REVOLT OF THE HOMOSEXUAL

by Seymour Krim and David McReynolds

The following Interview between a homosexual and a straight guy, together with a reply to the interview, were published in VILLAGE VOICE, weekly newspaper of Greenwich Village, New York. Seymour Krim wrote the interview; David McRey• nolds wrote the reply. The articles are reproduced here with permission of the newspaper, which is located at 22 Greenwich Ave., New York 11, N. Y.

by Seymour Krim

STRAIGHT GUY: You say I can talk frankly to you. O. K. Why have so many fairies come out in the open recently? Wherever I go I run into them-the Village, East Side, Harlem, even the Bronx.

HOMOSEXUAL: We no longer have the energy to hide.

ing at the top of their voices? Are you naive enough to believe the rest of us see anything sympathetic in this?

You can't know the strain on a person in always pretending. As swishing along 8th Street screamDonald Webster Cory says in "The Homosexual in America," we have been the great unrecognized minority. That time is ending. We want recognition for our simple human rights, just like Negroes, Jews, and women.

SG: You actually think you'll be accepted on your own terms?

H: You're the naive one becase your experience is limited. Such homosexuals are in the minority, as much as a camping prostitute compared with most women. H: Certainly, For years homoSG: But you'll admit that most sexuals in this country have homosexuals are much more efcringed behind a mask of fear. Lefeminate in their actions than gally they're criminals, morally ordinary men? they're considered perverted, psyH: I doubt that modern phychologically they've tortured chology concedes such a thing as themselves. Courageous gay people an ordinary man or woman. But are now beginning to realize that let that pass. It's true, I think, that they are human beings who must we are more aesthetic or perhaps fight to gain acceptance for what outwardly fastidious than most they are not what others want men. But then it's been pointed them to be. out that American women have SG: Let me be blunt. Do you become increasingly vigorous. think it does your cause any good Does this make them any less fesee platinum-haired freaks male?

SG: Not necessarily, though my ego would like it better if they were more dewey, But they still go for men, not their own kind. H: That's not completely true. Many women have a deep hatred for the presumption of superiority that the modern straight man puts

on.

SG: I won't argue with you. The important thing is that the essential sexual need for each other is still there and will remain. It may sound obvious, but God or nature obviously intended men and women to make it with each other.

•

H: That seems logical on the surface. But when you look at history you'll see that there's never been a culture without homosexuality. It's always existed: among the Greeks, Romans, even the American Indians. I believe it is a fundamental part of human life.

SG: Then why do you think it's always been outlawed? I'm fairly sophisticated, but I believe society had no choice in condemning sodomy. Let's face it: if homosexuality were encouraged the family would disintegrate, a farce would be made of every moral principle on which we were raised, and the perpetuation of life itself could conceivably be endangered.

H: Editorial-page gas! The human rate can certainly withstand a comparative handful of homo. sexuals if it's going to survive. Nuclear weapons are obviously a much closer threat. As for the family's falling apart, homosex-

uality is only one tiny cause among hundreds for the tension people have in living with each other today. I have little sympathy for your so-called moral principles. Morals change as we view life differently, and it's right that we abandon them when we can no longer see their truth.

SG: Maybe you can't see their truth. But millions of people still have.hopes for leading some kind of traditional life-with families, children, and the rest of the bit. H: I have nothing but good will toward such people. But nothing gives them the right to impose their desires on human beings who can't or don't want to follow the same goals. It's hypocrisy to pretend that we live in a Victoreven one with ian world or agreed-upon values.

SG; Is it Victorian to wish for a complete life? People like yourself are amputated and therefore make bitter fun of it. But the majority of us still have the possibility of getting normal satisfactions out of living.

H: No one is preventing you. I personally think you're deluding yourself in pretending a normality which no longer exists. But that's only my private opinion. I merely want my own freedom to behave as I choose and must.

SG: Didn't it ever occur to you that you might be literally sick? Suppose I were a compulsive murderer and said I wanted my own freedom to behave as I had to. You'd smile and have me locked up.

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