I don't love that angle either, this idea that women shouldn't be raped because of how they're connected to men, but I don't think that's the purpose of it. I think it's to create a sense of empathy with people who otherwise might not have that — a way to link the women in a man's life whom he knows and loves with the…

I think it's disturbing that whenever someone brings up male rape statistics they get labeled as an MRA.

She said "Who Dat!" I didn't think I could love her more than I already did, but now I do!

No. Saying "not all men are like that" is distancing yourself from the behavior, but it is not a condemnation of that behavior. Plenty of other statements — "That's horrifying," "I hope he rots in prison for a lifetime," and "what can we do to prevent similar horrors from happening?" among them — might express…

I agree with you on that: The lion/gazelle analogy doesn't feel true to my experience because most men are not dangerous predators. The ones who are are the exception rather than the rule. I get that.

That's probably a matter of anatomy. I can't speak for anyone else, but everything I have is kind of tucked up and away, so going commando with pants (no VPL ever!) isn't at all uncomfortable.

Wrapping everything up like it's radioactive, using a trash bin with a lid and changing the trash frequently all help too. I don't know where people get the idea that a tampon can smell through 18 layers of toilet paper, a layer of other bathroom detritus like cotton balls and makeup remover towelettes, a trash can…

Yeah, why care about the guy at the wastewater treatment plant who gags cleaning up other people's menstrual products or the woman who has to come out and snake the drains? If it's out of sight, it's out of mind, right? Someone else's problem!

Apparently, it's wrong because some people find some sex acts other people do comical or unsophisticated or something — and heaven knows we wouldn't want that. What you and your boyfriend or husband like doesn't matter nearly as much as the judgment of the Internet, so stop being so backward and make with the anal…

I'm normally the first one aboard the "Ugh, so photoshopped" train, but to the PS artist's credit, this picture has left her freckled arms and few laugh lines intact. She looks fantastic and nicely natural — well, aside from the makeup, professional lighting and probably a filler or two.

That's so little time served for killing another human being, yet I don't think she would be any more punished if her sentence were longer. I do feel for her, but she still has the opportunity to rebuild a life for herself. He doesn't have that luxury. It was taken from him by alcohol and a gun. It's a tragedy that…

As a longtime cardiophobe who has a dental appointment soon, I can empathize with your unease. Look at it this way, though: This tragic story is so incredibly rare that it makes the national news. It sometimes helps me when I read something that would otherwise stick with me and haunt me when I tried to go to sleep.

You're right: Absence of evidence isn't absence of evidence, especially when it involves something as traumatic as a rape trial. I'm probably falling prey to the same thing most people who aren't sociopaths believe and assuming that someone couldn't have hidden his monstrous nature for so long.

That's one of the most surprising things about this case — no one has come forward before sometime last year, and there was no indication of what kind of a monster this guy is. Even during the Vikings' sex boat scandal, there wasn't anything indicating rape took place.

Don't forget that he apparently did this with two or more women at a time, which suggests he was well aware that most of us feel more comfortable if we have someone we know with us when we stop off at an unknown man's hotel room "just for a minute." Plenty of women I know would feel uneasy going somewhere alone with a…

Yet in this very thread, brightstar100 referred to purity as synonymous with virginity:

Sexual liberation and sex positivity should absolutely include those for whom liberation means feeling less pressure to have sex. Maybe I don't hear it because I'm on the other side of virginity now and have been for some time, but I don't really see a whole lot of virgin-shaming from feminism; I see a lot of distaste…

I worked in a bookstore — a bookstore! — and had to clean up almost every bodily fluid and solid you can name. Poop, pee and puke in the children's section is a given, but on more than one occasion, I also had to clean droplets of menstrual blood off the floor, and there was one frequent visitor who seemed to have a…

I couldn't agree with you more on wanting to like Lena Dunham. I watched the first season of Girls and kept pulling for it to be so much better than it was for me. I even re-watched a couple of episodes to see if there was something I missed. Nope. All I saw was a group of tremendously self-absorbed and cosseted…

"Not a single woman isn't guilty of this?" Really? I'm almost always ready to go before my husband is, and if I say I'll be five minutes, I'll be five minutes. I even wear makeup occasionally, but I've gotten my day face down to a science.