Many years ago, I had a roommate who was into geeky things this same way I am. One day, because odd questions are always coming to me such is the mind of a writer, I asked him if he had the chance for 24 hours to have his mind transferred into a woman’s body would he do it?

His answer was a resounding, explicit, and definite NO.

This surprised and shocked me. Given that the question is a fantasy, mind transference is an impossibility not a science-fiction that is possible, I would leap at the chance to, quite literally,  live, briefly, in someone else’s shoes.

I asked this question of several other male friends. (At the time there we no regular women as friends or otherwise in my life. I was working nights at a lab and had zero social life and my circle of even acquaintances had grown quite small.) All them reacted pretty much the same way, not even for a day would they live as another gender.

I think there are two principal drive factors in why they all refused to entertain even in speculation a willingness of cross that boundary.

First is our culture’s pervasive homophobia. The mere thought of having to experience even a slight sexual attraction, without acting upon it in any way, towards men must have seemed frightening.

Second is a recognition, even they were not consciously aware of it, how poorly treated women are in our society.

The idea of living briefly as another gender or race is a question that I ponder from time to time. Myself, I am insatiably curious and I always am wondering what life is like from another perspective. I find it difficult to envision a mindset that rejects that speculation.