So, two things about the first letter. First:

Yep. Summer School is a lot of fun. I’d give it a 10/10 in the category of Movies That Aren’t Groundbreaking, but That You’ll Never Regret Plopping Down to Watch if it’s on Cable.

Poor SoCal ladies with their unaccomplished beaus. As for me, I *only* date men who are able to run successful brothels while their parents are out of town.

Poor Alley. Rebecca Howe was a pretty thankless part. It really strikes me looking back at movies and t.v. of the ‘80s and ‘90s how many women in will they or won’t they duos of the time were depicted as uptight prigs. Their male counterparts were often a bit immature, but were overall written and played as…

Tony Danza was in a made-for-tv remake of 12 Angry Men a decade or two ago, and I was surprised by how good he was. I was also surprised by how well he’d aged. Graying Tony Danza is a very good-looking man.

Google? :-) It always strikes me how little most men know about nail polish removal. I once painted an ex’s nails for a Halloween party, and afterward, he came to me panicked because he couldn’t scrub it off and he was afraid to let his professor see him with painted nails the next morning. A male friend of mine was…

My read on letter #2 is that the LW is putting way too much pressure on herself to be “normal” again, and that pressure is probably helping squash her libido. The urge to return to normal after an unpleasant event is perfectly understandable. For many people, that return suggests that the problem is fixed, that you’re…

Seriously. It’s not like someone paints your toes once and suddenly, you have an irresistible compulsion to shave your legs, shriek at bugs, and start wearing sequins. You can still be a manly man with Sunset in Paris-colored toenails.

I mean, is bi- or pansexual a technically correct term here? Sure. But this women only wants to date women. She’s only considering sleeping with her male friend because of weird circumstances, like when a supposedly straight man sleeps with other men because he’s in prison or at sea for months. If the LW wants to…

Catholicism gets a reputation for being narrow-minded and conservative. While there is some truth to this characterization (e.g. the official position of the Church that acting on same-sex desire is sinful), Catholicism also believes in doing good works like helping the poor. Catholic belief thus lends itself to all…

I’m not sure that it’s necessary to explain.* Everyone loves Clueless, including my mom, and I don’t think she gets half the jokes.

Can we really fault her for that? If I were in love with my stepbrother, I’d be trying pretty hard to deny that bit of self-knowledge.

The people involved with Xena had some very fine needles to thread. By the time Xena went off the air in 2001, Ellen Degeneres had come out and her show had gone off the air in 1998 because of the coming out. It would have felt dangerous for Xena to become a show with explicitly lesbian (or bi) leads (The only out lesb…

Xena was both more fun and more serious. Hercules always had the Superman problem: he’s so upright that he’s boring. While Hercules might occasionally struggle with a few seconds of temptation to do something bad, he never gave in, and it was obvious that he never would. Xena, on the other hand, always had to wrestle w…

I’m heartened. If SI has done the math and decided that whatever benefits it receives from supporting trans people outweigh any potential blowback it might receive from swimsuit issue-loving dude bros who are terrified that they might be even slightly turned on by a trans woman, that’s definitely progress.

My primitive understanding is that most people who love horror tend to be anxious, and horror allows for the exploration of worst case scenarios in a safe environment.

I think the reference is that the two characters pictured were obsessed with The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

As a woman, the “Marry the Man Today” thing has always bothered me. I’ve had several friends try to set me up with men who are immature or otherwise undesirable as partners under the expectation that dating me would cure them of these negative traits. I have never seen anyone suggest that a man’s attentions will have…

Actual cuckolding seems like it would be really involved, but pretend cuckolding seems like it could require a certain amount of creativity, but that it would be logistically fairly easy. Like most fantasy scenarios, dirty talk seems like one of the easier ins for LW #1 and her partner. The “cheating” partner just has…

Agreed. Five years isn’t a moment of weakness. It’s a commitment to behavior that violates the terms of the marriage. Also, jeez. Either the husband is 1) actively trying to blow up his marriage or 2) he has the world’s worst decision-making abilities. Not only has he had one (or more?) affairs, and not only did the…