But the overwhelming difference between me and "real" women is cultural. I simply don't share their cultural assumptions and aspirations. Nor can I undo the "training" I received in how to be a man enough to mimic those assumptions with becoming some ghastly parodic creation. Assuming the superficialities of female behaviour without having the deeper cultural understandings that make them whole and complete would show disrespect to the project of womanhood.

But being "black" was how your firend identified herself. We all lable ourselves to some extent. But it's important to use these as as roots for our questing and not as prisons to limit us.

That's what's so infernal about the dance teacher. She is imprisoning her culture, marking ghetto territories that are off-limits to others.

keep to the Fen Causeway