Rebecca Traister writes:

Look, I know a lot of men and women who enjoy porn, who feel like it enhances their relationships, who love watching it together and are more than OK with the idea of watching it separately. And I'm sure that there are lots of couples who start out uneasy about it and eventually find a healthy, fun place for it in their lives. But if you're in a relationship in which it's enough of a problem that one person is offended, threatened or made unhappy by her partner's viewing, and the person would rather come up with stupid tricks ("Don't let her know about the balloon fetish!" "Tell her it's only your fantasy to sleep with a mute submissive!" "Try to get it up for her so she feels better enough about herself that she'll let you keep watching!") than just have an honest conversation about how you both feel and what compromises you can make, maybe you should stick to the porn and get out of the relationship.

(I've underlined two uses of the word person which at first seem to refer to the same person -- but then again don't. But that's a horse of another feather.)

The underlying reasoning of the quoted (last) paragraph of this Broadsheet item seems to be that if one member of a couple feels offended, threatened, or "made" unhappy by the actions of the other, then anyone other than Traister's suggestions abou resolving things are automatically nonsense. ( In no way does anything suggest that the writer of the men's magazine article discouraged the reader from talking with his partner about feelings. On the contrary, it's clear that she was assuming this had happened and would happen some more.)

Of course the Traister is right when she suggests having an honest conversation about feelings. She may or may not be right about investigating what "compromises" can be made; sometimes a person's objection to their partner's behavior can be ill-founded, naive, and controlling.

(Suppose for example that a guy is uncomfortable with his woman friend's occasionally getting together with a male platonic friend of hers. Does this mean she must "compromise" ? I'd say, not necessarily. It may be better to (gently) enlighten the guy that opposite-sex platonic friends are OK, nothing to feel threatened by, and objecting to them is, well, Neanderthal.

If there is valid reason to think that a person's behavior is a symptom or cause of an existing problem in the relationship, that's one thing. But if there's no reason for anyone to think it is either of these, if it's just something their partner objects to because it "makes" them unhappy, maybe something other than "compromise" is the best solution.

In my own experience, one usually wonderful woman friend felt she needed to wake up at five a.m. and to immediately throw open the bedroom curtains (no other room would do). All this was fine with me, until I soon learned that she simply would not accept my using a sleep mask or earplugs to enable me to sleep a couple of hours later. I honestly thought (and think) the idea of my needing to "compromise" on efforts to be able to sleep until 7 was utterly ludicrous.

Seems to me the likely explanation for the boyfriend's suggestion to get together is a far less cynical one than Mr. Tennis's.

When shortly after their precipitous breakup the letter-writer offered him the chance to resume their relationship, he was probably still feeling angry, hurt, and reluctant to put himself back in the situation that led to those feelings. But after some months had passed, especially after a bit of professional contact with her, he could be feeling wistful for their formerly good times, and wondering if his declining her earlier offer to resume was an opportunity missed.

Of course, guys want to get laid. In fact both sexes want to get laid. And that's part, but just one part, of why both sexes are usually interested in dating and eventual marriage. So maybe sex is *one* of the factors in his mind, but why couldn't he be interested in the possibiilty of resuming a relationship with her? After all, time tends to erase bad memories, leaving the good ones.

If a reunion takes place it would be definitely a good idea to revisit those old feelings just to find out where each of them stands on their earlier breakup. If he seems to honestly say what his feelings were and how they've changed since then, it may be realistic for her to just see what possibilities lie ahead.

I'm so relieved to be informed about this filthy, filthy website, showing realistic depictions of a woman's breasts in motion.

Now that we all know to avoid this site, we won't have to worry about pictures of naked women on the internet.

And as a wonderful side effect of this article, girls and young women who read this article by Page Rockwell will be disabused of any notions that their bodies are natural and wholesome.

Oh, and they also won't have any illusion that sexuality is healthy, either. When men show any sexual interest in women, that's just more evidence that sex and men are bad. And don't you forget it!

Can anyone who's ever watched E! be surprised that it is sexist and brainless?