My book “Sensitivity 101 for the Heterosexual Male” is a narrative non-fiction story using many of the females I met as I grew up and the lessons they taught me.

Not only did I change names and appearances of everyone except myself, I also addressed this in my preface by saying “This presented quite a dilemma for me. How do I write my memoir, supposedly based on facts, and at the same time disguise these women so that even their close friends would not recognize them? For days, weeks, months I stewed about, chewed on, and anguished over this seeming conundrum. And then, as luck (or providence) would have it, I stumbled upon the movie, Rashomon, a 1950 Japanese film directed by Akira Kurosawa, involving the widely differing accounts of four witnesses to a murder. The stories are mutually contradictory, leaving each viewer to determine for him–or herself–which account, if any, is the absolute truth. Yet each story is clearly that particular teller’s heartfelt truth.”

Many of the girls who the characters were based on read the book and they had no idea I was talking about them. And the ones that did know it was about them actually seemed impressed to be included in the book.

Thanks for a great article.