Maybe you're right: maybe it is about power.

But...and there's always a but, isn't there...assume that the reason a lawyer in a courtroom poses questions is because the questioneer controls the conversation. Now imagine a supposedly egalitarian couple, which would, I imagine, require lots and lots of conversations to maintain equity. Might that be a false equity if one person in the conversation poses more questions? If one person in the conversation loves the other more?

I'll be in your city tomorrow...briefly. I'm off on assignment and have to fetch some equipment there. So, maybe we will have coffee someday, since I'm often there or thereabouts. Say, I was chatting with an editor at the Star yesterday. I don't usually write for newspapers, but I've got a story that'll seem to work for them and it's always fun to try something new.

Anyway, I remain your fan and always appreciate frank women and especially frank, older women, as your wisdom suggests.

Ms. Bauer, if you're reading this thread, listen to Anne and I hope you were savvy enough to listen to her when the two of you connected.

As far as your "for most of us" crap, get over yourself.

Laurel962 has a Salon history of heterosexism. This is interesting in two ways. One, she's garned many stars. Why is Salon fond of a homophobe? Two, she's often worthy of those red stars, so, other than her flaming heterosexism, she seems so...normal. I too think she should get some help. Get out. Meet some gay folks.

"Just married" was painted on the lead car.

Flaming straights.

Truly, I don't mind if they marry, but do they have to parade down the street? If they just kept it in the closet, I might be okay with it.

Or, as she might say, "Me is 115% in favor of Svutlana."

And thats no surprise.

I assume that the likely earnest intern who awards red stars (If they are interns, the stars should be renamed "Intern's Choice," but that's not as zippy, is it?) have been briefly tutored in what constitutes a "good" posting: on point and some meat on the bones. If I were the designated intern, I'd award stars for quirky and pithy posts.* I often skip those who circumlocute. If you can't get to the point, you don't have a point.

* Such a system would have awarded you, Svutlana, a garland of stars.

As far as Ms. Clark-Flory's post, it straddles professional journalism and schoolgirly journaling, the latter being a bedside journal of precious thoughts. If you're going gonzo, Ms. Clark-Flory, debase yourself with gusto. I squirmed when I read that EVEN YOU are susceptible to culture.

Even you.

As if you're the one, true special snowflake that forever retains it's unique structure and even lands en pointe. Ms. Clark-Flory, you melt on the asphalt or get buried in a snowbank just like the rest of us and your degree(s) and dogma won't insulate you a whit of a bit.

"Have mayonnaise tough time with compete against salad cream, a distinct British food, just as mayonnaise guy kiss have difficult time with Bill O'Reilly, a distinct brutish fool."

As the Brits say, "Brilliant!"

And thanks for the Svutlandian English lesson!

"Seriously, folks, SOMEONE'S gotta have God's back. He can't be everywhere at once!"

That is seriously funny!

"And once women rule the one global tribe, they will get rid of the male stupidity such as wars, economic imbalance, racial and religious intolerance, and physical abuse of children."

Wow, that's all it takes to make it happily ever after? That's extreme. Extremely hopeful. And extremely deluded.

It's also anti-feminist, for it's based upon the assumption that men and women are deeply different and if women get their hands on the tiller arm, we'll sail to Tahiti. Everything I've learned about my species tells me that if women captained this planet, just like men, we'd sail us to Hell.

She's likely lost her income and is about to lose her home. She's probably desperate.

This is sad, but on the continuum of prostitution, she's just more overt and extreme than most, but we all sell ourselves.

ALL of US.

Two things:

Svutlana is funny...and kind.

Ms. Berman's concern strikes me as regressive. Here's why:

I have a friend whose artist-mother stayed alive at Auschwitz by painting the guards' wives. So, she prostituted her creativity to live. Many artists do this today. Attend any craft fair and you'll see artists selling their clay cups so that they can, on occasion, create the thing they want. Yet, such prostitution, which strikes me as more intimate than an orifice, won't ever warrant a Broadsheet alert. Why is the vulva considered more sacrosanct than the cerebral cortex of an office worker? The hands of a carpenter? The eyes of an editor?

The ideological continuum isn't a straight line. It's a loop, where the far right and the far left cuddle. Ms. Berman's concern is an example. It reminds me, in its reductiveness and prudishness, of a conversation I recently heard on one of those Christian stations. That conversation was about sex, but they couldn't say "sex" because it was...so important. It was like the folks who write G-d, as if God is even God's name. Ms. Berman is alarmed that this woman is selling her crotch, but why is the crotch holier than other body parts?