Abstract

AN ELEMENT in the gay lib struggle and metaphysics that I don't think has yet been taken up is that of disillusionment with the body. I'm not trying to be provocative in that-just the age-old realization of over-40, over-50, over-60, over-70 and over-80. Finally, the age-old grinning skeleton, with the spiritual lesson behind it, of detachment from neurotic desire. I think there's a genuine eros between men that isn't dependent on neurotic detachment and obsession, that's free and light and holy and lambent-which is more or less what we all get during our first fantasies, loves, and devotions. Some of us are lucky enough to be able to act out and receive back and forth. But it can only come in like the tide when you're free to float in it. If there's too much of a neurotic grasping to gaiety, to gayness, even to gay lib, then it makes everything too tense, and the lightness of the love is lost. So the gay lib movement will have to come to terms sooner or later with the limitations of sex. If you consider sex from a Hindu, Buddhist, Hare Krishna, even Christian fundamentalist viewpoint-a warning about the body and a warning about at-