I, on the other hand, cannot imagine how I would have functioned without the women in my life.
From early on the teachers, relatives and neighbors not to mention my mother were my cheerleaders and guides thru life whether I wanted it or not.
A dear friend for many years and one of those women was Mary Hanson who has departed now in her 90s.
She was the woman who, in many ways, gave me my backbone and confidence, proved to me I could do almost anything if I believed in myself and made my independence possible in many ways.
I remember Mary saw a photo of me at about 3 the only male (albeit a little boy) surrounded by and in the middle of a large group of women-she said it was the saddest picture she had ever seen.
If I had been followed by a videographer throughout my life there would be MANY pictures of me surrounded by women because that's where I was happiest and preferred to be.
If one looks at my drawings, art and design work one can see quickly that I love women, I draw women, I very seldom draw men because I don't think I do it well.
The hardest part of being "that man" was disappointing the women who couldn't deal with a close friendship but wanted to make it something else that was, for me, impossible.
I was not repulsed by women-far from it, I always wanted to make them beautiful, goddess like in as few clothes as possible-dripping rhinestones and furs and feathers-dreams walking and I have always loved beautiful breasts-those perfect globular, pouty perky pink tipped breasts found on showgirls in the 1960s on onward.
Something to be admired but handled carefully and perhaps never touched at all.
A fabulous woman call Mara played Giulietta in the production of Tales of Hoffman that I always consider my ,masterpiece she tried to push the boundaries-she presented herself stark naked, legs akimbo for me to position myself between those legs and do her makeup-rhinestones, feathers on the eyelids-high fashion Vegas in Opera land.
She was like some Amazonian Cher-but the fact that her holy of holies was right there by my knee never made my hand shake or distracted me in any way.
How ungentlemanly for me to even glance in that direction when she trusted me to linger in such a vulnerable moment of her life (and mine).
I was raised to enshrine women, to glorify them, to respect them, guard their confidences and keep their secrets not paw them...despite their possible desires to the contrary.
At the same time women are not dolls to me, not vacant mannequins-women are intelligent, graceful and know how to share an in joke or a twist of phrase and will listen when they ask for advice (whether they take the advice or not)
Its a sacred trust.
I suppose it's not a mistake that I always had a statuesque beauty who hadn't bloomed yet near me-she would eventually bloom and then she would run away-that's the way its been-once the see themselves as I see them they need to go-not one has ever hung around.
A friend (female) told me that at a certain age every woman should have a gay, male friend-husbands come to a point where they are pretty much only good for someone to dance with at parties and women mostly can't talk to them about important things like what colour to paint the new guestroom or if the dress they've chose is "too young" or "too matronly"?
My feeling is that having a friend of the opposite sex is the way we balance the world-you don't have to mate to have a relationship of worth but you do need that mind meld-it's better than sex and less messy.
My dear departed Cadillac Rose, the sometimes lesbian friend of my younger years told me once that only a woman could explain what a yeast infection felt like and only a man could explain how it felt to catch your tender parts in a zipper-probably profoundly correct itching behind ones navel makes no sense to me.
We also shared a promise that I will never have to keep since she escaped in the most dramatic way by giving in to the big C: If I would tell her she had too much rouge on she would make sure my fly was always zipped and thusly would we traverse old age.
I have a lady friend now---she is a dear soul, much too kind and loving for this world-she tapes me up when I start to unravel and holds my head when I weep and all without judgement-so for now I am OK.
She too is a sometimes lesbian but in all things womanly and without that anger that some lesbians get where men are concerned.
I have to say I am not a friend of men who marry have kids and then decide that they are gay (after all) and start cheating on their wives.
I hope the newer generations are less spoiled by their mothers? So many of my generation and even after were spoiled and raised as if they owned the world and a good wife was owed to them-throw in a slightly mesogenistic father of the pregnant and barefoot generation and you have a problem.
We are in the 2020's and some people still have problems with sexuality-so many gay men have become monogamists which is great but the undecided guys seem to operate on a different generations morals.
Its not fair to any woman or any partner to wander around exposing them to diseases because you are bored.
You made a commitment and, in my humble opinion, you stick with it till the children are out on their own.
If you have a wife and no kids be a man, wash your own underwear, get a small apartment and give her a divorce-then you can do as you chose.
I don't like open relationships=they work for some people and that is their business not mine.
It seems like someone gets hurt eventually-I had an open relationship not because I wanted it but because my partner cheated and when I announced that I had met someone and we would need to change arrangements he acted like he was the sad victim.
I am always horrified at the guys who say they have met THE ONE and then keep looking or grab a little on the side-not cool.
If anyone wondered-there is that bit of me for you to chew on...all thanks to Armistead Maupin
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