A poster here, and a mother of a teenage boy I know lament the fact that their daughters can get birth control or abortinos, while their poor sons have to cede all control over to a dumb girl who may make them fathers. Putting aside the fact that these women are a little delusioned about how much control parents have over daughters' fertility, what is really different now then forever before? Are they really miffed because before as a family they could have turned their backs on the new little baby and now they can't?

What is really different now? Are men really just envious of abortion rights? I mean there have always been unwanted pregnancies and men have always had to pay. Abortion rights give more control to women post-conception, but men's role hasn't changed at all. Possibly they are angry that the age old option of blowing off their own children and their mothers is being erased through better enforcement and DNA tests.

Men whining that they should be able to "control their wallets if women can control their bodies" (?????!!!!!) is the most clear cut expression of an overdeveloped sense of entitlement I have ever heard. Anyway, no court in the country is going to have any sympathy for men who want their childrens' rights to support ( or women's rights to bodily integrity) to be waived so they can screw around with impunity.

I always have to wonder about those people who think rape can come about from "mixed signals", as if such an intimate assault could just be a little miscommunication. I mean, are these people all sociopaths that they can't tell if the person they are fooling around with is scared or in anguish and wants desperately to stop, or else is in no condition to consent? Presumably the partner/victim is too weak or incapacitated to physically stop the sex, so some manhandling has to be going on here.

The 18 year olds getting prosecuted for consensual sex with 17 year olds is a red herring. Most consent laws related to age are graduated and take into account the age of the partners relative to each other. There are also loopholes to keep people in these situations off of sex offender registries of they are ever convicted. The real issue is people like a previous poster who take young girls not wearing bras as some sort of evidence that these girls don't want or need protection. As any parent knows, kids need protection from themselves and from those who would take advantage of their youthful foolishness and bad judgement, especially when it comes to sex.

Even if we put aside the radical idea that men who prey on vulnerable 15 year old girls should be prosecuted, why do ethics go out the window when it comes to men getting some? I mean, would it be ok to swindle 13 year old out of money, or hit them up for loans just because they are naive enough to go for it? FOr some people men's sexual desire seems to make all other considerations null and void, even if we take the legal question out of the picture.

I always hear questions like this on advice shows and in columns. Well, not a friend stranded in a snowstorm, but some version of my friend keeps coming over uninvited/ I need space. The thing is, I am all for space, privacy, etc. But there are certain codes of behavior we all have to follow. When your friend asks for help, you give it. If you'd rather not, then people taking offense is the price you have to pay. Sometimes the way things seem to others is just the way things are.

My husband hunts, I don't. When my daughter is old enough, he will take her hunting with my blessing. It has been hard for me to look past all the boring machismo and NRA bs in the hunting world, but I have done so and seen that hunters are enviromentalists best allies, and very outdoorsy to boot.

Even when a woman becomes a mother through a sperm bank, there are two to tango. What strikes me about these discussions of single motherhood by sperm bank is that no one questions the utter lack of ethical sperm dissemination (so to speak)on the part of the donors. One donor in CA fathered 20 children under the age of 5! (sourse- an NPR show, can't remember which one, aired fri p.m.) 20 children he won't have any hand in raising, by his choice. Indeed, by his profit. Who are these men? What kind of people can they be to father children in this way?

""In my excavation of cool," Midler explained "like Miles and Chet and the beatniks--she never came up. The women never came up. It was always the men.""

Truer words never spoken. Music sung by women almost never gets called cool.

Governor Granholm signed the ultrsound law because it wasn't worth fighting. This law doesn't force women to look at ultrasounds or doctors to have them, only that if there is an untrasound, the doctor can offer the woman a chance to see. Patronizing and manipulative? Yes. But we've got bigger fish to fry.

For women musicians to be called cool, they have a better chance if they are singers of jazz. If it's rock or pop or country, they're just dismissed as cheezy. Rollong Stone omitted almost all the 60's girl groups in its publication on 60's music. My local college station plays overwhelmingly music with male singers.

Naturally there are plenty of noted and respected cool women singers- talent doesn't just go ignored when its so strong. Compare how talented they were compared to some so-called cool male singers and you'll see the double standard.