Doesn't sound like a good idea to make an important aspect of life subject to everyday deception, even if the intentions may be good.

Better, men and women should strive to give their sexual partner positive feedback for whatever happened, in most cases. Receiving enough negative feedback oveer time, especially after trying seriously to please one's partner, tends to cause people to find the whole experience not worth the effort.

But of course there must still be room for everyone to be able to, nevertheless, show their partner what brings them pleasure (and if necessary, what doesn't). As long as this is done in the spirit of "It's all good, and here's how we can make it even better" -- this is likely to enhance the experience for a couple.

But faking it? Not a good idea.

I love Garrison Keillor's weekly column in Salon. And as usual he has some good points to make in this one.

But the point has been made many times that it is ridiculous for airport security to be suspicious of people who look like little old grandmas, or midwestfarmers, or etc. And this point is 100% wrong. Because if there ever were some visual profile of who not to scrutinize at the airport, then the bad guys will then have an easy way to bypass security -- just find someone easily disguisable to resemble that profile.

(And let's please not understimate the stupidity of some Americans by saying that no one would co-operate with such a scheme.)

Does this pathetic pseudo-flap truly merit Broadside's attention?

It demonstrates that two women may have different opinions about the same thing. Whoopie-doo.

The subtext seems to be, "We women can't have differing opinions; one woman must be right and the other wrong. Maybe when we wrote the Official Platform we neglected to detail the correct thoughts on this subject! We had better resolve this lack of perfect harmony right now."

was the sarcasatic comment of jourmalist wannabe R. Traister upon reading the conclusion of the panel.

Interesting -- apparently Ms. Traister already knew what is true and what isn't true about how male & female brains and mental abilities compare . . . without even having to do any research!!! Not even library research. She just knew!!!

And if there happen to be hundreds of other studies that have differing conclusions -- let's not even mention them, since they contradict what we know is true.

It's sad to realize that all the thousands of person-hours spent on researching brains, and various kinds of analyses of brains in action, and

all kinds of studies of neonates (supposedly) before they can be influenced by culture's reaction to gender . . . this is all worthless, since

the many millions of dollars spent for such research could have been saved by just asking Ms. Traister!

We don't need no stinkin' research to tell us what's true. We're Broadside; sarcasm suffices.

Joan, I read your story and felt on your side through every column-inch of it.

But ultimately, you lowered yourself to his level of ad hominem attacks.

No question but that he "deserved" it. But alas, when you lower your to the level of ad hominem attacks (he reminded you of Muslim extremists), all bets are off. You no longer have the high ground to stand on from which to complain about it.

It took me a couple of days for this to dawn on me, but that's where I come down on your interesting story.

Writes Adrienne So:

The danger here is that, regardless of whether the allegations prove to be true, some will draw broad conclusions about sexual orientation based on the scandal.

Sexual harassment cases get prominent news attention, but they do not seem to be common.

The only people who may let this one case be an excuse to be prejudiced against all lesbians are those who are already prejudiced against all lesbians, and those whose IQ's lie in the bottom 10% of the population (if there is in fact any difference between these two groups).

There is actually an upside for lesbians in general. Many people don't know any, or at least don't know they know any, lesbians, and think of them as "exotic" and mysterious -- and frankly don't know what to think about them, absent any personal experience they are aware of.

Looking on the bright side, this article only shows people that lesbians have foibles just like everyone else, and thus maybe they really are essentially like everyone else.