What do you know, a Salon editorialist who does research, takes time to contemplate that research, and gives us a fresh perspective based on facts! I always look forward to Miller's articles, even when I don't agree with her. I learn something, and I understand my own perpective better. Cultural commentary from an informed perspective. This reader appreciates it. Writing like this is what attracted me to Salon in the first place.

I know that sounds like a letter of recommendation rather than a letters column comment, but honestly, after that "Girls Gone Wilder" crap by Kate Harding, "Models, Vampires, and Spoiled Brats" by Judy Berman, and various other "I just heard about this subject and know nothing of it but have a page or two of response based on the preconceptions instilled by my undergrad degree" pieces, I was beginning to wonder why I even bother with this site.

Miller, Heather Havrilesky, Andrew O'Hehir, and Glenn Greenwald remind me why.

I wish we heard from Miller as frequently as we do from the other three. Maybe the time she puts into her work makes it more difficult to contribute regularly. If so, the wait is worth it.

should complain about juvenile sex obsessions.

You're always labelling everything the GOP does as "crazy," yet here's a women who has made herself a political liability with no political clout than her already establised (fringe) base, and you wonder why the media says nothing. Maybe because she's not worth responding to. Maybe because Pia Zadora is more politically relevent at this point that Sarah Palin.

I was wondering about the mutual resposibility issue, too. I think that's somewhat what Harding was going for. And I get why a woman might not want to be completely honest: she doesn't know how the guy will react and generally a man is stronger than a woman.

Really, there isn't much honesty in our mating rituals. I'm gay, and I think it's a little better in the gay community (sometimes). There are guys who will just say "Get away. Not intersted." It makes you feel like crap at the time, of course, but at least you know.

It's funny, I was talking to this guy the other night. I'd seen him around before and he'd seemed all right and I'd been friendly. But talking to him for the first time, I recognized he had no social skills, and in someone of his age (I'm guessing late forties) that struck an odd note. So I just tried to keep him away without making a big deal about it. I was polite and just didn't actively engage him. And he kept asking self-conscious questions, but I just wanted to get away.

I can get where the girls were coming from who told Sodini he was a nice guy. I didn't use those words, but I was pretty uncomfortable and hoping my simple navigations away from they guy would do the trick. So I don't want to knock the women here when I really need to think of a better way to handle that situation, myself.

How on earth you plan to figure out the "nice guys finish last" issue from this nutcase's personal history is beyond me. In the first place, how can you conflate the personality he showed to potential girlfriends with the ranting on a blog? How do you know he gave off the same vibe? Anyone who's gone to someone's online journal can tell you that it can be like meeting an entirely different person. He might well have come off as a "nice guy" to them, and they never saw the monster underneath. More importantly, he was a monster, most men aren't, and so his psychology is irrelevent to the general "nice guy" write off. Unless you are saying the average "nice guy" is a monster. You're not saying that, are you?

And yes, being called a "nice guy" is a write off. It's a meaningless soundbyte. You might as well say, "You've got an epidermis" as say "You're a nice guy." Everyone's nice when they first meet someone. You make nice in social situations. You act nice when you're trying to impress. Being nice is just being polite, and relates to shallow social skills, nothing more. And while it isn't necessarily a turn off, it most surely is not a turn on. If a woman can't think of anything to say other than "you're a nice guy" it means the man is demonstrating nothing impressive. And therefore is out of the running.

Now, if a woman tells a man "you're a good man" that can mean something special. That he's moral, upstanding, dependable, strong. But "nice" is nothing.

Really enjoyed the questions and the answers. Granted the dig at male bloggers put me off—and this site and its audience would call any male actor, writer, whatever, who snarked that stereotypically against women—but one line in a good inteview with a smart, interesting person isn't enough to put me off.

Guys and gals, ignore people who just want to rattle you. They aren't worth the time, and you're stroking their egos.

so you should not have reviewed this movie.

Why is this a recurrent element of Broadsheet journalism?