DR. BAKER: Well, as I stated, I feel that so many of these people are potentially capable of becoming either like males or like females: they are quite bi-sexual, perhaps, to start with. But these factors which I have mentioned in the early family relationship may push them to one side of the scale or to the other. Then when they find themselves on the gay side they become more so, out of defiance and rebellion, because of their hurts. MODERATOR: Another thing which I think we might discuss at this point is how satisfactory in a non-sexual way are most of these relationships. One of the things that I think occurs to people in our society is that rather than lasting relationships, most of the homosexual relationships seem to be more brief in duration. Is there again a social reason for that or does it lie within the situation itself?

DR. BAKER: From my experience in counseling a great many homosexual couples I would say that a great deal of the friction between them is a matter of their own neuroticism, that they are capable, perhaps, of a much better and steadier relationship, but they have so much hate within them that it disrupts the relationship and they are just incapable of having a real love in terms of true companionship, compassionate understanding and mutual admiration society which we find are the very best elements for a good heterosexual marriage. I have also done much of that so I feel that I can look at both sides of the picture, and I would say that part of the problem of the homosexual, perhaps the major portion of his problem in forming a satisfactory partnership is his own unhappy adjustment to life. Now I don't blame that onto homosexuality per se, but merely because he has reacted so vigorously to the unhappy situation in his life.

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MODERATOR: In other words, the over accenting by society of the purely sexual side of his life has perhaps held back his development and maturity on other sides. Could that be?

DR. BAKER: Exactly,-yes.

MR. CALL: Let's not forget, however, that there are a good many homosexual relationships which have lasted many, many years and they are unknown to society at large. Frequently, even in a small town, two unmarried women may be living a homosexual relationship without anyone else in the community recognizing it, or being aware of it.

MODERATOR: Yes, but that in itself would be a distinct advantage inasmuch as any mature relationship surely is dependent upon more than a sexual relationship.

MR. CALL: Yes, indeed it is.

MRS. GAILEY: There is another point in here, I think. We are basing this on the convention of marriage as set up by the heterosexual world. We have

mattachine REVIEW

said that homosexuals are "different." Why can't they have a different set of conventions that are just as valid. MODERATOR: They could, but indeed it has been my experience in numerous contacts with people who are homosexual, that often one of the great burdens of their situation is that they are not allowed to have the home environment and the other aspects of a full life with another human being, simply because the barriers are set up in that way. It appears to me that it is definitely a factor in the development and/or maladjustment of homosexual people. MR. CALL: And then, in the case of the homosexual relationships which are fleeting and which do not last very long, we have to remember that just as there are not the standards whereby such a relationship can be made and' announced as it is between a man and a woman, legally married, there are also not the impediments to breaking up the relationship. The relationships can be entered into very easily and broken very easily; there is no such thing as property, or seldom is there any such thing as property, never anything such as children unless the results of a previous marriage, involved. So the homosexual relationships can be ended just as quickly as they can be begun, and very frequently, it is true, they are.

MODERATOR: But that is not necessarily a recommendation... MR. CALL: No, it isn't.

MODERATOR: ... I mean, for a full life. Surely the purely physical aspects of human relationships are a foundation stone for other aspects ofthatrela-. tionship, or ideally speaking, should be, for the happiness of the individual. In other words, it doesn't appear to me, at least, that it is an objective, but a foundation stone. And it does seem to me that perhaps that lies partly at the root of the homosexual problem, that this one thing has been singled out of the whole life for so much accent, not only by society, but by the individual himself, because he feels this pressure, that perhaps that in itself leads to a less mature, general approach to life. Dr. Baker, would you say that had any validity?

DR. BAKER: Oh yes, I think so. I'd like to stress also that we are dealing here with a subject which is so hidden and so little really understood, that anything like an accurate statistical report is unobtainable. In thinking over the problem of two homosexuals getting along together, we are all too conscious of the ones who don't get along together, and never hear about the ones that do get along together. And yet, I think all of us know that there are such cases.

MRS. GAILEY: I know of several.

DR. BAKER: So, it is very difficult, very slippery to get anything in the way of statistics. I would like to say a word, too, about the social situation. When we are dealing with a problem like homosexuality, we're dealing with some-