As a gay man, I've never been a huge fan of women. They're delicate. They smell good. They're understanding and compassionate, and way too willing to compromise when clearly the time calls for fists.

I pretty much don't like anything about them. In particular, though, I've never been fond of their Aerosoles.

Now, you'd think being a gay man it'd be easy enough for me to avoid them. To the contrary, it seems like every time I turn around, there's another big pink Aerosole in my face. Running in the park. Stretching in yoga class. Passed out in a subway car.

To say they disgust me is an understatement. I mean, if disgusting bothered me, I'd have started throwing up the second I hit New York and wouldn't have stopped since. No, there's something primal about them that conjures up my deepest feelings of repulsion. Maybe it's the stark contrast between the soft sweetness of the female body and something so clearly designed to fulfill a base function. Maybe it's because they make no attempt to disguise their utility with any concession to looks.

Manolo Blahniks? They're okay. I wouldn't use the word attractive, but I wouldn't use the word gross. Jimmy Choos? No problem. No, it's only when I see Aerosoles displayed almost proudly that I think, Holy Christ: don't women have eyes?

I've always found it bizarre that women don't seem to recognize how disgusting their Aerosoles are. At my sister's birthday, her friends Donna and Sheila proudly passed her that telltale box. Sue pulled off the lid and her eyes went wide.

"Ohmigod!" she yelled excitedly. I tried to smile, but all I could do was look at Donna and Sheila and think, Now that's a couple of giant Aerosoles.

Then one day I was racing a woman to a cab when the unthinkable happened. I hit a crack in the asphalt and went flying. Desperately trying to avoid permanent damage I grabbed for her waist, and as she too came crashing down my nose sank deep inside her Aerosole. I closed my eyes and held my breath, waiting for death to come.

When it didn't, I opened my eyes and took a tentative breath. Sure, it was a little funky, but nowhere as bad as I imagined. In fact, it smelled kind of soft, like Downy. "Wow," I said, "I can't believe how good your Aerosole smells."

After unleashing a string of obscenities and threatening to sue me, she finally acknowledged the compliment. "Thanks," she said, as we both struggled to our feet. "I know what you mean. Some women act like they're self-cleaning, but I'm a real stickler myself. I take mine to a guy downtown who scrubs them spotless with a little spit and a horsehair brush."

And that's when it hit me. It's not an Aerosole's fault it's disgusting: it's the owner's! Sure, in a perfect world, God would have designed us so that we wouldn't need Aerosoles, but you can't blame them for fulfilling the function they were made for, or for owners who didn't take care of them.

I finally got to pay back my karmic debt when I went to the Dugout the other day and overheard some guys talking disparagingly about Aerosoles. They were being totally disrespectful -- talking about how they were always either too loose to feel good or too tight to break in. Needless to say, I couldn't take it lying down.

"Now here this!" I declared, loudly enough for the whole bar to hear. "I too used to hate Aerosoles, but one day, through an odd twist of fate, I fell face first into one, and I discovered they aren't nearly as bad as I thought. To the contrary: they may look repulsive on the outside, but inside they can be soft and warm and inviting, and almost impossible to resist. Since that fateful day I've learned not to condemn Aerosoles for their outward appearance but rather to celebrate them for their unstinting utilitarianism and their courage to stand up to a skeptical world and declare, 'Yes, I'm an Aerosole, and I'm damn proud of it!' In fact, I swear on a stack of Bibles that, should the day come when I am offered some men's Aerosoles, I don't care if they're black and shiny or two shades of puce, if they're tight as a tick's ear or stretched out like an old rubber band, I'll fill them up and wear them out, and not yank 'em off until the sun comes up."

The room went quiet, and then a bunch of guys started towards me. Really, the oddest thing happened at this point, but that's a story for another time.