Since the 1950s academic Donald West has written half a dozen major studies of homosexuality. His new book is different. In it he comes out as a promiscuous gay man with a liking for rough trade and S&M. He turns 88 in June. David McGillivray meets a remarkable old gentleman…
onald West seems to be a worried man. I can understand why. The 87-year-old writer, formerly a psychiatrist and criminologist, has just published a book in which he deals with what even the blurb on the back calls “unpopular ideas.”
There’s a page on paedophilia that’ll raise eyebrows at ChildLine; and although he admits to using male prostitutes, even when he was working for the charity Streetwise Youth, he tells me, “I’m not in favour of homosexuality. I think it would be better if that condition didn’t exist.”
Because of his controversial views, he’s concerned about reaction. I warn him that he could face criticism. “Where will the criticisms appear?” he asks me. In the gay press, I reply. “Yes, that’s what I would have thought,” he says glumly.
It sounds as if he’s having regrets about writing Gay Life Straight Work. “I suppose I feel ambivalent about it, yes,” he agrees. “It depends what happens I suppose.” I hope critics don’t give Donald too hard a time. He was one of those who argued for tolerance of homosexuality at a time when it was still a crime; and most of his views now are not uncommon for men of his generation.
“I shall have to be careful what I say,” he remarks when he sees my recording gear, and indeed he is. He speaks slowly, choosing each word before he utters it. But I think that’s how he’s always been. He’s as honest about his shortcomings as he is about his sex life.
“I think I’ve had an interesting life but I’m not of a temperament that gets as much enjoyment as I should get because I’m anxious and reflective and so forth,” he confesses. Born in Liverpool, he qualified in medicine in 1947 and worked as a psychiatrist from 1951.
He owns up in his book to one instance of what would now qualify as medical malpractice. It was not unconnected to his habit of cruising London’s secret gay meeting places. “That wasn’t what you might call a great preoccupation,” he insists. “In my early days what I was looking for was a partner.”
He found one, Pietro, in a cinema on Piccadilly Circus, known as a pick-up joint. (It’s long gone but you can see it in the scene in An American Werewolf in London where the werewolf runs out of a cinema and causes traffic chaos). Donald and Pietro were together for 45 years.
But throughout their relationship, Donald was out looking for rough trade. “I think that a great many gay men find a completely monogamous relationship difficult,” he says. He admits guilt about his treatment of Pietro.
But no sooner had he died than Donald was online and down at SM Gays. He found his new partner, whose name he doesn’t want to reveal, on Silver Daddies. They’ve been together eight years and are now civil partners. “This must surely be a streak of luck,” Donald writes.
Donald’s book Homosexuality was first published in 1955 and then re-written as a result of the Wolfenden committee’s recommendation that homosexuality be decriminalised. Donald agreed, pointing out that homosexuality was “extremely common”, that repressed homosexuality was unhealthy, and that it was unlikely boys could be seduced into becoming gay. But he used the language of the era, stating that “the normal man” need have no cause to envy the homosexual’s miserable life and including an entire chapter headed “Prevention”. I
n 1992, with the world now in the grip of AIDS, Donald published Male Prostitution, based on interviews with escorts. Shockingly explicit in its day, this book is also now dated. Its description of street prostitution around Piccadilly makes it appear as though nothing has changed since Wilde’s time, while the laws against group sex and any gay sex at all under 21 seem antiquated.
“I’m not in favour of homosexuality. I think it would be better if that condition didn’t exist.”
Together with his new autobiography the books give us a fascinating picture of Donald over a period of nearly 60 years, first as an observer, then as a participant. In reality, of course, he’s always been both. “You can be an observer in spite of being personally involved”, he confirms.
“It doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re biased.” Well, he is biased, but in that old-school way that comes from losing touch with popular opinion. Let’s go back to some of those unpopular ideas.
He rationalises his dislike of homosexuality because of homophobia. “It causes a lot of social conflicts,” he declares. “The idea that homophobia has been eradicated is ridiculous because it may have been reduced very considerably in this country but if you look at it globally it certainly has not.”
He’s also cautious about promoting equality. “I think that there are differences between people who are predominantly homosexual and predominantly heterosexual just as there are differences between men and women. People don’t like to admit it. But you can’t get away from reality.”
On the subject of paedophilia, he denies writing about it in a positive light, but “it depends what you mean by paedophilia.” He says that the word was originally a psychiatric concept. “Nowadays,”, he continues, “it is assumed that it always means violence and exploitation, wheres there is a grey area in adolescence, where sexually mature minors are actually seeking sex.”
I like the idea that someone who was trying to change people’s minds as a young man is still giving us something to think about in his 80s. I hope Donald’s planning another book.
• Gay Life Straight Work is published by Paradise Press at £9.99
