from the heterosexual and usually manage to keep their secret.

"My own case is typical of many. You do not really realize you are a homosexual until you are almost out of your teens.

★ ★ ★

"YOU VISIT A DOCTOR AND he sends you to a psychiatrist. There begins a series of treatments. They do not cure you. You visit a different psychiatrist and he bluntly tells you there is no cure. But his advice is invaluable and you learn to make the best of things and live with yourself. (You learn later that quite a lot of psychiatrists, doctors, scientists, engineers and even army generals as well as actors, authors and artists are also homosexuals.)

"You like the company of women and you find, to your dismay, that they are often physically attracted to you. But for you the physical attraction simply does not exist. You soon find that to abstain from any sexual outlet whatever makes you neurotic and unhappy and tends to destroy your personality. You have your first affair, if I may call it that, with your best friend who Shocks you to the core by turning out to be bisexual, that is to say, attracted to both his own and the opposite sex.

"Then you meet a man who fills all your desires and dreams and becomes your lifelong friend and companion.' But the two of you must always pretend. You 'learn to lead a double life. You date dif ferent girls. You are always the eligible bachelor. You are always trying to bridge awkward situations created by well-meaning friends

determined to marry you off. Finally you marry a frigid type girl who does not desire sex and your friend marries a Lesbian girl.

★ ★ ★

"YOU BECOME MOROSE AND unhappy but you struggle along and finally learn to make the best of it. A sordid story, you say? But only an uninformed and ignorant society has made it so.

"The homosexual, unknown to many, has always filled a gap in society, even if his only contribu tion has been to look after his aged parents when all the rest of their children are married with families of their own. Michelangelo, the great sculptor and painter, was a genius whose impact on the world of art cannot be measured-but let us not forget that he was also a complete homosexual. It is strange but true fact that creative genius and homosexuality very often go hand in hand.

·

a

"I think, Mr. Weir, that you would do well to refrain from writing poisonous words until you are quite sure that you are not forming mistaken conclusions. . . . Perhaps tomorrow will bring a better dawn for the homosexuals ɔf this world...."

★ ★

I HAVE NOTHING WHATEVER to add to this except to say that I have heard all of it before and, per haps, to point out that very many worthy persons, male and female, lead full, useful and frequently magnificent lives, without neuroticism or unhappiness or loss of personality, after having forsworn sexual gratification for all time.

:

Sex and Censorship

the NEW magazine that calls a spade

a spade, challenges the censor, opposes the brain-washing going on in the fields of literature and art. Fully illustrated and documented. Subscriptions, $6 for 12 bimonthly issues.

First issue of SEX AND CENSORSHIP appeared in November 1958. It has drawn favorable comment from all parts of the U. S.

SECOND ISSUE NOW AVAILABLE

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one

ONE MAGAZINE -"The Homosexual Viewpoint"Monthly, 50c per copy, $5 per year; 2 years $9, first class. Articles, fiction, poems, drawings. ONE INSTI TU TE QUARTERLY: HOMOPHILE STUDIES $1 per copy, $3.50 per year (Foreign, $4). Scholarly approach to homosexuality with articles of lasting value.

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Ladder

Monthly publication of Daughters of Bilitis, Inc., 165 O'Farrell Street, San Francisco 5, Calif. Subscriptions: $2.50 per year, first class. Concerns Lesbian aspects of homophile problem written and edited by women.

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30

Experience is something I always think I have until I get more of it.

-BURTON HILLIS

mattachine REVIEW

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