This is one area where I really do think boys and girls actually are different. Speaking as having been one (a boy in my case) and as a parent that has shepherded several of them through puberty now.

From what I remember, yes, I was sex-crazed in that the grody physical details were something I had an obsessive and near insane interest in. I was totally crazed on what a woman's body might look, feel, and taste like. This was totally cool to share with your fellow boys.

There was a totally different intense romantic thing going on at the same time. All Romeo and Juliet, devotion and tragedy ramped up, and this was very much not cool to share with your fellow boys. But I think most of us had it.

The two had absolutely no connection at all, in my hormone riddled mind. (Compartmentalization is natural and starts early, really.) Frankly, the two only have a rather tenuous connection now, and I'm in my fourth decade on this coil of tears.

It was really odd, when the two met in the form of females that I idolized that possibly were amenable to the idea of a little hot monkey sex, I kinda begeeked and almost froze up under the overload. And generally behaved badly, I think.

Watching the young'uns work this stuff through these days, I really don't think that all that much has changed. I have no idea at all what it must feel like to find yourself in a newly adult female body; all I can say is that when you find yourself in a male one, well it has a lot of different stuff floating around that doesn't hook up very well with all the other stuff.

The reason the debate is so hot in Turkey is precisely because it really isn't about head-scarves at all, although it is plenty symbolic. The real debate is about the political battle between the old authoritarian power elite and the new, more democratic Turkey. A head-scarf is just a wedge issue, for both sides really. So the kind of knot under your chin represents a silly political compromise, really, sort of like the stupid "don't ask, don't tell" gay policy of the US military.

"...the annual cost of cervical HPV-related disease at $2.25 billion to $4.6 billion. So whether you come at it from an altruistic or an economic perspective, it makes sense to provide all the protection you can.

Well, no it doesn't make sense. I'm not the one saving the $2.25+ billion by coughing up over (in my family's case) over $1000 (which, at my income, would be pretty damn altruistic indeed of me). It DOES make enormous sense as a public health issue though; howabout the state pays for it? I'd have the kids (of both genders) in like a shot, even though they are a bit older now.

This is totally bizarre on quite a few different levels. Other posters have picked up on the extremely anecdotal source of the story, and the primary source's jaw-drop on the traction it has gained.

But I do have a couple of questions: 1) could somebody please give a rational account of what on earth religious or ethical positions are served by refusing to give a particular test? A life saving one at that? It makes no sense at all.

2) Why on earth has this silly story gotten so much attention? A couple of docs in the Canadian hinterland may be behaving stupidly, and its an internet feminist meme? What is the real issue that this is symbolic for? I really don't understand. Seriously.

Poor Canadians? I note this morning that the Loonie is worth $1.03 American pesos. And we don't owe about half our country to the Chinese either.

But massive 'murkin ignorance about their neighbors might not be entirely a bad thing, annoying though it can be. As Pierre Trudeau once said, it is a little like being a mouse in bed with an elephant: you hope that the elephant is friendly, but not TOO friendly.

I've often thought that it would probably be better if we didn't have so much oil to lubricate the relationship. Well, at least our tar-sands oil has lots of Grit in it (sorry, inside Canadian joke there).

OK, I get the message. I will pull my son out of college lest he get accused of rape, and forbid higher education for my daughters, because colleges are in fact rape-holes. That is what I am taking away from this story, it's sources, and this thread.

Is there any sanity available?

Obviously the result of a vast feminist conspiracy. Somehow. Somewhere.

FIRST!

Is that nobody has linked to this yet:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=oV94KF82WR8&feature=related

I've got three goddamncats right now, I can't think of a moment in my life when I didn't have a goddamncat hanging around. Sleeping, eating, and excreting, which is about all they do really. If you get lucky they bring you back body parts from the small life forms they kill just for the fun of it.

My current complement of three goddamncats are rescue cats from horrible deprivation and suffering, so they all have cat issues around being near people. One is basically wicked, the other is stupid enough to literally walk into walls, and third has serious food issues, so that she is quite fat and rather likes barfing on whatever is my cleanest floor that day.

None of them would ever consent to sitting on me and purring, I only get to pat them as they walk by. They only really seem interested in me when they are hungry, really. But heck, the cat gods owe me big time, I figure. Maybe not in this life, but perhaps in the next.