orm naeeermenre en ees A AA AOE SOE TNE SR AY ACE OT HUERTA OE" RNASE TREN AMM NTR ET YTS ete Vitor OTE MAILBOX Lautens must despise his readers Dear Editor: On Sept. 14, Trevor Lautens used his column in the North Shore News to expose what he thinks is the dangerous hypocrisy of gays. By pasting together the sober prose of Svend Robinson with a dirty-talkin’ sample of Stan Persky’s writing (published in the Gay Games newspaper as a satire on the cliches of porn), he seems to be trying to say: ‘‘See! They’re two-faced! Gays talk like decent people when it serves their inter- ests; but just take a listen to what is going on in their filthy minds, not to mention their bedrooms!”’ This is nickel-plated stupidity. Of course, homosexuality offers different faces to the world, it’s about a range of very different things. So, by the way, is heterosexuality. One minute we're talking — quite appropriately — about family life and daycare, and the next minute (if we care to listen or look for it) we're wat- ching Brando submitting to anal penetration by a lovely young woman in Last Tango in Paris. Human sexuality in any of its flavors has a rhetorical as well as a “‘get down to action’’ side, and showing them together as evidence of ‘‘two-facedness’’ just shows an inability to see the difference be- tween complexity and duplicity. What Lautens has provided his teaders with in his Stan and Svend column is a short licence to gaze on the forbidden while — “‘Heavens to Betsy!! Well I Never!!"* — keeping it at a safe distance with a lot of hysterical braying and sniggcring. (You know when you read the word **wee-wee’’ that you are in the presence of a strange and strained genre.) And herein resides some real, hardcore hypocrisy. Trevor Lautens knows full weil that what sells cheap journalism (the kind concocted for the hard- of-thinking by the hard-of-writing) is death, the humiliation of the great, and sex, sex, sex. Scribbling such crap when he knows better — and could have aspired to much, much more — means that Lautens has turned to a readership he must secretly despise, partners in his dissolution as someone who has to be taken seriously. Think on this deeply, North Shore readers, before you take this man to your heart. With Col- lins, you see a nitwit, hear a nit- wit, read a nitwit, and get a nit- wit. Lautens is a more serious and tragic case, and in the end he wil! hate you for loving him, measure for measure. John Dixon President B.C. Civil Liberties Association Treatment, not acceptance, needed to society in general. Dear Editor: I congratulate you for publishing Trevor Lautens’ Sept. 14 column and am grateful to him for writing it, though the contents do not make pleasant reading. (Gay life explained by Trevor, Stan and Svend.) It is sad that it has become necessary to make known just what the homosexual lifestyle entails, but the growing acceptance and even the ‘‘celebration’’ of it has brought this about. Unless people realize just what it is they are sup- they will be unable to appreciate the disastrous consequences, not only to individuals, but porting, It is particularly essential because of the mounting pressure te teach homosexuality as normal to school children, when it must be evident to anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of the anatomy and the bio- Jogical purposes of sexual intercourse, that it is not. What is needed is not greater acceptance, but a recognition of the need for healing with a cor- responding will to seek treatment and greater effort on the part of the medical profession to implement J.M. White West Yancouver successful treatment programs. Lautens accused of hate mongering Dear Editor: Re: Trevor Lautens’ Sept. 14 column: Gay life explained by Trevor, Stan and Svend. As a rule I refrain from com- menting on other writers’ col- umns, especially when they appear in the same newspaper as my own, but when their content is as of- fensive as this one of Lautens | cannot, in good conscience, say nothing. The column as a whole was nothing more than a homophobic diatribe, but I'll restrict myself to commenting on two points in par- ticular. The first is Cautens’ snide summation of writer/teacher Stan Persky as one ‘‘who in his aca- demic career has diligently worked his way up from instructor at Malaspina College to instructor at Capilano College.”’ As a book reviewer I confess that I haven’t been overly im- pressed by Stan’s writing to date. But I also had the extreme good fortune several years ago to take three university-transfer courses taught by him at Malaspina Col- lege. : I say ‘“tgood fortune’’ because he stands out in my experience of the staff at two universities and Take a shower, ‘Irevor Dear Editor: Re: Trevor Lautens’ column Sept. 14, Gay life explained by Trevor, Stan and Svend. Pll venture that Mr. Lautens’ goal in writing this enlightening expose is that he feels the straight community has no concept of the really rude things gay people do, and that, as a journalist not afraid to tackle the burning issues, he has an obligation to bring these practices to our attention. Not only that, but it’s also kind of fun to gay bash, which people might even be willing to overlook if you write entertainingly enough, which, it must be agreed, Mr. Lautens occasionally does. His image of Stan (looks like Hardy —- thinks tike Laurel) Persky, is entertaining. However, am ! being unfair in looking for, some logic in your premise which would justify the offence it’s likely to arouse? Could not the same juxtaposition be made from a hetero perspec- tive? One doesn’t have to look too hard to find offensive non-gay stuff, So, yeah,.gays aren’t all the same cither. | suspect we, the unenlightened masses, knew that all along. This seems common subject matter with Mr. Lautens lately, and what is he doing reading ‘‘The Sodomite Invasion Review,”’ anyway? {i'll bet that isn’t exactly delivered to every doorstep on the North Shore, as his unpleasantness unfortunately was. Seems to me, Trevor, that you are entirely too concerned with what other guys do with their wee-wees. Have a cald shower. Michael Sherman North Vancouver DRAPERIES BY S. LAURKSEN mae CUSTOM DRAPERIES AND VALANCES Labour $7.50 per panel unlined, $8.50 lined CUSTOM BEDSPREADS AND COVERS Low, low prices on blinds and tracks For FREE Estimates Call 987-2966 Serving the North Shore for 19 years one college as one of the finest in- structors I’ve known. His ability to stimulate and teach his students is all too rare a faculty to be slighted, especially by someone who is apparently unfamiliar with his academic work. Furthermore, by the very nature of this insult, Lautens appears to hold both community colleges in low regard. Again, this is a ridicu- lous and unwarranted criticism albeit an indirect one. My second point deals with Lautens’ absurd excerpting of passages depicting sex between gay males. Depending on which work is be- ing quoted, heterosexual love- making can appear to be hilari- ous, debasing, tender or erotic. The quotes employed by Lautens are no more a valid depiction of gay men’s sexual attitudes and ac- tions than are the writings of the Marquis de Sade (or those found in Hustler) an accurate portrayal of the sexual relationship of heterosexual men and women. Lautens’ column was, in my opinion, a vicious example of hate-mongering cloaked in the guise Of reason but dripping with a bigot’s bile. Mike Steele North Vancouver Sunday, September 23, 1990 ~ North Shore News — PaET A oe! NI wie! Lawyer 310 - 145 Chadwick Court. North Vancouver Gust south of the market — next to the Seabus) Lonsdale Quay Plaza + - FAMILY LAV m A. John Lakes m James L. Straith B William J. 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