Pity we can do without

In reply to all those letters published in Salient this year opposing Cay Rights, especially to the letter written by 'Middleground' (Salient 3 Sept.), sure gays need understanding, just like any other human beings. Pity we do not need. And as for Gay Movements, homosexuality is a fact, and will exist whether there are gay movements or not.

Just because 'Middleground' finds '...the act biologically and morally objectionable', doesn't mean that he/she has to force his/her morals upon others. I am not writing this to promote homosexuality, nor to push my views, but I'm tired of people putting gays (me included) down because they can't hack it. I'm also tired of them assuming that I'm heterosexual. When someone stands up and says that they are gay, others (straights) tell them not to flaunt it — it's okay to be gay, as long as nobody knows about it. But heterosexuals seem to be able to do anything they want.

As for Freud, much of his work is now largely outdated, and based on studies of his patients (i.e. 'sick' people), and not all homosexuals are sick, and neither are all heterosexuals. I don't know why when the word homosexual or gay is mentioned, that most people automatically associate it with men. Not all gays are men!

Homosexuals are not individuals who are stunted in the 'natural' progression of human sexuality. And recent findings by American sex therapists. Masters and Johnson, in their latest book 'Human Sexual Response', do not reveal that homosexuals are stunted in the progression of sexuality. You state that 'they found that almost 90% of the homosexuals who were willing to attempt to overcome their psychological barriers, could do so'. Where you got the figure 90% from, God only knows, as it is nowhere mentioned. Masters and Johnson don't list a success rate for conversions (to or from homosexuality), but do have a known failure rate of 35%, which is not expected to exceed 45% when all the follow-ups have been completed. (Time, April 23, 1979). 55% doesn't seem to be much of a conversion rate. The cancer cure rate is higher.

Sure human sexuality can be confusing, but has it ever occured to anyone that this may be because it is assumed that people are straight and should grow up straight, and that some would be better suited (psychologically — for themselves and others) for a gay role than a straight one. I, for one, am better suited to be gay than straight, and know how depressing the issue can be, as I almost brought myself to commit suicide a number of times because people don't fully accept gays, and I could not accept myself. Ignoring the issue and living a heterosexual life solves nothing, but makes ones relationships to other people unstable and one's self, unstable.

Masters and Johnson are neutral in their attitude towards homosexuality. "The study concentrates on the bodily processes of sex.....and has almost nothing to say about the psychological ethics or origins of homosexuality, nor does it address the question of whether the lack of any procreative aspect to sex affects homosexuality. The conclusions are stated with caution and caveats — the sample is small and may not be representative of the general homosexual population," (Time, April 23, 1979.)

The notion that heterosexual relationships are healthier no longer holds. Psychologists only get the casualties of the system, the heterosexual patients referred to them with sexual problems, relationship problems and immature difficulties, depressed women with drunken husbands, battered wives and wife beaters, rapists...From where the psychologist is sitting, heterosexuality can be seen as being pretty sick. The psychologist could also say that all the homosexuals they see are disturbed. In other words, people make generalisations about homosexuals (and not heterosexuals) from the ones who go to psychiatrists, and that is ridiculous. The biggest problem is the vast ignorance of the subject.

Masters and Johnson's book has another implicit message for heterosexuals: It is that homosexuality is not going to go away, whether society ignores it, accepts it or rejects it!