I dislike purity talk when it comes to "protecting" it, as in the case of these balls, and I dislike it as part of the discourse on "lost" purity, as in the case of childhood sexual abuse or rape. I have a soft spot for parental protectiveness (fathers and brothers included), but at a certain point, I think it's damaging to the survivor to hear her parents go on about innocence lost, etc. There should be other ways of acknowledging the impact of abuse than loudly mourning the loss of purity.

I've worked in preschools and agree with posters that being "good" in a classroom is generally easier for little girls (all due credit to individual differences, of course). But isn't it possible, given the numbers, that there's a "boy crisis" in school and a "family crisis that disproportionately affects women's careers" in the workplace? Someone upthread commented that the wage gap is based on lifetime numbers, not job-to-job inequality. So what? I think it's a problem--for everyone, not just women--that women lose out on their careers because of a lack of supportive infrastructure and a sharply divided cultural landscape that ends up punishing motherhood. Keep in mind that many women just don't have the financial choice to stay at home. So if we expand the time frame a little bit, it looks like our boys are doing just fine.

I'd start by talking to your school. The area may be conservative, but surely after a couple of years there you've identified one or two kindred spirits? Sort of? But let's say you do, and there is no acceptable substitute for this rotation.

People like you are the ones who should be vets, but I don't think that means you have to shrug and say, "Well, better me than someone who doesn't care," and participate in a system that you (rightly) feel has entirely lost its moral compass. If declining to participate leads to the consequences you fear, you would have recourse to fight them, and if that included media involvement, so be it.

I suspect that what you want is to just get through the next few weeks. So how about taking it all in, so you never forget what you should spend the rest of your career fighting?

Middle-class, middle-aged white women. And many others, of course--but take a look at the audience in her studio. McCain wants to steal Hillary's top demographic from Obama, is my guess for why he agreed to go on the show. Glad she gave him an earful.

Thanks to melthough and farnsworth for a well-reasoned account of reality and some laughs, respectively.

Stackey-dackey, you said, "but it's like the danger-sensing gene is lacking in women in those sort of situation."

You may have meant that as an insult, but there are a lot of things you can do to a child that removes or alters his or her ability to sense or respond to danger. Many children are able to overcome these things, but many are not.

The children and pets thing kills me, though.

Just as she was not a factor in the abuse or its aftermath. Frankly, I wonder whether "if we can't all be together, I don't want anything" is not just a tactic. But even if it isn't, and the party is off, and they try to spin the narrative that YOU have "ruined" your parents' 50th anniversary celebration, well, that's just bullshit.

I think Cary's advice is well-meant, but it might not be where you are right now. People recover from abuse in stages, not all at once. So yes, you were able to reach the point of speaking to your brother about what happened, and that was huge. It doesn't mean you should ignore your "UGH" response and force yourself to show up to this party for some TV-movie-style closure.

And actually, it sounds like giving in to your mother's whitewashing would be as traumatic as facing your brother again.

Look, I am sympathetic to parents not knowing when sibling abuse is going on...no parent wants to keep an eagle eye out for that! But once they know, they know. What your mother is doing is wrong.

Couldn't even read the article. It's too bad, because I sure do love Laura Dern.

I hope the catastrophe last winter didn't do them in.

Southwest IS pretty great, for its can-do, let's pitch in and do it together spirit. But mainly, as others have noted, for the flexibility in flight rescheduling.

That's why I'll never be a homeowner.

You know what this is? This is another version of an article in the Atlantic this month, "In the basement of the Ivory Tower." Some people aren't cut out for college just as they aren't cut out for homeownership, and they shouldn't have to force themselves into an ill-fitting box in order to have a good life.

When I heard this comment repeated on the radio, I automatically went, "Oooohhh!" I think it was Hillary's version of "sweetie"--exhausted and involuntarily honest--only much worse, politically.

Doesn't it seem like she's put a lot of thought into this? Doesn't it seem like she reacted immediately and appropriately to what happened to her son? Does it seem likely that she would do all that and then decide, "What the hell, family is family"?

This may blow the minds of some people who haven't been involved in messy family disputes, but sometimes it is better--for the *victim*--for surrounding loved ones to partially normalize a situation rather than catastrophize it.

This is obviously not the LW's situation--his or her family (mother AND father, whose absence in the story is pretty glaring in a second read-through) are dancing frantically to the beat of "normal, normal, happy, normal." It don't play.

Not the photo, obviously. The fact that I thought by clicking into the thread, I'd be reading 23 letters along the lines of "When WOMEN have sex with underage boys, you feminists throw them a party!" And instead, read mostly sane responses.