Myra-Breckinridge-Gore-Vidal

Why? How strange--just the thought of such a thing makesmy eyes fill suddenly with tears. Poor Myron. Yet, all in all,he is better dead. One must not underestimate theinfluence of these young people on our society. It is true thatthe swingers, as they are called, make up only a smallminority of our society; yet they hold a great attraction forthe young and bored who are the majority and who keeptheir sanity (those that do) by having a double sense ofthemselves. On the one hand, they must appear to acceptwithout question our culture's myth that the male must bedominant, aggressive, woman-oriented. On the other hand,they are perfectly aware that few men are anything butslaves to an economic and social system that does notallow them to knock people down as proof of virility or inany way act out the traditional male role. As a result, theyoung men compensate by playing at being men, w'earingcowboy clothes, hoots, black leather, attempting throughclothes (what an age for the fetishist!) to impersonate thekind of man our society claims to admire but swiftly putsdown should he attempt to be anything more than anillusionist, playing a part. It is the wisdom of the maleswinger to know what he is: a man who is socially andeconomically weak, as much put upon by women as bysociety. Accepting his situation, he is able to assert himselfthrough a polymorphic sexual abandon in which the linesbetween the sexes dissolve, to the delight of all. I suspectthat this may be the only workable pattern for the future, andit is a most healthy one... certainly healthier than the rigidoldfashioned masculinity of someone like Rusty whose