The Man Who Respected Women

The Man Who Respected Women knew that all his desires were bad and wrong and his simple existence as a male with a desire for women was an act of violence against all womankind.

And he felt really bad about it all the time.

He knew that women had really actually very seriously been kept down by men for hundreds of years, or millennia, or maybe since the dawn of time. He knew that women were sweet and innocent creatures (so much sweeter and more innocent and honest and not-at-all calculating than those lousy men) who ought not be corrupted by the dirtiness of male desire. He knew that his desire to penetrate a woman with his penis was absolutely a sign he was a depraved and wretched creature with no redeeming value and the only way he could even partially make up for this constant desire was by never acting on it or giving it the least bit of expression whatsoever.

When The Man Who Respected Women saw an attractive woman out in public he studiously avoided looking at her — or worst of all, making eye contact with her. The last thing on earth he wanted was to make her feel uncomfortable by letting her see him looking at her — because she was a person and a human being in her own right and not an object for his pleasure, no matter how very, very, VERY much he wanted her to be an object for his pleasure.

And he definitely didn’t want to be like one of those guys who go hitting on every woman they find attractive, because those guys are bad and wrong and absolutely the embodiment of everything evil in this world — even if the Man Who Respected Women couldn’t help but notice they seemed to be more comfortable with themselves than he was and get laid a hell of a lot more than he did.

So when he saw an attractive woman, he would just quietly mind his own business and if he happened to take a glance at her long, smooth legs or her round, sweet ass or her soft, perky tits — or worst of all, make eye contact with her — it wasn’t really his fault, was it? He was only a man and he didn’t choose to have these desires and he tried really hard not to make anybody uncomfortable or impose himself on anybody or ever make them think he wanted to rape them.

(Not that he ever wanted to rape anybody.)

(Seriously. Never, ever, ever did the thought of really, really, REALLY wanting to rape a woman once cross his mind.)

When the time came for The Man Who Respected Women to go off to college his parents bought him his first laptop computer. So it was pretty much inevitable he’d discover the world of internet pornography at that point. Which of course in principle he thoroughly disapproved of, because it was just awful to see what these poor women were being put through and how they were being degraded by male desire in a system that the Man Who Respected Women was now actively taking part in.

But then again, he got to see naked women. Which was something he’d never seen in real life before.

Despite his highly passive attitude, the Man Who Respected Women managed to attract a girlfriend. And she even let him have sex with her sometimes, which was nice, even though there always seemed to be something missing and vaguely unsatisfying about it that he couldn’t quite put his finger on even though he was pretty sure it was there.

One thing, though, he knew was missing. Never, not even once, did his girlfriend ever give him a blowjob. Very early in their relationship she’d said she didn’t do that, and because it was her own mouth and she was free to do with it whatever she pleased he didn’t insist or even tell her that he really, really, REALLY wanted to feel her lips and tongue wrap around his cock and give it a good sucking every now and then.

It was her choice, after all, and it wasn’t his place to impose his own dirty desires on her, no matter how much he wanted it.

It’s not like he deserved it, anyway.

Around this time, two unrelated but fateful events took place: The Man Who Respected Women and his girlfriend moved in together, and the man’s pornography habit took an unforeseen turn.

See, in the intervening period, The Man Who Respected Women had been turning more and more often to pornography — often multiple times in the same day. While it would be too much to say that he was consciously trying to avoid intimacy with his girlfriend in a really underhanded and kind of passive aggressive fashion, the fact is that his habit drastically reduced their frequency of sexual intercourse.

He found himself less interested in her, she found herself less interested in him.

They broke up.

But they still had several months left on a lease neither one of them could afford to pay alone.

So they both stayed in the one-bedroom apartment.

He ended up sleeping on the couch nights. She slept in the bedroom.

Every once in a while she would have a man over to the place after a date. And The Man Who Respected Women would try to sleep on the couch while this stranger was fucking his ex-girl as he tried to sleep. Tried to sleep and pretended not to hear the sound of her moaning and tried to avoid the thought that she was moaning extra loudly just because it turned her on to think of how much he was suffering right there on the other side of the thin door.

Then after the guy was gone, inevitably there would be a conversation between The Man Who Respected Women and his ex-girl, all about what wonderful friends they were.

And he would go along with it, even halfway believing it in the moment when he would say, “Yes, we’re best friends.”

Because he loved how miserable she made him. How she humiliated him. Degraded him. Embarrassed him and made him feel like the entire cosmos was a trap uniquely set up to cause him the maximum possible psychological torment — all with an innocent smile on her face.

There are certain things that happen when a man and woman live together. There are certain, more bizarre things, that happen when a man and woman live together without fucking. If the woman’s not getting railed straight up her guts now and again, both parties start to forget who is the man and who is the woman. Diabolical psychological games begin to be played — and where the devil’s mind games are at work, the more underhanded of the sexes will emerge victorious.

Isn’t that right, ladies?

It started the day he decided to shave his legs.

Armpits. Pubes. Chest hair. All body hair, really.

He found he liked the feeling of it. And what he liked about it was the way that when he touched his own smooth, silky legs, it was almost like touching hers — hers which he couldn’t touch and could never touch and never, ever deserved to touch. But he started to enjoy his own body in the same sort of way he would enjoy a woman’s body… a thought that chilled him to the spine at the thought of where it might lead.

And yet.

How exciting it was. How electric. How transgressive!

So of course it couldn’t stop there. Before long he was borrowing her panties. Dresses. Nighties. Makeup. Perfume. Conditioner. Growing his hair out. Skinny jeans. Taking the dog out for long walks where he would practice walking in a feminine way. Going out in drag on Halloween — or any day he could come up with a decent excuse, really.

Every step like a slide deeper into an infinite chasm. A chasm he knew he shouldn’t indulge, a chasm he knew he should climb his way out of before it was too late, a chasm that had a definite end he could see in advance but wouldn’t allow himself to think about.

A chasm so full of such exquisitely perverse pleasures that every moment intoxicated him every bit as much as it terrified him.

Was this the way, after all? Was this the path to where he would no longer have to feel the terrible weight of the guilt of being a man with a man’s desires? And even if it was… would he ever be willing to follow through with that?

The Man Who Respected Women was surprised — although no one else was — on the day he finally went on HRT and got scheduled to get his cock chopped.