The Gay World: Male Homosexuality and the Social Creation of Evil

Abstract

If Hugh Hefner has not accepted this book for serialization in<i>Playboy</i>, he should look into the possibility. The publisher, in fact, may have had<i>Playboy</i>in mind when he placed at the top of each page a paired male ideogram ([unk]). Ideogrammatic humor is a staple of the Hefner journal. This should not be construed as criticism of either<i>Playboy</i>or the book. The former, on occasion, publishes first-rate journalism, and as journalism the book cannot be faulted. Its description of the "gay world" of San Francisco homosexuals is extraordinarily readable. The vignettes of "Tom" and "Paul" and "Kenny" are fascinating. The language is discreetly racy. No expertise is required to comprehend the speculations about etiology. And the moral (every man to his cup of tea) could have been lifted bodily from Hefner's "<i>Playboy</i>Philosophy." It is not clear, however, that the book was intended as journalism. A large