Quote 25
You weren't there. You don't know what happened. He is baffled. Where, according to Bev Shaw, according to Lucy, was he not? In the room where the intruders were committing their outrages? Do they think he does not know what rape is? Do they think he has not suffered with his daughter? What more could he have witness than he is capable of imagining? Or do they think that, where rape is concerned, no man can be where the woman is? Whatever the answer, he is outraged, outraged at being treated like an outsider. (16.54)
From David's perspective, it seems like Bev and Lucy are somehow bonded in a girls-only club that he can't join, and it's frustrating. It's tough for him to be an outsider, but then again, do you think it's possible for him to truly commiserate with Lucy without knowing what it is like to be a woman during sex?
Quote 26
He pauses. The pen continues its dance. A sudden little adventure. Men of a certain kind. Does the man behind the desk have adventures? The more he sees of him the more he doubts it. He would not be surprised if Isaacs were something in the church, a deacon or a server, whatever a server is. (19.40)
This part is really interesting because it shows us that there isn't one straightforward masculine "type." David is a different kind of man that Mr. Isaacs is, and so while David might follow certain sexual instincts, it doesn't mean that every man does. It sort of throws any possible arguments about male nature out the window, doesn't it?
Quote 27
Not for the first time, he wonders whether women would not be happier living in communities of women, accepting visits from men only when they choose. Perhaps he is wrong to think of Lucy as homosexual. Perhaps she simply prefers female company. Or perhaps that is all that lesbians are: women who have no need of men. (12.45)
What catches our attention here is the idea that David has already considered whether or not women are better off without men. How does this reflect on his own actions?