Over the previous decade I had talked myself all the way from an attraction to women into a political commitment to lesbianism, and all the way from a general pleasure in the indulgences of life into a bitter shame toward all the trifling things I used to enjoy—charm and harmless deceits, intrigues, vanity, pretty women, good dancers, cab rides and coffees out, men who whistled when I passed, remarks that made me blush.
