As a man, I can relate to delights and exhilaration of arousal that is a part of my maleness. I know the intensity of my own lust and the aches and yearnings only a man can know. Conversely, no man can ever appreciate the ache known only to a woman; the ache to be penetrated with the hardened flesh of man. No man will ever know the wonder of feeling life growing and stirring in a womb that does not exist. So where is life’s lesson on tenderness taught to a man? For me, it was in a previous life, a hard life, in hard times centuries ago. It was learned at the hands of a brute and a rape that burned scars on the spirit that is me – the soul that travels through the mists of time from one life to the next.

What proof do I have of this? What evidence could I possibly put forth to prove this theory? I have none – nothing; save the scars on a soul that has seen many lives before this one. I find it hard to explain; this ingrained tenderness that defines the man I am. From those limits spring forth aversions to behavior with a woman where violence plays a role. No satisfaction can be derived from the infliction of pain whether real or implied – whether intentional or accidental. A woman is to be cherished. Her body is to be worshiped. While thoughts such as these may not be the credo of all men, they soothe the scars on my soul.

Does that make me less a man? In the eyes of men who have only been men, I would venture a guess that this may be the case. By some standards, there may even be women who see this as weakness. Perhaps they are the ones who have never known the brutality of a violent rape or other violations of body, mind and spirit. Possibly, they flirt with pain as a stimulus or a vehicle to extend sensations of pleasure. I suspect this may be so for women who test the realm where violence and pain blur the line between malevolence and play. It’s funny how mutual consent and intent can push this line to limits never considered as negotiable. However, for them it is a choice. In the absence of choice, only scars on the soul remain as evidence to be carried through eons of time and lifetimes yet to be lived.

So what is accomplished by this conceptual rant from a gentle man? Most likely, it serves no purpose other than to cause one to consider the possibility. Is it offered as an explanation...or an excuse? Quite frankly, it matters not to me, for I am who I am. And so it is with the order of things found deep in the psyche of one man’s confession of the woman he once was.