GOOD FOR YOU! (And may I add, throw that sucker out.) If you like the way you look in the mirror and you're not on a diet for medical reasons where your weight matters to your health, that scale is adding nothing to your life. Take it out into a field and go Office Space on it while venting about the patriarchy.

Can you pinpoint what exactly gives you the creepy vibe?

Also possible. Although it would have to be some pretty foul breath to be detected above the normal smell of "butt".

Hmm. I guess what I meant was more this: What if Person A wears feathers on a headband made to look like a religious Native piece, but because the Native population in Person A's hometown is tiny/nonexistent, no one complains. Does Person A get to be racially insensitive when there aren't non-white people around to be…

I actually think that attempting to polish the surface is a good test for whether the racism still exists or not — and often brings that bigotry surging to the surface, rather than dormant like it was before. If people suggest the name change and everyone kind of shrugs and lets it happen, yay! If changing the name…

Two massive problems. First, a scarcity of women is unlikely to lead to women being treated with greater respect; it's much more likely that they'll be even more objectified/dehumanized than they already are. Imagine a woman in this environment trying to stay single/unwed. She's selfish, right? HAS to be selfish.…

Genuine question: You said

Word. And I would add, though I don't have a neat title to make it 5), that the question should be whether the item is one that people in that culture of origin might wear and get the same effect. Because if the item only "works" when a white (or non-culture-of-origin) person wears it, then it doesn't work: it's…

I'm with you all the way! It's convincing her that's the problem. :/

I might be wrong about this, but if you have a cold sore, I believe it is unlikely, yet possible, to give yourself genital herpes through saliva transfer onto your nether bits.

I think in her mind it's one thing to refuse a drink someone offers you in their own home (because plenty of people have reasons for abstaining) and something else to not want alcohol in your home at all. Failing an obvious, yet non-addiction-related reason why she wouldn't want to open the wine, she just avoided it…

Yeesh. For a certain brand of religious wingnut, "I am not your religion" = "I'm a slut". Actual sexual activity level is completely irrelevant unless you're abstaining for the right reason.

The privacy thing is SO tricky, no matter how far along you are in recovery. My mom's been sober for decades, she doesn't mind being around alcohol, but she does not want it in the house. One year we had neighbors (friends-of-family, super close) over for the holidays. They brought wine because they didn't know she…

No problem! Happy to nerd out about fashion. :)

Maybe the small-town vibe precludes it somewhat? I think a lot of these guys bank on anonymity, knowing that they are relatively invisible in the crowd of 3 million people who use the Metro daily in roughly the same way that Internet trolls are way ruder than they would ever have the guts to be in real life. My…

This article backs you up pretty well (and is interesting, if you are a geek for history + fashion): http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-…

For sure. They had a few missteps, but I always had the sense that they were proud of our diversity and committed to maintaining it. The dean of the Ervin program was so well-liked and well-respected that the university sent out a letter to all former students when he died of cancer last year. There was such a strong…

My high school was mostly non-white and I have a vivid, visceral memory of an argument that unfolded in my economics class. We were discussing affirmative action; one of the black girls said, "When white kids get straight As, their parents buy them a car." I think that was the moment when I looked around at the other…

That's one of the reasons I loved WashU so much as an undergrad. They weren't perfect, but you could tell the school genuinely wanted a diverse student body. There was a full-ride scholarship for black students (not all of them, but massive numbers), another full-ride program for Latino students, and they brought all…

And believe me, I’m not a prude — I’m not a prude at all. I began my sexual life very early.