Dunno what zip code your universe resides in, but where I live that’s true only if by “women” you mean “teenaged girls”. Everyone else is fucking busy, and once kids are in the picture the notion of schlepping off to the mall with the family, or to shop for the family (again), is viewed as a sort of penance or points…

And that is exactly why I’ll be meeting with our superintendant and the district equity coordinator — a real live black man — in a couple of weeks. The level of racism and homophobia amongst teachers is a serious problem. If it can’t be cured it can damn well be squeezed into a corner and students given license and…

Wow.

Wow. I think less of Paul now. I mean I get that he was fundraising, but you send a “personal” letter that’s nothing but ask? Yuck. Every now and then someone who fell off the face of the earth three years ago will email me with a chipper “money please” or “look, I wrote a book!” or whatnot, and that’s when I block…

Yes. Please. Please please please.

Thing is, he used to be a perfectly ordinary heartless pennypinching bastard out there guarding the public nickel with his damned life. Now he’s pat of the political apocalypse machine and has uncommonly stupid staffers. One of them actually told me that the issue isn’t that there are…

Is it me, or is she the next Iris? Do I have to wait till I’m an old lady to start dressing like that? I’m not sure I could pull that off just yet. Maybe I should give it a try.

Wait, what about them is supposed to be attractive? Because they’re supposed to be attractive, right? And yet to me they just look like vacuous asshats. I can just see them 20 years down the road, a little puffy and resentful and voting against the local school bond because wtf, they don’t have any kids in the…

Hey Ivan, I’m looking at your various posts here, and starting to wonder: what are you, personally, afraid of being accused of? Because I’m getting the impression that you’re afraid of a definition stretch that will allow a woman to come back and point a finger at you.

If that’s the case, and if indeed you did push…

My pleasure (kind of). The older I get the more important I think it is to speak up about these things and have the conversations. I’m also optimistic enough to think that many (certainly not all, but many) young men will listen and start to recognize themselves in these stories, and then find, to their own surprise,…

Here’s why, Ivan: you’re looking at bags of marbles and black swans. We’re looking at what happens when you get a group of people in a room, which is a situation we know pretty well.

I used to think it was really weird that at some point in a friendship with a woman, starting maybe 10 years ago (I’m almost 50) my…

Oh, also. If you really want to understand studies of women’s sexuality?

I work with science grad students. And former science grad students. And I notice that one thing they’re really, really bad, on the whole, at is noticing that they are not in fact Standard Human. After all, they’re young and male and intelligent…

It’s totally, totally plausible.

You sound like a guy who’s been socialized since toddlerhood to get yours and defend. You also sound like a guy who has real trouble imagining human experiences very different from your own. But give it a shot. Pretend you’re someone who’s been socialized to do a thing you gag on: never…

Hell no.

Okay, take a look here. First you’re talking about maintenance sex for his sake while you were depressed, and faking — not into it but then often you’d get turned on, when he started up, but sometimes you wouldn’t and you’d just go with it because it was easier than not. And then you’re saying that you’re glad he did…

Those faces! This is my reason to get up today. That and my daughter woke up sobbing and screaming and stomping because she’s actually too tired to go to camp and figured that instead of saying she just needs a day, she’d try to light my head on fire by glaring at it and slamming doors. But she’s asleep now and this…

I’m sorry, I still think this is really weird. “This is so delicious, but I’m stuffed from this big lunch I had, I’m going to save this for lunch tomorrow” — there’s nothing in there that ought to be a buzzkill. Not in “not happening for me tonight, babe, let’s give it a rest,” either. That’s not being controlling;…

No, coercing people into sex is not okay. You that horny and your husband’s not in the mood, you go get yourself off. And don’t you go teaching some boy of yours that coercion is normal. I got a daughter I don’t want meeting your son, otherwise.

Right. I don’t mean to be harsh or critical, but I think you’re kidding yourself there.

I mean I’ve been in that situation, with the dinner. Except it never got that far, because — since this is, you know, food I’ll put in my own body, I ask him what he’s making, so that if he’s going to cook for both of us, he makes…

“He wants me to”

If you cannot tell what enthusiastic consent from a sober woman looks like, then that’s right, you shouldn’t be having sex.