sonal embarrassment, lack of dignity. downright humilation endured at the hands of ignorant officials. Only a reviewer extraordinarily callous to the all-too-human desire of homosexuals to be treated with respect and dignity could have missed this mes-

sage.

If it is not from documents of this sort that we will learn what the homosexual is and how he behaves. what patterns he follows and how he feels about them, then we are convinced that there is no raison d'etre not only for the letters column of One, but for the magazine itself.

What disturbs Evans is not that a letter has been published, but that it rings with authenticity, and it portrays a kid who goes through some very typical experiences when asked who his sex contacts had been:

Again, I was humiliated and embarrassed by his request, for here, too, I would have to give him names of men and thereby reveal myself again. Not only that, being a relatively active person, the number of people with which I had sex in the past four months probably ran into the dozens, and I would be flatly admitting that I was not only queer, but also a promiscuous whore at that. I noted the wedding band on his other hand, and froze. I asked to be excused for a moment to go to the men's room before I really pissed in my pants.

Perhaps, as one must suspect. Evans would like to have us show this youngster as very atypical, and state that most gay young men are romantically attached before they permit another male to come near them, that every contact is permeated with the spirit of Damon and Pythias. If he believes this, then he must return to reality; and if he does not believe it. then he should have no objections to a faithful portrait.

one

Let us not spend too much time indulging in polemic on the question of the timeworn and long-discarded theories of inborn or congenital or hereditary or constitutional homosexuality. It is difficult to believe that a clinical psychologist, in 1964, adheres to the beliefs expressed (or implied) by Evans. Perhaps he would like very much to believe in inborn homosexuality, but he does not refute a position by asserting an irrelevant and discredited stand that was debunked thirty years ago. He accuses us of failing to acknowledge the nature of the evidence favoring our position, although we cite the works of Kinsey, Bieber, Allport, A. Ellis, George Henry, as well as others too numerous to mention.

The issue of inborn homosexuality is closed. The overwhelming evidence against it is summarized very briefly by Albert Ellis in a recent paper1 in which he states:

Several hypotheses concerning the possible innateness of direct constitutional causation of confirmed homosexuality have been examined, including the theories that it is genetically caused, is hormonally based, is directly connected with the individuals' body-build, is almost completely untreatable, is the result of brain damage, and is historically and culturally uniform in incidence. When critically reviewed, all these hypotheses are found to be distinctly lacking in objective, confirmatory evidence of a scientific nature.

It would be wasteful for One to open up its pages, at this late date. to such a polemic. But more important, some people are evidently under the impression that the homophile

1 Albert Ellis: Constitutional factors in homosexuality: a re-examination of the evidence, in Advances in Sex Research, ed. by Hugo G. Beigel, New York: Harper & Row, 1963, p. 182. This review contains approximately 110 references.