Most people's lives are consumed by the pursuit of necessities such as food, shelter, and clothing. They get up and go to work so they can pay for their home, food, and clothing. By the end of the day it's all they can do to cook supper, clean up the dishes, and put the kids to bed. Then at the end of the week they have forty-eight hours to cram in all their leisure activities before the routine begins again on Monday.

I know most people are content with this lifestyle, because they want to raise families and need the security that homes and steady jobs afford. But we were not like most people. We didn't share the basic values and principles upon which the majority of people based their lives. We were opposed to the consumerism and materialism underlying this society. We didn't aspire to buy homes, wear nice clothes, and work for companies that we generally viewed as destructive and that left very few enterprises where any of us could have worked and been satisfied. We even saw careers in the so-called helping professions such as social work as Band-aid solutions to problems rooted in greed and materialism. How could we help poor people survive when we saw the real solution to poverty as a total revolution of the economic system and the values upon which it was based?

Lesbians, he thought. Radical, anarchist lesbians. Probably radical, anarchist, terrorist lesbians!