...are the number of compassionate, opening, embracing people in this thread. Sure, some fundies repeated their hoary, whory talking points, but there are lots of cool people in this thread: lots of people who aren't "so scared of" sodomy.

I like this: "And to hear them talk about straight sex, you'd think it was all about a dick pumping a hole and little else. I can only pity their poor wives."

...because they're passing on comfy clothes. They're engineers. They're expected to be smart. Not cute. Not sexy. Not hot. Just smart.

What's better than that? Hell, what's sexier than that?

And they get to wear smart clothes that don't deform their feet, pinch, squeeze, and heft.

...is wrong because the Bible says so.

Again, anyone who obsesses about other people's anuses (and especially in the name of God) is a perv.

I like Phil.

I like Kevin.

Now I'm cheering for the Celtics because I like players that play with cool passion. The Celtics kept cool and they played with fire, the purposeful, contained fire that kept the Celtic engine going. That's grace.

Meanwhile, if Kurt Schilling was right, it's likely that Kobe was the destructive, uncontained fire when the Celtic engine steadily pulled the game their way.

I thought Paul Pierce was great in the post-game interview: as controlled as Steve Nash in the lane.

I was even more impressed by Phil. It takes a lot of moxie to stand up there afer a collapse and make it quite clear that your opponent was great.

Or, as Joe Frazier might have said, "Lawdy, Lawdy, they were great."

She recites the same, whiny thing, again and again. And again.

From the article, this sounds like evpsych:

"...the general consensus seems to be that men are less adept at small talk or conversing in social settings, a theory confirmed by none other than Simon Baron-Cohen, professor of developmental psychopathology at Cambridge (and, incidentally, cousin of the presumably not boring Sacha Baron Cohen, aka Borat), who has argued that "the female brain is primarily wired for empathy and the male brain for understanding and building systems." Which would seem to point to the idea that men in general are not inherently boring but perhaps less apt to notice when they are boring others."

Now, I like evpsych, even though the rad fems I've met hate it. I think some conversation is like superfluous sex: newly marrieds tend to have much more sex than is necessary for procreation. It is suggested that the superfluous sex cements the relationship for the coming trials of childrearing. I think superfluous conversation achieves something similar. My girlfriends and I call it processing, the perpetual chatting about, well, everything. Sooner or later, though, we disappoint, betray, or hurt each other and all that processing, that superfluous chatter, might be the ligaments that hold our relational bones together.

You wrote: "A few of the women I know and a few of the men I know talk about things like books, concerts, building things, programming, traveling, and the sorts of things that I find interesting and also talk about, so that's good because that way we don't bore each other senseless."

I know that the topics you listed are generally considered to be the best, but I prefer people who can opine and substantiate it. I ultra-prefer people who can change their minds and I also like me best when I manage that.

Sometimes, people chatting about travel and concerts sounds to me like folks trumpeting their privilege.

Well, I'll do my best to try and remember to never chat with you again.

Note to self: Never chat with KitchenGirl. She finds me boring.

I touched a raw nerve when I suggested that folks can trumpet privilege through topics of conversation.

Well, one can. I don't come from privilege, but I've spent time among people of privilege. When I arrived at a particular place where they assemble, the people there referenced certain books, movies, locations, and music that I hadn't read, seen, visited, and heard. I was dazzled and shamed. It took me a few months to realize that their cultural touchstones were finite. They'd reach the end of their collective loop and begin again. It was the secret handshake and I couldn't shake their hands. This will sound like a melodrama from the 1800s, but come Christmas, they'd jet to Prague or Thailand and I'd stay, drink coffee with the security guard, and chat with him.

And those people of privilege would assert, "You could go to Borneo if you wanted. You just don't want that."

So, that's my history and whenever people cite certain books or a certain type of music, I'm wary. There is, after all, a well-known order to things. Opera is more refined than rock. Milan Kundera makes you smarter than John Clancy. And if you're smart enough to dismiss Milan Kundera, that makes you smarter still.

Conversation is often used to declare one's superiority. Hell, this conversation is about superiority by gender.