Well, Kit, you did something every writer aspires to: you bared your soul most eloquently, and in the baring, managed to trigger pain, fear, anger, and contempt in your readers. In my opinion, you did a far better job of it than, say, Raymond Carver (whose son I slept with, by the way) or Louis Ferdinand Celine.

I read your article and related to it so specifically (esp. with respect to the idea that sex without love or affection is just sad) that it left me in tears. I'm thirty-six. I haven't had sex in a year. Not that the offers aren't there--I work in a gym and the offers are abundant. But that is hardly a palliative to my deep and abiding terror that I may have put up my diaphragm in the medicine cabinet for good.

I mourn because I miss (sweet Jesus, how I miss) those days when I could just fuck with impunity. If I was wildly attracted to a man, I acted on it without any thought for whether I liked or respected him. Hey--I wanted him! That was enough.

But now I can't do that.

Now it appears that I need the one thing I always considered the ultimate lie, merely a matter of compatible dysfunctions, a bullshit excuse to justify unbridled desire: love. I am appalled and humbled by this. I'm unable to account for how or why it happened. And since I don't believe in love--wouldn't know it if it shit down my neck--what am I supposed to do? The libido is still strong and annoying. Like you, though, I am by nature reclusive--and a writer.

I took comfort in an early post stating that what ails our kind is the very essence of our hermit ways. It's true. You don't meet people sitting at home staring, with mute horror, at an empty page.

When I started reading your article, by the way, I was so hoping you could come up with an answer for people like me: over-the-top sex drive and an equally extreme cynicism about love, the validity of love, whether love exists at all, its nature, whether we are capable of loving or merely falling in love with our own projections...you know. Like that.

Ultimately, though, you did me a kindness. You forced me to take a breath, take a look, and not walk away.

Like you, I trekked through some dark Himalayas last year. If, as is widely believed, we are greatly affected by the books we read and the people we meet, here are the books that helped me understand life on a much, MUCH deeper level:

A NEW EARTH by Eckhart Tolle.

WHEN THINGS FALL APART by Pema Chodren (she's an American Buddhist nun).

You probably don't understand this yet, but you are on the brink of a profound awakening. Wish I could be there to see it.

With all good wishes to you.

I don't think there's much of a debate here. Since men marginalize women in every possible venue, where's the surprise?

Let us take for our example the usual canon of required high school reading: Hemingway (an overrated blowhard, IMHO), Sinclair Lewis (BABBITT is a painful, even silly, read), Twain (always entertaining, but no more so than a dozen female authors I could name--like, say, Janet Austen or Frances Burney, and yes, I know they're Brits.) Steinbeck is noteworthy and well worth the investment of time--as is D.H. Lawrence. But where's Doris Lessing? Edith Wharton? Flannery O'Connor? Katherine Mansfield? Joyce Carol Oates, although suspiciously prolific, has turned out some amazing short stories (i.e. "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been".)

Let's see. Was I ever asked to read any of these authors in high school? Nope.

Men have long perceived women to be a threat on this playing field. We are naturally gifted linguists, many of us. We are quite capable of organizing a linear plot. And God knows we've got something to say. But we're WOMEN, you see, with our picayune feminine concerns like, oh, I don't know, love and relationship and forgiveness for being universally despised and oppressed.

Hundreds of American women have written hundreds of Great American Novels. It is a failure of perception on the part of the mostly male literati that has relegated these talented authors to second and third tiers. But I am confident that history will be less in error.

There are lots of proficient writers, but very few proficient writers who write with heart.

Ah, but you weren't raised in Texas;o)

BTW, I'm with you on Camus. All brain, no balls. Loved GATSBY though. That delicious longing, you see.

You say you are on a quest for a loving relationship with a fantasy woman--or two, but I am afraid you are being a bit disingenuous.

In truth, you want a fuck doll.

"When first meeting, whether in person or online, I was sure to come out about my preference"--WHAT? Do you have any idea how that comes across? No matter how sensitively broached, here's what you're really saying: "I'm sure you're a fine woman and all, but one vagina isn't ever going to do it for me. If we're going to have even a mockery of a relationship, it will have to be two."

You want to know why your relationships are unsatisfying? You are completely marginalizing these women, manipulating them into fulfilling your "fetish" and you're left scratching your head about why it didn't work out. You need a mirror. Or a shrink. Probably both.

I'm also thinking--and again, please forgive me here, but it's pretty damn obvious: unresolved mommy issues. Don't tell me--at least one of your former girlfriends has accused you of being passive-aggressive.

And BTW, Cary, I love you, but for you to eulogize this guy for being such an intrepid soul, frankly, made my lunch come up. WOW.