths of frustration, wondering if I were capable of any sort of sexual life. This had been my first sexual experience. The young man tried to get in touch with me again later; he

even came to my house, much to my embarrassment. When I refused to have anything more to do with him. (I realize now that I was unfeeling) he spitefully told everyone the details of the evening we had spent together. I lied and denied every particle of his story. Fortunately most people believed me and I was spared what could have been a bad experi-

ence.

The experience made me resolve not to become involved with anyone after that. I imagined a homosexual life as one where discretion was not possible a tawdry, abandoned life for which one must sacrifice every hope of social acceptance and understanding. I had no intention of living such a life.

This was my attitude when I entered the army for a two-year stretch. I shall always value those years as the most enlightening and refreshing of my life. Through military training I came to accept myself as a man not only physically but emotionally and mentally as well. For the first time I understood that it is possible to be masculine and homosexual at the same time. I no longer felt myself to be of some queer middle-breed or mistake of nature, incapable of deserving or of finding a place in the world.

It was a step forward in my adjustment and in my search for a creative life. But still I suffered from unbearable anxiety. I sought the advice of a psychiatrist. I took his "treatment" for about a year and a half. The experience was strengthening, but in the final analysis he only helped me accept, a little more fully perhaps, what I already knew. I was homosexual. He suggested that I might try a heterosexual experience. I never did find the strength to do it.

I still suffered from anxiety. I found myself at home talking to family and friends pretending to be one of them, while inside I knew differ-

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