These authentic love stories come from real people. NOT writers. They are told in their real voices. These are the ordinary people of America. The people you run up against every day. Lord, you guys. What snobs you are. There are many more of them than us. And so what. It just goes to show that everyone has a story. You might not like the story; you might not "approve" of the story; the story might not be told in an articulate manner. So what. There are 300 million plus people in this country living 300 million plus lives and most of them don't read Salon and certainly don't give a damn what you think of the way they talk or think.

I'm a professional writer but I was charmed by Louise's honesty, even if she had little self-knowledge. I think her story is pretty common and I expect she's not an unusual woman even in her angst and self-deception. The "writer" of the piece took her words down, cleaned them up and presented them as is: Don't those who criticized her get that? Good grief. And for those who don't like her morality, okay, that's fine. Had it been gussied up and put on a movie screen, perhaps viewers might have wept and been more sympathetic. Yes, it was sordid, but infidelity always is. She got herself into a bad situation because she was young and dumb and she didn't know what to do because she remained that way. I think she was brave to tell her tale.

including the author of this letter, to read Lawrence Lessing.

Sure, he is ammoral but he is so much fun to watch and has been for so many years. Wouldn't it be a shame if he didn't get away with it after all this? I would like him to get his job at ICE at the least. I mean, I THINK he's going to get shot, but I don't want him to.

The Whore or her Clients?

If prostitution is never all about the sex, then what does it say about the client? If he's paying for sex AND conversation? And for the delusion that he's paying for neither? And that the "escort" is so equally deluded that she cannot call herself what she really is? What a sad story, all around.

Paglia is a media hound masquerading as an intellectual and has been since she "burst" onto the scene years ago.

Her essay is all over the place and offers nothing interesting or new.

People are most interested in commenting about Palin because Palin is flavor of the month.

I quote, with permission, my friend and jazz critic Mark Saleski, on Paglia's ridiculous comment re Palin's voice:

"This analogy is just so wrong on so many levels, the most glaring of which centers on the musical logic that anchors every be-bop solo. The player is improvising a melodic line through a series of chord changes, which may or may not involve temporary shifts in key (B-flat down to A-flat, for example). In other words, the musician is trying to make sense, both logical and creatively. Contrast this with the typical Palin ramble, which seems to have no internal path at all. Momentum? I'm sure that Charlie Parker's musical momentum was adversely affected by his drug use, but even in his most addled state, his lines had a clarity that Palin's almost always lack."

Other than that, I can't figure out why Salon publishes Palin except to get over 500 commenting letters, most of them in disagreement.

Perhaps, with her next column, if NO ONE comments, she will not be asked to write again.

How 'bout it?

See, we boomers aren't so bad after all.

What a fabulous column. I am starting to feel like I am living in bizarro world..... How can women feel she is any kind of a feminist. She's a woman, yes, but a feminist with whom to idenify, when she denies the rest of us so mamy of our freedoms, while taking what she wishes from our hard-fought fight? What a hypocrite? What an old-fashioned manipulator. How sad and how awful for all of us.