creasing homosexual population. equally the badge of the new

For one thing, American culture does not have any."rites of passage” to assure a boy that he has become a man. He must prove his manliness repeatedly (and endlessly). The only way he can prove it is by doing "manly" things and by not doing "unmanly things”—like writing poetry or taking up dance or painting. The confused years of adolescence generate the "gangs" of American culture, in which boys group together to reassure themselves they are really men. The gang must do exciting and dangerous things. Women are objects external to the gang-things to be conquered sexually, and evidence (through the conquest) of manliness. But the real emotional ties too often lie within the gang. And when the deepest emotional ties are with one's own sex, there is an explosive potential for homosexuality and for guilt. This theory of the "male alliance" first developed I believe by my friend John Kitsusi, a West Coast sociologist is an essential part of American culture. The stag party and the fraternal order are as necessary on the adult level as the gang is on the juvenile level. This endless attempt to prove masculinity by close association with other men is simply a device which produces homosexuality.

For every homosexual who feels compelled to "announce" his existence by slithering down 8th Street, there are countless others who act more like men than most men. The tight levis, rough plaid shirt, leather jacketthese are

American homosexual and of those members of the male alliance trying so desperately prove their masculinity.

who can-

The "male alliance" also works in reverse—those boys who not fit into it, who feel they have to paint, to write, to dance, find themselves called queer. It is all too easy for the young boy, who knows. so little of himself and may not respect his differentness, to accept this externally imposed definition and move into homosexual society. A friend of mine, a homosexual and a gifted choreographer, once told me that while not all men were homosexual when they started to dance, almost every single male dancer ends that way. Why? In France, for example, we find leading ballet dancers with a wife and four kids.

And finally I believe a number of men become homosexual. because homosexuality is escape from reality. Their motive is not that of rebellion, but simply escape. The homosexual's gay underground is a world of night lights, mystery, and youth forever beautiful. It is a deodorized

world, without children or pain or ugliness or death. It is precisely because it is a way of life which avoids the responsibilities of marriage and children that I think many men choose it. I expect no one is more surprised than such a homosexual, who wanted only to escape reality, when death taps him on the shoulder, interrupting forever his wonderful social life, his endless

mattachine REVIEW

round of splendid parties. In such a world I think that sex is not a driving force but only a kind of password, a ritual as meaningless as the dog's ritual of wetting on every lamp. post. It is not the form of sexual expression but the way of life which attracts many.

Walking Dead

I do not see, therefore, any capacity to revolt in "gay society." It is a destructive sub-culture, producing corps of cleanshaven, fresh-scented zombies who eat, sleep, walk, talk, and are dead. It is a sub-culture in which sex is substituted for real personal relations. As a sub-culture

it produces nothing of value. The Negro subculture has been and remains tremendously vital-because they desperately want to be accepted into the larger framework. They did not voluntarily separate themselves from American society as a whole, and they seek to end that desolate separation. Out of the Negro struggle we saw the birth of jazza contribution beyond words. But what has the homosexual society produced as a society? Those writers, posts, and artists who are homosexual and who have produced solid and enduring works of art have done so in every case because they saw themselves as human beings first and as homosexuals second. In every case where a homosexual fails to make that basic identification and tries instead to produce art based on his sub-culture, it is fragile, brittle, and cold beyond words. HOWEVER, I am with Krim 100 per cent in feeling that sexual relations between adults-whatever sex is involved is not the busi-

•

ness of the State, so long as those involved in the sexual relations

are involved by consent. I don't feel this feel this way because I think homosexuality is a jolly good thing which we can trace all the

way back to Plato. It is just that no group has the right to legislate individual morality because no group can judge what is moral for

the individual. Krim might have pointed out, by the way, that one reason for the repressive (and totally ineffective) laws we have is because we have the feeling that if we pass a law repressing someone else's homosexuality, we have somehow proved that we ourselves are not homosexual. Any blow against the queer is really a

blow struck against a part of ourselves which we cannot accept or understand. I think in every case it would be correct to say that

someone with a strong hostility toward homosexuals has a latent homosexual drive equal to the hostility.

And now, finally, let me suggest that while I think the "homosexual society" is a pretty decadent mess, I also think homosexuality is one legitimate form of sexual expression which · the larger society ought to accept, thereby going far toward wiping out the gay underground. But it isn't enough for those who are "normal" to "accept" the existence of those who are queer." The solution may lie in a different kind of cultural approach to sex on the part of all of us. If the homosexual is sick, so perhaps is