Tangents

News and Views

April 1966 • Vol. 1 No. 7

Originally published in the April 1966 issue of Tangents

pp. 13–16.

COMPUTERFUSIONS

Did you catch the two good looking young men on a recent Steve Allen’s “I’ve Got A Secret” TV program who where mistakenly matched by a computer match-making company as prospective lovers? The taller one patted his science-mated partner on the shoulder as he explained that all he asked for was a short and sweet girl. The ‘short and sweet’ one who evidently has a confusing first name, reported that the first male who called him was not amused, but the second one felt sorry for him and offered to take him out to dinner. The two men on the program had not met previously, but it turned out that they both were from the same town in Oklahoma.

A friend of ours in Colorado filled out one of those computer Selection Profiles which guarantee to help you meet a “new lifelong friend in a safe, dignified and strictly confidential manner.” In the ‘I like’ column, our friend checked ‘I like men.’ So far, by return mail without comment, he has received another Selection Profile blank.

MARRIAGE ON THE ROCKS

An Atlanta policeman testified that he had found a young man sitting in his car outside the Piedmont Park concession stand at 2:30 a.m., his clothes open. He was married and the father of three children. When the court asked what he was doing, the man said he was too drunk to remember. He had been to a Peachtree night spot.

“He told us he was waiting for his boy friend,” the policeman said. The judge fined the fellow $104 for being drunk in a car and bound him over on an indecency rap.

FAREWELL TO ROMANCE

The Los Angeles Times, which gets squeamish about publishing titles of girlie movies, recently printed a report about sex by its medical editor that could possibly show a thing or two even to jaded members of the Supreme Court. It seems that a St. Louis research team observed the goings-on of nearly 700 men and women doing you-know-what. The studies revealed previously hidden ways that men and women respond physiologically to sexual stimulation. Valuable information was gleaned, so the report said, that may help solve the sex problems of untold numbers of persons. The study is to serve as raw material (sic) for sex education courses of the future.

Among major findings:

There are no established norms of human sexuality in American society. The variations of sexuality are almost infinite.

The widespread belief that aging automatically causes the male to lose his ability to perform is incorrect.

The size of the male organ does not determine the male’s effectiveness as a sex partner.

In males, ejaculation occurs only if the testes undergo an elevation in the scrotum during the buildup phase of stimulation immediately before orgasm. When the rise occurs, ejaculation is certain to follow, provided there is no slackening off of stimulation. In older men, the elevation of the testes may be only part way, causing a reduction in the pressure of the emission.

In order to see the physiologic changes that occur inside the female during the buildup, climax, and recovery period, the researchers used a clear plastic male organ through which they could take motion pictures. They also took advantage of the willingness of some men and women patients to stimulate themselves. This apparently was to provide information which could be used to compare the sexual response of masturbation to that of intercourse. They also observed, photographed, and took a variety of physiologic measurements of couples during intercourse performed for these purposes in the laboratory.

The report, entitled “Human Sexual Response,” is being published in book form by Little, Brown and Co.

NOEL AND SOMERSET

Noel Coward’s new play, A Song at Twilight, on the London stage, is a serious comedy in which the author plays the part of an elderly writer whose former mistress holds the secret of his homosexuality. When he refuses her permission to publish love letters he once wrote her, she tells him she possesses other love letters by him to a man who gave them to her on his deathbed. The reviewer, Jacques Pouteau, praised the play together with Noel’s acting and reported that the central figure, Sir Hugo Latymer, suggests immediately a parallel with the late Somerset Maugham, whose private life was recently laid bare in a book by his nephew, Robin Maugham.

H, 2 PLUS L, 2

The chemistry of Time Magazine may just possibly be changing a wee bit. In the March 11, 1966 issue, homosexuals are mentioned twice and lesbians twice without the usual derogatory asides.

William Inge’s new play Where’s Daddy? was panned unmercifully, but the one character approved was “the homosexual—not really a bad chap.” The movie production of Mary McCarthy’s The Group was praised highly, and the performance of Candice Bergen (Edgar Bergen’s daughter) “as the lesbian ‘Lakey,’ is a stunning presence.”

The book review of The Complete Letters of Lady Mary Worthy Montague described her as the greatest Englishwoman of the 18th century, “an androgyne of genius who was born with a man’s mind in a woman s body.” In her own day, according to Time, Alexander Pope was not so understanding. He labeled Lady Mary as greedy, stingy, adulterous, lesbian, syphilitic—and on top of that she wore a dirty smock.

Under “Education,” Time discussed the Free Sex Movement that is hitting U.S. Colleges and universities, and even printed a well-shaded picture of an off-campus student party in Berkeley, California, showing boys and girls sitting around naked . Among various groups described, the Texas Student League for Responsible Sexual Freedom has 18 members so far, led by U. of Texas Senior, Tom Maddux. He contends that limiting birth control pills to married women is “ridiculous,” society’s attitude toward homosexuality is “hypocritical,” and laws against sodomy should be “stricken or radically changed.”

State Sen. Grady Hazelwood would rather legalize a “well-supervised house of prostitution” than give the Texas Student League what it wants. “I will never vote for another appropriation for the university as long as that group of queer-minded social misfits remain officially approved to operate on the university campus.”

As for any legal action against licentiousness at house parties, Time reported that Berkeley Police Chief Addison Fording contends that he cannot arrest anyone unless someone present files a complaint.

OH, THOSE SAILORS!

The Navy’s worried about its public image.

Rear Adm. W. P . Mack, chief of information, voiced his fear before the New York chapter of Sigma Delta Chi professional journalistic society. Among opinions the navy is going to have to erase from the public’s mind. Mack said, is that “sailors chased girls four times as much as soldiers and airmen.” The good admiral need not worry. We’ve known all along that it was the other way around.

A CERTAIN NAIVETÉ

When New York’s Chief Inspector Sanford D. Garelik, said he hoped the public would report cases in which policemen lure homosexual into breaking the law, the NewYork Times reported that a spokesman for the Civil Liberties Union stated that Chief Garelik’s appeal “shows a certain Naiveté.”

“It’s alarming to think that the chief inspector doesn’t know that a large number of police spend their duty hours dressed in tight pants, sneakers and polo sweaters…to bring about solicitations,” the spokesman added.

A spokesman for the Mattachine Society, Inc., of New York, questioned the worth of Chief Garelik’s request. “The last thing homosexuals are going to do is complain about something,” the man said. “They’ll just sit there like a possum, they’re so afraid of their families’ finding out or losing their jobs.”

In moving against homosexuals in Greenwich Village and Times Square the chief had the last word. “We are not carrying out a vendetta against social behavior… We are only enforcing the law, and until such time as the law is changed, we have to accept our responsibility.”

GET YOU, MARY!

A bachelor in Omaha was assessed in 1965 for county taxes for himself and “Mary.” He reported that he looked in the closet and under the bed in his bachelor apartment, but could find no Mary. His tax was adjusted. Then he got a threatening letter stating that he had not paid for Mary. He protested again. Soon he received notice of his hearing and that he would be billed again. Finally, the matter was straightened out.

Then came 1966. He was billed again for Mary. The assessor has made a recommendation to the county board. The board will vote now on whether or not there is a “Mary.” The bachelor is still looking under the bed.

THE WRONG TARGET

The goose and the gander are still in the ‘what’s good for’ column in San Francisco. Husbands and wives may continue taking sauna baths together, a board of supervisors committee has decided. A proposed ordinance by the police department to crack down on public baths would have prohibited men and women in the same room .together. How confused can you get?

WHO’S WHO?

Uni-sex is what Newsweek calls the present day teenage neuter look. The boys look like girls and the girls dress like boys. Even when dancing, the contemporary male youth simply imitates the jerks and spasms of his date. A promotional agency for the perfume industry has put out a new booklet, The Psychology of Men’s Fragrance, which offers a list of 74 concoctions that make men smell good. Of course, it all began with the long-haired Beatles in London and now John Stephen’s “Peacock Revolution” is spreading from Carnaby Street to most of Britain. John plans to open 21 men’s boutiques in the U.S. by 1967.

The psychologists and psychiatrists are straining their hormones trying to explain the disappearing sexes. A report from London tells of the scientist, Dr. John Napier, holding forth in his laboratory at the Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine, warning that it’s going to get even harder to tell the sexes apart as time goes by because the biological influences that make a man look masculine and a woman look feminine are not as powerful as they used to be. He believes that in 300 or 400 years the Western races will consist largely of men and women between six and seven feet tall with somewhat the same boyish silhouette. Thank goodness, Dr. Napier assures us there will still be a difference between the sexes, but he visualizes the end of muscles (for men) and bosoms (for women).

Cave men were the hunters and fighters of the tribe and bad to be masculine. Cave women bad to be fecund, to have many children to perpetuate the tribe. Thus the emphasis on the bust. Then man began to control his environment, and to have his young with the benefit of medicine. The warrior became a working man. The bearer of children became a companion. Secondly sexual differences began to diminish. In modern society when men are chosen more for brains than brawn there is a tendency to be less masculine. When a woman is chosen for reasons other than child bearing there is a tendency to be less feminine. That’s the way evolution works.

FAIR WARNING

In a recent issue of the Hollywood (California) Citizen-News appeared a want ad for a masseur with the admonition in bold type: Straight Massages Only.

THE ELEPHANT AND THE DONKEY DO IT

Sex is getting into politics in Wisconsin. State Sen. Taylor Benson has urged that Young Democrats oust supporters of a resolution adopted at the group state convention calling for abolition of all legal restrictions on sexual relations involving consenting adults.

Republican state chairman Ody J. Fish said, “I doubt if the people of Wisconsin favor sex as a statewide political issue.”

The young Democrats’ state chairman, Conrad Goodkin replied, “If Democrats are for it and Republicans are against it, that might account for the fact that there are more Democrats.”

Republican Gov. Warren P. Knowles shot back, “When the Young Democrats split into ‘homocrats’ and Democrats it is going too far.”

The Young Republicans will soon hold their state convention. Wisconsin voters are panting to hear what their ‘sex plank’ will be.

Originally published in the April 1966 issue of Tangents magazine
©1966, 2016 by The Tangent Group