“At which point the woman who has taken care of me every day of my life will instantly vanish and rarely if ever contact me again, because she doesn’t really love me. But my mom has promised she won’t be allowed to do that for a long time.”

And then we wonder why those same kids grow up to be people who don’t understand consent and boundaries.

It’s possible that their “feeling” that family court doesn’t side with them simply because they’re men is, how you say, “unfounded.”

I can answer #1 for you: his kids would literally rather be incarcerated than have lunch with him, and yet he’s still trying to force them to do so. As explanatory power goes, the “he is a piece of shit” theory goes a lot further than “mom has evil powers of mind-control.”

Yeah, while I get the usefulness of having “safe and supportive group homes” available, that seems...direly inadequate, as a response to a criminal justice system that treats being an underage rape victim as a criminal offense.

Yeah, this doesn’t seem like the reaction of even a person who is trying to win their children’s favor, let alone an honest-to-god actually good person. “Won’t see me? Maybe an indefinite incarceration will make you remember how good I was to you!” Nnnnnot likely, no.

Teenage girls (well, okay, probably teenage boys, too) are pretty easily manipulated by the desire to appear cool, tough, sophisticated, down with the scene, etc — basically to live up to whatever expectations are being set around them. I think it’s the entire reason that age of consent laws are a thing: we know it’s…

I think Uncle Phil might lose a few points for bodily assaulting his kids’ friends. I mean, no one’s saying DJ Jazzy Jeff wasn’t annoying, but maybe weekly physical violence was a little OTT.

I guess because I actually care more about women who are struggling with their bisexual identity than I do about straight women who are totes at peace with their handful of “attractions” to movie stars. I mean, I’m sure y’all are lovely, but you don’t need my help, you seem fine. I advocate for queer women, because we…

You know, I hear you, and I agree with a lot of this, but tbh what made it hard for me to come out as bisexual (to people other than my closest friends, who took me seriously because friends) *really, really was* both straight bullshit and lesbian bullshit. It was *everyone* who told me I was just in college and all…

No, they are liars.

I mean...I get it, sort of. It’s a little trite, how the straight girls will all CONVENIENTLY have “crushes” on whoever is the culturally-approved Straight Girl Crush (is it not Angelina anymore? It was Angelina for *ages*), which makes it seem like not so much a crush as adopting a social signifier (“I am one of the…

Yes! The South is my home and very dear to me, but you know what? Among the things I love about it is not *that time when it fired on the US military and started a terrible, violent war in defense of slavery.* Fellow Southerners — let’s just admit, it wasn’t our *best* four years. We’ve had better.

Oh, but if you object to people spending decades hammering a false theory that you murdered your husband, then WHITHER FREE SPEECH?

Er, I actually starred that before I got all the way finished with it. I agree that the proof of excessive force is that *an unarmed 12-year-old girl’s bones were broken,* ipso facto, and therefore the police response (“seems legit! good job!”) was absurd.

Now can he parlay that support into a sequel to The Eagle where he and Jamie Bell just make out for like an hour and a half? That would make me feel extremely supported. Thanks!

THEN DO NOT GO. What is the dilemma on all this? It has *always* been socially acceptable to send your regrets with a vague excuse about how you won’t be “able” to make it. And then you’re not obligated to send a check, but of course you *can* if you want, no one has ever been prevented from that. This solves a…

But this was always an option for you anyway. You can always say “I’m so sorry I won’t be able to make it to the shower,” and then send a check; nothing was ever stopping you from that. The issue is that now there is no option for people who actually would like to spend time socially with the couple and celebrate and…

I honestly think it is more of a thing among authoritarian types — a certain tangle of sex and power and a fetishization of “innocence” and low empathy for the weak and automatic social cover because you’re well-known as a Trustworthy Person With Good Values. It’s a breeding ground for dysfunction.

I think your relationship ending up the subject of a song is just the risk you take when you date musicians. How many songwriting musicians can you think of who *haven’t* worked out their feelings about a breakup that way? Price of entry.