(perhaps over a number of years) that the last thing he is ready to do is to draw the attention of the police upon himself. The special circumstances of the invert thus make him peculiarly susceptible to blackmail. If the law were revoked, this threat would be gone.

(c) We have reason to believe that inexperienced boys are in some cases seduced by the older homosexual because the latter is afraid of becoming involved with a fellow-adult who might turn and blackmail him. The continuance of the present law may well be the indirect cause of harm to children who are sought out as less likely to think of blackmail and whose pledge of secrecy can be often bought or extorted under threats. If so, the law is endangering the young, not protecting them.

(d) There is no doubt that as long as the present law exists many a normal man who would like to offer an invert the ordinary friendship he craves for dare not take the risk. Amongst inverts there is often a camaraderie of a remarkable kind, and the association of one of their number with a new friend may not only lead to personal jealousy where a particular fellow-invert is concerned, but this jealousy may drive the latter to threaten with 'exposure' the normal man who has befriended the homosexual. So the law which penalizes private homosexual acts between adults unwittingly removes the one most likely source of liberation.

(e) If in any department of life persons feel that they are being treated unjustly and there is no redress, moral deterioration sets in. “I may as well be hung for a sheep as for a lamb" is a popular way of expressing this fact. So with the homosexual. If he should feel it is radically unjust that he should be picked out by society for a legal punishment which is meted out to no one else, be easily persuades himself that such social injustice towards him exonerates him on his side from any obligation to observe canons of justice and morality. It is sometimes the types who have this grievance who refuse to examine their own homosexual acts in moral terms at all, and who take the path of uncritical self-indulgence. So injustice in one department breeds immorality in another.

(f) The whole subject of Inversion lacks proper scientific examination, and a difficulty in the way of such examination has been in the past at least the unwillingness of the homosexual to offer first-hand evidence of his own condition. Too often scientific research has to depend on material deriving from pathological examples which come to a psychiatrist in a clinic or prison for treatment when they have encountered trouble with the police, or when in other ways grave factors have already supervened. There is no doubt that once the law were revised as suggested, this fear of self-exposure to examination would largely disappear, and the path would be opened for better diagnosis and more effective treatment.

(g) It is against the British conception of sociological principle to use the law in such a way as to create an aggrieved and self-conscious minority which becomes the centre for dissatisfaction and ferment. That the present state of the law has done this there is no doubt. If on other grounds it is found that the law is in fact going beyond its province, then the speedy repeal of the law is necessary before the sense of persecution takes more serious forms.

(h) It has been alleged (see New Statesman and Nation, October 31st, 1953) that police are sometimes used as agents provocateurs in order to trap homosexuals into disclosing their nature. Since the police in such cases will be obviously adults, such action offers no direct protection to young people. The main purpose of such agents is to entrap homosexuals

mattachine REVIEW

who may engage in private homosexual acts with fellow consenting adults. If in fact it is found that the law here lacks justification, its repeal would put an end to an unsavoury type of police action, and no longer would there be the risk that an innocent smile or "passing of the time of day" of a normal man to another would be misinterpreted as an invitation to homosexual practices. An end would also be put to a danger of police corruption.

AGE OF CONSENT1

The question of what is meant by an 'adult' is important when dealing with homosexual practices. As far as heterosexual intercourse is concerned, the "age of consent" today is 16 for both boy and girl. Homosexual intercourse, however, involves a different principle, as it is an unnatural activity of the sexual organs, and as we have seen it may also precipitate a lifelong condition of inversion from which there may be no recovery. There is, therefore, no valid reason why the same age of consent which is regarded as suitable for both sexes in cases of heterosexual relationships should be held to apply to homosexual coitus. If changes are to be made in the present law governing homosexuality, consideration should be given to defining the "age of consent" for males as 21, thus protecting the young National Service man who is compelled to live for two years in a predominantly male community and faces rather special risks of mixing with homosexuals.

Conclusion

We have largely been content in this report to set out the main facts · which arise today in a study of homosexuality; and it is our hope that such facts may be regarded as of sufficient importance to deserve a full official enquiry.

In the Evidence the proposal here made was not endorsed, but it was urged that the age of consent be raised to 17 for both sexes for homosexual and heterosexual offences alike; see p. 41 above.]

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