All good boys have a bad girl twitching just beneath the surface. It was good boy Ben who got into Harvard and sang earnestly in respectable college musicals. And it was in college that Ben first noticed Rachel -- his foul-mouthed alter ego -- asserting her trashy existence (Ben's friends wanted to call her Miriam Ruth, but Rachel would have none of it). For 15 years she remained uncharacteristically subdued, bursting forth only on rare occasions. She did force Ben to wear a tasteful black gown at his last exam in law school, and occasionally surprised bleary-eyed friends at the airport. But Rachel had not yet discovered that bad girls can sing for their supper, and Ben had not yet found the nerve to make a career out of Rachel.

My existence before that leap wasn't a pretty picture. You know it's a bad sign when your love handles start to sprout love handles of their own. You know it's really bad when people don't notice your love handles' love handles because they're distracted by the bulging valises beneath your eyes.

But I was no more depressed or unhealthy than the other stretched-thin nonprofit executive directors I knew. And I had worked damned hard to get where I was. My life was going to be meaningful no matter how miserable it made me. And Rachel would have to stay locked up on the sidelines.

If you had told me, when I entered law school in 1982, that I would eventually become either A) a member of America's favorite dragapella beautyshop quartet, the Kinsey Sicks or B) Jerry Falwell's love slave, I would surely have predicted B. My goal then was to become a public interest lawyer fighting for the greater gay and lesbian good. When I graduated three years later, I founded a national legal program devoted to combating AIDS-related discrimination, where I worked on issues ranging from employment and housing discrimination to immigration and child custody. I was a regular on the national TV-sound bite circuit, and became known as an expert on AIDS and insurance. (This is when I first discovered how little you actually have to know about something to be considered an "expert." Scary.)

But I felt frustrated and constrained trying to work within the plodding, tradition-bound legal system to address urgent, unprecedented issues. (Plus, I was on the wrong side of the kind of vicious infighting typical of idealistic and high-minded nonprofits. Does that makes me sound like a sore loser? Note to editor: Strike this parenthetical.)

So, in career No. 2, I became executive director of the Gay and Lesbian Medical Association, a national organization of queer doctors that addressed issues like the plight of HIV-infected health care workers, lesbian health and homophobia in organized medicine. I wrote position papers on AIDS and gay issues for Bill Clinton, boosted my profile in the talking-head food chain and survived the joys of executive director roundtables. (And you haven't lived until you've hung out with a bunch of executive directors. Typical exchange: "I feel so guilty because I worked only 96 hours last week, and I almost had time for a feeling." "Oh yes, last week I had to cut down to 110 hours so that I could more effectively personally bear the weight of the world's cumulative injustices.")

Yet underneath it all, Rachel was itching to emerge. (Actually, she's still itching, but she's seeing a doctor about that.) Damned if I -- self-proclaimed crusader for truth, justice and the un-American way -- wasn't becoming downright establishment. This had not been part of my plan. Gay folks were, I believed, sufficiently marginalized that I could spend centuries comfortably on the fringes of society fighting for acceptance without ever having to worry that I might personally experience it.

But here I was, masquerading in suits to meet with everyone who mattered. I was constantly on the road, constantly overcommitted and constantly pretending to be, well, respectable. Just like every other Harvard graduate ... except for the Unabomber, but that's another story, and besides, he looks like hell in a dress.

Well, I figured, as long as I was wearing uncomfortable drag and playing roles when I was caucusing with bigwigs, I might as well have some fun -- and wear a big wig myself. So for several years I passed during the day as Ben Schatz, earnest and well-spoken Important Gay Leader, while blossoming into Rachel, slutty chanteuse with the Kinsey Sicks at night. (Rachel, being shameless, would undoubtedly urge all readers to log on immediately to the Kinsey Sicks' fabulous Web site and to purchase our two deliciously subversive cds, "Dragapella" and "Boyz 2 Girlz." I, Ben, am far too restrained to do so. I will, however, mention that we are under contract to go Off-Broadway next year, but that in the meantime we can be hired for weddings, bar mitzvahs, parole hearings and emergency liposuctions. For those who need an explanation, Rachel wants you to know that the name Kinsey Sicks is a diabolically clever allusion to our perfect homosexual score on Alfred Kinsey's six-point scale of human sexuality.)

So how and why did I finally take the leap and make this most unlikely hobby an even more improbable career choice? And how has it utterly saved my sanity and my life? (OK, perhaps I'm exagerrating just a little, but Rachel loves high drama and this is, after all, a health column.)

Here's how it happened. On Dec. 30. 1993, some friends and I went to worship Bette Midler in concert. This being San Francisco, and this being Bette Midler, we just knew that the room would be filled with drag queens. Yet when we paraded in wearing our stunning Andrews Sisters military suits we were shocked to discover that we were the only drag queens within miles -- other than Bette. That bitch upstaged us, but we did receive some of the adulation and tumultuous applause that we so richly deserved.