The Law is for All

52 The Law is for All Everyone should discover, by experience of every kind, the extent and intention of his own sexual Universe. He must be taught that all roads are equally royal, and that the only question for him is “Which road is mine?” All details are equally likely to be of the essence of his personal plan, all equally “right” in them­ selves, his own choice of the one as correct as, and independent of, his neighbour’s preference for the other. He must not be ashamed or afraid of being homosexual if he happens to be so at heart; he must not attempt to violate his own true nature because public opinion, or mediaeval morality, or reli­ gious prejudice would wish he were otherwise. The oyster stays shut in his shell for all Darwin may say about his “low stage of evolution,” or Puritans about his priapistic character, or idealists about his unfitness for civic government. The advocates of homosexuality—primus inter pares,1 John Addington Symonds!1 2—hammer away like Hercules at the spir­ itual, social, moral, and intellectual advantages of cultivating the caresses of a comrade who combines Apollo with Achilles and Antinoiis at the expense of escaping from a Chimaera with Circe’s head, Cleopatra’s body, and Cressida’s character. 1 [Lat., “first among equals.”] 2 [John Addington Symonds (1840-1893) was an English translator, poet and historian.] 3 [Leonhard Euler (1707-1783), Swiss geometer.] 4 [Charles Howard Hinton (1853-1907) was a popular science writer in Crowley’s day; see Speculations on the Fourth Dimension: Selected Writings, ed. Rudolf Rucker (New York: Dover, 1980).] Why can’t they let one alone? I agree to agree; I only stipulate to be allowed to be inconsistent. I will confess their creed, so long as I may play the part of Peter until the cock crow thrice. They urge more strenuously still the claims of homosexuality to heal the hurts and horrors of humanity, almost the “complete cohort.” On this point I concur that they argue indisputably, with sober sense to support and stress of suffering to spur them. They prove with Euler’s3 exactness and Hinton’s4 passion that hetero­ sexuality entrains an infinity of ills: jealousies, abortions, diseases, infanticides, frauds, intrigues, quarrels, poverty, prostitution,