"...Holly, men talk about sex a lot, even as a joke...."

That's not my experience. Here's mine: bed a boy and he can't talk about sex. Sure, with the flying buttress of likker, he might drop some hoary double entendres, but Daddy Jack had it right about serious sex talk:

"Boys and girls in America have such a sad time together; sophistication demands that they submit to sex immediately without proper preliminary talk. Not courting talk--real straight talk about souls, for life is holy and every moment is precious."

Who talks that way? Who is strong and steady enough? Tell me you do and I'll doubt you, for there are chances in these threads to be far from coy. Here and elsewhere, people pass on openness to repeat their tired quarter-truths or flaunt their alleged virility or dry hump another person's leg.

I semi-agreed with him a couple times and he's suddenly cloying. As I posted in the other thread, this place isn't a meat market. And when a guy who posts again and again about "poor me(n), poor me(n), poor me(n)," what woman would find that attractive?

I once worked with autistic folks and "perseveration" was a word we used with people who repeated, again and again, a word or movement.

H0tr0d, here's what truly annoys me: if you knew me in person, I'd be able to extrapolate all sorts of things about you. It's what I do and what I once had to do or I'd be coldcocked, in prisons and other such places. One had to infer fast and well or bleed.

So, with lots of perilous practice, one gets pretty good at inference and after making a good guess about someone in a safer place, people are so impressed that they say, "Are you God/an angel/a graduate of Hogwarts?"

"Nah, it's just a skill I learned along the way."

But on the Internet, folks don't admire inference. Rather, they deny it, as you just did. A Bush-voter won't admit to his sins. A poster who perseverates about women won't admit to his failings tragedies and the integral part he played in them. Cyber-folks tend to be as coy as Miz O'Hara, batting her eyes and fluttering her fan. Whereas I enjoy the Internet, this sort of coyness and the generalities that undisciplined minds, such as yours, employ, make me wanna close this connection and take a walk, which is what I'll do. Now, you'll have your beloved echo chamber, as you and Parson Jim pat each other on the cyber-back and laugh like Bevis and Butthead. Enjoy each other!

Gosh, no. As I posted earlier, I come here to tip my lance at worthy foes...and the occasional windmill.

So, I say, employing a charming, but spinsterly anachronism, "Pish-posh to amen-ing."

We should disagree with this parson and that Parson Jim, but if a person's positions don't evolve and shift, that person isn't listening, isn't thinking, isn't really here...or there.

All of it.

You were married. You didn't fare well, custody-wise. You miss your kids, which suggests love, but you're broadly sore at the custody system, women, and Broadsheet, which suggests perseveration. What woman, even if she were half-wise, would attach to that package? I actually dated a couple guys who were sore at ALL women and that's what the dates consisted of: they vented and I wondered at what nanosecond I could politely leave.

If only I'd been able to vent, in turn, all their (ob)noxious fumes, for those guys couldn't differentiate therapy and dating.

Likewise, some guys here substitute Broadsheeting for therapy...and it ain't working. If you post the same thing, week after week, you're in a loop of unresolving.

Lola Faire,

There was ne'er anything there,

therefore "it" can't be done,

for there was always and only one.

...and we all know how unwell they chose and choose.

M. Kunt, whereas some folks might view this as Salon Personals, it's always annoyed me when I come here to joust and someone says, "You there, wench! Yes, you, in the armor. Come hither, whether you wish or not!"

"Unlike you, Holly, I don't view everything through a gender filter."

Sigh.

Sigh.

Sigh.

"Everyone has their own privileges and blasting one sex for theirs without recognizing your own is just elitist, manipulative, bullshit."

On this, we're in lockstep.

As always, I'm posting out of my arse.

However, as a person in publishing, I live the "If it bleeds, it leads" axiom and Paris Hilton has taught us all that there's no corollary between content and fame as long as one provokes.

So, I suspect that on some level, Ms. Jervis wants to be a major player and attract the attention (and subsequent multi-national advertisers) that provocation garners. I'm NOT suggesting that this isn't her only motive and that she's utterly disingenuous. Rather, I'm crediting her with comprehending cause and effect. Currently, a lot of Bitch's advertisers are ma and pa shops. And Bitch isn't as glossy as Bust and Ms. Don' cha think it's possible that Ms. Jarvis has glossy dreams?

I'm guessing sales of Bitch will jump this month.

Ms. Jervis had to have understood that before she opined.