ventional behavior. Most of us who hang in and around this tiny Square in L.A., whether hetero or homo, are considered crackpots. Our chief failing, however, if failing it be, is our artlessness. You may not believe it, but most Pershing Square characters are rather simple, defenseless persons. We say what we feel at any moment, even when we know it is against our better interests. Naturally where you have such naivete you also have the exploiters. And here is where the male hustler comes in. in. The male hustler, rough or otherwise, needs a gullible, generous natured person to prey upon, and the queen who wants to believe in dreamy things like love -in fact, wants desperately to be loved-is the hustler's easy and repeated victim. The hustler is one of those strange and pitiful creatures who cannot easily make out sexually. Somehow he is not sexually adequate to the male role with a woman and, on the other hand, he is not able to stand up to the terrible competition and demand required for sex with another man. The homosexual who has no doubts about his masculinity, usually demands as much maleness from his sexual partners as does any woman-maybe more. The hustler suspects he is a failure in this department. And although he keeps his secret well, he turns toward the easy marks, and the queen is the one person who will treat him like a man. After all, the queen wants to believe she is getting a 'real man' (a heterosexual to her way of thinking) in bed. This, in turn, makes the queen feel that much more feminine. So she plays the game. She forgets temporarily that a 'real man' wants a 'real woman' not an imitation. And she reasons that if she goes to bed with a man who does not play trade or does not ask for money it can only mean that she has gone to bed with her sister.' If the guy turns

out to enjoy himself, he must be queer too-and queers aren't masculine, they are feminine. The hustler thinks the same way. By selling himself, he protects the feeling of sexual normality so dear to his self-esteem, while he has the pleasure of having sex with another man. He must, however, be careful not to choose too masculine a partner lest the experience threaten his own maleness.

"If you will recall, John Rechy in City of Night tries to make out that the studs go out with the young chicks once in awhile to prove their masculinity. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The hustlers are even afraid of the Main Street floozies. If they do make out it is usually with one of the freak girls who can't do better. The City of Night hustlers-Skipper, Buddy, and Chuck, and even Rechy himself-have not likely been to bed with a woman in their lives. Take John Rechy for instance. I can't recall whether I first met him in Pershing Square or in the 1-2-3. I do remember I had just turned 21. In fact on the eve of my 21st birthday I waited around the corner from the 1-2-3 until midnight and burst into the place at exactly 12:01 expecting to dazzle the girls and the boys. It was the first bar I was ever in. The 1-2-3 has since been torn down to make way for a parking lot. But the beautiful wood panelling, the only really beautiful thing in the place, was saved. Both the Square and the 1-2-3 were busy with action in those days, and all the downtown queens worked them as energetically as they could. I was as wild as the rest. When I first saw Rechy he looked butch. He wore blue jeans; for the year that he hung around he never wore anything else. And he was kind of cute with lots of curly, light brown hair. Of course, like the rest of those pulling the butch act, he tried to make like a man, and,

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