I'm a bit bothered that people would find it enriching or diverting to make their character murder prostitutes and such.

I'm pretty sure no one would argue that it was "enriching or diverting". I also think Clark-Flory misspoke when she said that this represents men's "fantasies", though I generally agree with the tone of her post and commend her for not towing the standard feminist line. What would have been more accurate to say is that it satisfies our base curiosity and fascination with things that are extreme and forbidden precisely because they are those things, and the game does not present that kind of conduct as something normal or "enriching".

Why do you think people look at things like 2girls1cup or tubgirl even after being told that they are disgusting? It's not because they've been walking around secretly fantasizing about those things. But when you're presented with the idea and possibility of seeing something like that, it's just interesting to push the boundaries of your imagination. I don't go around fantasizing about killing people, but I can't honestly say that the idea of what such an experience is like holds absolutely no objective interest for me.

So my point is that people don't normally have these fantasies, but that the idea of a hyper-realistic simulation in which to carry out extreme and absurd acts that you would never perform in real life holds a great deal of appeal. And to those who never feel the least bit of inclination to just wonder about things like this, congratulations on embodying our society's ideal of a repressed, imaginatively impoverished Puritan automaton.

As a side note, I have anecdotal evidence that American women complain of sexual frustration because their men would rather play video games. This is another thing that exasperates me. I just can't fathom it. Has anybody else heard this?

It's only anecdotal, but I'm pretty sure it mostly deals with MMORPG's, and World of Warcraft in particular. Those games are somewhat of a social commitment to the people you're playing with and can't be paused, so if you've spent an hour getting 20 people for a raid that you'll have to start over if you leave, sex can wait. I doubt very much that you'd find a guy anywhere who'd be unwilling to pause GTA for some real-life action, unless there were some other reason.

Also, hooray for Road Rash and for your screen name. The nineties were truly the best decade.

I had a longer post, but it got eaten. So I'll just say this: it is possible just to have good taste and a functioning brain, and if someone doesn't like self-help books or Shania Twain, it's not necessarily because they're 'elitist'. I've flipped through self-help books when I'm bored at my mom's house. They are tripe, and they say absolutely nothing that wasn't already self-evident. And if you purchase and enjoy them, that does say something about the kind of person you are, like it or not.

I see the trite cries of "why do we need lists on the internet when we can take the time to get to know each other?" Yea, maybe we can write each other hand-written letters too. God, are all Salon readers aging hippies?

I'm not sure why you're so hung up on Oprah and Dr. Phil. You do realize there are other cultural sources out there, right? My personal gospel comes from Dostoyevsky, but if you wanna go down the low road, you sound like someone who worships at the altar of Mystery the Pick-up Artist and The Seven Habits of Highly Successful Assholes.

Once again, I do understand. It's just what your advice is meant to achieve is not what I want.

P.S. There are also those who would consider bragging about how many dates you have in order to win an argument on an Internet messageboard pretty pathetic and perhaps even indicative of the fact that you've built up this whole womanizing thing to mask some deeper insecurity, but I'm not gonna get all Dr. Phil on you.