LydiaS, I thought it was funny. And first dates are just, well, first dates. One of my most interesting first dates was when my date spilled an entire glass of iced tea all over the front of her blouse. She handled it with great aplomb...

More from Norah Vincent's fascinating book:

"There were other surprising discoveries. With all the anger I felt flowing in my direction - anger directed at the abstraction called men - I was not expecting to find, nestled within the confines of female heterosexuality, a deep love and genuine attraction for real men. Not for women in men's bodies, as the prejudicial me had thought. Not even just for the metrosexual, though he has his audience, but for brawny, hairy, smelly, stalwart, manly men; bald men, men with bellies, men who can fix things and, yes, men who like sports and pound away in the bedroom. Men whom women loved for being men with all the qualities that testosterone and the patriarchy had given them, and whom I have come to appreciate for those very same qualities, however infuriating I still find them at times.

Dating women was the hardest thing I had to do as Ned, even when the women liked me and I liked them. I have never felt more vulnerable to total strangers, never more socially defenceless than in my clanking suit of borrowed armour. But then, I guess maybe that's one of the secrets of manhood that no man tells if he can help it. Every man's armour is borrowed and 10 sizes too big, and beneath it he's naked and insecure and hoping you won't see.

That, maybe, was the last twist of my adventure. I passed in a man's world not because my mask was so real, but because the world of men was a masked ball. Eventually I realised that my disguise was the one thing I had in common with every guy in the room. It was hard being a guy."

Cat Cora is a cook.

Lydia Bastianich is a chef.

You said:

"People just have no normal boundaries, or am I wrong and the boundaries have simply moved? They seem to think everything is a reality show and that talking about their sex lives to people they barely know is normal. I guess the question I really have for everyone is is this normal? Are we all behaving as if we are on TV?"

You're right on the mark. I think people have no normal boundaries. I've had good dates and bad dates, but am always amazed at how much information seems to be too much information on the bad ones.

"Finally, I'm revolted by people who speak of male children molested by adult females as being "lucky." Those people, for the record, are almost exclusively male. I've never heard a woman defend women who molested children as possibly simply being mistaken about their age, and the women who voice the revolting thought that women molesting boys is a case of a very fortunate boychild are parroting what they've heard men say."

Of course, those women with opinions that are in favor of any revolting behavior must be "parroting what men say".

Perhaps your sexism and refusal to see a large, sickening problem in our society is a problem in its own right, and may be part of the reason it is swept under the rug. "Spotlight back on women and girls' please" - your attitude is part of reason enforcement of the law is so lax when it comes to molestation of boys.

The refusal to acknowledge molestation and abuse of male children is widespread on throughout the whole spectrum of ideology, from left-wing to right-wing.

The last sentence of your second to last paragraph is especially true, but rather mild concerning the reality that boys face in the Western world today, "...we don't monitor or even see the emotions of boys as clearly as the emotions of girls."

We do monitor the emotions of boys, and immediately discount them, as they do not fit with the anti-male, feminist bent of both the "helping professions" and academic institutions, both of which fail men and boys when it comes to acknowledging and remedying their problems. Nor do they fit with the traditional notions of maleness and stoic masculinity in the west. As a result, an abused boy is often treated by the law as an adult, while a female molester is treated as an intrinsically victimized child, who must receive a mild sentence befitting her privileged legal status. Left wing feminists and right wing traditionalists both smile when this occurs.

If you would like me to expand upon anything I have mentioned, please ask me. I have said all I intend to say to people who erroneously want to turn the child molestation problem into an issue that affects only female children, while rendering male victims of abuse invisible, or who want to conflate their own overheated desires with those of sexual offenders who unfortunately are given a free pass in today's society.