Being born a woman is an awful tragedy… Yes, my consuming desire to with road crews sailors and soldiers, bar room regulars – to be part of a scene, anonymous, listening, recording – all is spoiled by the fact that I’m a girl, a female always in danger and battery. My consuming interest in men and their lives is often misconstrued as a desire to seduce them, an invitation to intimacy. Yet, God, I want to talk to everybody I can, as deeply as I can. I want to be able to sleep in an open field, to travel west, to walk freely at night…

Sylvia Plath