You're so...civil!

You wrote: "Essentially, I agree with you that there are too many factors involved to account for all the what-ifs. I think that's a pretty good reason not to dictate to women what should and shouldn't make them uncomfortable."

Now, here's the fulcrum of you tipping one way and me tipping the other. I think we should be made uncomfortable. As children, we believed that there were monsters beneath our beds. We were wrong, of course, for it was much worse than that: there were (and are) monsters inside of us. Our monstrously wrong assumptions about ourselves and others chase us into various social and psychological dead-ends, where the beasties inside of us consume us.

Of course, Pogo said this a long time ago and he said it without all my superfluous syllables: "We have met the enemy and he is us."

"Thou shall not"?

Are you more comfy with the "I shall not" that so many employ, which hinges upon their feelings, which are, as I already delineated, unexamined data considered as definitive conclusions.

For example, a woman might say, "I shall not be attended by an attending gyno if he's a guy...'cause I'm more comfy with gals."

99 times out of 100 (I'm imagining this ratio, of course, but it's probably an underexaggeration.) this woman will die never having examined her holy feelings. But she'll die swaddled by other women who'd echoed her feelings. So, it'll be a swaddled life, but there's something to be said for removing those blankets and having a good, long look at something far more intimate than a vulva: the psyche.

Let me warn y'all: there's nothing as cold as a psychological speculum and there's no agent on Earth that can warm it.

However, it might not be for a week or so. I'm about to begin a tank-draining mini-book tour, which is a lot like campaigning: handshaking and nodding, nodding, nodding, but not enough nodding off in hotels.

Lev is already my pal. How funny is that in the wide, wide world? And yes, Lev is wicked smart and cool.

And you seem wicked cool too. So, expect an email this weekend or next.

Nice rebuttal. Wouldn't it be swell if folks who disgreed like you and me made it to the airwaves instead of the shrieking heads who litter media (Joan Walsh being an exception)?

I can't deny that sexuality can't poison a gyno visit, but if that's a determining concern, will you ban lesbian docs from becoming gynos? Will lesbian nurses be kept out of the examination room?

And even if you limit it to women docs who aren't attracted to other women, you're still not free of encumbering factors. For example, projection often discomfits doctor/patient relationships. A woman doc is more likely to project into a woman patient, thus bleeding away the dispassion that serves analysis. No one is ever assured of objectivity. We roll the dice when we walk into every room, whether it's an examination room or an airport terminal.

You're welcome, Pumpkin.

However, we might do battle tomorrow, even if we were cuddly today, and if we do, I'll still tender respect, albeit aggressive, to you.

There was a mob scene. People cluster to defend their comforts, as in "I'm more comfy with a woman doc poking in my crotch," which is a positive framing, but they're also defending their fears and, as I already noted, often unexamined fears. Men and women have more in common than most folks realize and woman and woman (and man and man) have less in common than most assume.

I just visited your website. I love your work and your face and your smile! Your education is pretty snazzy too. A pretty face atop moxie can peel my adult sensibilities, which are carrot-skin thin anyway, and reveal me as the squealy 14-year that I forever am.

Now, you get a kiss too. Here it is:

*KISS!*

I once had a column that gets the daily hits that Salon does, but I switched to writing for meat world mags (No, not porn!). Those mags give me all the work I want and more. Whenever I'm posting at Salon, I'm avoiding my work. But what I really want to do is write very few articles. I have a bunch of books under contract and my latest is on various bestseller lists and just won an award (Yay!).

However, I once queried Salon (with an article idea). They didn't respond.

Pity me.

Pity them.

Pity you.

She's in her Hell on Earth.

But there isn't a parent alive who hasn't risked their children's lives or some child's life.

Do you use your cell phone when your kids are in the car, thus immediately reducing your reaction time to that of a 75-year old and increasing four-fold the risk of an accident?

Do you ever use your cell phone when you kids aren't in the car, thus increasing the risk to other folks' kids?

Do you ever speed?

Drink booze?

Feed your kids food that compromises their health?

And so on.

As Capote's Holly GoLightly once observed: "Everyone likes to feel superior to someone else. It's just customary to present proof before taking the privilege."