I think this is a case of a contrived category being interpreted as a real phenomenon and hence generating unnecessary anxiety. This letter is less indicative of any real trend in gender relationships (plenty of you have already pointed out the string of assumptions underlying that interpretation) than it is of a specifically postmodern tendency to overly identify ourselves with abstract classifications rather than concrete experiences and life circumstances that could never be summed up in simple soundbites. It's the same mindset that gives us special pleasure when we take a Cosmo quiz or determine our Ayurvedic type. It's the reason why things like the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator still have public cache: Somehow, without a label and a sorting out into categories, we seem to feel less real to one another. Besides, "Oh no! This guy is one of those oral-sex-haters!" seems a remarkably reductive conclusion to make based on the evidence, and a serious underestimation of the degree to which a person's sexual repertoire changes based on his or her current partner.

There is something very strange about choosing a romantic prospect based on which boxes he or she has checked. How much could you possibly tell about a person based on something like that, as if personalities were nothing more than choices from an a la carte menu? There is a tendency for dating nowadays to seem more like shopping for a very particular kind of wardrobe than any kind of relationship building. We search for the best example of what we believe we want from the outset, rather than approaching other people with a desire to be open and willing to change and be changed for the sake of human connection. No wonder so many relationships fail!

The very concept of a "can't stand" category seems the ultimate example of this problem, completely obviating any possibility of a relationship worth having by weeding out precisely those people who will challenge and thrill us. The real relationship fireworks, in my experience at least, happen when that guy or gal you chose based on some visceral, unanalyzed attraction manifests a trait you would otherwise have considered a deal-breaker, and you are forced to totally re-evaluate everything you thought about them and you and whatever abstract category you previously thought you had figured out. In this case, the pro-hygiene fellas might miss the potential turn-on of the down-and-dirty human scent of a person to whom they are truly attracted, and the "oh no it's an oral-sex-hater" lady might miss the opportunity to date someone who is disinterested enough in box-checking to choose something as generic as "I can't stand a woman who isn't clean" from an impersonal, compulsory list of mostly-meaningless abstractions.

I respect you for trying to fight the good fight, but you won't get very far engaging those who persistantly seek to disrupt a thread to focus on their personal issues. My advice, if you have to say anything at all, is to simply say "it's not all about you" and move on.

We Padres fans have a faith in Peavy and Hoffman that is nigh-fanatical. So too, it seems, does their coach, because when it becomes readily apparent that they are having a very bad outing (and Hoffman does this a whole lot more in crucial games than his record would make you think), they never get taken out of the game. Why oh why, after Hoffman gave up our lead and the game was tied with no outs in the bottom of the 13th did he not get replaced? Because he's Hoffman the Great, of course! He couldn't blow this save, could he?! These are great pitchers, but they are held in such unshakable esteem that sometimes they get left out there hanging with all their flaws exposed to the cold Colorado air.