It's nearly tragic how a letters section for something this emotionally-charged ceases to be about the merits or drawbacks of what's discussed, and instead becomes a way for people to vent about their own issues. There are men agreeing with the idea of getting laid being a goal, men proving how sensitive they are by loudly decrying it, and women who figure that the only way to marginalize the message is to demonize the messenger.

Calm down, people.

Guys, if you like the idea, you can go to a seminar. If you don't, no one's going to force you. Are you so terrified that a little focused psychology might work on your wife or girlfriend that shrieking about it will somehow erase the issue? If not, then let it go. If so, then getting upset about "Mystery" isn't going to fix things. The same goes for the women so shocked and horrified by the very concept of this: no one's forcing you to have sex with this fellow - these shrill reactions just look like OVERreactions based on the knowledge that the things he says actually have an effect.

"My word, it's terrifying to think that this man might not care about a woman and actually get what he wants from her! I'd best find some inane personality flaw based on a short interview to harp on!" It's called an ad-hominem attack, and when attempting to make a point about something, it's utterly worthless.

Perhaps the argument that these people (male and female) would like to make is this:

"Intelligent men look for women that they intellectually respect, and intelligent women would never fall for such simple tricks - and in point of fact, whenever an intelligent person of EITHER gender enters into a sexual relationship, they do so with the sole intent of being with that person forever!"

Anyone who believes that (or expects someone else to) probably shouldn't be allowed to hold - much less express - an opinion. Intelligent women (sadly) don't have much in the way of intellectual standards regarding sexual partners, and I certainly see no good reason why I should. Of course, much like every other individual here, I'm speaking only from personal experience - and like every other individual here, I see no reason whatsoever why I should acknowledge anyone else's experience as being more 'real' than my own. If I'm to take my moral cues (regarding finding a partner) from women, then you're going to have a hard time convincing me to engage in anything other than unbridled hedonism.

Women respond to those social cues, then create the intellectual or moral worth after the fact ("Oh, you just don't know how he REALLY is - he looks like a pretty boy with the IQ of a bag of chips, but he has the soul of a poet!") - so why shouldn't I respond to my impulses the same way? I applaud this fellow, and wish the best of luck to those who bother to learn his tricks. Bravo, I say!

Excellent information to have. After the previews, I'd been hoping that it would have the sort of atmosphere that I always picture when reading Gaiman's work, and I'm glad to see that this seems to be the case. I look forward to seeing it!

Why is it that in Salon - a place that I've been lead to believe is somewhat progressive, therefore home to at least a bit of equality - that I check my RSS feed and see "So Long, White Boy"? I suppose I should understand that part of being politically progressive is apparently going along with stuff like this, which is why Broadsheet writers can be openly sexist, and apparently an article title that pretty clearly refers to all men of a particular race as 'boy' is totally acceptable . . . provided that the race isn't an American minority. Nevertheless, I just thought I'd point it out. One of these days someone might actually acknowledge some hypocrisy.

I'm not holding my breath, mind you.

And incidentally, I'm well aware of the fact that someone's going to respond to this with the fact that this very terminology has been used BY white racists for years - yes, but not with salon.com's approval . . . am I wrong?

I also know that someone's going to point out (or at least might) that the article itself isn't about EVERY white man, and that the particular sub-group that it does refer to is ripe for mockery. While I might actually agree with the second part of that statement, the use of the term nevertheless reeks of the same sort of 'this racism is OK' that has stupid people implying that the 'n-word' (what awkward phraseology!) ACTUALLY comes from the word 'niggardly' and therefore just refers to a selfish person regardless of race, so for them, it's an OK term to use in certain circumstances.

Again, not holding my breath. Seems from what I've seen that if you imply that a Salon writer is belittling either men or white people (or, in this case, the crossover group in a Venn diagram of both - even more egregious!) the immediate knee-jerk reaction is to act as though anyone born that way had it coming. Alternatively, perhaps the explanation is that while racism must be roundly denounced the moment it rears its ugly head . . . that only applies in certain circumstances, and when it's something like the title of this article, anyone offended should just let it go. After all, the explanation would go, it's just a little article, it's not like it's using this terminology in a small, but pervasive way to establish that denigrating a portion of the world's population because of sex, race or both is perfectly fine . . .

Yeah.

But . . . still going to hold out SOME hope, though.