I am extremely ambivalent about legalization. It isn't just Nevada, the results in the Netherlands and Germany have also been pretty ugly.

In the course of my work I have known quite a few sex workers. The majority have never done it as some kind of career choice, just as a last option out of desperation: drug fueled, poverty response, and much less often than is usually depicted in the media, pimp & gang driven & controlled (tho I have seen a bunch of that too, and utterly despicable and abhorrent it is).

It isn't ever pretty, at least at the street/parlour/brothel level, though things may be different for "escorts," I wouldn't know. In the non-penetrative sector like stripping and dominatrixing (sp?) I get the sense its mostly somewhat less abusive (of the workers anyway).

At the end of the day, harm reduction is the main thing I believe in, and to achieve that, the real bad guys are the johns, not the working (for whatever reason in whatever state of servitude) women, and it is the johns who, if anybody, should be going to jail. And there are actually a few who make sex work as a career choice, and if so, I don't think they should be going to jail either.

Feminism brought about this situation, this is beyond doubt. Today, many men have been missing a father figure, trained by resentful single moms and feminist school systems to become soft, useless males instead of being encouraged to follow their bliss and go after their needs. Nobody is handing it to men, and many many men are living in silence as their self esteem deteriorates, knowing they have nobody to turn to.

Beyond doubt? Well, my own personal male self-esteem is just fine (better than fine many would argue), growing stronger all the time if anything, and I don't think anybody that knows me at all would call me soft and useless (I used to be a bouncer and currently coach football linemen; weakling un-manned me). I'm married to an extremely strong (both literally and figuratively) professional woman who has made more money than me for most of our marriage (I'm narrowly beating her right now, hee hee), and yes, we have frequent and very hot sex. Often with me on top.

The universe you describe just doesn't intersect very much with mine, ya know?

And WTF with "follow your bliss" dude? Isn't that just a bit gay? What with you being such a men's guru and all:

I could easily turn my Salon rants into a blog, then book, then Hollywood deal or lectures, or become another Men's Movement Guru, an Ann Coulter of the Men's Movement.

Really? It isn't polite to laugh at mentally ill people, but I do confess that this one pretty much put my (manly) Guinness through my nose. Good luck with that dude. Go for it. Seriously.

I am sorry that I put up a couple of nasty posts to draw you out. I did it in the expectation, which I was kinda hoping would not be fulfilled, that you would do what you actually did with this.

Dude, I respect you, you are an intelligent and well informed man. Which actually makes this much more difficult. But speaking para-professionally, I also think you have some real actual demonstrable mental health issues.

Possibly things like disassociative paranoia, sociopathy, delusional thinking, and not least, I would guess a good deal of personal historical pain.

I really think you should be talking to a doctor, not a comments thread on a magazine site. Truly, things can be made better. I am sorry that in the US getting/affording help may be an issue; I do hope that in whatever jurisdiction you are, there is help.

"And, Herself? Hitting boys that that take advantage over a hug doesn’t help. It really really doesn’t."

Uh, being a traitor to my sex and all, but as a one time teenage boy who did in fact try and cop a feel whenever possible, which is what teenage boys are kind of programmed to do, well, yeah, a smack upside the head actually did help, with growing up and maturity and so on. For both parties I think.

Why are you trying to disempower young adults that are just beginning to understand their own power and its limits?

As a parent I would most certainly encourage my daughters to exercise the female prerogative of a good loud public slap when the occasion called for it; I think it most certainly does help both parties grow up into adult adults as it were. And point out the cads where they deserve it.

And in a non-public unwelcome sexual advance? I hope to hell that my girls hit the boy every way they possibly can, because yes, that actually will help the matter.

What planet are you from again?

Pep up my morning? My desk thanks you for the spray of coffee that issued through my nose.

I totally agree, what is the obsession with video and podcasts? I hate them, text I can skim and reread and cut and paste and so on, audio/visual is inherently kinda fascist for a user. Because you aren't a user anymore, you are a passive observer for the duration.

That being said, um, er, well, heck, ok I'll just come out and say it: in addition to being intelligent, well spoken, a good writer, and a gentlewoman of taste and discretion, Tracy Clark-Flory is, well, pretty hott.

Don't really mind the videos at all.

And I, for one, am done with it.

But I don't think comment threads make for particularly effective therapy.

If the world is hurting you, get some help. Professional if possible.

As the James Kopp (google away) history proves, this is not a joke, at all. And this is also a terrorism that the US exports, to my neck of the woods for example.