Number 105 • July/August 1984 • US & Canada $2 • UK £1 • Australia $1.75 SgSS^9 AIDS: WHAT'S BEHIND THE LATEST DISCOVERY? P 23 ^Tct/je^ The Skin of ORDER Our Teeth by Thornton Wilder NOW by Phone The Devil's 10 am - 9 pm Disciple Monday through Sunday by George Bernard Shaw (Toll Free from Toronto) "Discover Broadway on 361-1544 the Lake. Want great or call long distance theatre without Roberta (416) 468-3201 travelling to the Big Music by Jerome Kern Visa/MasterCard/A Apple or London? Book and lyrics by merican Canada's Shaw Festival Otto Harbach Express only OFFRE SPECIALE CANADA has just the ticket!" For further information and Rochester Times-Union your copy of our full season RECEVEZ CHAQUE SEMAINE GAI PIED TheVortex by Noel Coward brochure, write: SOUS PLI FERME POUR SEULEMENT Androcles Shaw Festival, 13 NUMEROS (3 MOIS) POUR 20.00$ P.O. Box 774 and the Lion Private Lives Niagara-on-the-Lake, 26 NUMEROS (6 MOIS) POUR 39.00$ by George Bernard Shaw by Noel Coward Ontario LOS 52 NUMEROS (I AN) POUR 72.00$ 1J0 Celimare Artistic Director: by Eugene Labiche Christopher Newton mmm may i to October u i Show Festival O N T H LAKE Roses by the pitcher. Or by the glass. Refresh your summer with the new Strawherry Glassware Bouquets from Teleflora. A pretty, frosted glass pitcher with a strawherry motif and matching glasses hold heautiful, fresh roses. Afterward, they're ready to serve your favorite drink. 1c > send one of these delightful gifts or the whole set, just call or visit our shop. The Strawherry Glassware Bouquets. Great summer servers from Teleflora. Give the Strawberry Glassware Bouquets* THERE'S A SEAT WAITING FOR YOU Mo. fiwim- af|RD£n serving metro toronto • major credit cards • 236 1041 r* l^/l I^C 81 Church St Toronto (416) 368-2867 2 THE BODY POLITIC JULY /AUGUST 1984 2 THIS ISSUE BodvFolilk NUMBER 105 • JULY 1984 ' The liberation of homosexuals can only be the work of homosexuals themselves." - Kurt Hitter, 1921 - The Collective John Allec, Paul Baker, Edna Barker, Christine Bearchell. Rick Beboul Paul Hackney, Gerald Hannon, Ed Jackson, Tim McCaskell, Ken Popert, Gillian Rodgerson, Phil Shaw, David Vereschagin Design/Art Direction Kirk Kelly/Hick Beboul 31: Coming Paul Aboud The News Chris Bearchell, Edna Barker out in the Robert Barron, Ed Jackson, John Moreau, Ken Popert, Gillian Rodgerson, Jane Smith, Richard Summerbell, Lee Waldorf, Glenn Wheeler, Ken Chaplin (Toronto News Staff) comics Richard Banner, Fred Gilbertson, Jackie Goodwin, Kevin Griffin, Rob Joyce, Don Larventz, Jim Oakes, See inside Batman and Robin's Stan Persky, Michael Wellwood (Vancouver News Staff) bedroom! Watch the incredible Maurice Beaulieu (Quebec), Wayne Bell (Kitchener), Gale Comin (Calgary), Nils Clausson (Edmonton). Bernard Courte (Montreal), Jeffrey McLaughlin (Victoria), Amazon girl-roping contest! Hear Robin Metcalfe (Halifax), Jim Monk (Windsor). Pay Orr (Calgary), Joe Szalai (Kitchener) Captain America decry homophobia! The World Writer Brad Fraser traces the history of homosexuality in comic books from the Tim McCaskell, Gillian Rodgerson Edna Barker, Kevin Orr, Paul Lee innocent Forties through the paranoid Fifties to the increasingly adventurous Reviews and Features John Allec (coordinator). Rick Archbold. Paul Baker. present — and finds everything from S/M vampires to the first gay Rick Bibout. Gerald Hannon. Stephen MacDonald. Alan McGinty. Sonja Mills. Phil Shaw. Colin Smith, (well, maybe) superhero. Richard Summerbell, Anne Stokes Out in the City John Allec (coordinator), Ron Ben-Israel. Jon Kaplan, Richard Summerbell, Ian Thorn, Glendon McKinney 7: Bust at Bud's Columns with raid Joy Parks, Glenn Wheeler, Chris Bearchell A grand Montreal tradition continues as 75 policemen armed cameras the popular bar Bud's Letters/Network and arrest 188 people. Those tired old bawdyhouse laws again. The response? Another tradition — Rick Bibout/Chris Bearchell thousands take to the streets in protest. Layout and Production Rick Bibout (coordinator), Paul Aboud, Peter Fltzwilliam, Paul Hackney, Barbara Klemme, Chris Lea, Sonja Mills, Michael Petty, Kevin Orr, Konnie Reich, Colin Smith, Jean- 23: AIDS: what's behind the headlines? Luc Svoboda, Neil Kitagawa, Cirasella and members and friends of the collective. A lot of hopes have been raised by the recent announcement of the discovery of the virus HTLV-III as the Printing: Delta Web Graphics, Scarborough ' Advertising 'cause" of AIDS . But have US researchers simply uncovered the same bug that the French did a year ago? Ed Jackson, Gillian Rodgerson Maurice Arcand. Robert Barron, Mike Kelley, Ken Popert, And is a vaccine or an "AIDS test" really on the way? Cindy Patton investigates. Giiies St-Hilaire, Robert Wilson Promotion Gerald Hannon 37: Alter, yes, but eros? Robert Wilson festival art sexuality, Subscriptions and Distribution The Toronto feminist was supposed to be a celebration of about but Chris Bearchell Gerald Hannon, Ken Popert, Robert Trow wonders whether it wasn't a search for an alternative to eros — and writers Sonja Mills and Jane Smith found Ward Beattie, Bill Brown, Milo Connelley. Martin Roebuck, Bob Wallace the shows didn't get them very excited, either. Three views of works that certainly weren't pornography, and Office Paul Aboud, John Allec, Chris Bearchell, Rick Btbout, so must have been erotica — whatever that might be. Gerald Hannon, Ed Jackson, Ken Popert, Gillian Rodgerson Robert Barron, Scott Bowler, Brad Candy. Gail Crouch, Paul Hackney, Jean-Denis Lacroix, Dale Landry. Mike Marshall. Tim McCaskell. Phillip Solanki. Anne Stokes. 35: Dancing by yourself Lee Waldorf. Ken West When it's raining men, Brian Mossop goes out onto the dance floor by himself to get wet — but he's not The Body Politic is published ten times a year by Pink Triangle Press, a non-profit corporation, as a contribution to the building of dancing alone. He's in the warm embrace of fraternal gay public life. A plea for the development of our lives Ihe gay movement and the growth of gay consciousness. Respon- sibility lor the content ot The Body Politic rests with the Body Poli- outside the arena of domesticity and coupledom — or why, so Brian says, you can be a homosexual tic Collective, an autonomous body operating within Pink Triangle Press The collective is a group ol people who regularly give their at home, but you can't be gay there. time and labour to the production otlhis magazine The opinions ol the collective are represented only in editorials and clearly marked editorial essays. Offices ol The Body Politic are located at 54 Wolseley Street (second floor) in Toronto 51: Edna and the men from Mars The publication olan advertisement in The Body Politic does not mean that the collective endorses the advertiser When does a young woman who has a crush on her female lunch buddies, who sounds like a teenaged boy Mailing address The Body Politic. Box 7289. Sin A Toronto. Ontario. Canada M5W 1X9 and who believes men are strictly from Mars discover that she's not a faggot? Easy — when she figures out Phone (416) 364-6320 she's a dyke. But first, she has to start with a picture of zucchini.... Available on microlilm from: a MacLaren Micropublishmg. Box 972. Stn F Toronto. Ontario. Canada M4Y 2N9 Copyright £ 1984 Pink Triangle Press 2nd Class Mail Registration No 3245 Regular departments See you in September ISSN 0315-3606 DISPLAY ADVERTISING DEADLINE 4: Letters to The Body Politic This is our last issue before we take a short break for the FOR THE SEPTEMRER 1984 ISSUE: 12: Chris Bearchell's "Combat Zone" summer — a break which is likely our last. Beginning THURSDAY, AUGUST 15: Glenn Wheeler's "Copwatch" with the September issue, we're planning to put The Politic Coalition lor in Body Politic on a real monthly schedule of twelve issues The Body is a member ol the Gay Rights 16: Network, our regular listing of gay and lesbian Ontario, the Toronto Community Council, the Canadian Gay a year, rather than our current ten. So, we hardly need Periodical Publishers' Association, and the International Gay groups across Canada Association tell you how much we're looking forward to this last The Body Politic gratefully acknowledges a grant from the 21: World News Toronto Gay Community Appeal to assist in the development ol breather. Have a good summer — we sure intend to! to Toronto — Out in in-house computer services 24: Your summer guide The Body Politic is indexed regularly in the City, with in this issue a new map Illustration from Batman the Alternative Press Index. The cover: Box 7229. Baltimore. MD 21218 41: Joy Parks's "Shared Ground" from the 30s to the 70s, Bonanza Books, New York. Design by PRINTED AND PUBLISHED IN CANADA 42: Classified ads the same old tired designer.... THE BODY POLITIC Q JULY /AUGUST 1984 3 LETTERS Caught in the ideological trap Unfortunately, James Johnstone (Let- stone's ideological antinomy and we're ters, TBP, May) falls into a very common getting there! trap in his comments on monogamy and The interrogation of the ideological promiscuity. Why this antinomy? It is representations of both homosexuality indeed a "commonplace" in heterosex- and heterosexuality are vital, so that we ual partiarchal ideology that there is can avoid the misrecognition both of our some kind of opposition between "fidel- sexuality and of our social positioning ity" and "promiscuity," between a brought about by the heterosexual pow- patriarchal monogamy and unsocializa- er relationships that Johnstone has obvi- ble non-reproductive desire. The latter is ously succumbed to. often represented as irresponsible, and Michael Eliot Hurst thus we are caught in the ideological Vancouver trap, since we are presented with only Some. one other alternative.