Using the word "girlfriend" to denote a friend who is female is not, in my experience, a ubiquitous phenomenon in the US. I've found it to be used predominantly in the South, or by people whose people have migrated from the south w/in the past generation or so. I'd venture to guess that it's some hold over from the…

My anecdote was glib and written hastily, so perhaps its intent wasn't clear. So let me clarify, it wasn't an anecdote about "fighting ageism", and I have no interest in maligning "the youth." There are many great things about youth, superficiality and insecurity can't be counted among them. My comment was about…

I obsessed about getting older in much the same way, until on my 30 birthday I went out dancing with some friends and random bar patrons. When two 20 somethings discovered my old lady status, they reassuringly said to me, "Oh, you still look good."

I totally misread this headline and thought it said, "New Study...suggests we're born with mortality." And I laughed a lot and thought it was clever.

touché!

Lol, expression on the face of the guy with the great view.

This.

It kind of depends on whether or not you two acknowledge that you're sleeping together when you're not sleeping together. If it is something you talk about casually, then you can bring it up (in a lighthearted, by the way kind of fashion, like..."you want chinese food? oh, and we need to pick up condoms too") But…

Gotcha. If condoms are for BC, you gotta go male (Female are just to prevent STD during oral). So buy some, have them with you, and next time you get busy ask if he has protection. He’ll be like, “huh?” cause you’ve never used it before. Then say, “Oh, I have in my purse. Sorry I forgot before, I didn’t know we’d…

A patient can't give informed consent regarding risks that are caused by negligence. A patient can't agree that they understand, for instance, that a doctor might accidentally cut off the wrong limb, or leave an instrument inside of them, or inject a medication a patient has a known allergy to. These, like setting a…

By birth control, do you mean condoms? That's the only talk that he has to be a part of, because it's the only one in which he's an active participant. For any other method, you hold the reigns (and he probably assumes you're already on the pill, because he probably doesn't want kids either).

Agreed, although the assertion that c-section is an elective procedure is a problematic one, the assertion that risks of surgery include negligence of medical practitioners (or worse the failure to realize that setting fire to patients is the result of negligence) is much more troubling.

You missed the point, which is fine because my statement was pithy. To be more clear, risks of surgery that are user error, like setting patients on fire, amputating the wrong arm, and leaving utensils inside of patients are actually not risks of surgery. They're instances of medical malpractice, because unlike…

Lol, your hospital sounds great! "Look, if you didn't want us to set fire to you, you shouldn't have gotten pregnant. That's preventable, unlike, say, setting the alcohol we just rubbed all over you on fire."

"to find the girl and detain her mother"

Oh my god all those pictures...

All of this, yes. I think it's also important to consider the ways in which gender ideas are relayed to a young girl by her parents. Despite being an ostensible feminist, encouraging me to be strong, smart, and independent, my mother clearly hung all of her self-worth on my father, which he withheld from her and…

I don't think the alternative the the AP piece is presenting women who feel flippant about abortions, but perhaps having emotionally mature, strong women explaining why an abortion was the right, if not a hard, choice.

Everyone seems to care a lot about gyms (in the memes and in the comments here), which is weird because clearly most people do not care a lot about gyms.

I find your anecdote really fascinating. In America there's so much pressure to circumcise children even if one isn't of a Judeo-Christian faith (both of which now regularly circumcise), because it's "clean" or, more often, because it's the cultural norm. I've been pressured many times to circumcise my children…