There are lots and lots of ways of looking at this.

At around age 30, I realized being a "nice guy" wasn't getting me anywhere. So I tried being selfish and incosiderate.

Before age 30, the women I was with were not that attractive, and tended to dump me. After age 30, women got attracted to ME, and they were a lot hotter, and I was usually the "dumpor" (to use legal terms) instead of the "dumpee".

Which made me feel pretty shitty. At least on the morning after.

So . . . I'm 13 years into a happy relationship with another grown-up. You know what? Women who've matured know that there are three things to look at before you decide:

1) The genitals: Am I turned on?

2) The heart: Do I like this person (not necesarily love him/her); and

3) The head: Is This A Good Idea?

Men, too, who've grown up,look at all of the above three things. Before age 30 I was fixated on #2. After, only on #1. When I met my future wife, I finally got onto all three.

Now as for the "Only Assholes Get Laid" issue:

It seems to be true for young (or unwise older) women. But not exclusively.

The one thing no one can dispute is:

There is a gap between the type of man women say they want, and the type they actually pick.

There is hardly any job in the U.S. that actually requires women to wear high heels (well, maybe topless bars).

I'm a lawyer and I often see women wearing flat shoes in court. In fact, even women attorneys have a lot more latitude in what they wear than men. Last month, at the Appellate Division -- the Appellate Division!! -- I was sweltering in a tie, jacket, long pants, shoes and socks, while the female attorney next to me wore a blazer over an open-neckline loose blouse, a mid-length skirt, and backless sandals with no hose.

Men wear ties because they *have* to. Women wear heels because they *want* to.

Forgotten, rationalized away, sublimated. Especially if he/she has never been seen or only dimly perceived. Defense mechanisms tend to work, which is why we use them. If we didn't have such mechanisms available at least some of the time, we just could not go on with our lives. This does not make the rationalizer any less human, but it does not make the child any less real either.

My wife, a size 34DD, wanted a Wonderbra. So she got one, and looked like Pamela Anderson (in her silicon incarnation).

It was effective for going out, a nice evening "in", it definitely improved the view during blow-jobs (can I say this?), and in the supermarket it was a sure-fire advantage. All she had to do was ask where the corn flakes were and she had about five stockboys helping her out.

Yuck! Bleaccchhhh!

. . . back when Republicans were pro-choice and in favor of the Equal Rights Amendment. That was a *long* time ago.

. . . expressed in these letters is why I say, it took a lot of guts for Tracy to write this article.

1977: in her dorm room, trying not to look at her breasts which were almost falling out of her partly unbuttoned blouse, very nervous, I told Caroline:

"I don't want my motives to be misconscrewed."

You just can't recover after that one.

Good for you, Tracy.

Sounds like you got out there and learned a lot. Similar, in some ways, to my own experiences your age (in the 1970's). Women do have it better, even now, because:

1) the slut/stud dichtomoy is a false one (very few grown-up men criticize women as "sluts"; it's someone women say about each other)

2) it's still a buyer's market for women; women get to pick the men, and the men have to impress them (one can see this from Tracy's vignettes of her encounters)

But my respect for Tracy, always considerable, increased a great deal after reading this self-disclosure.

. . . or a conference of blogs specifically, by design, representing only part of the population (women) *should* get less coverage than an inclusive conference like Netroots. Because at an inclusive conference no one would think about identity -- they'd focus on what blogs *do*.

Would a conference of only male bloggers -- *specifically* designated as such -- also be marginalized and taken less seriously, as BlogHer was? It might surprise you but I think the answer would be *yes*.

Full-screen mode is an option in most word processing programs. It certainly helps.

But for me the greatest distraction is the internet and all the other apps on the computer. So I stick with my 1989-era Poqet. It runs DOS 3.3 and has a card for WordPerfect 5.1 (the best word processor ever made). I type and save on a PC series I card (holding 512K) which I then pop into my laptop PC slot to print or transmit. The Poqet runs on two AA batteries that last for weeks. It also has no boot-up time: press the "on" button and you are exactly where you were.

Of course, the Poqet was discontinued soon after it was introduced. Fujitsu bought it and then killed it. It was too good!

I realize Gary's from the other side of the tracks, and I shouldn't be provincial, but we've never been able to afford overseas travel, and reading the giddy musings of his SEVENTH visit to Italy is not what I want to hear in this gloomy summer of no money and stay-at-home vacations.

You're Jewish.

You and your Jewish friends are laughing at an over-the-top caricature of a hook-nosed, money-grubbing Shylock in a prayer shawl, stained with the blood of Christian babies. It's so ridiculous it's funny.

But now you're in a room full of non-Jews, many of whom you know are anti-Semitic.

They're laughing.

Are YOu still laughing, Gary?