FOREWORD
Butt Boy! is the story of a fifteen-year-old boy’s self-discovery. Young Cal’s extraordinary sexual endowment and remarkable sexual capacity give him ready entree into New York’s much discussed and little understood gay world. Exploring that world, Cal learns about himself.
This is not a book for the squeamish. In the interest of honest realism, its language is candid. No veil is drawn over graphic scenes that may shock the prudish.
At Surrey House, Inc., we believe that open-minded readers will agree with us that truth is more important than evasion, that frankness is better than “niceness,” that clarity is worth more than euphemism.
The world that Cal plunges into is not well understood by psychologists or the general public. Indeed, the status of homosexuality in western society has long been uncertain. In recent years, attempts made to examine the question have begun to make inroads into the nature of homosexual practices and attitudes, at last casting some light onto a complex area of human relationships. Many doubts plague the heterosexual world on the subject. Layman and scholar alike find all distinctions between fact and myth blurred.
The major, and certainly the most eye-opening breakthrough came with Kinsey’s 1948 report on sexual behavior in the American male. He reported that four percent of the white males in this country are exclusively homosexual throughout their lives after the onset of adolescence. If half the population is male, this makes a total of more than four million men in the United States whose sexual interests completely exclude activity with women. According to Kinsey, one can say “completely” here because another six million men, six percent, also engage in homosexual activity for at least three years between the ages of sixteen and fifty- five. Ten percent of any population is a sufficient minority to demand a reconsideration of rights given and denied.
When those rights are denied by statutes so cankered by meaningless tradition that no basis for continuation of anti-homosexual laws can be found, the time is ripe for a reconsideration of the laws themselves, and more, the morality which gave rise to them.
On the legal front, some slow progress is at last being made.
Perhaps even more important: a beginning has been made in broadening the general public’s understanding of a complicated subject.
In this regard, this novel will be particularly helpful to many. Its social value is clear.
We believe that its worth as sheer, rousing entertainment is obvious, also. Damon Martin’s latest is the sort of book that Surrey House, Inc. readers will read and re-read with pleasure.
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