Ms. Clark-Flory has narrated her story. There's nothing uncommon about that, for many of us like to tell our stories. Even her sexual frankness is common for her generation.

But before we all narrate our stories, most of us have pre-narrated our stories. We did that as children and were encouraged to do so. And all of us were given the templates of fairy tales and movies and other stories where the brave and pretty girl only had to wait long enough to be rescued by her prince. For her pre-narrative, Ms. Clark-Flory chose the negative of that template, where she's quite happy to not wait and now her narrative is that she chose well. Her narration is quite similar to other young feminists, who will tell you similar tales of having plenty of sex because they like plenty of sex.

In all their explicitness, what they won't share is her agenda, which is: "See! See! I told you women are just like men!"

Now, maybe Ms. Clark-Flory is right: maybe women are just like men. And maybe she's just telling the story she has to tell to sustain her pre-narrative.

I'm not suggesting that I'm clever enough to know if she was right or is being disingenuous. I am suggesting that Ms. Clark-Flory doesn't know either and that we'll both die not knowing. Pre-narrative always bests us, at the beginning and end. We tell the stories of the lives we lead and we end those lives not knowing if we merely hit our marks, missed our marks, or were supreme prognosticators.

And all those years, I discourage folks from there.

...leaves me speechless.

I love your comment about casting. That's perfect ly correct.

Ms. Clark-Flory is Salon's ingenue. She won't be permitted to write this piece when she's 60.

If she did, that long ago ingenue would elicit, "Ewww!" with the occasional, "How brave (ala Kathy Bates in 'About Schmidt' baring flesh)!" and "Of course older women have sex lives!"

The image of the unzipping women's jeans and the casting of Ms. Clark-Flory as the ingenue is intended to elicit hits. Mission accomplished! Bring on the advertisers! Praise the provocation and pass the cash!

Whereas the bride and her bridesmaids will assert that they'll be BFF, that promise is as thin as similar assertions in high school yearbooks. On some level, brides and brides understand that their gang is about to be gunned down by the impending barrels of "I do." and "I do."

The bridesmaids articulate their anger in demeaning games at the showers. The brides return fire with superfluous and shaming demands. I think that both sides might be trying to quickly kill affection, rather than witness the slow death of camaraderie in calls unmade and calls unreturned.

There's also vestigal dominance and submission, which is seen in the word, "bridesmaid." The bride has her maids, as a princess has her maids and far too many American females on raised being told that they're princesses. And what do princesses do? Why, they order maids about! So, that fairy tale of childhood, that a little girl really is Daddy's little princess, comes true for a day, with the father hocking his kingdom and the bride's maids submitting to imperialism.

A third hypothesis is that brides punish the wedding party and their paying parents for permitting straight people to flaunt their privilege, with all of their horn honking and their "Woo-hoo, look at us! We can marry! Give us the presents and weep, homos!"

SNARK OFF

God, if that were so, I'd have some hope for humanity.

I wish I could buy you coffee. I like a girl who can just say no. And if I could buy you coffee, I'd also buy you some charcoal to partially offset an old wrong.

You got it. Bridezillas were trained that way. They were told when they were two that they were daddy's little princess. When they 27, they behave like daddy's big princess. And everyone works for the princess!

"Guests don't pay for parties."

"Guests" doesn't mean what it once did. Retail stores, who call customers "guests," have likely diluted the meaning somewhat.

Old Tyme Feminism: marriage is such a raw deal for women that the brides rub everyone else raw in return. It is, in military nomenclature, anticipatory retaliation for a community permitting such an arrangement.

Nouveau Feminism: women are the buyers. You see this in nearly every store, where women even buy men's underwear. To prime for a lifetime of buying, our culture foists a day of profligate consumption upon them.

The JFK Hypothesis: JFK (and others) defined courage as grace under pressure. Courage is rare. Therefore, grace under pressure is rare. Therefore, bridezillas are common.

The British Schoolboy or Violence Begets Violence or Pedophile Explanation: In England's elite boarding schools, upperclassmen pummel lowerclassmen. A few years later, those former lowerclassmen pummel the newly arrived. Violence begets violence, just as a pedophile can make an eventual pedophile of an abused child. What's scary about this hypothesis is that a bridezilla can pummel 4/5/6 bridesmaids, thus setting up the potential for 4/5/6 future bridezillas.