how will this work for us?

Hmm. I don't think anybody asked any gay men anything. I'm a gay male, my partner is a gay male. Therefore, you think we are like-minded? Like-minded? Us? HA! Maybe men are from Venus and women from Mars, or vice versa, but my lover is from Mercury and I'm from Saturn.

It's not about minds, Heather, it's about souls, and 'soul-mate' does not mean that two souls are alike (like-souled?) either. People in your life who are like-minded become friends, platonic friends, not lovers, not soul-mates.

Stop watching so much TV!

I've lived with them as pests - their excrement on my property, their raucous biting orgies, where several males attack a female, squawking, beating their wings, biting, they do this under the bedroom windows, in the middle of the night, on the patio, in the front yard as guests are arriving, anyway, I have never seen any such genitalia on any males, and suspect the organ emerges fully only after insertion and then retracts quickly, for good reason, a very long, very skinny duck penis exposed, flapping around in all that violence would be easily injured.

The barnacle penis is worth a google.

I'm not an anthropologist but seems to me a primitive diet would include insects, worms, grubs (larva), eggs, baby animals, etc. Children and the elderly could 'hunt' as well as the strong-bodied adults. As for hunting the big game, seems the strong-bodied were what was needed, male or female. And shouldn't we also keep in mind the fact that a prehistoric woman might be pregnant at least a dozen times in her life, probably more. Think about twenty years of breast feeding...

But anyway, what about warfare? I don't know about prehistoric people, but at some time warfare became a male activity, and it was the men who constantly invented the tools of warfare, the long bow, the crossbow, the catapult, it was men who engineered these things and kept reinventing and redesigning, the architecture of defense, castles, and moats, the science of ballistics, the internet, all of this has come about by warfare, not hunting. Isn't that something to consider in this discussion?

is not a new art form. Many years ago I worked at the Lincoln Center Library for the Performing Arts (NYC Public Library). The library has extensive photo files dating back 50-60 years and more - these are mostly B&W photos sent to newspapers for reproduction, and many of them are retouched - the retoucher used a paintbrush and white paint directly on the photograph to cover wrinkles, blemishes, etc. In some, men's bald spots have been filled in. The paint is still on the photographs. Some of them are rather elegantly done. Take a look at the Ethel Merman photos next time you're in there, someone put a lot of good work into those.

And before photography - when portraits had to be painted, retouching was simultaneous in the creation. Essential, too, as the patrons and patronesses wished to be flattered, the artist wanted to be paid and popular. Think of that famous bust of Cleopatra - do you think her neck was really that long? That portrait of George Washington - was his hair that white, his cheeks that rosy?

What is anyone who uses cosmetics doing but 'retouching' themselves?

I happen to find 'crow's feet' very attractive. My boyfriend's 'crow's feet' totally melt me - I think they enhance the eyes, like an extension of the lashes. They're like little smiles. Now can we have a better name for them than 'crow's feet'?

quoting from the text: "Scientific progress, of course, depends on flawed ideas, on propositions that can be (and often are) proven false. As Arikha puts it, mistakes are necessary in order "for correct theories to exist at all."

And perhaps similarly, illness is necessary in order for good health to exist at all. Am I healthier for having had measles?