Homosexuals “Live Under Strain”

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31753, 9 August 1968, Page 5

Homosexuals “Live Under Strain”

(New Zealand Press Aitociation) WELLINGTON, August 7. Homosexuals in New Zealand lived under more than average mental strain, Professor J. H. Robb told the New Zealand Homosexual Law Reform Society tonight

Dr Robb is professor of sociology at Victoria University, and president of the society. He said homosexuals could not express their sexual desires and if they did it would probably to be in a way which was criminal. Many of them also had a moral concern.

“Bisexuals caught in homosexual behaviour, and convicted, often become fully homosexual and known to the authorities,” Dr Robb said. “The great majority of male homosexuals are about as interested in immature boys as heterosexuals are in immature girls.” Dr Robb said there was probably as much lesbianism between women in New Zealand as there was homosexuality between men. But there was not the same level of disapproval. There was a tendency for any group singled out as being undesirably different to become different This was a sociological fact The present attitude to male homosexuals in New Zealand guaranteed continued

ignorance of the problem, Dr Robb said. Five per cent of the population was probably homosexual.

The problems for research were great At present there was no knowledge of the causes of homosexuality. There was no “cure.”

By ostracising male homo* sexuals the community was depriving itself of useful talent Dr Robb said.

Flew To Death.—*A singleengined plane crashed into Nevada's tallest building, in Las Vegas last night, killing the pilot in what the police say appears to have been a successful, if bizarre suicide attempt The aircraft which had been stolen, struck a sign on top of a skyscraper hotel and crashed through the roof of the Las Vegas Convention Centre about 200 yards away. No-one except the pilot was harmed. Sheriff Ralph Lamb said the dead pilot, Everett Wayne Shaw, aged 39, of Las Vegas, left two notes indicating that he was in a very despondent mood. Las Vegas, August 4.