BOOKS

Notices and reviews of books, articles, plays and poetry dealing with homosexuality and the sex variant. Readers are invited to send in reviews or printed matter for review.

A New Contender

There has just reached us the first number of a new periodical from England. Man and Society, Vol. I, No. 1, Spring, 1961, published twice yearly at 32 Shaftesbury Avenue, London, W. I., subscription abroad: One Dollar. The publication is sponsored by the Albany Trust, an ganization designed to "promote psychological welfare in man." The Trustees hold that society's senseless coercion of its members is a major cause of maladjustment. Society is not sacred; it was made by man and consists of man. Thus it should be subject to change when it ceases to serve man. Like the United States, England aims at democracy and rejects autocratic and theocratic forms of government. The maximum of toleration and individual liberty are regarded as the highest ends. Protection for minorities is as important as expression for majorities. It is with these ideals in mind that the magazine has been founded and it will deal with a variety of problems related to "man and society," but each number will contain at least two articles on homosexuality since other journals of social import scarcely do the subject justice.

The first number, however, is given over wholly to the subject of homosexuality because of the failure of Parliament to grant homosexual law reform in spite of the fact that the Wolfenden Report clarified the whole

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subject and left little to be desired in either background information or suggested reform. The Homosexual Law Reform Society has collaborated in the issue of this number. Practically the entire number beyond the editorials is taken up with an "abbreviated version of the Debate in the House of Commons on June 29, 1960." In addition, however, several articles present the Psychiatric Viewpoint, Law and Morality, Research, etc., and the number concludes with a book review: Life, Death, and the Law, by Norman St. John-Stevas, and a strong advertising type plea for legal reform.

At first sight one might say that there is little that is new in the discussion and the Wolfenden Report has been summarized and discussed at such great length that there is very little left to say. Such a comment, however, overlooks the fact that no sound and progressive theory is outmoded until it is generally accepted and acted upon. The audience for this discussion is not the sophisticates and well-informed, but rather the general public which is probably not as familiar with the Wolfenden Report as one might expect. While the argument has no rational appeal to us, many members of Parliament were moved apparently by the statement that people in general were not ready for the reform and needed further education in the subject. Thus it is inevitable that basic and rational con-

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