binoculars while bird-watching. The town police keep a mild watch on the dune maneuvers. They too find binoculars quite helpful.

Many of the new inhabitants are converts from Cherry Grovism. One recent arrival explains: "At the Grove you can't get away from gay life. It's with you every minute of the day. Since there are no cars on Fire Island there is no way to get out of it except on foot. So you are stuck. But at the Hamptons you can have your fun and do other things as well." "Other things as well" includes dining at the many nearby elegant restaurants, touring Southampton and Montauk and taking in some art and theatre. To succeed in this coterie one must for obvious reasons be young and attractive. Overly fastidious clothing is unacceptable but youngish and fashionable attire is essential. Homosexuals in general tend to dress younger than their years and this is especially true of the East Hampton group. Age is the foremost enemy. The young homosexual is ever conscious of the sad plight of the older "queen" who likes boys, and, of course, has to pay for them. One of the young men we interviewed put it well: "When I look at the old, ugly faggots I could give it all up. There is no grimmer picture in the world."

The over-emphasis on looks distresses some of the new gay recruits. One had this to say: "Every hair has to be in place. Do I have my aftershave on? Is my shirt wrinkled? Are my eyes bloodshot? I can't stand that kind of thing. I don't like this looks-business for another reason. I don't want to have sex just with a body. I want to know the person before I give myself to him. Sex makes no sense at all on the flesh to flesh level. Too damn many don't even bother with names."

An outsider is struck by the nonconformity among homosexuals. Among my interviews this was much in evidence. Charles, the South Carolina expatriate, rebelled against Father, college, Southern mores, and an effeminate adolescence. He has made a complete about-face in New York. Harvard-educated Tom has reverted to a previous outlet of rebellion he knew in high school. Orrin is an almost classic case of nonconformity with an aggressiveat-business, passive-at-home father, a Momism mother, and two well-adjusted and married brothers. Jose rebelled against a strict Catholic upbringing. The late Dr. Robert Lindner's argument in Must You Conform? that homosexuality is largely "a reaction of non-conformity, rebellion of the personality . . ." is most convincing. Lindner also states that the condition is "a pattern of sex orientation adopted by certain individuals as their solution to the conflict between the urgency of the sexual instincts and the repressive efforts brought to bear upon sexual expression by the reigning sex morality." His thesis therefore can only be seen in the context of his analysis that our society is "sex-rejective and sex-repressive." Perhaps there is some truth in the exclamation a bartender made at one of New York's gay bars: "Make the whole damn business legal and it will disappear tomorrow. Most of these guys are just doing it for kicks-because it is something different."

a

Homosexuality is usually seen as an illness, a mental disease, an abnormality of behavior falling within the province of psychopathology. In most states it is still booked as the "crime against nature." In many newspapers it is still referred to as "the unspeakable evil." Perhaps some of its allure lies in the very fact of its "unspeakable" quality.

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