"Women actively participate in this self-destruction too. We feel very free to condemn other women while giving the men who seek them out a universal pass on THEIR crime. Men are still considered such a commodity that we will destroy each other to avoid condemning them."

Want to know the meaning of oppression? Be eligible for the draft during wartime -- which is not a voluntary status. And it only applies to men.

Men are routinely thrown away in wars, while women stand on the dock and wave bye-bye.

Then whine that women are only victims, and men are only villains.

"So David Vitter and Eliot Spitzer abuse their marriage vows, abuse the public trust, abuse their wives by forcing them to participate in their public wallow of shame -- and then emerge fine, clean, and "penitent" because boys will be boys, but girls had BETTER NOT be whores."

I wonder if all those dutiful wives ever cheat on their husbands. Nah -- women are always moral and trustworthy. Besides, there's no evidence for it.

Nor is there evidence that the authorities hadn't conducted forensic investigation before declaring Palfrey's death to be a suicide. Nor is there evidence that Palfrey was murdered. But as Rumsfeld would say, "A lack of evidence is not a lack of evidence."

But it's acceptable to accept all that, uncritically, because women are only ever victims -- and their actions, and the consequences thereof, are always the fault of someone else. Graner was easily convicted: no controversy: lock him up and throw away the key. He got ten years.

But his co-equal in torture, Lynndie English -- it was a controversey -- the media -- at least the women reporters -- struggled for weeks with the question, "How to deal with it?"

Answer to the question was soon ffound: it was the invisible abstract "patriarchy" that "forced" her to do as she did. It was the invisible abstract "patriarchy" that was responsible for her actions and their conseqeunces.

Obviously, because female, she wasn't capable of mature, adult judgment, therefore shouldn't be blamed for or held to account for her decisions and actions. Lynndie English got three years.

We're all opposed to sexism which disadvantages women -- but not opposed to sexisms which can be exploited to their advantage. So Lynddie English was sexistly "infantalized" to her advantage, by women, while the "male-volent" Graner was not offered or given any excuses (nor should he have been).

The "free to be you and me" part of me would like to think that if we end the hypocrisy and legalize it, all this bullshit would go away. But if you look at places where its tolerated if not outright legal (ie, europe), you don't see a solution. The trafficking of women from eastern europe that is going on is horrific; if anything the problem is worse. I have no ideas how to solve this, but i'm unconvinced that legalization fixes anything.

I think the other thing that needs to be addressed is the reason why men are given a pass for patronizing prostitutes, while the prostitutes themselves are treated so badly.

It's pretty obvious, but as someone mentioned previously, cops often let the johns go, "to spare them humiliation," while arresting, vilifying and prosecuting the women. You think that might have something to do with the fact that for millennia the cops and judges have all been men? They relate to the johns, and see the women as "whores" who prey upon men's “weakness.” But nowhere, at no time (not even in the Bible, where it was, I believe, just the woman who was going to be stoned until Jesus told the crowd that HE who is without sin should cast the first stone...) never does anyone stand up and say, "It's men's responsibility to control their own sexual acting-out."

It's ALWAYS the woman's fault for not calling a halt, whether she is physically capable of doing so or not. Christ, I've even heard people say, "She got herself pregnant," which would be a neat trick if true, but is really just more logical sleight-of-hand to exonerate the man.

How likely then are male cops to see anything really wrong in men seeking sex any way they can get it?

It's been my observation that the degree to which straight men feel controlled by their desire for sex is also the degree to which they hold some pretty scary resentment of women. All their lives they've been told, by parents and/or society that the world is theirs for the taking. But then puberty hits and they find there's this one thing they can't control. And women walk around everywhere, by their mere existence practically flaunting the fact that they have vaginas, and guys can't have everything they want. Women can say 'No!" In the case of prostitutes, they can even charge men their hard-earned (except in the case of Eliot Spitzer) money for access to a vagina.

But no one ever tells the guys that it's their responsibility to control their desire for sex. It seems elementary, but one frequently hears guys talking about how irresistible the urge is, that "we just don't understand, etc. etc." To which the answer is: Tough! You're a guy, your life is good, and if you have a burden of existence it's your job to deal with it in a way that doesn't threaten the wellbeing of society. Women have to menstruate and if we want to procreate we have to go through a huge amount of pain. That's our burden of existence and I doubt any man wants to trade.

I think the fact that most cops and judges have been men means that they ascribe exponentially greater evil to the woman who performs this particular service for a fee, seeing this as exploiting men's "weakness," than they do any blame to boys who "will be boys." But the sex industry would cease to exist without customers.

Susannah Breslin should dig deeper and not buy the cover story of Palfrey commtting suicide. Here is a line from Mrs. Breslin's own article: "Britton was a one-time employee of Palfrey's; after Britton was found hanging in her living room, Palfrey pronounced, ironically: 'I guess I'm made of something that Brandy Britton wasn't made of.'" WTF Mrs. Breslin -- wake up and dig deeper! Your article adds insult to the injustice done to Palfrey -- she was murdered by the powerful men that requested prostitutes from her. Wake up!!!