Imagine being a newly-minted citizen of another country. As you acclimate to this new place, you rely heavily on your guide -the one whose love compelled you to shift your citizenship from the world you knew so well. This guide is your lover, your teacher, your primary source of information about this country's customs, its language, its rituals and taboos.

Now imagine that your guide chastises you with comments like:

On our planet we never eat with a fork. We always use the end of a Sharpie.

Or:

We never say 'thank you' when we're grateful. We always say 'howdy-doo.'

Or:

We keep our shoes on in the shower. It's more sanitary that way.

In the back of your mind you're thinking: This can't be right. But you keep your mouth shut because, after all, she's the expert and you're just a newcomer. A baby, really.

After a lifetime as an enthusiastic and fairly skilled heterosexual, I fell in love with a woman and signed up for a new way of being. My guide was always quick to point out all the ways in which I was violating lesbian custom. When I told her, for instance, that I was feeling extremely horny, she sharply remarked: "Lesbians don't use the word 'horny.'"

"They don't?" I responded, feeling my face redden with shame.

"Never, ever, EVER," she intoned. "We say, 'I'm in the mood for a little hanky panky.'" (I'm not making this up.)

She also told me that the right way to have sex was only after a very thorough shower, never before. The sex act itself had to be gentle, never fast or rough. And there would be no accessories. The use of toys, she said, was not the lesbian way.

She also told me I kissed all wrong. "You make your mouth too big. You kiss like a boy." After that, I tried hard to make my lips a tiny aperture and felt so self-conscious that I never again enjoyed kissing her.

If you're lucky, you find a new guide and everything changes, in the best of ways.

After a year and a half with my first female lover I finally ended it. Then I met Brenda, who liked it rough and dirty, took me toy shopping, assured me that lots of lesbians say they're horny and no, I certainly do not kiss like a boy. Matter of fact, I happen to be a fabulous kisser. After a brief but healing affair, I met my current girlfriend, Charlotte, who bolstered my burgeoning sexual confidence. . . night after night after night.

In closing I ask this of you, sweet reader: If ever a novice is entrusted to your tender mercies, please be kind, be gentle, and above all, be honest.