150
have to
be,
or learn to
be:
no
other group is subject to such
legal penalties and soc i a 1
stigma), and reasonably loyal to
one another. Under dire police
pressure, they may rat, but they
often don't even if the price is
prison. In non-criminal situa–
tions of embarrassment they
usually stand up publicly for
their kind, and being shameless
and skilled in wounding repar–
tee, retaliate with venom. Out–
side this degree of solidarity, the
notion dear to queer-haters that
homosexual cabals "control" this
or that activity (especially artis–
tic) is exaggerated: queers arc
not hostile to "normal" men
(though frequently to women),
even when they "aren't trade"
or "don't even dabble." But the
accusation that queers prosely–
tize
if
they can, is true enough:
it is a tendency their situation
in the U.K. encourages.
Queer attitudes to homosex–
uality can be surprising. The
rarest in England is the one that
prevailed in happier lands and
ages: that homosexuality was,
is, and always will
be
with us to
some degree; that it is no
ground for excessive shame nor
misplaced pride; that moral
problems do arise from it, but
much more so from other pro–
founder human situations; and
that the essential spiritual pre–
dicaments of our sexual life
belong to the whole area of sex,
and not especially to this exotic
fringe; in brief, that the whole
subject is much less interesting
than the preoccupation with it
warrants. It is also rare to find
in England the attitude common
enough elsewhere in Europe of
"All right, he (or she) is one–
and so?" It is the disproportion–
ate obsession of English society
with homosexuality that is mor–
bid (and ridiculous): the per–
petual parlor game of spotting
the queer that has to be played
out on endless tedious occasions
before the worth and achieve–
ment of the man will be consid–
ered. Among queers themselves
one finds such oddities as the
"respectable" anti-queer ("those
dreadful boys" and so on) ; the
groveler who beats his breast
(or typewriter) and bewails to
the heterosexual onlooker his
melancholy aberration; the
more "sophisticated" soc
i
a 1
masochist who develops fana–
tical worship of the law and its
enforcement officers (perhaps
because he prefers bullying
"protection" to the menace of
anonymous blackmail). At the
other extreme are blatant
queers: male prostitutes (pro–
fessional and semi-so), public
urinal athletes (conceivably cop–
pers or their provocative narks),
soldiers and sailors of certain
regiments and functions
(re–
marks about English guardsmen
or engine-room mariners
win
