Letters

Under no circumstances do the Editors forward letters from readers to other persons nor do they answer correspondence making such requests.

THE BOOK THAT FLAILED Dear Sirs:

If I were to take the chapter on ONE in The Homosexual Revolution seriously I do not know whether I would celebrate your move to new offices by cancelling or by doubling my contribution.

Mr. Masters falls, even leaps, into the pitfall that traps so many. After dividing humans into homosexuals and heterosexuals, like a biologist classifying creatures as birds. or beasts, he has only the meaningless catchall of "bisexual" for those who do not fit his other groups.

The only difference between hetero and homo sexual is a matter of degree, not kind, since people range from the absolute masculine to the absolute feminine, with either extreme equally rare. By physical standards, the true hermaphrodite stands at the halfway point.

Once in the pit, Masters hasn't the slightest chance of getting out, because he completely fails to recognize and differentiate between the factors of physical characteristics, temperament and sexual activity.

Dear ONE:

Mr. G.

New York, N. Y.

Could it be that our would-be author is but one more in the long and dreary list of those who are "Jacks of all trades but Masters of none"?

Mr. K.

Green River, Wyo.

TO ALISON, WITH LOVE Dear Friends:

Alison Hunter deserves many bravos and a big kiss for her brief but effective editorial (July, 1962). How about an article by Alison extending the thoughts in this editorial? It

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would certainly be worthwhile reading for both the "sub-sexes" among your readership. Mr. R. Burlington, Vt.

Gentlemen:

In the words of Radclyffe Hall, as quoted by Alison Hunter, I am an "Unlit Lamp." Police, blackmailers and rough trade have prevented me from making friends locally and I still live with my parents while going to college.

I greatly enjoyed the issue (July, 1962).

I never knew of ONE's existence. The fiction and poetry were fabulous. The editorial and all the other articles were excellent. In ONE I found a more warm, personal approach than in some of the other homophile publications.

I would like to ask for your help for I am truly leading a life of "quiet desperation," as Alison said in Thoreau's words. At any moment it could all be smashed by my loneliness. Mr. H.

BELOW PAAR Sirs:

Garden Grove, Calif.

In Simon Raven's long essay The Decline of the Gentleman, Simon & Schuster, 1962, he stands almost alone among artists in having voluntarily and publicly discussed with great candor, objectivity and lack of apology his own homosexuality, as opposed to those often pathetic "post-exposé" confessionals.

I wish I could say the same for Jack Paar's petty lapse into poor taste in his collection of diverse material My Saber Is Bent, Simon & Schuster, 1961. Under the heading "Fairies and Communists" Mr. Paar indulges in a tedious, overblown and unoriginal cliché of crude generalizations concerning "fairies."'

The worst thing about this essay is that it is a pure bore. It is a distillation of tired

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