Just a personal observation here - although I check all the boxes for liberal, and find it easy to feel guilty about the slightest indiscretions, I have never felt guilty about being white or straight or male. And I can't even borderline understand why anyone would. I mean, I get that my upbringing was sheltered in…

This is absolutely the correct question here - whether or not it's good advice depends entirely on the definition of "piggishness". Is commenting on people's sexual characteristics piggish? Is acting chauvinistic piggish? Is being an asshole piggish?

Not "me"?

Some of the happiest and strongest marriages I know are from folks who got married in their mid or late 30s. You've got nothing to worry about.

Can I possibly articulate the unthinkable, and suggest…

I am completely with you in terms of gods. If we're just going by what we can observe in nature, then "the ability to create new life all by yourself" is only found in things that we would call female. Not all females, not even most, but the only "can reproduce with no help from any other individual" species are all…

That's true, but the key word there is "enough". On a person-by-person basis, you're more closely related to your own kids and more likely to share genes with your own kids, so you'd have to take care of multiple nieces and nephews to get the same evolutionary benefits as taking care of your own offspring.

Now I'm more confused than ever!

It's "through me four a loupe". Old jeweler's expression.

Does he come out of the machine all dizzy?

You know, in this context "fuck" can have two widely divergent meanings. What exact action do you recommend if she's a Montreal fan?

I'm with you - not making fun at all. Sometimes translation to a non-native tongue brings out notes, music even, in a language that lifelong speakers never knew were possible.

You're very kind. And yes, the profession has it's drawbacks (and I'm sorry to hear what your friend had to go through - that's hard) - I think I'm just lucky to have ended up with a job that I was born to do ("You want to pay me to talk to people about biology? I was going to do that anyway!"). And I have tenure. …

Teaching is one of the things I do, and it does explain the occasional crying student, but I don't deserve that praise - I'm a professor, which is far from a hard job in many ways. I have nothing but respectful awe for folks who do teaching all of the time.

"You seem to act like member of the Jewish faith."
"Are you sure I'm Jewish?"
"Or Italian"
"I'm Italian…And for the record there were a few Jewish She-Hulks…"

Same here, except it's (surprise surprise) a turtle. The acquisition of which (along with a box of kleenex) was recommended to me by a colleague like my first week of teaching. Both have proven to be wise investments.

Anyone else get the idea that the first letter-writer meant for his acronym to be "FORTADA" but was foiled by an unfortunately-placed (perhaps not by him!) ampersand?

And here's what I found, after a quick Google Scholar search for
"male gaze psychology" and subsequently looking through what seemed to be the most relevant references. The following papers (and there were more that I didn't take the time to check out) mostly discuss studies in which female participants, when…

That made my day - keep up the good fight!

And here's what I found, after a quick Google Scholar search for "male gaze psychology" and subsequently looking through what seemed to be the most relevant references. The following papers (and there were more that I didn't take the time to check out) mostly discuss studies in which female participants, when given…