}

through three major wars, the Korean conflict, and possibly the Boxer Rebellion as well. Throughout these years, the common male lavatory facili ties on the military reservations afforded a measure of unsupervised privacy. Within the past eighteen months, the incidence of homosexual activity in the common lavatories evidently had become so great that structural modifications, removing all semblance of privacy, were thought to be required, by the Army authorities who are in charge of such things. These structural changes were made, and the lavatory facilities are now under regular military police patrol. The situation in Hawaii corresponds somewhat to a situation I observed in Japan in 1960. At the military base which serves as the collecting point for all Army personnel going to and from Korea, the common male lavatory facilities had been fitted with metal partitions, evidently as a final measure to discourage homosexual entreaties. But the American GI, resourceful in overcoming this, as well as other obstacles, found a ready alternative.

The Existential Approach to

THE CAUSATION AND MAINTENANCE OF MALE

Homosexuality

In Three Parts

DENNISON W. NICHOLS

Part Three-DEVELOPMENTAL PROCESS OF LOVE and

CONCLUSION

DEVELOPMENTAL PROCESS OF LOVE

The phenomenon of love is described in this paper as being a psychosociological phenomenon which differs greatly from the way Freud and many other authorities describe it. Furthermore, both heterosexual love and homosexual love is shown to come about in the same manner and for the same purpose.

mattachine REVIEW

Aside from the visceral characteristics, there are two important elements in any "romantic" form of love; (1) a phenomenon of psychological communication between two people, enabling one of them (or "both of them) to experience the other person's needs as being his own; and (2) the involvement of the other person into the center of one's conception of a meaningful life.

The appreciation of another person's body, just like the appreciation of a photograph which depicts a beautiful model, can be considered to be a support of an idealization which is necessary for the fulfillment of the existential goals prescribed by an individual's value system which is encompassed in his world view (one's conception of the universe and his purpose in it). Even though it brings satisfaction to the individual, it is, nevertheless, basically selfish and cannot be considered to be love; the heterosexualism or homosexualism is still more important in the maintenance of the individual's conception of meaningfulness than is the welfare of another individual. Where sex exists without love, individuals perceive each other as necessary objects in obtaining a nevertheless essential fulfillment of a meaningful life. In doing this, however, the individuals have not only made an object of their partner and themself, but have also made the ism more important than their humanness. The reason why people are generally selfish is apparently too obvious for many authorities to recognize or too obvious to be considered worth mentioning by these authorities. The basis of selfishness lies in the fact that there are no physiological connections between people, enabling their needs to be transmitted to and received from one another. Inasmuch as there are no nerves to transmit one individual's feeling of hunger, for example, to another individual, it cannot be expected that the other individual will desire to satisfy not only his own needs but also those of the other individual. Thus, he is selfish.

It is known that individuals are not always selfish, however. A psychological bridge exists in such phenomena as sympathy and empathy, in which the individual is able to put himself in the place of the other person because he has gone through similar experience which makes it possible for him to understand how the other person feels.

The same type of psychological, communication is what makes it possible for one to develop feelings of love for others. The process can be called interplay. This is anything carried out between two or more individuals that is pleasant, social, and informal. In other words, it is a friendly interdependent relationship. Examples of interplay are dancing, conversing, and sexual intercourse. In such situations people share similar experiences, and hence, often come to know each other very well.