Letters

甜蜜

The views expressed here are those of the writers. ONE's readers cover a wide range of geographical, economic, age, and educational status. This department aims to express this diversity.

THE HOMOSEXUAL COMMUNITY

Gentlemen:

If the homosexual minority is to surmount the incriminations hurled against it by "normal" people it must plan its strategy, restrengthening the moral and intellectual fibers which hold the group together. Building up finances, holding conventions, expanding in number, ostentation are foolhardy when the stakes are so high.

We are in the midst of what sociologists call a "cultural lag." The industrial revolution heaps new inventions on us until we erroneously think of society as a big machine and of ourselves as parts of this machine. Conformity becomes the battle cry; the ultimate objective is to "fit in."

Then science has brought the disease of over-specialization everything categorized, including sex. Here emerges the perfectly defined Male and Female. There can be no ambiguity in human relations!

The citizen, be he homosexual or not, who is most fully conscious of his responsibility to society (and thus to himself) philosophizes a bit before attempting to define his role in life. He NEVER lets it be defined for him. What does this have to do with the homosexual? Simply this: a minority apart from society is an island afloat.

Without a storm of idle words the homosexual must retire a moment and think things. out. He must ask himself many questions, and answer them: how do I justify being homosexual? What should be my relationship to society? It is in this manner that new moral and intellectual strength for the group will emerge and the homosexual gain new respect and greater understanding.

Dear ONE:

Mr. H. Dallas, Texas

I have just come from a mathematicians' symposium and observed that men are deliriously happy to be together. They love the power of their own bodies and minds and of their so charming ornamental differences. About half were camouflaged, with

wedding ring permanently displayed and a careful mask, but there was the most subtle of communicative interplay somebody watching someone who was watching someone else...

Above all there was a striving to belong and to be with others, perhaps a reaction to the lonely and individual efforts of the abstractionist. It is very difficult to get the idea across that there IS a set of something, anything: numbers, oranges, bodies or stars. Most minds get lost in the concept because they have preconceived ideas of what belongs in a set. In this sense what you do not say in mathematics is as important as what you do say.

Computer usage is in its first sparkling jump into awareness of possibilities, the same as I see ONE to be, not yet burdened with heavy tradition, the gravitational pull that kills us all.

To all at ONE:

Mr. H.

Brooklyn, New York

I was glad to receive the Magazines and Quarterlies but must confess I indulged more in the stories than in the articles. It is so refreshing to read silly little tales that have so much to do with our silly little selves. Literary quality is something I still cannot really judge in English. All I can say is what I like.

What ONE does for me cannot yet be fully described. Let us say that much of my life. is much easier now and that my sex life and its meaning has become something to think about. Personal love is no longer a luxury; it is a fact, and its problems must be coped with if its ecstacies are not to disappear.

Thank you for your work. I hope to some day contribute to what I have learned to call our people, or my people.

Mr. B.

Cambridge, Massachusetts

GETTING TO KNOW YOU Dear Sir:

I'm not against an occasional night out at a bar but I dislike bar-hunting and pickups.

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