All this homosexuality was essentially a school phenomenon. I never heard of anything going on far from school or in the holidays. Even boys in love with each other did not meet at home, though they might write to each other. Homosexual activity normally took place in the dormitories by night, or in the grounds (there were acres of thick woodland) or little-used rooms by day. In the presence of outsiders (including masters) there was a definite guilt feeling and an automatic habit of concealment; on the other hand there was little attempt to hide homosexual activity from most other boys. Thus the community of boys accepted homosexuality as the normal form of sexual activity—though all its members (so far as I know) expected to lead normal sexual lives outside and after school. It is significant that boys who were approached by adult homosexuals (a fairly common occurrence) always refused their advances. There was an almost impenetrable barrier between school and adult homosexuality. I suspect that this is a general pheno-

menon.

The only connection between our microcosm and the outside world was provided by the headmaster, a tough, vigorous man with a sympathetic but autocratic temperament. He had the confidence of almost all the parents and knew us intimately (too intimately, perhaps). The prefects and to a lesser extent the resident bachelor masters told him what they discovered about the boys; this was widely known, and as a result the prefects tended to be excluded from our curious community and the masters to be distrusted in other fields as well. From time to time the headmaster would discuss our activities and try to help us; he would sometimes inform our parents. In fact, he knew a lot less about it and us than he thought. His chief success was in persuading juniors to break off relations with seniors, but he was never able to do much for the latter; perhaps he realised there was little that could be done except wait. At least he never made the stupid mistake of punishing homosexual behaviour, just as he did his best not to punish stealing: indeed he was stricter with boys who chased local girls or the school maids.

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mattachine REVIEW

What effect did all this have? The bad results are often described roughly as follows: in the first place, homosexuality is disgusting and perverted, and at best socially undesirable; secondly, homosexual experience in adolescence will tend to precipitate homosexual tendéncies in later life, and will make relations with the opposite sex more difficult; lastly, the relationships involved are false and often dangerous.

All these factors are exaggerated by people who know nothing of schoolboy homosexuality or who feel strongly about the subject anyway, though there is certainly some truth in them. We know very little about homo-. sexuality, and perhaps one good effect of being at a school like mine is a sympathetic tolerance of homosexuals afterwards. That it is socially undesirable is undeniable in present circumstances, but then so are mixed marriages. All the same, if it could be shown that many boys were remaining homosexual as a result of being initiated in boarding schools, I think there would be a strong argument for abolishing or radically changing them-and dances with girls' schools and sex instruction classes, so often mentioned by masters who deny that homosexuality is still prevalent, are not enough. It is certainly difficult to make the transition from homosexual to heterosexual feelings, and the overlap can be unhappy and possibly harmful.

On the other hand, it is probably better for most boys to have homosexual experience in adolescence than none at all. For boys who don't meet girls at home, their relations with boys at school do act as a sort of safety-valve and help them to learn how to manage a sexual relationship—it may, after all, be their only chance of falling in love before the age of 19. Boys who do meet girls at all often very seldom continue to seek homosexual experience; and an odd thing I have noticed is that the most active homosexuals at school tend to become the most active heterosexuals afterwards, while it is the most asexual boys at school who later teach in boys' boarding schools: this suggests that a

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