I have to agree with others who are dismayed by Traister's puff piece journalism. I wish I had her job, getting paid for navel gazing and minimal research!

However, what's even more frustrating is Traister spends decent ink talking about racism and the plight of African American women, yet ignores the fact that Houston put out an hip hop influenced album that received a fair amount of attention in 1998, My Love is Your Love, and hit #7 on the R&B charts. The single "Heartbreak Hotel" gives a glimpse of her trajectory from packaged pop princess to troubled woman/artist. But probably because Traister thinks she cares about black folks, rather than actually being in any way involved in black culture (she acknowledges Whitney is special because she appealed to white girls like herself back in the 80s), she missed this one.

I watched Colbert's brilliant performance on Democracy Now! and it panned to Justice Scalia doubled over with laughter as Colbert made obscene gestures to him during his routine. Justice Scalia may be a pinnacle of conservatism that I wish would disappear from the Court, but he is widely known for his wit and sense of humor. He also, clearly, is not afraid to laugh at himself and must have already been enjoying Colbert to be in full belly laugh by the time he was the brief target of Colbert's humor. Vive Colbert!

I really like most of the contributions to Broadsheet. But whether it's her Broadsheet contributions or her feature articles for Salon, I feel that Rebecca Traister writes the least important pieces.

I'm a feminist and I like Project Runway-- but I don't need to read an uninspired critique of a vapid article about feminists and Project Runway. The way this piece reads to me is like getting all excited over the latest Fox News talking head. Big deal, idiot talking heads are on that channel every day. It's not worth commenting on every ignorant and inflammatory phrase they utter. And similarly, why bother remarking on such a small, useless piece of journalism? What is the Columbia Daily Tribune??? Can't Traister find anything more worthwhile to write about??

To answer Lori Leibovich's request for lesbians to weigh in on her posting-- how about Broadsheet go all nuts and have a queer contributor? As a queer woman I feel that Broadsheet has good Allies who cover LGBT issues well, yet I would love it if Broadsheet's contributors were, um, a broader group of feminists.

To answer your question Lori, I think Meghan Daum has a point-- none of the "234 women" that you thought of off the top of your head compare to the clout of Oprah, Martha, & Hilary. Besides, Katie Couric is famous for having exported a lesbian haircut to the soccer mom world early in her career, and most of us are pretty sure Queen Latifah plays on our team.

What I think that many of the posters to this article are missing, as did the article itself, is that human connection takes practice. You cannot take it for granted, nor hold it to some unsatisfying level of perfection that human beings are incapable of. Even in the best friendships there are times when we're selfish, we're bad at calling back, we gossip about people we love. But we also do amazing things for each other that more than outweigh our human imperfections.

When I was in college I found myself at one time becoming close to a few people who were soon to graduate or transfer. I asked the therapist I was seeing at the time, "Why am I bothering, I know they're leaving!" The best piece of advice that therapist ever gave me was to keep pursuing these "doomed" friendships because it is a great way to practice how to become intimate with other people. I have wonderful memories of those people that I took the time to connect with, some very deeply, even though I knew our friendships would not endure.

So, to all of you who only talk to your spouse and your closest sibling, I urge you to practice making friends. Unfortunately, those we value are not often around forever in our lives (death, divorce, etc). Practice being a friend and gaining intimacy with others-- then those people will be there when you need them and hard times will feel (and be) less lonely.

Softdog and moonbat are right on the money-- the homophobia in Frey's article is silly and offensive. This is a problem in Salon, and I don't get it. I've complained about it before re: Broadsheet.

I don't have Showtime, I watch the L word on DVD. I've heard about the transgender issues coming up with Jenny & her new flame this season. Jenny has always been the most irritiating character for me, but I'm glad the issue is getting aired. Frey calls it "making a statement" for the writers to include this issue. Maybe if she were part of the queer community she would realize this is actually a day to day issue for many of us-- not an abstract cultural studies topic. I live in the South where there seems to be a rush for young butch lesbians to transition-- gender fluidity may be less acceptable in the South?-- and it's a very uncomfortable topic in the queer community. To me, including this issue is boundary pushing-- but maybe it's a boundary Frey finds irrelevant to her voyeuristic "Straight" life.