I was intrigued by the article and so I watched the clip three times. I don't have cable and most of my Colbert knowledge comes from the White House Correspondent Dinner, at which point I along with every other blue-blooded female in American, fell in love with him. I'm way closer to Colbert's age than Fonda's, but old enough to wonder about aging sexuality. I did not get uncomfortable watching this, although surprising enough, I have gotten uncomfortable watching Peter Coyote and Sally Fields characters on "Brothers and Sisters" flirt like teenagers.

I'm heartened by this clip. If Colbert was in on it, as others have said, he's a great actor. If not, there was a sly boy delight smile immediately following the kiss, and then later some guilt about his wife (who, by the way, probably has more tolerance than Joan Walsh for the scene). The guilt, either real or pretend, acknowledges the sexual power of an older woman.

I don't know what either Fonda or Colbert is up to here, which is part of the appeal, but I like to think she was subverting something, and of course, if he is man enough to note the sexuality in a woman that much older than him enough to get genuinely embarrassed, well my crush on him just reaches epic proportions. I think it's a win-win.

I think part of the discomfort comes from crossing the line between verbal and physical, possibly non-consentual role-playing. We all agree that Colbert deserves any verbal games his guests throw at him, so most of the squirm factor is because this was physical and we don't know whether he consented.

As for why most of the uncomfortable responses are from women, I don't think it's envy. I think it's because we are more likely to have experience with unwanted physical attention, especially in those border areas where you can't just be rude and tell your harasser to get lost. I had a male teacher once who sat on female students' laps (unwanted) for the classroom laughs, and every time I've described the situation, people have agreed that was sexual harassment. Now, I would tell him it was unacceptable and report him if he didn't stop. Then, I stopped going to class and nearly failed... So when I was watching the clip, I wasn't thinking "Damn it, why does she get to?" or "Oh, but she's so old!" Instead, I was empathizing with Colbert, and that's not something I do too often! There must have been better ways to joke about sexual attraction and even put him off his game without acting like a creepy uncle.

Cross check all these letters against the 'Tough Titties' thread for consistency. I want to know if any of the eager beaver ladies would work the Girls Gone Wild angle to show America/Stephen they're still sexual.

Seriously, little refinement goes a long way. Arianna Huffington was crazy hot when she was on. And I naturally like Jane a whole lot more than Arianna.

What the record shows is that if your body is hot men will want to nail you, especially if you come on as strong as humanly possible, give 'em a lap dance and flash your perky (fake) titties or flat belly. I never knew that. Thanks men and women of Salon!

That brings us to tonight's word. The Word: CLASSY. Jane was not a class act on the Report. That movie looks tedious. She is so hard, swinging a bat like a old big dick. She is not a camp actress, and camp is not a good genre to accidentally veer into.

Trampy, campy. Sassy, classy. I have a preference.

Summary.

Fonda: Funny.

Timing, technique: Tacky.

Art: So bad it's good.

Colbert: Dork. What a dork!

Three cheers for backwash feminism(not even a wave here)!

Joan get over it. In a phony age on a phony media, this was real.

sweet embarrament. the mocker gently mocked. J

This was the first time I ever turned off Colbert. The segment was tacky and tasteless and surely unworthy of the show's reputation. Its not the first time Colbert used his laciviousness in interviewing attractive women. It doesn't work as humor. I can only imagine, having teens and young kids myself and a husband to boot how uncomfortable it must have made them feel, to what end? Eaglw River, Alaska

I felt the exact same way watching that show. It made me uneasy. She took it too far and it wasn't appropriate for that show.

i was also almost unable to watch this segment, and i don't think it was because of anyone's 'lasciviousness'.

More likely i think it just was because of the sheer humorless of the interview. A fairly far-reaching joke simply fell flat on its face. It's difficult to watch a talented comedian take a nose-dive.

You couldn't look, but I couldn't take my eyes away; like a rubbernecker driving by a fatal auto accident. I'm no prude (although I was one in my youth, so, like you, I always try to screen my reactions through that lens just in case it is trying to take over my reason); I am a 60+ sexual woman, a feminist.

What WAS that? WHY was it happening? It was certainly excruciatingly too long, whatever it was.

I was disappointed in Jane Fonda; I thought she had become a feminist, what with her involvement in The Vagina Monologues road trip readings and other projects. But this (unknown category) display (because: what WAS it?) conflated in my mind, all at once, with all the dispiritingly woman-as-sex-object danglings-in-our-faces we have been treated to in the last ten or more years (e.g. last week I heard a sultry-voiced woman interviewer on NPR's All Things Considered ask a woman, 'I heard you wore a pair of...KILLER shoes!' which fits in with all this somehow, and left me feeling just as disheartened and disgusted -- just as if we had never had the last women's movement.

It did seem as Steven Colbert's involvement was preplanned. But why did he agree to it? If not, you could see that he couldn't get out of it, or risk seriously insulting this (older) woman.

It didn't fit in any way with the tenor of the show -- satire. What would it be satirizing? It wasn't funny. It seemed a throw-back through a warped lens to a much, much, earlier time, maybe the 40's or 50's, but the character in one of those movies would be someone we could see we shouldn't respect (a woman dressed in tight clothes, low-cut blouse, who is oblivious to a man's sincere reactions, only narcissistically believing herself to be endlessly yearned-for; the man in the (imagined, or half-remembered) movie typically is a gangster who sweeps her off his lap onto the floor and gets back to business. The woman in those movies is, has got to be, a dependent one, using her sex to pay for privileges; the unanalyzed assumption, that the man 'is always ready for sex' (or he's not a man) is what, too, was wrong about this piece; I thought we had jettisoned that with the women's movement as well.

The more I think about this the more I think this age is a particularly confused one when it comes to women's sexuality, its rights and limits, and that of mens'. And certainly confused in the ways men and women handle each other. [Are we on several tracks at once, evolution (formerly revolution: treating each other with respect and kindness as well as, when appropriate and mutual, flirting and erotic and/or intellectually stimulating intercourse) or one that is spiralling downward into phoney, shallow dress-up roles in which two people must necessarily pass in the the night; the two crash into each other as on this show; like the two courses we are currently moving on (and crashing into each other at times on) as our society finally names liars in government as liars, murderers as murderers, criminals as criminals (?) and oppositely, self-righteous 'patriots' cling to holding up their officials and their officials wrong, corrupt, torturous deeds. These two trends, one authentic, one inauthentic ('KILLER shoes'?! displays of pushed-up or implanted breasts on news shoes!? moth-to-a-flame time-wasting compulsive stalking of 'babes'' antics who dress this way and act this way and generally make fools of themselves -- on news shoes?!! big, hairy wigs in the eyes of news anchors (men and women),

these two trends, clashing as they are doing, should be NAMED more, I think. I sense, by watching the usual TV news shows (incl. 'fake' news shows) that all this is wearing on everybody. People seem to be breaking down with all the excitement, confusion, clashing hope and prospects for disappointment.

And I'm just going to end here.