ABSTRACT
The widespread use in our time of games of chance as come-ons for potential customers in filling stations and supermarkets illustrates the drawing power of such devices. The kicks of the tearoom game provide just this sort of reinforcement for whatever other attraction these sexual encounters may provide. The silent detachment evident throughout these games of chance is functional for the covert deviant, not only in maintaining secrecy about his behavior and shielding his social biography from stigma, but in avoiding commitment. The police are not the only agents of social control, and much of the blame for the tension and self-hatred that afflict the sexual deviant belongs elsewhere. Physicians, psychiatrists, social scientists, ministers, and officials of other social control agencies need to become informed about the dangers of condemning covert deviants. Social creatures are always engaged in structuring interaction to provide maximum self-protection.
