ARTICLE

LIFE, LIBERTY,

AND THE BUSINESS OF HAPPINESS.

Ann N.C.

1. PRELUDE.

We Americans have a phobia. To feel comfortable, we must have something tangible, a concrete event, a rational explanation, a defini- tive incident, a real reason for everything. We fear the mysterious and abhor the metaphysical.

I sometimes wonder if we into FPia are not also victims of this atti- tude. Are we not allowing ourselves to place too much emphasis on what is only one aspect of FPia, namely, a reason, an incident, acci- dent, situation. Let us in the following call it just simply an "event", that may or may not have provoked or produced our Femmiphilia.

It is comforting to rationalize and analyze. It is flattering to the ego. It supports that good old American indomitable pioneer spirit, there is nothing we can't handle. If we can't handle it, at least we will find the world's finest excuses. Also, it seems to place the "helping" pro- fessions in a better light. If all cases of FPia and all the other tnings under sundry labels could always be analyzed and ex- plained, it would seem to follow that they could also be readily cured.

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On the other side of this picture, and I'm afraid it is the read side, it is a clear and outstanding fact, that with some of us, our gender ori- entation from early childhood was strongly feminine in ways that never could be suppressed and never needed provocation. The reality of this situation requires a good deal more than anglo-saxon prag- matism to explain.

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