98.

It often happens that I'm wrong. It happened with Shaha Ali Riza (not the man-baiting monetary policy minx I painted her to be), it happened recently with rape (turns out that does occur in the animal kingdom but that's not my point) and it happened even more recently when I wrote about men being more visual than women. I was obviously talking about sex, not fashion.

Turns out, there might be some truth to this theory. I use the word "truth" because what I mean is...

I had the chance today to hear a speech by transsexual researcher Anne Lawrence (not to be mistaken, as I first did, for Anne Summers, manufacturer of the infamous "rabbit" vibrator which I find, actually, somewhat intimidating but that's not relevant). In addition to being incredibly honest and personable, Lawrence painted her transsexuality as what it is: a disorienting form of mental illness. (I know people elsewhere might go apeshit over this, but let's not split hairs: when you pay a doctor the equivalent of a Gambian village's annual wages to slice open your genitals, you're not a happy camper. And there are different forms of transsexuality, not all of which constitute an illness). Not to be confused with transvestitism, which is a lifestyle choice.

Lawrence's description of being unable to achieve real intimacy with sexual partners was heartbreaking, and in a way rang strangely true. I think one symptom that is constant across mental disorders is this feeling of "separation" - of distance from and disappointment in other people, particularly intimate partners. I've seen this distance portrayed so well in Ernest Hemingway's short story "Up in Michigan" and I know that Hemingway was an alcoholic, severely depressed, and a lifelong cross-dresser. I saw this distance again in Lawrence.

It surprises me how many normal people have problems being close to other people. It doesn't matter how much you want it - your own chemistry/history can stop you. It's sad, and I wouldn't wish it on anyone. But all this is not my point.

My point is a little lighter, so I'm going to shift gears. Lawrence said that she misses only two things about being a man. The first is having effortless strength - she can't run a mile as fast, she can't lift heavy things, she can't do things that her body previously took for granted.

The second is her sex drive. As a natal man with no male organs, Lawrence has less testosterone than the average woman, and she said, "I didn't realize until my surgery how much testosterone is the hormone that drives lust." She said she missed her instinctive physical reactions when attractive women walked by (she's still attracted to women, although not as strongly) and what she referred to as her "constant, easy physical drive" and her "desperate need to have orgasms."

Ok. So. I'm not trying to generalize here. Obviously not everyone feels they have a "constant, easy physical drive": and if all sexuality were this angst-free, Portnoy would have had nothing to complain about. But I do think that being able to want other people - on a visceral level - is a marker of being alive.

Also, I think these two things that Lawrence named are things that women - whether we admit it or not - like about men, maybe because we realize that they're different.