Speak for yourself. If you're a dog, fine, but don't speak for me, because I'm not and neither are my friends. I know the opinions you state about men agree with those of Sex in the City, but not of anyone or anything else. In the meantime, you and whoever gave your silly screed a star might want to ponder why you have such a low opinion of yourself and of men generally.

she's an equal-opportunity sexist. I mean, didn't you notice her take on men's extreme emotional/psychological fragility? Old Elliot needs to be petted 24/7, just like the rest of us, right? Please.

Yes, it's about the prosperous using the poor. In that way it's like about 10 million other things in this society. I'm a retired lawyer. When I was practicing, I saw that fact up close every day. It's not a good thing, but it's far from unique to the sex trade.

for a sensible take on this issue - far more sensible, I might add, than that of the NYT whose main interest in the matter seems to be to once again explain to us that men are evil and corrupt and women are innocent and victimized. What the Times never addressed was the simple fact that the vast majority of men never have sex with a prostitute and the vast majority of women aren't prostitutes. If the Times' thesis were true, you'd expect the opposite to be true.

Some facts from the Sex In America survey by Michael, Laumann and Gagnon which was considered definitive when it was published in 1994: 16% of adult men have ever had sex with a prostitute; in the 1950s, 7% of adult males in the U.S. had their first sexual experience with a prostitute; by the late 80s, that figure had dropped to 1.5%. Those last two facts suggest that the sexual revolution has decreased the popularity of prostitution and, one would think, the percentage of women working in that business.

I'm with Mr. Bass Man. The salient feature of this whole discussion seems to be that prostitution is a uniquely horrible business in which to work, so that if one is "trapped" in that occupation, it must be worse than being "trapped" being a day laborer or a waitress. I suggest that's because we still don't have a very sensible view of sex generally, which is why I appreciate Broadsheet's bit on this.

So DV is OK with you? Is that a general rule of yours or just when a woman does it to a man? Just in cases of adultery? What?

Love CAN mean any of an astonishing variety of things. If she remains with him (and we don't yet know if she will), love and forgiveness may be the reasons. Probably we won't ever know. Self-respect may be the reason too. It's entirely possible, as a matter of self-respect, to place a higher value on understanding, love and forgiveness than on judging. The fact is that judging others when they do wrong is easy. It is more of a challenge to love and forgive. Under such circumstances, true loving forgiveness indicates a stronger, and in my view wiser, person.

Standing by the other who does wrong, hurtful things can indicate weakness and the type of doormat personality a lot of people think it does. It can also indicate the opposite. I don't know Silda Spitzer, so I can't say, but please don't forget the latter. We live in very judgmental times, in which so many seem to derive such pleasure from condemning others. (That's why the jails are full of pot possessors.) Again, that's the easy way out. The harder and more rewarding thing is to ask why a person did a particular thing. That's the first act of love, IMO. We should do it more often.

There is a time to judge and a time to love. In this case what Silda Spitzer does is her business.

they stand by their men because they love them, realize that it is up to no one but them to decide how much they've been hurt and believe they have more of what they want and need with him than without him. I know it's a bizarre concept in these judgmental times, but there it is.

I figured the following would happen: we'd oust Saddam, realize that the Baath Party was the only political infrastructure in the country and that we needed a strongman with the backing of the police and army to keep order. So we'd end up replacing Saddam Hussein with, well, Saddam Hussein by another name. Sounds like Fekeiki's plan.

What you propose would be dismissed from a court of law because it is considered by the courts to be a political question. That is, it's an issue that our system considers to be addressed by the political, not the legal system. As such, it's not a case or controversy over which a court could exert jurisdiction.

In short, your remedy is to vote the SOBs out of office. Of course what that means is that, under our two-party system, you get to vote into office another Dem or a Rep who would vote the same way as the person you voted out did, thus maintaining the status quo while convincing citizens that this is a government of, by and for The People.