For every New and Rush, there are ten guys who are slip hipped, tall and with a full head of hair. If you lined up the CEOs of the Fortune 100, you'd see that tall men have a huge advantage over short men, good looking over ugly, fully coiffed over bald. Rare is the man with a high-pitched voice in the ranks of power. Sure, short guys make it, so do fat guys and homely guys. The the halls of power, by and large, are dominated by the tall, mellow-voiced guys with regular features and more rather than less hair. It's not that men aren't subjected to scrutiny, we've just come to accept it as a matter of course that successful men are tall. Look at any personals site - women want guys 6'0. The average height for men is quite a few inches shorter than that, but nevertheless, women want guys 6'0...because it's likely that a tall man will also be a successful man. Not guaranteed, mind you - and plenty of short men succeed...but it's more likely to be true than not. It's even been proven in research - they've monetized height for men.

So yes, Nancy Pelosi will be scrutiinzied for her appearance as well as her performance. As long as her performance outweighs her appearance then we should just accept this as another step on the progressive march toward equality. In ten years, when it is no longer remarkable for a woman to hold such high political office, the level of detail in the scruitiny will fade away, as it has for men.

If you don't want to be leered at, don't wear a bikini. Wear a one-piece.

Face it - women wear bikinis so that men will admire their bodies. You parade around in four triangles connected by strings, expect to get attention. If men 'leer' rather than 'admire' ignore them or change bathing suits or change beaches. It's pretty simple. It's not an 'issue'. It's common sense.

It's clearly just a bunch of soldiers having fun. The girl is not being terrorized or threatened or even manhandled. She's genuinely laughing.

Yes, it can be troubling to be reminded how easily a woman can be taken advantage of by a group of men determined to do so. But that is not what is happening here, and no amount of dark imagining can make it so. These guys aren't hurting her, she's not fearful, there isn't even a whiff of sexual malfeasance going on...but sure, it *could have been* a different scenario. And it's not a bad thing to contemplate that, and appreciate the sensitivity such contemplation brings out in us. But it's no reason to let fear of what *could have been* infect the atmosphere of a genuine and harmless good time.

I am surprised at how hard people are jumping on the LW, deriding him for being jealous. Well, duh. His girlfriend maintains a relationship with a guy who openly admits he isn't 'over' her. If the finacee knows this, the gf doubtlessly knows this too. It's also pretty interesting that she says she and the former flame broke up for 'practical' reasons. Huh? That doesn't exactly sound like a whole-hearted rejection of any avowals of love, lust or passionate interest.

The world is full of people to be friends with and have dinner with - why does she need to include among them a guy who openly craves a romantic relationship with her? It's narcissistic and deeply disrespectful of the finacee's feelings to ask him to befriend the would-be interloper so that she can continue to enjoy his adulation. She needs to grow up. Out of respect for the LW, she should resume the 'friendship' only when the ex is over her, moved on to someone else, and she is no longer the eye of his personal romantic hurricane.

She had sex with another guy while she and the finacee were temporarily 'on a break'. Now she wants to integrate this guy into their future? Again, for what reason? Is she so unable to make NEW friends, much less female friends and friends that she didn't have recent sexual relations with? Why on earth is the finacee the bad guy here, not wanting to hang with a guy whom his girlfriend most recently considered a sexual/romantic replacement?

The finacee's desire to not have these men play an active 'friends who were recently more and/or desire to once again be more" in their future seems perfectly reasonable to me.

Wanting them to die, is, of course, unreasonable, and, as the LW himself points out, selfish. But I'm guessing he doesn't *really* want them to be dead as in heart-stops-beating dead, I'm guessing he means figuratively dead, as in, no longer to access the girlfriend's seeminly fickle affections.

Cary's advice is good. These two do not have a history of trust built up. Ideally, the LW should have delayed proposing untl AFTER this history is built up. Since he's already asked and she's already accepted, he should sit down with the future missus and talk about that line in the vows about forsaking all others, and what it *really* means, which is less about a refusal to speak with anyone she has once fornicated with, and more about not maintaining relationships that do not unnecessarily threaten the LW's sense of security, comfort and trust in their love and loyalty to one another. If I were him, I'd ask for some transparency around these relationships for the next year. If there's nothing to hide or get squirmy about, there should be no problem, and they can feel good about entering into a relationship that is based on trust rather than suspicion (on his part) and a desire to arouse it (on her part) in order to feel secure.