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wti-.. stmas&ii Jiine ^>76* THE'BARB^' i f. 8W8W noitsisdiJ V h r I V SZj bu) fv/J ■' A i' Editor’s Notebook Running a newspaper is a - crazy proposition. How I got into this business is a long story. The details have fuzzed over the past two years. I do know that when I began it was to provide a forum for southern activists across the south to voice their progress, their idea, and their set backs. That is still my over-riding concern as we go to press each month. Our news coverage has increased and the number of and varity of gay activists appearing in THE BARB is steadily increassing. The direction of the paper is controled heavily by individuals ‘throughout the south who let us know what is happening in their area. Mark Silber and Joel Starky have added depth to THE BARB’s coverage of the Florida scene. Louie Crew and Gib Higgins write over a wide range of subjects highlighting events in Atlanta, in Georgia and occassionally points beyond. Hug Crell and Robert Blaine-add new from Texas and its most active and exciting city, Houston, The social scene in Tennessee and Alabama is covered by Larry Foster, BK, Kathy and Scott Young. News of gay service organizations is spotty from this area. We are working on South Carolina , North Carolina and Virginia but we are not fully covering either the social or news events of that area. BTHE CALENDER is a new feature that we hope will improve our ability to cover all areas of the south and help you to find out what is happening in your area. This month the calander is short and far from complete. If your organization is not listed drop us a line to: CALANDER EDITOR, c/o THE BARB, POB 7922, Atlanta, GA 30357. We intend to list regular organizational meetings, time place, etc., special events, speakers and happenings from Baltimore to Miami and from Savannah to San Antonio. THE BARB is the south’s GAY NEWSPAPER! Write us let us know what your organizationis doingS “HOW DARE YOU PRESUME I’M A HETEROSEXUAL!” ED’S NOTE: Beth Sterling is THE BARB’s new associate editor. Ms. Sterling brings an array of talent to THE BARB. The male dominated staff is slowly moving toward a more balanced position. Ms. Sterling has informed me that we will not ignore the gay woman and the muitifacited female contribution to~ tne gay community, She will need support from gay women and men and I hope that you will assist her in her efforts to bring a more balanced picture into the pages of THE BARB. 1 Generally, gay individuals are sexists; and therefore, they retard the progress of gay liberation. As a_female in a group of females I find gaymales hostile and prejudiceamerely because of my sex. Yet, relating on a one to one basis, the gay male is very compassionate, cooperative, and at times engaging. I write not as a feminist but as a humanist desiring unity for the gay population; and I feel that the bigotry and harsh prejudice afflicting gays is self- yalidated by their own internal hostilities. In truth, gay women are “tolerated” by our society, for a woman loving another woman is more easily accepted. Therefore, gay women have not felt the pressures for immediate acceptance of their inclinations. Shed your hypocracy and imitation sexuality and share the burdens of your brothers. In helping them you inadvertantly help youself. I appeal to the women in the gay community to contribute to the effort of Gay Liberation. I have recently joined the staff of THE BARB as associate editor and I intend to encourage and abet all gay persons. Please contact me and all staff members, who are equally concerned, if you have problems, news, and information concerning the gay woman. Beth Sterling I BELEIVE IN FAIRIES bv Dr. Louie Crew In spite of appearances to the contrary, the het world can be instructive to us in many areas of Gay life. Take the het“ exclusive” of child-bearing and other forms of parental cruelty, for example. The recent government studies into these phenomena revealed that in a vast majority of the cases of parental cruelty the parent who is cruel also had a parent who was cruel. Lovelessness is self- perpetuating. Many abusive parents recognize the source of their abusiveness and feel virtually trapped in their personal history. Correspondingly, those who are able to love their children(or anyone else, for that matter!) are by and large those who have been loved themselves. Loving is not a natural or automatic behavior, but a learned behavior! Our world is filled with very few' conspicuous examples of people who believe in and love fairies. It would be surprising indeed if we found the vast majority of fairies believing in and loving ourselves. I think that we in the Gay world are mature enough to be honest about the monopoly that we have unfairly enjoyed on neurotic self-hate. Such honesty is in our best interest if we are to expose the evil het institutions which perpetuate this vicious cycle of self-oppression. A Church which cannot even pray explicitly for all. Gay people is certainly millions of miles away from teaching us to respect ourselves as Children of God and Joint Heirs with Jesus Christ. Schools and colleges which systematically appropriate the achievements of talented Gay persons (our Michaelangelos, Shakespeares, Whitmans, Steins, Dickirisons, Cathers, et al.) without so much as a how- do-you-do to their sexual orientation do very little to break the cycle by which most Gays grow up feeling no one else could have ever felt “like this.” Just last week a canon of the Episcopal Church wrote me in all seriousness: “Why didn’t you English professors let me know about our Whitman long before now!?” _ Likewise, our laws which make felons of our holy sacramental efforts to give an outward and visible manifestation to the inward love we feel towards another Gay person, do very little to help us accept the validity of even our most sacred self-expressions. The good news in realizing that loving is a learned behavior rather than a “natural” one is the truth that remediation is a very live possibility. What has been unlearned or learned, incorrectly can be reconsidered. We can learn to love ourselves, which is always the first step in learning to love someone else. Over the many months that I have been involved with Gay groups I have come to know and love many leaders in our community. One very recurring moment in many of these relationships is the moment of quietness and closeness when we are able to say to each other: “Louie, or D—, or J—, you know, I am not really such a bad person after all. I really do have something to give....” For me personally, much of this re-learning has been most dramatically perceived and experienced in religious terms. I have been re-hearing, or rather hearing for the first time as really for me some old truths which have passed over me in the het contexts. For example, the familiar pastoral benediction: “God make his face to shine upon you!” Upon a sissy? Yes,upon us all. This is the madness that is really Good News In fact, in my own private devotions I have found it very useful to add a special refrain. At one point on my knees I have found it important to say, “Louie, stand up! I love you. I love you I love you'” And She does too. And as she does, I am learning to love me too. It seems very important that we not allow the het world to force us to brace ouselves into •grown-up postures all the time before we have actually gotten there. If we Gays are going to have a community, as opposed to a pressure group, an academic dub, or whatever, we are going to have to have space for each of us always to be all that we are, including simultaneously our childish and insecure selves together with our informed and adult selves. As outsiders we have had a unique insight into the sad way in which the het world by and large has isolated itself from honesty in its public dealings with each other, so concerned have they been to preserve the forms of relationships that they have forgotten to relate the people to each other. We owe it to ourselves and to them not to play our growth according to their rules. Even in our sex life we so often demonstrate our lack of love for ourselves and for each other. Contrary to the notion that the one area where Gays are compensated for all our tortures elsewhere is in the area of greater liberality in our sexlife, our tearooms and baths often seem to have to make up in quanity what they lose in the quality of our sexuality. Any good prostitute knows more about making love than the average person, Gay or het. The prostitute Knows to make the customer at least think s/he is the. most important, attractive, outstanding, enjoyable ....partner in the world for this brief time together, Too often our tearoom sexuality is as joyless as it is impulsive, a frantic pace to get a physiological release. Of course, I believe that it is Very dangerous to try to evaluate Continued on page 12. Lollipop Lounge^ lighting To Aiken Milledgeville Road JeckaonvRig V