My grandfather was a Madison Ave ad exec. He wasn't in Creative, I think he was an account executive or something. I can't ask him, he died ten years ago.

Guys who become successful in business pay price. It’s often personal and high. The women attracted to such men (their success, really) often later complain that with such men there’s no “there there.” I wonder if they ever admit their expectations were both unrealistic and inhumane?

That is an outstanding observation, although I see that MerelyMortalMale has been dutifully savaged for daring to suggest that menfolk are also human with feelings and failings of their own.

My grandfather was very successful and boot-strapped his way into a good life as an ad man. He took the train into the city every day and did goodness-knows-what for a high profile firm on Madison Ave. He married a Catholic woman and converted for her (he was some flavor of New York Dutch yankee Protestant.) He reared four children and sent them all to private school. He wintered in Florida after he retired. He purchased a home in a very nice 'retirement village' in his last years.

The home life? Pretty miserable, at least after a time. I could get into gristly detail but if any of my family is somehow reading this, it would be a dead giveaway as to who I am. Suffice it to say, my grandfather watched his wife self-destruct, watched his eldest daughter run away into a strict religious community to get away from home, watched his youngest daughter join a subculture of mid-60s America that he couldn't fathom, and watched his two boys marry women they evidently didn't love, but who to the outside appeared to have been carbon copies of their mother (read: "strong personalities").

I have no idea what my grandmother thought of him, because she died thirty-one years ago. I can say that he was not a successful ad exec when they were courting. I'm sure she enjoyed the nice life he was able to provide her, but she was also fighting some very scary demons of her own so how much she was able to pull herself out of that and appreciate him for the man he was I couldn't possibly say. I hope she did.

It took decades -- and a nervous breakdown of one of his children -- before he was able to connect with his kids in any real fatherly way. DECADES before the words "I love you" were used as a signoff in phone calls. And after all those decades, he had a few years of this and then he was dead. This was the sacrifice my grandfather made to have this success and this good life -- his wife dead at 55, four children whose adult live derailed to varying degrees, and only at the very end was he able to acknowledge that they loved him and that he loved them.

He was a good, good man, and gave up a lot in exchange for a nice life and comfortable retirement. Was it worth it? I have absolutely no idea, and as I said, he died ten years ago so I can't ask him anymore. It's certainly what men were expected to do though, and what at that time would prompt him to question it?

You don't know what you've got 'til it's gone, indeed.

She then unwillingly had sex at gunpoint with three other guys--no crimes on her part, one rape each on the part of the three guys, all the guys are accomplices to each others' rapes.

They weren't charged with rape. Only the first guy, with whom she had consensual sex, was charged with rape. He did not commit rape, so he was found not guilty of rape.

He *should* have been charged with accessory and conspiracy. I wonder if this was an attempt at leverage by the DA to get the guy to plead to conspiracy in return for naming the other guys, but he didn't bite because he knew he could beat the rape charge?

Maybe I just watch too much "Law & Order".

The one with the lady being found guilty of an incredible variety of misdemeanors such as "riding a nekkid man like a pony" and "lewdness involving an entire case of New Zealand kumquats" is a freaking riot.

Further to the point at hand, both companies are subsidiaries of Unilever -- that doesn't mean *they* are the same company. Their corporate philosophies are distinct and unique, and to hold Dove accountable for what Axe does is meaningless and kind of silly.

Actually, as a married man I have noticed that the women around me appear to be more attracted me now than when I was single.

The only thing that makes sense to me about this (speaking as a single woman) is that the very fact that you're married means you believe in commitment and fidelity, which of course us ladyfolk really dig. Whether you're good in the sack is incidental.

Same thing with hot young guys who are out and about with their kids. There's nothing sexier, let me tell you.