ARTICLES & FICTION
14 "HOW'S IT HANGIN'?"
By Roy Wood
27 "Tom of Finland"
By Michael Goodwin
33 "BARHOPPING: HOUSTON"
By Billie Duncan
50 "SEX AFTER AIDS"
By Richard De Thuin
54 "THE PANSY DID IT"
By Anthony Slide VISUALS
8 "FORD-PLAY"
From Holt Studios
37 "DELUXE MODEL"
From Ma/express Studios
45 "TRADE OFF"
By Graven Image
65 "WORK LOAD"
From Canyon Studios
73 "THE BIGGEST ONE I EVER SAW"
From HIS Video MONTHLY FEATURES
4 QUICKIES
18 ROUNDUP (Film, Books, Theatre, Music)
23 LETTERS TO CASEY
59 CONTACTS
70 VIDEO VIEWS
78 COMING NEXT MONTH EDITORIAL
Last summer, while vacationing in Europe, I made a journey to the concentration
camp at Dachau. It is, and has been since 1933, a carrion-white stockade with
high walls, barbed wire, and sentry towers — a bleak raw slash in the
lush verdant countryside of Bavaria. This pilgrimage proved to be the most moving
experience of my entire trip, and looking back, I have tried to determine why
one afternoon in a world completely foreign to me left such an indelible impression.
Although I am not a Jew, I am a member of an unpopular minority that someday,
in time, could be denigrated, manipulated, and finally legislated into such
a place as Dachau. The museum which comprises a major part of this memorial
includes documentation of the insidious growth of anti-semitisim in Germany
half a century ago — the political cartoons, the speeches, the editorials,
the photographs, the news stories — each in and of itself not particularly
lethal, yet when put together became a ground swell of prejudice that ultimately
sent millions to horrible, untimely deaths. The lesson to be learned from this
documentation is that passing slurs and casual attacks, if left unchecked,.will
escalate until the minority is overwhelmed and powerless.
The parallel between Germany in the Thirties and America in the Eighties is
all too evident, and the lesson must be learned. One of the first weapons used
by the Nazis was that of containment —the gradual ghettoization of the
minority. That is why the current prospect of quarantine for the homosexual
community (now being pressed in certain quarters) looms as a spectre of greater
horrors to come. The first step toward alienating the minority from the mainstream
must never be allowed, or the second step will be inevitable — and the
third and the fourth.
I would suggest to anyone who continues to believe such a catastrophe could
not happen here that you study the apparently modest first steps used by the
Nazis to begin implementation of their "final solution." And if cold,
dry, historical fact does not move you to action, might I suggest you make a
pilgrimage to Dachau and stand in the stark, impeccably clean shower room and
stare up at the jets from which no water ever flowed. I have been there, I have
stared upward, and I will never forget that someday I could once again be standing
there, not as a tourist but as a victim.
Jerry Douglas
Editor
