Editorial

Like many single guys these days, I'm rather proud of my home. It's in a decent neighborhood, the furniture's tastefull, and I keep it nice and clean. (For the most part.) All in all, it's a real nice place, and I spend a good deal of time keeping it that way. But if there's one area in which I've failed, it's in making my house a safe place for women.

I've tried, mind you. Believe me, I want women to feel comfortable when I bring them here. I play soft music, I have some rather nice decorations (i.e. Paintings, knick-knacks, family photographs, etc...) I even make them soothing tea. Sometimes I even read from the many poetry anthologies lining the bookshelves. I do everything I can to make it a nurturing, woman-safe place. But then, just when I think I've got it down, another woman somehow winds up finding her safety compromised.

You'd think that after everything I've done to create a supportive, non-hostile environment, women would be safe here, but that simply isn't the case. Oh, it's not as bad as when I first moved in a couple of years ago. It definitely wasn't a safe place for women back then, let me tell you. If you know where to look and what to look for, you can still see the signs. There were a few times that women felt so unsafe, they insisted on leaving right away, and I almost had to force them to stay. I can even remember one lovely young co-ed who got so uncomfortable, she tried to force her way out.

I don't remember what happened after that.

The problem can't be the neighborhood. My house is in a good part of town: reasonably close to shops, near the hospital where there are alot of nurses and a five minute van ride to a really deep part of West Bay. And like I said, the interior has been totally redone. I've got a nice collection of Native American pottery, some cozy floor rugs and plenty of world-music CDs. What could possibly be more woman-safe than that? It's perfect! At least, so I thought until I tripped over that waitress in the shower one morning.

So, obviously, there's still a lot to do. I suspect that my chin-up bar could be contributing to the phallocentric and possibly misogynistic environment. And I wouldn't want a woman to spend too much time in the trophy room- women don't like taxidermy. Furthermore, the makeshift workshop in my bathroom could be bothersome, as could the giant strap-on six-D-battery razorcock hanging on the wall of my livingroom. And it could be pretty awkward explaing why, once you've entered my house, you need a key to get back out. These things are all on my to-do list.

Okay, so my house is still a work in progress. But when I'm done, I want any woman, no matter how big a lying, betraying, filthy whore she may be, to feel safe here. I think I have a good idea of what still needs to be done. I have pretty strong feminine instinct, probably because my mother dressed me up as a little girl until I was 14. Perhaps I'm not as good of a listener as I could be when women are trying to express their emotional and survival needs. It's just a matter of being sensitive and trying to understand what they're saying- even when they've lost their tongues. With their help, I just know I can make this a safe place for women.