As a child with long hair and feminine looks, I sat in dressing rooms and witnessed various shapes and sizes of women as they tried on new garments. My mother kept me on a short leash, not more than a yard from her side; yet, she was oblivious to the sexual thrills a child experiences watching other people undress. Not until I started asking questions like… Do her boobs have bones?…did she get my hair cut.

After that, I sat in high backed chairs on the ten-yard line outside the women’s dressing room. I waited while Mother shopped. The coloring books she supplied never matched the intensity of the erotic buzz I felt watching semi-nude women, bent over, stepping out of skirts and pants. I think that’s what attracted me to a career in photography, a voyeur’s legitimate business, especially if you choose to specialize in women’s fashions. The fact that I was one of them increased my credibility among female clients.

I never knew I had homosexual tendencies until I spent time in the military. Sure, as kids, we played doctor under the front porch. My little friend, Wyatt, liked to compare penises -- two purple, clean-cut examples of modern surgical technology. When I grew up, back in the forties, men who liked men were queers.

Little Marion, our young neighbor, who sat in on our penis-pulls, never showed us hers. Totally egocentric males, we never thought to ask why. She just sat and watched.

Marion grew up to be a leader in the NOW organization. A feminine activist, she idolized Patty Hurst. Last I heard, she killed a man and ended up in prison. Defense psychiatrists claimed she lacked self-esteem and never fully came to grip with her sexuality. Sometimes you just can’t figure what influences a young person’s life. Surely, it wasn’t just penis envy.

fiction: John L. Campbell