SEXIS WRONG

lated than we had been before, more a part of a community, a
“culture” uniquely our own, not one—those books told us in
no uncertain terms—that we need be ashamed of, either.
Over the next several years, Greenleaf—and in time, others—
published books about gay cowboys and Indians, gangsters,
truckers, police and firemen, soldiers and sailors, detectives,
and, yes, secret agents.
As we devoured these books, we began to see ourselves in
new ways, not just as a group but as individuals. These novels
offered us a whole new world of self-images. Macho images.
Guilt-free images. Proud images. Come out, these books cried
to us, share with one another who and what you are.
We began to feel a new spirit of togetherness, a spirit that
would soon have us joining arms and marching together—
and chanting, for the first time ever, “gay power.”
I’ve written so much about Earl Kemp’s impact on gay politics
that I fear I have almost certainly given a false impression. I
don’t want to suggest that Earl was, even latently, homosexual,
nor was Greenleaf ever primarily a “gay publishing house.”
Under Earl’s stewardship, Greenleaf published mostly heterosexual
material, and that material, too, influenced the sexual
and social revolution of the era, just as he had intended.
Others, however, were determinedly pushing
those boundaries. Plenty of publishers, writers,
movie makers, performers, et al., were
willing to take on the puritan right on the heterosexual
front.
Barney Rosset of Grove Press published an unexpurgated
version of D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover and created
a sensation. Nabokov’s Lolita and John Cleland’s Fanny
Hill were not far behind. Fellini’s La Dolce Vita and Russ Meyer’s
The Immoral Mr. Teas were playing in movie houses, and
Hugh Hefner published probably the most famous calendar
photograph of all time.
There were plenty of gladiators, then, in the heterosexual
arena. After the Aday and Maxey debacle, however, no one
wanted to wrestle the fairy-tale dragon—until Earl jumped in
and grabbed him by his lavender tail.
Earl has elsewhere called the sex-oriented publishing of the
1960s “a game.” Yes, in a sense—scary though it was, it was
exciting, too, and we found plenty to laugh about and cheer
for—but it was a game with far more serious consequences
than any Super Bowl, and none of us could ever afford to
forget it.
In that revolution, some of us, as I have said, took to the
streets and the demonstrations. I was there in those shouting,
jostling crowds. It takes some courage, it’s true, but you
have the adrenaline rush and the group energy to keep you
going.
It takes a different kind of courage to fight the war as Earl
did, at his desk and, repeatedly, as the years went along, in
courtrooms. In that one, as in any war, you sometimes lost
a battle. Well, any Girl Scout can tell you, you have to crack
nuts if you want to make brownies.
Sometimes you came home from the fight wounded, expecting
a hero’s welcome and found instead that people mostly
didn’t appreciate, hardly even remembered, your sacrifices.
No medals, no monuments. Mostly, just the satisfaction of
looking at the world around you, at how greatly it has changed,
Well, any Girl Scout can tell you, you
have to crack nuts if you want to
make brownies.
and knowing that you helped to make that happen. Gratifying,
but you can’t help wondering, in all modesty, if there oughtn’t
to be something more than that.
For what it’s worth, soldier, there are some, mostly those
who had been in the trenches with you, to whom you are
indeed a hero. Who hold you in esteem and are grateful.
Which is what I said pages and pages earlier: Virgin or not,
Earl Kemp is the Godfather of gay publishing.
Viva il Capo.
THE VIRGIN DIARIES 231