Beautifully written, Harry. A topic rarely handled and even here, massage - though eloquently, I feel.

Oh that I could feel the same way about my own 'initiation', if I may call it that. Some aspects do resonate quite strongly with me but it is, I think, the representation of remembering where my feelings differ.

I may, of course, be reading far too much into this, both because the story moved me and because I have spent several decades attempting to understand what constitutes the true nature of male and female - the separations and the connections.

I don't feel guilt for what were just innocent transgressions arising from the natural instincts and urges of youth.

I do feel immense guilt at my maleness and even after 70+ years the emotional physical and mental impact that girls and women have on me and, in particular, the sexual thoughts that can so readily fill my mind.

After more relationships than I can remember, some short, some long, de-facto marriages and 3 legal marriages, friendships and acqaintances in a ratio of probably 100 to 1, female to male, I feel little closer to being able to control the images that fill my mind so often.

The only factor that assuages my guilt is my firm belief, (based on the fact that I have never done so), that my transgressions are limited to my own imagination. None-the-less, I dislike them and feel 'lessened' and unworthy for their existence.

The result now is that I avoid contact with anyone. I walk my dog in the night or in the day where I am reasonably sure of meeting no-one. My condition has a name, at least in Japan: Taijin Kyofusho. Fortunately, given my age, I do not expect to have to battle with this alien alter-ego or whatever it is that intrudes on my mind and my admiration for all that is female.