0. Inviting a douchebag to share your bed.

Masturbating after recently dicing a fresh jalapeño, which apparently some people have actually done.

We do, however, want to avoid arson-shaming.

All of that seems like really, really good advice.

But I have a more, um, rudimentary question:

The mattress — Do I sleep on top of it? Or does it sleep on top of me?

Thanks in advance.

Janice Radway's book was published in 1984 and is a product of its time. There is a lot of awesome recent feminist scholarship of romance novels that attribute more agency to readers. Yes, there are some hilariously bad and retrograde tropes....but it is also the best selling genre of fiction in the US. It is written…

Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth were also doing it in real life when they were making that series. THOSE EYES DON'T LIE!

I feel like a lot of imitations after Pride & Prejudice have diluted a lot of what was actually going on in P&P, but it was a lot more than what has become trope.

Sadly, I think this narrative plays into real life. Too many of my lady friends think if a guy treats them like shit, eventually that guy will come around and love them. (Note, I have never seen that come to fruition.) When I was in my 20s, I saw that crap ALL THE TIME, and I'm embarrassed to admit I participated…

My theory is that we're really trained, especially with TV, that we have to like and cheer on the protagonist.

If I may give my take on this; don't use the Mr. Darcy trope unless you have the skill to pull it off. Jane Austen, sure. Helen Fielding, perhaps. Bronte...please.

Bridget Jones' Basketball Diaries is always a good trivia team name.

My ex-husband called me high-maintenance because I expected him to pick his clothes up off the floor at least once a week. Yep, total high-maintenance bitch here!

BINGO. This right here.

I think that belief persists because if someone is rejected by a woman they can always fall back on the idea that she wasn't rejecting them so much as she was an awful gold-digger and she rejected them because they weren't powerful or rich enough for her. When really they were rejected because they were a skeeve or an…

I hear this shit on the internet all the fucking time and dudes just assume it's a given. What? You aren't alone in not knowing any women who would get "the tingles" on the discovery that their husband was a meth dealer, regardless of how much money there is.

Arguably yes. But I think the idea is that this (like Mad Men, The Sopranos, Walking Dead and Boardwalk Empire—that all have similar fan issues) is a show set in a universe populated almost exclusively by assholes. Walt and Jesse are assholes and the internet LOVES them for it. Men on television seem to be allowed to…

I would love it if the phrase "mommy issues" went away forever.

So is everyone on that fucking show. That's the point with the anti-hero thing.

Poor, lonely fucks would kill for a nagging harpie in their lives, let alone a strong-ass lady like Skyler (or Anna Gunn, the amazing RL actress who plays her). Did it ever occur to them that by being unlikeable she's doing a great job at her role? No? Didn't think so. Morons.

A-HEM. You're leaving out a very important detail - she's being interviewed by Tom Hiddleston.