CHAPTER SIX

“Sexual intercourse with women does not satisfy me, and my desire for young men constantly increases. I am often afraid of myself; afraid that, in asking all prostitutes, as I do, whether they know others like me, I might be discovered. Yet, I cannot keep from seeking a youth like myself. I know that in case of necessity, I shall buy a soldier, though I know perfectly well the penalty meted out to one caught in such circumstances...”

Thus, and anguished letter from a young homosexual to Wilhelm Stekel. The letter continues in an almost hysterical vein, in which the young man swears that, if he could only find the lover, he would be faithful to him unto death. But for us, the significant angle of this letter is that a frantic, frustrated homosexual turns to a soldier. One of the many rocks upon which changes in the laws covering homosexuality are founder and floundering is just that—what will the situation be in our armed services if homosexuality is no longer a crime?”

Field Marshall Montgomery, when he cast his vote to veto a proposed amendment in England which would make homosexuality no longer a crime, said, “To me, this new law conjures up a nightmare of gross indiscipline in the armed services, resulting from the spectacle of officers indulging in homosexual practices.” Montgomery was then asked, by a member of the Opposition, whether he would introduce a bill to make Lesbianism a crime also, so as to maintain the discipline of the women's services. According to the report on this meeting in the Sunday “Times” of June 27, 1964, “The Field Marshall did not reply.”

It is an open secret that both homosexuality and Lesbianism are rampant in the Armed Forces of every country in the world, America not excepted. In fact, a recent photo from Vietnam, showing our men in battle uniform, also shows the identical crushed Stetson which is the hallmark of the militant, male homosexual! The navy has such a reputation for homosexuality that it would be ridiculous to attempt to deny its existence. In the Times Square section of New York alone, any night in the week, the interested spectator can see young sailors being accosted by older homosexuals.

Simon Raven, an English novelist, best-known for his novel “The Decline of the Gentleman,” says, “Among the most flourishing of the male prostitutes in London, are members of the armed services who are either stationed or on leave in London. If a young guardsman wished to augment his modest pay, and if he has no objection to hiring out his person to this end, then he need only ‘ask about’ and some older man, usually an NCO, will tell him which pubs or bars to frequent, or which street corners to wait on, and will sometimes even offer to go along with him to see that he gets fair play.”

“Some of us,” Raven reports one soldier as having said to him, “get quite fond of the blokes we see regularly. You go to their flats and have a drink and talk a little—they're nice fellows, some of them, and interesting to listen to. And as for the sex bit, well some of the younger ones aren't bad looking and I've had some real thrills of them in my lifetime.”

This young soldier is, of course, bi-sexual, which means he is homosexual. He goes to bed with men in order to make money with which to entertain his girl—or so he says. Actually, he goes to bed with men because he enjoys going to bed with men and only offers the excuse of needing money to cover up for his real desires.

In America, certain members of the Armed Forces, of both sex, are not averse to performing a homosexual act for extra money. Stekel's patient finally writes him, almost in triumph, “Very well. I did it. Today, I bought a soldier at a prostitute's house. The lustful pleasure was very great. The next day I felt similarly strengthened (capable of erection at any moment) and although I have not yet been able to meet the soldier again, the thought that I shall venture to purchase another gives me peace...”

What we are considering in this book is the harrowing possibility of a homosexual generation, and despite every precaution, every screening test, the number of homosexuals in the armed services is rising, just as their number is rising everywhere. Can this account for such ignominous things as our defeat in Korea, when our men seemed to rush forward, begging to be captured, turning traitor on their friends for a bowl of rice? In the book “Every War But One,” we see a truly shattering picture of men giving way, not under fire, but at the thought, the threat of fire!

The homosexual is, above all, passive He seeks only to receive, not to give. We are witnessing now, in America, massive sit-ins and teach-ins among our college students who are protesting our policy in Vietnam. Rightly or wrongly, the fact remains that America is in Vietnam, is committed to a certain policy and, as one hardened veteran of the conflict told a “Times” reporter, “You just sort of wonder whether these guys are just afraid they might be tapped for military service.”

A young man who is inducted into the armed services is far less apt to be a homosexual than those who choose this all-male way of life. On the other hand, if such a young man—or woman—has any latent homosexual urges whatsoever, the armed services provide an ideal place for such weaknesses to surface

“My husband and I were extremely happy,” a young woman tells a member of the Westchester Family Counseling Service, “until he was called up for service in Korea. Ever since then, he turns away from me. Sex has become so sporadic that it can hardly be said to exist.” Two years later the young woman is back. Her husband is demanding a divorce because, “he no longer wants to live with me. He told me quite frankly that he wants to go and live with this man whose acquaintance he made while he was in the army. My God,” the woman bursts out, “it just doesn't seem possible! For my husband to have become a—a queer!”

Dr. Benjamin H. Glover, writing in “The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease,” says, “Since the Second World War, there has been a noticeable increase in cases of homosexuality as well as other socially offending sex cases among the general type of psychiatric problems seen in the University of Wisconsin Student Health Department. A great majority of the cases have been veterans.”

He also attributes many broken marriages, after the war, to the fact that men who had been able to carry on successful heterosexual activities in a heterosexual world, instantly fell prey to their latent homosexuality when put into contact with an all-male environment. For his case studies of homosexuality among students at Wisconsin, he chose twelve men ranging in age from 17 to 42. Six of the twelve were veterans of World War II, discharged on points, with no disciplinary record. “Five of the six,” say Glover, “were active homosexually during their service life. As reported often in military psychiatry, most homosexuals are to be found in the secretarial branches, chaplain's aides, hospital assistants and photographers. These men were strongly pre-disposed to homosexuality before induction, and the induction broke down their last barriers against it. But in the field, too, we found that homosexuality was more prevalent—among both officers and men—than one would care to concede.”

Another observation made by Glover was to the effect that, “Their is a narcissistic selfishness in their disregard for people as a whole, no nationalistic or patriotic feeling.”

Carl Owensby of Atlanta, well-known researcher on the causes and possible cures (he admits there are none) of homosexuality states that, “Homosexuals are definitely on the increase and there are anywhere from 10 to 30 million in number in the United States alone.”

Says George W. Henry, in “The Psychiatric Quarterly,” “The lassitude and inertia of homosexuals greatly contributes to the poor psychopathic results...”

The idea of an army caught in the grip of this “lassitude and inertia” is enough to make one shudder. Yet, it would be blindly optimistic not to assume that if homosexuality, per se, is on the increase, why, then homosexuality in the armed services must also be on the increase, since the inductees, especially, are culled from every walk of life. But for the young service man alone, thousands of miles from home, the temptation to say “yes” to a homosexual advance is difficult, to say the least. And, too, of course, their pay is still extremely low, and the wealthy, older man who picks one up in Times Square, in Greenwich Village, in Chicago's Bughouse Square, along Selma Avenue in Hollywood, has a lot to offer. Companionship, an attractive apartment to use, liquor, and money. At first, they still keep up their heterosexual activities. One young soldier tells Henry, “I just thought of the whole deal as a kind of masturbation. I'd close my eyes and think about girls and things—” But all forms of masturbation diminish the pleasure derived from heterosexual intercourse. Sooner or later, neither the male nor female homosexual can derive any pleasure whatsoever from normal intercourse.

Meanwhile, the soldiers and sailors who drift, aimlessly, about the streets of big and strange cities, will continue to be accosted by wealthy homosexuals and, as one soldier told Glover, “It's not really a bad way to pick up some extra change if you don't mind being fiddled with —”

“All the way,” in the homosexual world, means to submit to sodomy. This, most of the young men are at least reluctant to do; many will refuse altogether, and the insistence of their patron on this kind of performance is, generally, what sparks a criminal assault often ending in jail or death.

For us, the significance of the increase in homosexuality in the armed forces is that, like homosexuality everywhere, it is a threat to the safety and well-being of the rest of the country. Sums up the Wolfenden report—which is laying the foundation for drastic softening of the laws governing homosexuality:

“Homosexuality should be viewed as a vice only when it is abused, or when the rights of others are threatened by it...”

Wherever homosexuality exists, the rights of others are threatened, and we must not, ever, be lulled into believing otherwise!