Let me get this straight. The father decides to leave his son behind for purely selfish reasons. The son's life is damn near ruined as a result of his father's rejection of him, and indeed, the son never entirely recovers even to this day. And now this fine specimen of a father is just supposed to let go of his guilt because -- well, why, exactly?

There's no reason in the world this man shouldn't feel guilty about what he did, because it was flat out despicable. You don't get to put your child behind you, the way you would a bad business decision. If the price he pays for treating his child as so much trash is that he doesn't get to sit back, forget everything, and enjoy his golden years -- well, we reap what we sow. Feeling guilty for the rest of his life is about the least he could do.

Why on earth did Salon feel it necessary to give a warning about the first few paragraphs of the article? Yeah, the article describes a guy whipping out his dick on the subway. Um, so what? Is there any reason that we would expect something different in an article about someone exposing himself? I don't think Salon does its women readers (or itself, incidentally) any credit by assuming that we're all such delicate flowers that we might get the vapors from reading a pretty matter-of-fact description of the incident. We're women, not children.

I think this is possibly the best thing that's ever been posted on the internet, ever.

Rob Anderson, although I agree that armchair psychoanalysis is usually worthy of laughter and not much else, I understand why people are offering it to you here: they can't figure out why the hell you're so emotionally invested in this topic, and none of your explanations makes any sense. Fact is, it’s awfully difficult to figure out why on earth you’re posting the things you’re posting. You’re not simply trying to offer an opinion or convey information. You’re absolutely furious about something, although what’s making you so mad isn’t quite clear, nor is it clear why you’re so angry about it.

See, what’s very strange and more than a bit unsettling about your letters is all the hate-filled, angry rhetoric. Where on earth is it all coming from, and what purpose does it serve? Let's suppose that I concede a number of the points you’ve made: first, fat is unattractive; second, that it’s generally bad for one’s health to be overweight; and third, that each time they have sex, Josh Max and his wife do, in fact, have to go through the Herculean exercises you describe. For the sake of argument, we’ll assume that each of the above three propositions is 100 percent true.

Even assuming all those points to be fact, however, it’s still very odd to read your comments. The fury and loathing practcially floats of the screen and causes a fog around my computer. What purpose is it serving? Is it necessary to convey the notion that you find fat unattractive? No, because all you’d have to say there is, “You know, I find Josh Max’s wife so far from my notion of unattractive that I can’t even believe that people’s standards are so different from mine.” So what purpose is served by your furious, hateful rhetoric about how fat people look to you? Why go out of your way to use the most insulting, inflammatory language you can muster? Why not simply say, “I don’t find her attractive” and leave it at that? What are *you* getting out of using language filled with hate and spite and malice? It’s certainly not necessary to convey your point, so I have to wonder what else is going on.

Same goes for your rather creepy visions of the physical process of sex between Max and his wife. Even assuming for the sake of argument that you’re right, and that Max does indeed have to push his wife’s fat aside, can use only one position, or whatever other permutation you’ve come up with, what’s that to you? If Max doesn’t care, why on earth does it make you so enraged? And doesn’t it strike you as just a wee bit bizarre that you actually spent at least some portion of your valuable time envisioning these scenarios and posting about them? For what purpose?

As for your point that fat is unhealthy, that’s certainly debatable, even among scientists, and may be so. But again, why all the spite? Surely you don’t think that you’re going to convince people to adopt your point of view by calling them names?

I’m not psychoanalyzing you here. I’m simply telling you that on its face, your writing on this topic makes you appear enraged, malicious, and just plain mean. In the face of all this unnecessarily overheated spew that you’ve spent an awful lot of time posting, and in view of the fact that there certainly is a more even-handed and neutral way to convey the information you profess to want to convey, it’s a little hard not to come to the conclusion that there’s something very odd going on with you. Again, I’m happy to concede your point that you don’t hate yourself, but Jesus Whirling Christ, you certainly seem to hate *someone* – specifically, the author of this article and his wife, neither of whom you know. What the hell is going on? I’m genuinely curious. It doesn’t really track, at least not with me, that you’re this angry because some guy you never met is attracted to fat women while you aren’t. People don’t froth and rage, as you’ve done here, unless they’re pretty emotionally invested in the topic. So what’s the story?