Secure in My Masculinity

From a series of recent emails:

"Take this as a compliment....you write like a woman"

I do, indeed, take it as a compliment. She's not necessarily a fan, my new email friend. Mostly she's finding insight from these posts about male behavior. But I appreciate that she included that thought.

That email, plus a recent 2 hours of wasted time watching late-night VH1, reminded me of the first time I met My Lovely Dancer.

I had stumbled into a relatively new club late into the night shift. Dancer asked if she could sit with me. And somehow what often happens with me happened: we sat at my table at talked. Oh, eventually we danced a physical, grinding lapdance. But mostly we talked. And we really connected like two people meeting anywhere can. We talked about our interests and about books and movies. And as we were surrounded by flesh we connected our minds. Among her laughing and smoking and my gazing at her loveliness we discovered one thing we both have in common:

We both love the movie "Moulin Rouge". I happen to love musical theater and musical movies. She as well. In fact, she told me that she's always wanted to dance a stage set in the strip club to the song "Roxanne" from the movie. If you've seen it you'll remember that great flamenco dance scene to that song.

As I re-watched "Moulin Rouge" late at night on VH1 this week, in my living room - in my underwear, I sang "Roxanne" just for My Lovely Dancer. (There's a visual for you.) And I remember how we left that conversation, that late smoky night at the back table with the club throbbing all around us. I remember her smile and her laugh as she challenged me:

"Are you sure you're not gay?"

Oh, I'm sure. My arousal for her that night would have convinced her. And our many passionate lapdances since then have surely convinced her. I'm 100% hetero horndog.

But I took that as a compliment as well.

One last thing. My new email friend said this in her email as well:

"...you sound like you do understand, appreciate, and love womankind"

I do indeed. I love women. Mind and body.