went unnoticed. Also in "The LShaped Room." In this fine film, Cicely Courtneidge, playing an aging actress, reveals that she is a lesbian. I saw this coming, and waited for the shouts and yells, but when it came out when the point was made in translation-there was such a dull silence that I believe it was over their heads.

Yet, a new Venezuelan play called "Ferocious Animals," which centers around an uncle and nephew who are lovers, was doing house-full business, and the audiences seemed to know what it was all about, and took it in their stride.

However, gay life here is very difficult. Gay folk are most reticent, and it will take up to a year to be accepted by gay people, even when they know you are gay. They keep very much to themselves, as if pretending all the time that they are straight. Because I saw so few obvious gay ones, and because of machismo, I concluded that gay Latins do pass well enough to get by all right in daily life. To all of us, passing is sometimes a bit of a strainone gets tired of wearing the maskbut think of our poor Latin amigos! What a strain it must be putting on a constant front of macho!

And here I must mention an extraordinary aspect of homosexualism in South America: gay men have a total preference for young men, for teenagers in particular. Adults are considered old, and therefore undesirable. Even teenagers want teenagers; and when a teenager goes with an older man, it is strictly for money, or occasionally for special favors. Sexual relations are essentially onenight stands. Love, it would seem, doesn't exist. And as for married couples, of any age, living quietly together-well, they are apparently quite unknown, or at least very rare indeed.

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I know it is hard to believe this preceding paragraph, especially as I have only one man's word to go on; but I questioned him closely about this, and he certainly seemed to know what he was talking about.

I have spoken so far only of homosexual men. This is because, despite the appalling and growing custom of wearing pants, which the "smarter" women have taken to, I never saw the faintest evidence of lesbianism. But it is rife, I was told; quite common, but completely hidden. There is, in fact, more female than male homosexuality-a direct result, I would surmise, of machismo.

This incident was related to me: Ines and her mother were strolling along Avenida Lincoln one day, when they passed two girls, hand-in-hand, one of whom was blonde and shapely. "How like Marilyn Monroe she looks," remarked Ines casually. But "Marilyn's" partner didn't react casually she attacked Ines and accused her of trying to steal her "amiga." And this in public!

Some small gay communities exist in Caracas. There is a very active theatre and culture group called El Ateneo, which is pretty gay. It is this group which presented "Ferocious Animals."

Also the English-speaking "colony" has its own gay life. There are about 60,000 in the "colony," nearly all of whom are United States citizens; together with a handful of Canadians and English.

Bits and Pieces Dept.: In Venezuela "maricon" simply means "effeminate." The local slang word for a gay person is "pato" (duck)-because someone gay is supposed to wiggle like a duck.

Spanish-language muscle magazines are everywhere on sale. But they really are body-building magsmostly printed in Mexico-and even

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