DOn't get me wrong, I laughed hard at Cary's answer, but that's because it's a satire of every cliche (and bad rock song) out there.

What creativity is here? Add two girls, and it's sounds like a bad night at the bar, or a formula music video.

SOme people don't do spanking and dirty talk. That does not make them vanilla. Spanking and dirty talk are pretty commercial and, dare I say it, boring.

There are other creative things she could do. SHe could even ask him about HIS fantasies. But usually fantasies lose their luster when acted out.

Watch "9 1/2 weeks", or "sex lies, and videotape", or something that may simulate the brain to a compromise. THe Nancy Friday book is really good. Read the "Love Lines" book. Those scripts wind up constricting, according to researchers and sex therapists. Relying on the scripts really limits the boundaries, instead of expanding them.

This is not a make or break thing. When the kids come, spanking will NOT be the biggest thing on your mind. Just having sex, in any format, will be.

My in laws live in South Central. I grew up in NOLA during the 80s. The author has some really good points here. I remember a schoolmate at McDonogh #35 (the black magnet) getting shot for his gold chain (yes, they were the big thing then). Others were shot for shoes and jackets (Saints and Cowboys in my neck of the woods). I still can't wear much jewelry or expensive clothes without heightened awareness or fear, and I no longer live there.

Crack and the loss of jobs has destroyed even the semblence of community . THe mid size towns are the "non-hardened targets" for the disaffected kids. But not all black boys, then and now, carried guns or sold. This work is a good work, with common elements in it for those of us raised in these places, but it is not a literal portrayl of all of our lives. Many of us chose misfit as a way to save ourselves. Or music, sports, or arts were the way.

Illegal immigration is a part of the problem. The perceptive poster is right- employers who employ illegals do it to avoid hiring blacks and home grown American Hispanics, often out of racist stereotypes. Over and over when interviewed, they admit it. Where there are no illegals, blacks and American Hispanics do better economically. Crack, disinvestment, and illegals are a lethal combination.

People really underestimate the effects that the crack/bling/materialist culture have had on my communities. It distorts the values.

Chang's book "Can't Stop WOn't Stop" proves Matthew's thesis that this generation really is different with the statistics, etc that some people want. It's a wonderfully written book.

I've escaped the inner city to academe and consulting. My husband escaped. But we never stop mourning for what has been lost.