Your current husband knew you cheated on your first husband. He knew you were a scorpion when he married you. He's got no reason to be surprised when this situation blows up in both your faces...and it will.

Until then, have fun.

Oh, and you have no right to be surprised when you discover that he's cheating on you...with a married woman.

Look, the logic is simple:

The president says that this country does not torture. Therefore, whatever it is that we are doing, it's not torture by definition.

Case closed.

>My husband is not one of those men who has any particular

>pornographic fantasies about two women together.

The word you're looking for is "heterosexual."

Why so much hair-splitting over the age of the boy and the relative attractiveness of the teacher?

I'm old enough to recall the period of national debate as we formed our sexual harassment policies. And though the 80s is admittedly a hazy period for me, I seem to recall shock and outrage at the suggestion that female victims of harassment often "want it" and the bosses in question are often the kind handsome, rich and powerful men that man women go into the business world to bag as husbands.

No no no, we were intoned, it's not about sex and it's not about romance or friendship or affection; it's about power. He has it, she doesn't, therefore she's a victim and he's a perpetrator NO MATTER WHAT either thinks about it on their own. We simply cannot afford to have a standard that allows undue pressure to be applied. The power differential MUST be neutralized before ANY sexual behavior can be construed as ANYTHING but abusive.

But I guess what's true for grown women in jobs they are (relatively speaking) free to quit or transfer out of is NOT true for boys held under authority of law in mandatory educational facilities.

After all, he must have wanted it. Don't all boys want it? And shouldn't we give teenagers EVERYTHING they want?

Hi Cary,

I'm an attractive, 20-something girl who works on campus. My boss is an an admittedly attractive "alpha" male who is convinced that I need a boyfriend.

I've tried to explain to him that I'm gay, but he doesn't believe me. He says I dress too "fem" to be gay and that I'm really just a straight girl who likes to do "girl on girl" to impress the boys.

Care, it is true that I dress and make myself up in a very traditionally "feminine" manner. I'm what you might call a "lipstick lesbian." Pretty hair, painted nails and well-coordinated outfits make me feel comfortable and confident. It is true that I suffer/enjoy the attention of a men as a result, but it's usually good-natured and my homosexuality actually makes me feel all the more empowered in those situations, as I want nothing from them.

Recently, my boss's behavior has gotten more insistent. He actually grabbed me and threw me at a female customer so I could "prove" myself. Carey, how should I deal with this situation?

Sincerely,

Lipstick Lesbian

Dear LL,

Wow. Your boss sounds like a pig. Maybe you should sue him or quit.

But anyway, why would a lesbian go to so much trouble to attract a man? I remember this one time in college when my frat did a "drag" show for homecoming. I'm not normally into that kind of thing, but I had to go along to get along.

Long story short, the skit called for me to kiss one of my frat brothers and for a second, just a second, I thought it was kind of hot.

I'm just an old straight guy, but what I guess I'm saying is, gender is a weird thing, huh?

-Cary

"How do you know what is up there or out there? Do YOU have a God's eye view yourself?"

But isn't that what religion precisely does? Claims to know what's out there?

Worse, claims to know what's out there in the absence of evidence?

Worse still, proclaims unshakable belief in the absence of evidence to be virtue and not delusion?

When I say I'm an atheist, people often say "that's silly, how can you KNOW...?" This is usually followed by the rather asinine assertion that everyone must be, by definition, an agnostic.

Well and good, but then there are degrees of agnosticism, no?

So now I call myself a unicorn agnostic, which is to say that I accept that there is precisely as much evidence to support the existence of God as there is to support the existence of unicorns.

It's one thing to concede that the existence of unicorns can never be fully refuted.

It's another to have to risk one's education and every meaningful relationship one has in life for lack of unshakable faith not only in the existence of unicorns, but in their moral authority over our lives.

This is bigotry, plain and simple.

What advice can one give to, say, an interracial couple in the South in the 70s? Sure, the laws have all established your rights, but everything you know about life will get harder if you come out as a couple.

For me I say this: above all things, to thine own self be true.

But then again, I live in San Francisco where we actually respect the American traditions of liberty and freedom of conscience.