It's called a D.Phil. You could say, "Doctorate," and be okay. Keep that in mind for future.

I started, yesterday or that day before, believing both Ashley and Elliot were creeps. After all this discuss, I believe there is hope for Ashley, and that Elloit was a creep.

But Elliot still can take an alias and do some good. I hope he does so. And I wish and pray that Ashley succeeds in something worthwhile. Good luck to all.

The back-door thing Poster Svutlov wrote about? Yow! I was hoping it was because he loved her.

Everybody wanted to screw her anyway, so she went prostitue, partly because she was an expert already.

And he was an old guy who wanted to feel a lovely, smooth young woman against his scratchy, funky old skin.

Life and history are made of actual human choices, not ex=parte abstract judgments.

People want lovely, smooth, sleek, tan young women with high-class hair and other attributes. Not necessarily the same as sex, as AKA S. has pointed out. Sex might be jerking off. Lovely young women might not provide sex.

This discussion needs to get more subtle. There is a distinction between sex, sex we can get many places, and top-rank, slim, sleek, tan, sexy-nose prime-cut poontang.

Let's wait and see what she has to say. Let's suggest that she keep it concise and specific, rather than huge and universal. All points cannot be made in a single post.

King, you would be justified in leaving out the Lins' losses when you figure your prediction percentage.

And: ostersPay, easePlay eaveLay ashertherthray alone. easePay ooDay otNay eespondRay ooTay imHay.

Has Ashley had good sex? Seriously, folks, I wonder if the average Joe Fuck-Pack ever even has a nice time.

I myself have been very lucky to have had wonderful sex with wonderful women, throughout my career, dating (joke?) back to the 1960s. But, I can imagine people who have had terrible experiences with no love and no tenderness. Jeez Looeez, take a look at some 21st Century porn, and you will see awful, painful stuff. Or remember the first time you tried to do it, with no experience.

Do people such as Ashley believe that this is the paradigm? Do my own nieces and nephews? Yikes! Help!

My point: Even when we discuss sex here on Salon, we might be talking about different things. One of our common points of reference might be a diverse, vague, disperate concept.

[Ya gotta listen to the interviews.] So, this is different from having rich boyfriends, different in some degree.

However, attractive young women can get anybody they want, pretty much. So why does Ashley turn herself into a victim? Why in the world? The only reasonable answer is that she was young and thoughtless. Her crime is repentable and forgivable.

Achilles wrote that. It's okay in the abstract, but it's simplistic, and in real life, it's not relevant. I know plenty of "ugly," "dorky" "stupid" people who have wives and husbands and lovers, and so on. You know such people too.

Real life is not as we assume, nor as it should be. Please evaluate Ashley's and Elliot's real stories, and see what we can learn from them, rather than using them as a launch pads for previous assumptions.

It is getting pretty abstract, getting away from Ashley and Elliot. How about a couple homey analogies:

Ashley is attractive; she is very good at sex and dating. So she moved up to the pro league. It is as if she were a great golfer who was good enough to move up to the PGA tour, and get sponsors and win big money in big tournaments.

Elliot, on the other hand, is like a rich old guy who likes to golf, even though he is far from a great golfer. So he pays a big fee to participate in a Pro-Am event. (They have these events in conjuncion with all the PGA tournaments. Rich guys pay, and they get to play 18 holes with the famous pros.)

Ashley is a talented world-class pro. Now she has retired, as all pro athletes do, sooner or later. Ashley can move on in her life. Elliot is a duffer.

There is a difference.

What is Ashley doing for a living now? Probably, she cannot get away with hooking anymore. The papparazzi would follow her. Elliot, we know, has gone back into his family's business.

We know Ashley is not working at Arby's. Why not, though? I have met lovely, loveable, smart, fun, funny women at Arby's. What the heck are you doing now, Ashley?

And, people can cross that sad line, but then go back. It is sad that Ashley and Spitzer got caught. They probably will not stay in that extremely sad zone forever. Both probably will go back.

But they got caught, and they are forever stigmatized. Just, if you meet either of them in the future, please keep an open mind, and listen to what they say.

It would have been relatively okay. When it's a straight business transaction, it's creepy. We are debating the role of money in human relationships, and that is an intricate debate.

However, anybody who says that all wives are whores or everybody who works is a whore is wrong. That is simplistic, beneath reason or truth.

It reminds me of people who say, "Actually, Hitler had a number of pretty good ideas..."