Listen

Listen: I am not oppressed.

I am not disenfranchised. I was not abused as a child, nor did I steal food to survive. I once tried to shoplift a Rubik's Cube until my conscience got the better of me. My family was (and is, for all I know) well to do.

I did not have a painful adolescence (no more than any other). I was considered the school bookworm and got off on it. I go into any conversation believing what I say and defending my right to say it, as well as my right to change my beliefs in the face of irreproachable logic and rhetoric. Voltaire is dead so I can mangle him. (Yes, a sort of intellectual cowardice.)

Women do not intimidate me--as a class. Nor do I intimidate them in turn--as a class. Exceptions: These are why anecdotal evidence sucks. I do not go through each day longing for the kiss of the whip or the sting of her kiss. Piquant, they strike without warning.

I owe allegiance to no religion. No god consigned me to disobedience so that he might show his fucking mercy to me (Romans 11:32). I am moral, yet I am not bound by the ethical considerations of any organization or philosophy. I am not ruled by the house of Mars, the phase of the moon, the I Ching, Locke's human so-called nature, or any proposed "sexual superiority."

So when she raises my desire to a fever pitch (electric ignition--no match required!), when she and I gaze in lock-step, revolving in a decaying universe, when we rise to that moment and all that exists is her will laying itself on, wrapping itself around mine...to hell with explanations or excuses.

This passion is my own, I will take it to my grave.