The point of the article isn't that these people were ignorant of the law, but that they were treated abominably by the authorities. The poor mother was raped, the other woman had a trial with no interpreter and incompetent counsel. I shudder to think how the Mexican authorities treat their own, if this is how they treat tourists.

With police and prosecutors such as they are south of the border, culpability is a non-issue. The issue is survival if they detain you.

I never lived in Mexico, but I lived many years in S America. Breaking the law has almost nothing to do with whether you'll have a negative encounter with the police. My advice would be: learn about any scams out there, but more importantly, know some locals. Someone with even a few connections will get you out of trouble faster than any lawyer will. If you're a woman, say you're pregnant if you are arrested. Always carry a little cash for bribes, and the correct way to bribe is to say: isn't there a way I could pay the fine to you instead of paying it somewhere else? Of course, speaking Spanish helps. Sometimes tourists feel a false sense of security because of the strangeness of a place, but Mexico has a sky high crime rate and the police are ineffective and dangerous themselves.

Cruise Director was left off the list!

He founders in the interview, revealing that despite going for cheap laughs by calling women whores and other man pussies, he hasn't thought very deeply about the material-"Teasing women about not being able to vote is different than teasing a black person about the history of slavery". ??? Maddox: women WERE de facto slaves when they couldn't vote or own property and were legally subject to the authority of fathers and husbands.

There is nothing clever about this man. He thinks he is original, yet the Man Show already came and went, and wasn't there a book called "Real Men Don't Eat Quiche" about 20 years ago? This whole schtick of manliness as bullying women and farting around is getting old, and I do believe it'll soon jump the shark. It's just so unmanly.

I love how the show does such a good job of portraying Bill's stress, Margine's lonliness, the teenage Sara's misfittedness. Proabably the show creators left the reason for the polygamy a mystery in order to explore it further in coming seasons. Even though polygamy as spirituality mystifies me, I think many of us can understand the struggle between your faith and the values of freedom and equality, whic the characters seem to live.

This post brought back unpleasant memories of arguing with boyfriends about sex, trying to defend not wanting too even though I wanted to, sort of. As the girl, my role was to set the limits, against my own longings, his, and his nagging. I remember an older boyfriend called me frigid!

Being a teenage girl is so hard! At time it seems like civilization itself is all their responsability. Yuck, I'm happy to be a grownup.

I know a girl my daugters age whom you would never guess was a girl, and even after you learn she is one you keep forgetting. She's six. Her parents are at least laid back enough about it to let her dress as a boy and have very short hair.

I don't think this is all that unusual- I've discussed this with parents and many can remember a girl-who-was-a-boy. The reverse doesn't seem as common- as we can see by this brouhaha, parents are much less laid back about their sons who are girls. However, I suspect this happens more than people think, and will now be less stifled.

Calling a woman a whore is a very powerful insult, and the fear of being called a whore is as strong in women as the fear of being called a 'fag' is in men. If Middle Eastern women are associating Western freedoms with being whorish, it's no wonder they shy away from the whole veil issue. In essence, they are trying to achieve some sort of equality of power while staying safely away from being called whores. This may be a good short term strategy, but sooner or later the 'morality'of a woman's body must be addressed.

I would argue that there is no equality that comes untainted with accused whoredom. The veil and the corresponding calls for women's modesty in the west are all at the core of women's inequality: they utterly restrict women's activities and movement, both from their physical effects and the pshycological fears they impose. You can sneer at the clothes of the western woman, call them skimpy and say they reduce her to being ogled and judged. But it's not really about the 20 year old stripper in a thong, who in any case exists in all cultures. It's about the 5 year old playing in a sundress, the 60 year old riding a bike in shorts, and the 20 year old competitive swimmer. That's how women's clothes and freedom work, and the Muslim feminists would do well to bear it in mind.

I actually think Hypatia's point is well taken. I am rather intractable when it comes to not accepting women's hair, bodies, faces as something to be hidden away. Aside from the abhorrent idea that there is something unclean or obscene about a female, to paraphrase Oriana Fallaci, how do you ride a bike in a chador? How do you swim in a hijab?