An excerpt from the book Self-Made Man: My Year Disguised As A Man, by Norah Vincent.
Vincent--a married lesbian--spent 18 months disguised as a man named "Ned".
In addition to joining several male-dominated organizations--including a bowling league, a men's therapy group, and a monastery--she dated a number of women as "Ned".
"Not only was dating one of the hardest of Ned's experiences, it was also the most fraught with deception. I decided I would out myself to anyone with whom I had more than a passing, unsuccessful, date or two. To most of the women I dated, even the odd date meant a lot, especially women who had been out roaming the singles scene for years in their mid-30s, trying to find a mate amid the serial daters.
For these women, men as a subspecies - not the particular men with whom they had been involved - were to blame for the wreck of a relationship and the psychic damage it had done them. It's hardly surprising, then, that in this atmosphere, as a single man dating women, I often felt attacked, judged, on the defensive.
Many of my dates - even the more passive ones - did most of the talking. I listened to them talk literally for hours about the most minute, mind-numbing details of their personal lives; men they were still in love with, men they had divorced, roommates and co-workers they hated, childhoods they were loath to remember yet somehow found the energy to recount ad nauseam. Listening to them was like undergoing a slow frontal lobotomy.
Weren't people supposed to be on their best behaviour on first dates? Weren't they supposed to at least pretend an interest in the other person, out of politeness if nothing else?
...
If you have never been sexually attracted to women, you will never quite understand the monumental power of female sexuality, except by proxy or in theory, nor will you quite know the immense advantage it gives us over men.
Dating women as a man was a lesson in female power, and it made me, of all things, into a momentary misogynist, which I suppose was the best indicator that my experiment had worked. I saw my own sex from the other side, and I disliked women irrationally for a while because of it. I disliked their superiority, their accusatory smiles, their entitlement to choose or dash me with a fingertip, an execution so lazy, so effortless, it made the defeats and even the successes unbearably humiliating. Typical male power feels by comparison like a blunt instrument, its salvos and field strategies laughably remedial next to the damage a woman can do with a single cutting word: no."
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/mar/18/gender.bookextracts
Vincent--a married lesbian--spent 18 months disguised as a man named "Ned".
In addition to joining several male-dominated organizations--including a bowling league, a men's therapy group, and a monastery--she dated a number of women as "Ned".
"Not only was dating one of the hardest of Ned's experiences, it was also the most fraught with deception. I decided I would out myself to anyone with whom I had more than a passing, unsuccessful, date or two. To most of the women I dated, even the odd date meant a lot, especially women who had been out roaming the singles scene for years in their mid-30s, trying to find a mate amid the serial daters.
For these women, men as a subspecies - not the particular men with whom they had been involved - were to blame for the wreck of a relationship and the psychic damage it had done them. It's hardly surprising, then, that in this atmosphere, as a single man dating women, I often felt attacked, judged, on the defensive.
Many of my dates - even the more passive ones - did most of the talking. I listened to them talk literally for hours about the most minute, mind-numbing details of their personal lives; men they were still in love with, men they had divorced, roommates and co-workers they hated, childhoods they were loath to remember yet somehow found the energy to recount ad nauseam. Listening to them was like undergoing a slow frontal lobotomy.
Weren't people supposed to be on their best behaviour on first dates? Weren't they supposed to at least pretend an interest in the other person, out of politeness if nothing else?
...
If you have never been sexually attracted to women, you will never quite understand the monumental power of female sexuality, except by proxy or in theory, nor will you quite know the immense advantage it gives us over men.
Dating women as a man was a lesson in female power, and it made me, of all things, into a momentary misogynist, which I suppose was the best indicator that my experiment had worked. I saw my own sex from the other side, and I disliked women irrationally for a while because of it. I disliked their superiority, their accusatory smiles, their entitlement to choose or dash me with a fingertip, an execution so lazy, so effortless, it made the defeats and even the successes unbearably humiliating. Typical male power feels by comparison like a blunt instrument, its salvos and field strategies laughably remedial next to the damage a woman can do with a single cutting word: no."
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/mar/18/gender.bookextracts