HIS69-074 Cockpit Cruiser
$1.95
$1.95
FOREWORD
For the first fifty years of his life, Merle Miller rarely spoke of his homosexuality—even to the people closest to him. Then, in January, 1971, in a poignant, beautifully written essay in the New York Times Magazine, he told “What It Means To Be A Homosexual.” He looked deeply into the roots of his homosexuality in his lonely childhood, and told how being a homosexual affected the course of his life—his work, his friendships, his brief marriage. His essay has been since published in book form. It represents an enormous act of courage.
The same can be said of Rod Rammer. He speaks for himself, as Merle Miller did, but in speaking for himself he speaks for a minority condemned for being different. And though he doesn’t come out with a cry for understanding, his plea is understated, in the form of a novel rather than an essay.
Arno Karlen, in his recently published and highly praised, Sexuality and Homosexuality—A New View, says: “The true revolution is not in the sexual behavior itself, but in the study and understanding of sex.”
Cockpit Cruiser is an action-packed, adventure story, yes. But more than that it is a study of just what Dr. Karlen advocates—the understanding of sex. This is a book in which sex between males is presented truthfully, and it is not meant for those who are easily offended by reading such literature. To have held back on sex in the story would have been like Merle Miller holding back his famous essay for another ten years, which could have been detrimental to him, and would certainly have kept a work of compassion and art from the public where it belonged in the first place.
As Dr. Karlen advocates, the study and understanding of sex must preceed an understanding of homosexuality per se. We present then, Cockpit Cruiser, because it does study sex in depth, and with psychological insight into the motivation and emotional rewards surrounding the sexual act, both in heterosexual and homosexual instances, which come to us in the form of the same person. And there lies the interesting core of Mr. Rammer’s book—the central character is heterosexual, and yet experiences homosexual sex, and his thoughts and feelings from the first page to the last make up the compelling story that it is.
For a “straight” man to have written such a book took the same kind of courage that Merle Miller had to find to publish his article in the New York Times Magazine. The impact of Mr. Rammer’s story should be just as potent as Mr. Miller’s, for it also represents an act of similar courage.
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