ABSTRACT
Often it is easier to study the ways of primitive tribes and historic civilizations than to examine contemporary culture, for only by dint of great mental effort can a man stand back and view dispassionately his own cherished beliefs and customs. In attempting to estimate the frequency of homosexuality in the community today one must guard against the tendency to minimize what is unpleasant or inconvenient. Estimates by normal folk, based on their personal observations, are always too low. They do not care to suspect their own acquaintances, and the deviants themselves are at pains to disguise their peculiarity from family and friends. A well-known psychiatric authority, in the preface to the second edition of his book on sexual perversions, remarked that he had been astonished by the number of acquaintances and colleagues who had consulted him since the appearance of the first edition, although they had shown no outward sign of abnormality [4].
