The seed for collectivismcomm.ne) ism-living together Is strong today. It helps reek down the nuclear unit system, while it simultaneously begins to build an altercative to the nuclearPasily. A collective is very open, unlike the cuclear family, and can ce altered by those living in 1 to fit any need. very acaptable.

It's

I feel strongly that as a day sale, ay living in a gay llective is almost Imperative. I don't think It is something unique in me that makes me feel the oppression of our classist, sexist, non-gay, racist, society, and I knew that it is harder to cope with if yo. live acce or with nonzay's.

Live with a bunch of crazies. I love is. Sometimes is difficult, and it can make ne rage, but I wouldn't trade it. For seven cos I have lived with four other people in a 5 bedroom apartment. Until that ime I nad lived with my parents and although they are nice, they are not the sor of people I think would cncose as friends,

ey are not living a life I would model mine after, and they are act people I Would choose to live with. My nousemates, contrarily, I have chosen as friends and have chosen to live with,

WE SUGGEST

a Family

as far as modeling my lives after them, ac thank-you, but then you can't nave everything.

There are disadvantages to collective living, like coming one from a week-end out of town, taking your bags to your room and finda guest of the house tricking in your bed-or finding the milk gone in the morning 5C that you cannot have breakfast before going to work-or listening to four other people scream at you because they had rough days. But there is also paving someone to walk to the corner store to buy toilet paper when you realize as you sit on the John, that there is none and no kleenex-or having a great zucchini cassarole for inner when you can barely fry an egg-or having a shoulder to cry on when your own day gces rotten.

But those are really only minor things. There are marvelcus things like living with people who are gay and open-people you can talk tc who will understand from YOUR point of view, as gaysiblings-being and living gay twenty-four hours a day.

We also accomplished some things by our collective involvement in "gay liberation": listing our phone number for counseling, and working on projects from publications to speaking engagements and

daed-a-lus

not a Factory

2" 4"

PLATFORM

CUSTOM CLOGS YOUR DESIGN OUR CRAFT

CRLL Leather goods made

with

IN Columbus Love

Located above the

Agora at 1714 N. High.

Lavender Starship/Page 7/May 1973

zaps, as a group, or as one or more members of the group.

I grew up thinking I

wanted to be alone, which is not so surprising I suppose if one considers the oppression of youta and especially Eay youth. (My alone-ness was as much an expression of my alienation as it was a genuine desire to be alone.) I never totally enjoyed my family life with my relatives by biocd or narriage, but with the silly sissies c seventh avenue I don't have to feel that alienation. My alone-ness in my early years was not really bad (although

Closets are

for Clothes not People

SISSY GROWS UP,MOVES

AWAY FROM HOME&....

it might have been better). It gave me time to explore myself, which I feel is a necessity, at least for me. But as I got older I began to sense that there was something wrong with my single state, because it was not wholly voluntary, and I felt it might be cheating myself" and my development by not dealing with people. Although self-avareness is good, so is the exploration of other people.

So now I have a family. Like any other family, we

A BOOK REVIEW

and are a very diverse Occassionally conflicting group, but the sense of wholeness and snared love there along with a general awareness of the common ran needs of love and understanding and affections is greater than I ever felt with my relatives.

Probably the greatest disappointment for me in this group living experience was its lack of collective

CONTINUED ON PAGE 14

OUT OF the CLOSETS

VOICES OF GAY LIBERATION

Out of the Closets is a collection of articles, by radical authors, concerning a multitude of subjects, compiled and edited by Karla Jay and Allen Young. The amazing and beautiful thing is that they are Gay art-

icles, by Gay authors, concerning Gay subjects, edited by Gay people.

The book is a must for any person hoping to develop a Gay Consciousness and share in the communion of the Gay Movement and its philosophies.

The book is a sharing of the best articles of a "Human" Liberation movement, and it states the dreams, accomplishments and goals of the Gay Liberation struggle. Out of the Closets is also a statement of solidarity with all peoples' movements by Gays, and presents avantgarde theories of true Revolutionary conscious levels. This book is also a mirror held up to the Gay Liberation Movement, so it may look at itself and see its accomplishments, as well as its short-comings.

Out of the Closets takes us from the birth of the Gay Movement, through its growing pains of making itself known and right up to its new horizons of a better

place and understanding of all peoples. It speaks in the voices of Gay sisters and brothers from all levels of The Lavender Existence. "Dear Mom," "Tennessee Williams," "Sissy in Prison," "Hanoi to Hoboken," and "Gay Manifesto" are just a few of the many topics covered.

刊

The book is the first of its kind and is most needed and welcomed by historians and history makers of the Gay Movement alike.

It should be in the collection of any movement library; it should be required reading for every Gay Speakers Bureau, and it would make a fine gift for any special person in your life.

Parts of the proceeds of this book (the Cay part) will be recycled into the gay underground media, which. is just another reason it deserves Gay support.

Step out of your closet long enough to hear the voices of Gay Liberation; pick up a copy soon.

Gut of the Closets: Voices of Gay Liberation, edited by Karla Jay and Allen Young; New York, 1972; 403 pp.; $7.95. In paperback, $2.95.

Harmod! in Exile