Last night the book group I belong to met to discuss the book A Self-Made Man by Norah Vincent. The author, a lesbian journalist (and politically conservative friend of Andrew Sullivan who has written articles for The New Republic) quit her job as syndicated columnist with the LA Times to spend a year in drag and find out what it was like to think like a man and live among them. (Not to mention trying to "date" women from the heterosexual male perspective.)
Vincent spent time with 3 different groups of men during her period of disguise--a weekly bowling league, a monthly support group (a la Robert Bly), and a monastery. The book was fascinating. It confirmed some of my beliefs about how men think/feel and shattered others--keeping in mind the fact that the book was written by a member of a sexual minority, although we all agreed that she didn't bring that bias into her writing that we could ascertain.
6 of the 8 of us who met to discuss this book are "devout" Catholics. The other Protestant woman there besides myself, a PhD neonatal ICU nurse-educator kept giving each other glances throughout the evening discussion. So did another woman whose sister is a lesbian (and she hasn't "outed" this to the group). One woman who is a widow reported that her husband's hat was left at a strip bar on one business trip and mused that she doesn't have the opportunity to question her husband about this now. The woman who suggested this book--a retired Air Force office and I had both been sexually harassed on the job as young professional women.
The Strib OpEd letter from last week by the lesbian woman from Litchfield and the retired Lutheran Bishop's response, previously posted by Liberalpastor yesterday (thank you, Liberalpastor, because I hadn't read it on my own!) were also both discussed.
Last night was one of the most interesting discussions our book group has had in its 13 year history. I drank heavily and tried not to talk TOO much. We wives, divorcees, and widows, decided that male sexuality is all very Darwinian and that men are, by fact, "chromosomally challenged". I still ponder daily, as Rodney King once so eloquently said, "Why can't we all just get along"?
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