REINCARNATION

Ah, Violet-- you have returned... I missed you. But I knew you'd be back, with your insights and perceptions and your writing... Oh, how I love your writing...

I've been lonely out here, in the (blech!) blog-o-sphere (I still hate that term but what else can we call it?). Nobody has time to blog anymore, because Life gets in the way. I guess that's why I blog about my own life, no matter how solipsistic it gets-- that way, my personal matters don't have to get in the way of my writing.

But then again, writing is my life, so it all makes sense.

Ah, Violet... I'm glad you are back.


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A lot of my readers are female. A lot of the blogs I like to read are written by women. Is there a correlation? Of course there is.

I often tell people that I was a lesbian in a former life, who balanced her karma and was reincarnated as a man. I know, it sounds sexist, but I think that's how the reincarnation hierarchy goes-- I mean, it's an ancient belief to begin with, and therefore it will still contain remnants of the sexism and traditions of the past.

Anyway, not to get off tangent... so now, I am happy to have a cock and I take full advantage of all the benefits of being a man. But I also recognize the evil inherent in the male ego, and I am using my newfound shape and form to balance even more karma.

I made up this elaborate explanation of my psyche to counter one of the most annoying things I've ever heard men say: namely, that because they love women, they are lesbians. I know, they say it jokingly, but it really is a slap in the face to every woman who suffered scorn and humiliation for dabbling in the love that dare not speak its name.

I remember when I first used it on someone. It was at a party, and some guy was trying to be charming and funny, telling a couple of full-fledged dykes that he was a lesbian too. People laughed, but I noticed that the lesbians didn't laugh at all. They looked at him like he was from outer space. He was oblivious to this sweeping generalization. The looks on their faces spoke volumes about the discrimination and prejudices they faced, and now here's a straight guy telling them he's one of them. It's like watching white guys claim they are "niggaz"... it makes you cringe.

So I stepped up and said, "I was a lesbian in a former life."

The guy looked at me and said, "Really?"

I said, "Yeah, and now that I'm a man, I'm on a mission to destroy the male-dominated society in which we live."

The guy looked at me, as if I were now the space alien. "You don't say?"

I was on a roll. "Yeah, because when I was alive, in my lesbian incarnation, I was nearly burned at the stake for loving other women. My ideas were stolen by men, who went on to profit greatly from them. I was raped and beaten by men who thought they could 'change' me back into a straight girl. I was accosted at nearly every turn, and all the female lovers I had left me because they would rather stay in the closet and escape persecution than express their true selves."

The guy was awkwardly reticent. The lesbians were smirking.

I wasn't finished. "So, as a lesbian, do you find it easier nowadays to express your love of women? Or do you find sometimes that you miss the feel of a man's cock inside of you?"

The guy was tripping out by now. "Dude, you're telling me way too much information right now..."

That's another annoying thing that I hate to hear. 'Too much information' smacks of cynical condescension and smugness.

"I'm just asking you, as a straight man who used to be a gay woman: Do you ever wish you could go back to being a straight woman? Have you ever considered the possibility that you're bisexual?" I was having such a ball making this guy squirm.

The guy, confused, asked me, "Are you a fag?"

"No," I said, non-plussed. "But you are. But I wouldn't use that term, 'fag'... I'd just say you were a gay woman. I mean, you just said you were a lesbian, right?"

The queer couple sitting in front of us could barely contain their laughter. The guy just walked away-- he'd had enough. And if he never ever used that cheesy "I'm a lesbian" line again, then all of the trouble I went through to piss him off was worth it.


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Of course, good intentions are not enough. For all of my righteous indignation, I am still a man, a straight man, and no amount of pretending will change that fact.

I'm not one of those guys who claims that he's a woman trapped in a man's body. I don't consider it a trap to be a man. I am glad to have a penis, and I would never willingly change my sex for any reason.

But I don't want to embody the worst traits of men either. I detest the ape mentality that comes with 'hanging with the guys'... I abhor the peer pressure that marginalizes sensitive guys like me. What, I'm less of a man just because I believe women should have the same exact rights as men?

I've gotten in other guys' faces over this. Full-on arguments, threatening to turn into brawls... It's usually with neanderthals who can't argue intelligently, so they resort to trying to emasculate me by claiming I'm gay, or a wimp. But after a few word exchanges, they are the ones acting hysterical, getting defensive, regressing into childish states, resorting to name-calling, while I stand still, calm and collected, armed with the power of the quick wit and the acidic tongue.

And when those cretins realize that I've, in effect, 'made them my bitch', they back down. They realize that kicking my ass would only prove me right. They also realize that I'm not a punk, and that I'll hit them back, unlike the scores of 'fags' and 'wimps' they no doubt tortured in grade school.

Yes, it's good to be a lesbian reincarnated in the body of an able-bodied man who fears very little in the way of things. I get to have deep feelings, and I also get to break people's balls without suffering devastating consequences.

But, I'm still a man, when the day is done. I still have lapses, I still occasionally act like a pig, I still sometimes can't understand how the mind of a female works.

But I'm trying to understand. Lord knows, I'm trying.