I am very much concerned by all this because of some recent FP reading. As I say I don't know where I'm going, but that doesn't mean I don't worry about it. I wish to contrast the column by Susanna in TVia 59 with Sheila's comment in the January number of Femme Forum. Susanna tells us of her growing weariness with her brother's role, of the abrasive effect of constant identity switching, and of her possible escape route into a total girl life. Sheila takes issue with the theory (even Ben- jamin-held) that the FP involves himself in progressive feminization: and maintains with examples from her own friends that "as the girl within gets, through FPE, what she has wanted for all those lonely years, the result is that she becomes more cooperative rather than more dominant”. Sheila tells us also that another result is that the brother himself becomes more effective, does a better job. Here is to me an absolutely vital issue, one that focuses on the whole question "where am I going?" All readers of TVia know that one solution (a solution, that is, for those who have taken it) is the role of the perennial or permanent girl as Virginia defines it and practises it: she says she knows about a dozen such. Virginia is extremely careful (see her comments after Susanna's column) always to point out that this is a route only for those without many personal ties, and only to be attempted when all the potential of the masculine self has been realised or exhausted. I am sure that both Virginia and Susanna will agree that in all instances example and action tend to be more potent than warning and exhortation. It is a test of the individual FP's own maturity and self-knowledge to be exposed to Virginia's accounts of her trips and experiences and to Susanna's longing, and to participate vicar- iously in this while realising contentedly that this is not for him. I am not criticising them for feeling and expressing and narrating: I respect them for it, and I want the knowledge they can give me, and in all honesty I do enjoy reading them without feeling overly jealous. But this issue is explosive in another way: I find that in the above contrast I not only want to believe Sheila and say to Susanna “good luck, you are taking a path which leaves most of us behind"; I find that I must believe Sheila if my brother is not to become discouraged. But the real dynamite is in the mind of the GG. I encourage mine to read TVia, and that column of Susanna's made me sweat the big drop. Because it presented right be- tween the eyes the main trauma of every accepting GG: is her husband one day going to disappear forever and be replaced by his twin sister? To me this seems so vital an issue, one on which every reassurance has to be given to the GG, and that means a full play of and genuine enjoyment in male living, that I fault Susanna (no, Susanna, I'm not so silly as to trade clawmarks with you - I know I'd lose it's just that your columns are so stimulating, dear) for not telling us something about her discussion of this with her own GG. Or has she not got that far yet? Was it daydream-