First of all, Kalliope, thank you for being so reasonable and calm. I agree with a lot of what you said. And thank you for bringing up the Second Sex. Beauvoir's friends and lovers nicknamed her The Beaver.

"First of all, Carrie Lukas is a hypocrite and a shrieking harpy."

Yea, and you and Betty Friedan are reasonable people who work hard to make others like you. And, as you asked yesterday, can Lukas still have a point? I've been asking you if you'd challenged Friedan's ideas but, according to Lukas, that's not allowed so Lukas sounds reasonable and you look like a cultist.

Yes, sir. I am a reasonable person. I want to discuss calmly and politely these issues, with logical arguments and evidence. Lukas is a partisan hack -- her columns are repetitive and don't contain a lot of new material. Just rehashing of the same party line towed by right wing anti-feminist women like herself and Kate O'Beirne.

"It seems you're really into 'family values.'"

Not at all. But I'll take the truth wherever I can find it. I'm into trying to make things work. I've got friends of every stripe and I've done it all myself. Still not a good reason to destroy society.

Guess what? Talking about sex in public, teaching people that orgasms are part of a fulfilling life, drinking, Janet Jackson's tit, and women earning more than $30,000 are not going to destroy society. Striving for what you call "decency" is to me not substantively different from supporting the family values agenda. Why should i strive for decency? It has a spotty reputation at best. Women wearing pants, women working, women voting, women smoking, James Joyce, D.H. Lawrence, gays, interracial relationships, showing ankles, etc. have all at one time on another have been called "indecent." Decency is not a noble goal in my opinion. It doesn't have a stable or consistent definition, and it's usually a term used to disparage the Other, the outsider, or the person breaking the status quo. Decency is just a mask word for preserving the way things are, or even going back to a mythical time when everything was great.

"I don't know why you think you know or represent 'american character and values.' I don't know if there is even such a thing."

Well, there's your problem right there. I've traveled the world (a lot) and I see it everyday. Believe me, outside of these borders, you're an American and you couldn't be anything else. Even transexuals.

Sigh. Again with the glib assumptions. I wasn't even born in this country, English is not my first language, and I also have traveled around the world. So what? Why does that give you or me any particular insight into what is American character? If anything, it has shown me what is wrong with Americans and what we should try to change, not any particular set of values I would want to defend.

"i wish you would apply critical thinking to your own beliefs and see how backward, bourgeouis, and traditional they are."

Whoa - backward? Asking you to respect others? Excuse this black man for high ideals. You wave The Feminine Mystique around - a book that's been easily critiqued by Bell Hooks as "oblivious to any other perspectives than those of white, middle- class, heterosexual, educated women who found the traditional roles of wife and mother unsatisfying" and "a case study of narcissism, insensitivity, sentimentality, and self-indulgence, which reaches its peak,...in a chapter title 'Progressive Dehumanization,' makes the comparison between the psychological effects of isolation on white housewives and the impact of confinement on the self-concept of prisoners in Nazi concentration camps."

You're asking me to "respect others" -- by which you mean curb myself to be completely "decent" and "child-friendly." I don't really know if thats' worthwhile. And just like Kalliope and I have already said, even if Friedan is wrong on other issues, or did not address some issues in her book, that doesn't mean she was wrong. If she had addressed all american women, someone would blame her for not addressing the plight of women in other countries, etc.

That's "crazy", my dear, and you identify with it.

Is this the way you have discussion with women? Try to provoke them by calling them diminuative names? Geez, you really do sound backward.