You know, this doesn't really have anything at all to do with feminism or morality or freedom, when you get right down to it, unless you think the current situation is peachy keen.

Theoretically, prostitution is in fact illegal almost everywhere (sorry Amerigo, you were wrong there), although levels of enforcement vary considerably. Here in Canada, selling sex per se is not illegal, but communicating for the purpose absolutely is, and so is living off the avails of prostitution. What we have had over the last decade or so is a significant shift in policing policy, not law; these days, the cops mostly focus on busting johns (communicating for the purpose is a two-way street) and massage parlour operators living off the avails and so on. Mostly they ignore the escort sector of the industry.

All in all a sensible policy I think, that also targets more of the exploiters and fewer of the exploited.

But at the end of the day, prostitution is a human activity that has been present, and problematic one way or another, in just about every human society. We simply don't have the option of ending it, or legalizing it and making it all nice; in the real world, it will always occur, and always be exploitative. Period.

So the question is best how to manage it, how reduce its harmful effects. And managing a problem doesn't require theory and ideology, it requires experience, flexibility, and common sense.

I have had a certain amount of experience in the area, and with great reluctance think that some kind of legalization is probably the least bad alternative. Legalization with quite severe penalties for breaking the rules. But if you look at say Nevada, Holland and Germany, and even Australia, legalization doesn't look very appetizing; there are still all kinds of exploitation and human misery going on. But probably a substantial reduction in the kinds of horrors Kristoff describes.

So perhaps the least bad option.

(Oh, and in my experience drug legalization and a consequent dramatic fall in prices would probably do more to reduce vicious toxic street-level prostitution than any other single action. Just sayin.)

I've got nothing to say about women only campuses and their admission/inclusion policies, basically because I do not come from a socioeconomic strata where the issue could even touch my family, let alone poor enthusiastic heterosexualist Y chromosome holder me. (Though I strongly support elementary & secondary co-education, how on earth are you ever going to develop a realistic understanding of the behaviours of, and humanity of, the other sex/gender without some first-hand exposure to the humanity, warts and all, of the other sex/gender?)

But this, I find transexualism (sorry if the term is wrong) very troubling. Dress how you want, talk how you want, whatever, but applying the scalpel and hormones is, well, troubling. What if your body image insisted that you only have one leg, would it be ok to get one cut off? This is not unknown. And apparently yields satisfactory results most of the time.

If you thought you should be asexual, and want all sexual characteristics removed/rendered inoperative? This is also not unknown. Is that ok? At what point is this "corrective" and at what point is it illness (or "confusion" if you prefer)?

I actually don't know, have no position. But being accepting and tolerant does not mean being uncritical.

One small thing: the words "Hillary's trials" jumped out at me.

Politics is a nasty blood feud, always has been and always will be. Despite what they teach you in civics class, it never has been a matter of noble debates and fairness. We have it better in a democracy where we use slurs and coded language rather than cudgels and purges (I suppose everybody uses assassinations), but still, it isn't pretty.

Women want to be included, and now they are, and personally, hooray for Hillary and I'll vote for her if she is McCain's opponent. But feminism is NOT about making the boys play nice so that their company is fit for a lady, it is about saying that a woman is just as good as a man at getting down there in the slimy dirty trenches and slugging it out. And Hillary clearly is.

Frankly, I think the criticism Clinton has taken has been fairly tame, comparatively speaking. I actually think that Ferraro was right, but about BOTH; while they have had to put up with some coded language and guilt by association, in historical terms it has not been a particularly bruising campaign so far.

What I rather like about Hillary is that she IS playing with the big boys, and giving as good as she gets, and most importantly, is thought to be serious enough a candidate that she gets the same rough ride the boys do. It isn't fair, of course, but what happened to Al Gore and John Kerry wasn't fair either.

Actually, I am rather proud that she gets slammed; oddly enough, it will be a sign that women (and African Americans) have finally arrived, when nobody assumes you have to put your gloves on before you take them on.

(Oh, and HesterEastman, yes indeed male politicians get slammed all the time for political connections, both Gore and Bush in recent years for instance. If the implication for a woman is that she slept her way to the top, the implication for a man is that he is a pampered daddy's boy that got everything handed to him. In both genders' cases, it may well be true, but it has never yet ruled a candidate out. Like I said above, any weapon that can be used will be used, it is called politics, and in a democracy, it works very well to ensure that the electorate is very aware of their leaders' clay feet, which is a good thing I think.)