SOME of my friends call me a "walking anomaly." My roommate tells me that the posters in my room traumatize him. And some have suggested--only half in jest-that my outward religious observance is just--the perfect guise for secret devil worship.

What prompts these strange reactions from those who know me? Nothing more than my love for heavy metal music.

But all of you MTV devotees, Rolling Stone readers, and self-righteous Collegium members out there have metal--and me--all wrong.

You think heavy metal is the musical equivalent of a Chuck Norris movie. Perhaps you think that "music" is too dignified a title to bestow on the crap those tatooed, oversexed no-talents turn out. And even those of you who resent these comments from your parents fancy that metal is just noise.

Besides, all of those metal bands look the same anyway, don't they?

Yes--and all your other worst fears are true, as well; heavy metal makes objects of women, encourages drug abuse, glorifies violence...and some of the bands even worship Satan. But I don't care--I do those things myself.

Most heavy metal songs strike one as being about sex, fast cars and power--traditional themes of rock 'n roll, if more explicit--but several groups write lyrics that are among the most thoughtful and compelling in music. Iron Maiden, for instance, have put out songs on such assorted topics as the Crimean War, Coleridge's poetry and the white man's brutal conquest of the American Indian. Maiden write about literature, history and science fiction, but never, ever, about the shopworn topics that saturate contemporary rock music.

Whatever the subject matter, heavy metal unequivocally adds up to a high-voltage rock 'n roll experience. This means that getting the most out of metal can result in a sapping of one's energy, a physical and emotional drain from which it may take days to recover.

After concerts I have frequently been on the verge of collapsing from exhaustion, drenched in sweat, my shirt torn apart. My arms rendered quivering jelly from the abusive fist-pounding they have powered, my back and legs aching from the hours of standing and jumping without reprieve, I long for the relief that skipping classes the next day will bring me. I exit the arena proud of the permanent hearing damage I've sustained, relishing the ringing in my ears for days to come.

NIETZSCHE wrote that "the secret or reaping the greatest fruitfulness and the greatest enjoyment from life is to live dangerously!" Heavy metal certainly epitomizes his ideal. I consider metal to be the rock 'n roll of the '80s, and hopefully it will be a dominant musical force well into the '90s.

While other rock performers have embraced clean living and adopted serious social causes as their own, metal has remained faithful to rock 'n roll's roots of sex, drugs and other Bachanallian delights.

Thank God there are still young men around who use hard drugs without apologizing for it. Thank God many engage in sexual escapades that even Penthouse Forum would deem excessive.

Most of all, thank God that Slash and Izzy of Guns N' Roses accepted their American Music Awards plastered--though sober enough to utter vulgarities never before heard on live network TV. We need more people like that in America.

I say "Thank God" because it's intellectually satisfying to know that there still exist adherents to that simplest, most hallowed of all philosophies: hedonism.

I can abide this bourgeois, conformist world knowing that not all rock musicians are Iscariotic ass-kissers who would sell their souls for a Top Ten single.