Many witnesses found it difficult to lie effectively when the court already had enough circumstantial evidence to use in probing their answers. Others may have decided that the best course was to answer honestly or with relatively honest answers that minimized their involvement. The court's notes say that Kenneth Day "admits he is probably a little tainted. Mind poisoned." Ernest Roberts claimed he was "led astray" by Wilcox and that Day, too, had been "led into it by Wilcox–but not of his own free will." Joseph Lumbard described parties where men danced together and others dressed in women's clothes. The court noted: "some kissing witnessed." Asked why he did not leave such a party, he allowed that he "stayed because he was interested." He had not masturbated for six years. Nathaniel Wolff detailed mutual masturbation with Keith Smerage, but claimed to have ended such behavior. "He was fighting hard and felt that he had overcome the habit. Says he is 90% OK." Smerage in turn said he had not masturbated in nine months and in college "had not slept with men in the unnatural sense." Later the court recorded that he said he had "'fooled' around with the homosexual business" once or twice at Harvard. Stanley Gilkey defended reading Havelock Ellis: "I think a man should know everything." Donald Clark, an assistant professor of philosophy, "denied any connection with homosexualism, and he denied talking about it except to help some students to cure themselves." He later admitted to have propositioned a student, as the court already knew from an earlier interview with the object of Clark's attentions.