this article is flawed, but the words it's focused on are nonsense. i teach kindergarten and first-graders—basically the most "feminine" job out there. you have to be warm, engaging, sweet as pie and socially aware enough to know when someone in the back REALLY has to pee.

@kung fu lola: i don't think the argument being made is that she may have "seduced" him into it, but that she may have blackmailed him into it—"do this, or i'll tell everyone you already did." i haven't read anything either party has actually said, so i'm skeptical of a lot of the information being presented, but i…

@Edie Spencer: not ALL others. i'm pretty confident it's just brown others.

i'm reading a lot of confusion in this thread. the point is: IT DOESN'T MATTER what she wore at any other point, ever. it doesn't matter if she came to school in an exact replica of Scarlett O'Hara's curtain dress every day. it is discrimination for a public school to require anyone to "wear a specific outfit designed…

@KateFace: PLEASE make this happen. the universe needs you.

the fact that this is confusing and/or amusing to anyone makes my heart cry.

@RiotGrrrl: my reading of it was that they want partners who have roughly the same "sex clock"—they want to have sex at about the same time the men want to have sex. what that has to do with "making love" versus "getting laid," i don't know.

this godless straight lady would have loved a civil partnership. though i suppose a wedding officiated by a married gay rabbi who suggested my father and fiance hug rather than shake hands during the ceremony, in order to lower the business-transaction vibe, sufficed.

@Donovanesque: SECONDED.

what of my fear of the pregnancy itself? baby=ANOTHER BRAIN IN YOUR BODY, FOLKS. it's like a giant parasite that will someday be able to speak to you!

In fact, current child porn laws in the US appear to require that the minor depicted be an "actual person" for prosecution to occur, meaning that completely computer-generated images of kids might already be legal.

@Norton: well, look at that. google before shooting off my mouth, you say? how interesting!

"...or eating processed foods loaded with sugar, salt and fat, for example, could come to be seen as socially unacceptable."

dear privilege-denying dude:

bless you, sir!

a lot of this sounds like the kind of thing you'd absolutely have to discuss before actually getting engaged. i suspect she is and will be extremely well-prepared for the whole situation.

I have been mistaken for my brother's mother (there's a near 15-year age difference) dozens of times, especially when he was very young. It was actually a relief when the people inquiring/commenting didn't do so with a heavy gloss of teenage-mother shaming.

in the sixth grade, i wore weird outfits to school consistently. i'm talking elaborately (though not skillfully) braided hair, complicated layers, clashing bright colors—all in addition to my braces and glasses. i put effort into this.

let's all just be hostile about the kinds of sex other people enjoy, but we don't! everybody now!

also: the women's medicaid programs in new york and texas (!)—through which i've acquired free birth control for years—have been miracles in my positions as 1) a student who couldn't afford university health care and 2) a part-time (but not really) employee of a nonprofit afterschool center for low-income children.…