No, I did understand that context of the specific reply to the "diaper brat's" wife. As a long-time reader of Savage's column, I've always felt conflicted about the whole "GGG" concept, in that it seems to unfairly put the burden of maintaining the relationship on the "less-needy" partner.

The idea seems to be that a loving person "should" be willing to be "game enough" to give things a try, even if s/he finds those things to be disturbing, disgusting, or whatever. The person who has "peculiar" needs is never the one who's at fault for the demise of the relationship--the person who's unwilling to compromise his/her dignity is the one who's at fault.

On the other hand, the person who holds his/her nose and goes through the motions out of love for the partner is, at least, acknowledged as being something of a saint--one who is to be appreciated as the rare jewel that s/he is. So there's that, at least...

But my experience in dealing with people who are sexually "bent" and/or have eccentric needs in their non-sexual lives is that they're almost never grateful that someone was willing to meet them more than halfway: Instead, they tend to be disappointed that their partner/friend isn't naturally enthusiastic and unconflicted about their eccentricities.

In a more-general, non-sexual, context, I have to wonder whether this attitude isn't a result of having been raised within the "self esteem movement." Such an unembarrassed and overriding "infinite sense of entitlement" doesn't strike me as being either normal or healthy--not healthy for the individuals involved, and not healthy for society as a whole. Yes--we have every right to self-expression; however, we also need to understand and respect what societal norms are and to not automatically expect to have our peculiarities not only tolerated but enthusiastically celebrated.

Those of us who want to support organic farming have been sounding the alarm with regard to American "big business'" attempts to get in on the "organic bandwagon" through essentially degrading "organic standards." For example, they want cloned animals, genetically-modified plants, and irradiated foods to be included under the "organic" umbrella--notions that outrage many of us.

What we want is an "organic standard" that fits everyone, for the protection of the average consumer--who is likely to just see the word "organic" slapped on the product label and just assume that it's somehow "healthier," without knowing that "organic" might have one definition for one type of food product and another definition for another type of food product.

So, it's been pretty-much agreed-upon that we consumers want one "organic standard" to apply equally to all farmers--that the "growing fields" should be a "level playing field," as it were.

Now we're saying that requiring third-world small farmers to adhere to these stringent standards is too-onorous a requirement for them, economically, and that maybe we should loosen the "organic standards" for them so that they will continue to provide us with organic coffee.

I understand, and appreciate, the motivation behind wanting to make coffee production economically-feasible for small, third-world growers, but standards are standards. What's sauce for Big Agribusiness is sauce for Juan Valdez--know what I mean?

There is one reasonable compromise that I can envision: Instead of labeling their coffees as being "organic," they can specify their growing practices on their labels. Other organic farmers have had to do this in those cases where the "organic standard" is not tight-enough--as is currently the case with "free range" poultry (the fact is that not-truly free-range, humanely-reared poultry CAN carry an "organic," "free range" label, so those manufacturers that raise their animals humanely and want the public to know about it are left only with the alternative of specifying their animal-rearing practices on the packages' labels). A small, third-world coffee grower could have package labels that read, "Grown without pesticides or artificial fertilizers," instead of the simpler-but-onerously-expensive label that reads, "organic."

Until the system's bugs are worked out, it seems to me to be a reasonable compromise.

...as not having realistic "choices," when it comes to the pursuit of a career. Men are expected to just suck up and go for it. Of course, they have a choice when it comes to what TYPE of a career they'll pursue, but, unless they're in an "exceptional" situation, they have to support themselves one way or another.

A woman who has a man who is willing and able to support her has options. And BECAUSE such a woman has options, the options that she chooses are seen as being her responsibility if she's dissatisfied with her choices in the long run.

But the fact is that EVERYONE can be haunted by the specter of "The Road Not Taken." The making of a choice automatically precludes some other choices: Such is life.

It may be helpful to remember that women didn't always have the option to not work outside of the home. There is a long tradition of working in the fields, with ones children in tow. Young mothers--and sometimes their children, as well--commonly worked machinery at the dawn of the Industrial Age. People have always done whatever they had to do to survive, and we didn't always have a wealth of options. People have always been dissatisfied with their lots in life; but because they didn't have a whole lot of options open to them, there wasn't a lot of finger-pointing and/or self-blame when things didn't work out optimally.

Nowadays, if a woman doesn't like what's happening in her life, it's "her fault." But if any woman who finds herself blaming herself--or being blamed by others--for things that have gone sub-optimally realizes that this state of being blamed originated from having had the luxury of choice, I seriously doubt that she'd opt to return to the "bad old days" of blamelessness coupled with NO CHOICES.