I have compassion for men...and women, but not as much compassion as some men and women might want. I try to achieve a greater relativity than my teeny life, for we all tend to wildly, foolishly extrapolate from our pimple of experience. So, I read history. Centuries of prior suffering reminds me that most folks nowadays life pretty cushy lives. As I've posted in the past, most people get to keep their teeth and don't have tapeworms and aren't forced to bow before kings.

In this way, I'm what conservatives once were, before they donned the misfitting, unseemly garment of perpetual victimhood. Likewise, a women of privilege who doesn't have to strip semen-stained sheets off of beds or sew underwear for rich folks or work 3 jobs, but who asserts that patriarchy is the definitive unequalizer again and again, forever and ever, only convinces me that she's self-absorbed and self-aggrandizing.

Now, I'm assuming you're Glenn and that you want to chat with me over at your place and that's mightly neighborly of you, however, I limit my posting to 2 sites.

Likewise, if you're indeed Glenn and a Catholic, a man who denies patriarchy is rather silly, especially one who's fond of the ridiculously patriarchal (and luxury lovin', which is marrying the very thing that Satan employed to seduce Jesus) Catholic Church.

@fetboy: Thanks, but ya never know: I might go one day!

"Do you expect me to laugh Mr. Breathed?"

No, but we do expect you to punctuate properly. You're in the company of big folks, Thee of no Glee (And there's your moniker, little fella!).

However, BobbyJoe does make a good point: that being gay is funny.

There might be all sorts of isms unconsciously pushing Ms. Clark-Flory to push this issue, such as nationalism, racism, classism, etc., since these are non-Western, black, and poor women (unable to even afford a leg), as, once again, a well-heeled and well-coifed white woman seems to know what's best. I rue the day that missionaries felt sufficiently wise enough to travel to Africa and educate "those poor savages." However, once we shod them, we did give them meaningful work of harvesting cacao pods and rooting in the mud for our upscale chocolate truffles and our upscaler bling.

On the other hand, Ms. Clark-Flory, that was deft vlogging.

And whereas I sometimes snap at you, Ms. Clark-Flory, I do like your writing.

Since this story is at the intersection of the isms I named and others, like imperialism and militarism, it feels off-limits to me. Hell, the maiming alone makes it off-limits. There is NOTHING as intimate as wounding and recovery. If these women wanted to wave their stumps in our collective faces (and perhaps they are), they're due that.

What they're not due is being used to lever an advantage in some ongoing, hypothetical debate about the magnitude of women's worldwide suffering. It feels to me like Ms. Clark-Flory absconds their suffering to inflate hers. What these women endured and endure is beyond my ken, Ms. Clark-Flory's ken, and the ken of our kin. That any of us would dare feel good about a single fookin' plastic leg (when the real one was likely lost to an American-made mine), while the rest of the contestants hop and hobble should be reason enough for decent people to literally gnash their teeth and weep.

Ms. Clark-Flory, rather than opine about the meaning of this contest, find a way for us to send these women some money, so that more than one contestant will once again have two legs under her. You and Salon have used these women to generate some copy. Not let them use your platform to raise some money.

"I'm sick to death of the whole hawtness cult."

I was chatting with a gf tonight. She's 34. Just a few years ago, when she'd be chatting with me on her cell phone as she walked down streets, guys would yell raw wishes at her.

Tonight, she said, "I'm becoming invisible."

In "the whole hawtness cult," women have the shelf life of fresh fish.

It's swell that you think I'm swell. Thanks!

However, you are the not the world. There are billions of men who do apply a shelf life to women, but don't worry about me. I don't bother mimicking youth by coloring my hair, wearing makeup, or updating my wardrobe, and that's okay. I've always been plain, so I've lost less in aging than beautiful women have lost. Fetboy, you write about the inner beauty of women, but to be frank, it reminds me of 60-something rock stars who wax about the inner beauty of the supermodels whom they date. Words are easy, pumpkin.

And sure, men and women cybercrush on me, but that doesn't mean much: it's all make-believe in the Intertubes. Likewise, in the Meat World, men and women crush on me, but I'm old enough to realize that my grave will soon be dug and that there's no greater seduction from what time remains to me than, well, seduction. A lot of people center their lives on relationship. I once did, but lawdy, lawdy, being the same thing (bf or gf or husband or wife) again and again might be familiar AND fine 'n' dandy, but not necessarily judicious, given the length of time we spend a moulderin' in the grave.

But to return to the topic, here's a shorter version of what I've been arguing: Ms. Clark-Flory, a rich, white, Western woman who has two legs to stand on does not assess, with all due humility and reservation, poor, African women who are maimed.

Shortest: Ms. C-F, their story is not your story.