Back in the day (1964) when I was a consumer of sex education, I remember being told that having sex before marriage was bad--God said so--and that you could get VD (old name for Venereal Disease) and that you should wait until you were married and marry a girl who was also a virgin. Case closed.

A few years later on the question du jour became was it OK to have premarital sex?. The assumption was always sex now, marriage later. A test drive to ensure compatibility.

Today the goalposts have moved. The question is not about premarital sex, because the accepted secular wisdom is that it is good for everyone to have sex with the partner(s) of their choice just for fun, but that it is BAD to have sex without condoms, because you might get VD and/or pregnant. (Just yesterday it was reported that a jury awarded a woman millions of dollars, because a man gave her herpes, usually a minor, though annoying, ailment.)

AIDS has also been seen as a huge issue, because originally it was a certain death sentence, and even today means having to take expensive medications for the rest of your life--so now roughly equivalent to diabetes, only contagious.

So after 40 years of progress, men walking on the moon etc., basically we are still in the same place. Sex education in schools pays ritual obeisance to conventional values of chastity. Meanwhile lobbyists hang around state capitals hawking sex textbooks sponsored by rubber companies, and handing out free Viagra to legislators.

What do we want? What is the overall aim?

Is the aim enjoyable sex for all, or is the aim public health awareness to prevent transmissible diseases, or is the aim to get more young women into colleges to improve the work force?

Nobody really knows, so in the meantime it is best to stick to the old tried and trusted forms of sex education.

At least we can rest assured that it doesn't work, which eliminates uncertainty!

Meanwhile everyone over the age of 10 already knows about condoms and where to get them, just like they did 40 years ago, and just like back in the day, they mostly don't use them because sex is better without condoms.

Craigslist women personal ad posters....we KNOW all the 'code words' for Gold Digger. So if you think that phrases like

--financially secure

--upscale

--sugar daddy

--generous (in the monetary not the emotional/spiritual sense)

--want to be spoiled

--etc., etc.

are going to get you anywhere, you'd better hope that you've got the perfect face/body that the rich arm-candy seekers are looking for.

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

These are code phrases for online prostitution, which is illegal in the US

Sorry, you are right, and what you said was the point of my letter. I think I phrased that sentence you quoted poorly.I should have said that being successful at looking good is largely a question of having money to spend. Talent and hard work is of course, much more important. I see women every day who are genetically as well-endowed as Britney or Angelina, but they don't have the brains or skills to make something of themselves.

But no one bats an eye when a man reaches the pinnacle of his profession but isn't handsome, and that includes music and to some extent film as well (see: Bogart, Humphrey).

I don't know if the example holds up. Bogart was not a bad-looking man, even if his consumption of tobacco and alcohol did him no favors. He had a soulful, wounded air that appeals to women.

He was not overweight, nor did he have a mouthful of bad teeth.Presumably he dressed well.

In any case, success for men or women in the fields of entertainment depends more on spending money on appearance than anything else.

I read somewhere that certain Americans were quite SHOCKED to discover that the hideous teeth worn by Ricky Gervais are actually his own teeth. Such monstrosity has never been seen in Hollywood where extensive dental crowning is standard procedure.

It is often said that Ella Fitzgerald could never have topped the charts today, great voice though she may have had, because of her homely appearance, but I say BS to that.

Take a look at Britney Spears. There is nothing inherently stunning about her appearance. She is an average blobby white female, but take a million dollars or two, a dentist, a hairstylist, a personal trainer, a fashion designer, a make-up artist, a lighting specialist, and before you know it, you have a woman who is halfway sexy.

Don't tell me the same couldn't have been done for Ella, if it was needed.

The truth is that ANYONE who has plenty of money to spend on looking good will look fairly good. Of course, not everyone will look good on the big screen, but you can't have everything.

Karl Rove has played Dr.Goebbels to Bush's Dictator... sorry, Decider, right from the start. He was in effect the propaganda minister of the last administration.

That was his JOB, to produce propaganda for the Republicans. How hard is that to understand. Yes, Rove obviously studied the techniques of Goebbels, who is renowned for inventing the Big Lie technique of blaming the victims, but that is precisely what he was supposed to do.

I fail to understand why Salon keeps raising these questions.

Similarly with Rush Limbaugh. His JOB is to put out right wing agit-prop on the radio, so how can in be news if he continues to do it. It would only be news if he said something sensible.

Same with Fox News and CNN. Their purpose is to put out propaganda favorable to the companies that buy advertising time on their networks. This is how they make money. It would only be newsworthy if they provided objective reporting on political issues.