BY R. W.: AN AFTERMATH TO

dison't the MASK

Much of the material in the Mattachine Review is admittedly written by homosexuals. Only now and then does something come up that is representative of the "other side,'' If there is need to refer to non-homosexuals as such. The following is one of those observations--a candid appraisal of several Issues of the magazine.

I have in front of me three issues of the Mattacbine Review--March April and May 1958. They were passed on to me by a friend, and one of your readers and contributors, Manfred Wise. He asked me to send you my reactions to the magazine, be they good or bad, and here they

are.

By and large I like it.

There is variety to its contents, there is prodding and self-criticism as well as assaults on the social attitude, and, at least in these three issues, there is not any humbug or nonsense about the third and superior sex.

If nothing else, the magazine will help to create and maintain morale. It will have other effects, too, varying with the readers, but it is almost certain to help morale. And that is a mighty important item in the needs and wants of any minority group. For a number of reasons having nothing to do with the quality of the magazine I will not buy future issues. But I would if I were homosexual. And I'll certainly mention the magazine to any homosexuals I contact. Isolation-the feeling of isolation-helps no one, especially those whom the culture chooses to scom.

Of the articles in the three issues, Bob Bishop's article titled "Discard the Mask", strikes me as being perhaps the finest. (I am too much a cynic to really agree with Wise's "Toward Sexual Honesty.") The problem of discarding the mask is delicate, tough and vital. It is really not a problem but a dilemma. Yet it is just such an area that needs to be aired and examined, even though it cannot be solved easily.

During my first 24 years of life, I met not one solitary person who admitted or professed homosexuality. I occasionally read about homo-

matiarine EVIF

sexuals-in books, especially psychology texts and of course in newspaper reports, etc. And I unquestionably met some inverts, but never without a mask on. On the surface, everyone was "normal". a most unlikely situation.

In 1954, when I was 25, I became acquainted with Manfred Wise. Fred did not wear a mask. He did with most people, no doubt, with landlords, employer, most social contacts, but from the second or third time I saw him he discarded the mask of concealment.

I am quite sure that Fred and I both gained from the discardment. On the one hand Fred was free to seem as he really was, and to say what he thought. And though we might argue and disagree it was in the open as it should have been.

Perhaps I gained even more. Fred not only presented me with the first bonest homosexual I had ever met, but his varied interests helped me to broaden my own. Quite aside from such books as Ellis' Amer ican Sexual Tragedy, or Radcliffe Hall's Well of Loneliness, Fred introduced me to Henry Miller and thus indirectly re-introduced me to poetry-a field that I'd fled from in high school and college.

Incidentally, in the six years that have passed since I met Fred, I have met only two other homosexuals who have taken off their mask, and one of those, a Lesbian, did so only after I all but put the words in her mouth.

I am more encouraged by the publication of articles such as I read, and would advise you to print more along the line of Bob Bishop's. I know how important and tough this particular problem can be, not just via Fred, but via myself. For a 10-year period in my life I had gran mal seizures. There too, concealment is a problem-when to lie and deceive and when to take a chance to tell. Most people in such a situation tend to play it too safe.

The men who succeed best in public life are those who take the risk of standing by their own con victions.

-J. A. Garfield