Words a "modest teacher's aid" probably never wants to hear...

... “hey you’re the girl from that website.”

But, then, who could ever imagine that if a woman allows a sex tape of herself to be made it might turn up on the internet?

The problems of modern life -

My brother and I were always close, but now we’ve started making out.

Dear Prudence,My brother and I are having a physical relationship. Our parents are admirable people who took good care of us, but are distant and aloof, and I think that my brother and I turned to each other for warmth and emotional support. He’s two years older and looked out for me in high school, and I shared with him what girls are like, which made him more confident socially. After he went away to college, I chose a college in the same city as his, so we continued to see a lot of each other. I'm now a senior and he's a graduate student. About three months ago we were sitting on my couch watching a sad movie and when it was over we turned to each other, exchanged a look, and started kissing. Now we lie on the bed, clothed, and kiss and talk and hold each other. When I'm with him I feel loved and cared for. We have not had sex because there's a psychological barrier that neither of us wants to cross. I go on dates with other men, but I never feel the emotional connection that I feel with my brother. I needed to talk to someone about this so I went to a counselor at the student health service and in the first session she practically ordered me not to see him for three months. I left in tears and haven't gone back. We want to lead normal lives and have families. We both know intellectually that we shouldn't be doing this, but we don't feel the wrongness of it. Must we stop this immediately, or may we let it continue and hope we grow out of it?

—No Sibling Rivalry
 

Dear Sibling,
Since you’re both in your 20s, the trend appears to be going the opposite way of outgrowing your closeness. You say you don’t want to cross the ultimate line, but you continue to slow dance to the edge of it. If one day Jack’s resolve breaks, you, Jill, are likely to come tumbling after. You profess you two want normal lives, but if you violate this taboo you may never get there. If you do have an affair, or something pretty close, and you vow to forever keep this secret, you each will spend decades hoping your sibling stays silent. But if one or the other feels this is something a future romantic partner should know, don’t be surprised if upon hearing your confession your new love quickly backs away. I know I more or less gave a pass recently to a pair of middle-aged incestuous gay twins, but they had long ago made a physical and emotional commitment to each other, and were asking me about whether they should let their family know. I think even those two men would advise you two to stop the rubbing and get yourselves disentangled emotionally. Your therapist should have had the training not to be so shocked by your revelation that she ended up barking orders. Go back to the counseling office, say your first therapist was not a good fit, and you’d like to talk to someone else about a pressing emotional issue. A good therapist should be able to hear you out, understand your situation, and help guide you out of it. For a window into how strange things like this can get if they go too far, read Jeffrey Eugenides’ wonderful novel Middlesex.

—Prudie

The fact that this would even cross the mind of a Barnes & Noble's staff member as being reasonable speaks volumes about something or other.

73 year old man ejected from children's section because unacompanied men not allowed there:

Barnes & Noble has apologized after a senior citizen said staff at one of the retail giant's Arizona stores ejected him because he was on his own in the children's area.

Omar Amin claimed a store worker told him a female shopper had complained he was in the children's area in the store in Scottsdale, The Arizona Republic reported.

The 73-year-old, who was alone at the time, said he was in the store to buy books for his two grandchildren, who live in Wisconsin.

He told the newspaper, "Men alone cannot be by themselves in the children's area."

Mark Bottini, Barnes & Noble vice president and director of stores, issued a statement Monday apologizing to Amin.

"We want to apologize to Dr. Amin for a situation in which Dr. Amin was asked to leave the children's section of our Scottsdale, Arizona store," Bottini said.

"We should not have done so. It is not our policy to ask customers to leave any section of our stores without justification. We value Dr. Amin as a customer and look forward to welcoming him in any of our stores."

Although Dads can be "deadbeats," Moms are brave souls who abandon their children because they don't want to be "swallowed up."

This kind of thing is more common than you'd think.

This morning’s TODAY Show featured a segment on a woman who chose to leave her husband and two young sons (ages 3 and 5 at the time) while on an extended research trip to Japan because she realized she didn’t want to be a mom anymore leaves my chest tight and my gut aching. Photos show her boys as pre-school-age angels. I want to hug and kiss them as my own.

Now, Rahna Reiko Rizzuto’s memoir Hiroshima in the Morning has been named a finalist for a National Book Award. My initial reaction: Really? She’s being celebrated for this? I could weep.

Reiko Rizzuto speaks of her struggles to stay true to herself and admits that she had never wanted children (which begs the question why she had two). “I didn’t want to be swallowed up,” she says on the TODAY Show interview.

Here's what the Amazon book site says about the book:

In June 2001 Rahna Reiko Rizzuto went to Hiroshima in search of a deeper understanding of her war-torn heritage. She planned to spend six months there, interviewing the few remaining survivors of the atomic bomb. A mother of two young boys, she was encouraged to go by her husband, who quickly became disenchanted by her absence.

It is her first solo life adventure, immediately exhilarating for her, but her research starts off badly. Interviews with the hibakusha feel rehearsed, and the survivors reveal little beyond published accounts. Then the attacks on September 11 change everything. The survivors' carefully constructed memories are shattered, causing them to relive their agonizing experiences and to open up to Rizzuto in astonishing ways.

Separated from family and country while the world seems to fall apart, Rizzuto's marriage begins to crumble as she wrestles with her ambivalence about being a wife and mother. Woven into the story of her own awakening are the stories of Hiroshima in the survivors' own words. The parallel narratives explore the role of memory in our lives and show how memory is not history but a story we tell ourselves to explain who we are.

Ambivalence about being a mother?

The time for ambivalence about being a mother should have ended when she became one.

Parenting is hard, but when you are a parent it is a life-long assignment and all you can do is "cowboy up" and be there for your kids.

In today's culture, it's wrong to be judgmental about homosexual twins engaged in a homosexual incestuous relationship...

...but if you are a man who wants his wife to stay at home and raise the kids, you're a deviant and, possibly, a Republican.

James Taranto explains:

Yoffe is not usually that snide and judgmental. In an earlier column, she responded in blasé fashion to a (fictional, we hope to God) letter from a man who claimed to be carrying on a homosexual affair with his own fraternal twin brother: "When people ask when you're each going to go out there and find a nice young man, tell them that while it may seem unorthodox, you both have realized that living together is what works for you," she advised.

But when a decent young man professes a desire to marry an old-fashioned girl and take financial responsibility for his family, Yoffe treats him as a deviant. She denounces him as "sexist" even though he is careful to affirm that women have every right to work outside the home if they choose to do so. He mentions nothing about politics, yet she feels compelled to bring Santorum, the feminists' Emmanuel Goldstein, into the mix.

Yoffe's hostility to this young man tells us more about elite culture than it does about her personally. (We've met her, and she's perfectly pleasant.) By his account, his female classmates have been indoctrinated with the same rigid ideas about "sexism" that Yoffe expresses in her response.

But we wonder if female opinion on campus is really quite as uniform as his experience would suggest. Our guess is that there are young women who don't believe the feminist dogma but expect that if they gave voice to their doubts, they'd receive a hostile response, and thus lack the confidence to speak out.

Rick Santorum doesn't have that problem, and that is why he is driving elite feminists crazy.

Once this would have been passed off as a nutty scenario invented by right-wing "homophobes"...

...now it's real.

Incestuous, homosexual brothers ask for advice from a "love" column:

My fraternal twin and I (both men) are in our late 30s. We were always extremely close and shared a bedroom growing up. When we were 12 we gradually started experimenting sexually with each other. After a couple of years, we realized we had fallen in love. Of course we felt guilty and ashamed, and we didn't dare tell anyone what we were doing. We hoped it was "just a phase" that we’d grow out of, but we wound up sleeping together until we left for college. We knew this could ruin our lives, so we made a pact to end it. We attended schools far apart and limited our contact to family holidays. But we never fell out of love with each other, so after graduation we moved in together and have been living very discreetly as a monogamous couple ever since. I'm not writing to you to pass moral judgment on our relationship—we're at peace and very happy. Our dilemma is how to deal with our increasingly nosy family and friends. They know we’re gay, and we live in a state where same-sex marriage is legal, so we’re getting pressure to settle down. I feel we should continue being discreet for the rest of our lives and blow off their questions. It's nobody's business, and I fear they would find our relationship shocking and disgusting. My brother, though, is exhausted with this charade. He thinks that if we get the family together with a therapist to talk through the issues, they'll eventually accept it. I think he's out of his mind, but I also want to make him happy. Is this one of those times when honesty is not the best policy? If so, how do we get everyone to stop worrying we will die alone? I'm also concerned about the legal implications of this—would the therapist be required to report us to the authorities? Could we go to prison?

—Tired of This Greek Tragicomedy

Terrific.

It's either an injustice that cries out to Heaven or the Daily Mail...

... was just looking for another reason to run some "skin pics."

"Mother-of-four, 28, banned from every nightclub in town for being 'too old to wear skimpy outfits'

"With a size six figure and 36DD chest, this petite blonde thought she would have no trouble getting into a nightclub.

But 28-year-old Lisa Woodman has been banned from every hotspot in her home town - after being told she is too old to wear skimpy outfits.

The furious mother-of-four was barred from three venues in Worcester, West Midlands, because of her low-cut tops, short skirts and knee-length boots."

And the ironic thing is that one of the clubs she was banned from is called "Tramps."

File under "modern problems" - Modern women surprised to discover that sex leads to pregnancy despite contraception...

and while engaged in a "threesome."

From Dear Wendy:

A few of weeks ago I had a threesome with a couple I’m friends with. We are all 20 years old and for the guy’s birthday we gave him a threesome. I took the morning after pill when I woke up but I guess it didn’t work because I just found out that I’m pregnant. I know that I’m going to get an abortion but should I tell the father? I don’t want this to ruin his relationship or make things bad between any of us. What do I do? I am very scared of what this will do to all of our friendships. — Terrified and Pregnant

The answer suggests itself.

*Sheesh* - we are so screwed as a nation.

Blowback to Vow-Breaking Lovebirds.

Apparently, the ex-husband of the spouse who found love at the wrong time was interviewed....by a different publication.  His comments were about as supportive as anyone outside of the bubble of self-indulgent narcissists at the New York Times would expect:

Bob Ennis, whose ex-wife, Carol Anne Ridell, left him to marry a family friend, ripped as "revisionist history" and a "choreographed puff piece" the new couple's version of their romantic history as recounted in a splashy Sunday New York Times wedding story.


In a phone interview with Politics Daily, Ennis also blasted the Times for "providing a megaphone" for Riddell and John Partilla III to "whitewash" the account of how they met and fell in love at Manhattan's private St. Hilda's and St. Hugh's Episcopal Day School attended by both couples' children. The Times piece chronicled the bride's detailed account of the duo's epic struggle against falling in love before they ultimately chose to break up two marriages involving five youngsters.

And:

Worse yet, he said, "I had no idea my 7-year-old daughter's picture would be in the paper. My lawyer thinks there should be a family court action." If there were no children involved, he added, "all of this would be 'Who cares?' It's evident that it's a story about two sad, narcissistic people who want to justify themselves to the world."

Public opinion was reassuringly outraged:

A firestorm of criticism and some expressions of support quickly ignited across the Internet, in print and broadcast media since Sunday. The Times took the unusual step of adding a comments section to the story, which provided an immediate venue for venting.

On Tuesday, the groom said if he had known how virulent the reaction would be -- some accused the couple and the Times of promoting "homewrecking"-- they would have not have offered themselves up as the featured nuptials of the week.


Indeed, on Tuesday Ridell also had taken down photos of herself and Partilla from her Facebook page.

 So, why did the Times run this lame exercise in self-aggrandizement on behalf of two, sad narcissistic people.

Because Partilla has spent years in the advertising business, and Ridell was a well-known Manhattan TV personality, Ennis said it was easy for them to pitch the idea for a Times story to yet another well-connected parent at their kids' school -- New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller: "You have a bunch of insiders doing one another a favor."

Well, really, who cares how badly you screw over the people who trusted you so long as it makes you happy?

That's not a recipe for the good life.  That's the motto of psychopaths.

But that doesn't stop the New York Times from celebrating a couple's destruction of their families in the "Marriage" section:

WHAT happens when love comes at the wrong time?


Carol Anne Riddell and John Partilla met in 2006 in a pre-kindergarten classroom. They both had children attending the same Upper West Side school. They also both had spouses.

And:

In May 2008, Mr. Partilla invited her for a drink at O’Connell’s, a neighborhood bar. She said she knew something was up, because they had never met on their own before.


“I’ve fallen in love with you,” he recalled saying to her. She jumped up, knocking a glass of beer into his lap, and rushed out of the bar. Five minutes later, he said, she returned and told him, “I feel exactly the same way.” Then she left again.

As Mr. Partilla saw it, their options were either to act on their feelings and break up their marriages or to deny their feelings and live dishonestly. “Pain or more pain,” was how he summarized it.

And:

With that goal in mind, they told their spouses. “I did a terrible thing as honorably as I could,” said Mr. Partilla, who moved out of his home, reluctantly leaving his three children. But he returned only days later. Then he boomeranged back and forth for six months.

And:

“My kids are going to look at me and know that I am flawed and not perfect, but also deeply in love,” she said. “We’re going to have a big, noisy, rich life, with more love and more people in it.”

The former spouses of this couple could not be reached for comments.

I feel Mark Driscoll's frustration.

After reading the Twilight series, my 13 year old daughter said, "Daddy, I don't think it's good to go out with a boy who wants to kill you."  I said, "That's right, honey, not even a little."

Pastor Mark Driscoll has apparently discovered "Kids Fantasy" by way of his 13 year old daughter.



Lydia McGrew makes the following point:

Driscoll's rightly contemptuous reaction to "they practice chastity" skewers what I might call the checklist method of Christian literary and movie review. "Is there premarital sex?" "Is there swearing?" and so forth. Shall we list it as a "pro" of the Twilight series if smoking is not presented positively? Talk about missing the forest for the trees! It is terrifying that Christians should be so clueless, so foolish, so tone-deaf that they can talk with a straight face about a girl's "practicing chastity" because she waits to have sexual intercourse with a vampire until after they are "married" (whatever it means, metaphysically, to "marry" a vampire). The monster instinct has been totally extinguished in such people, and they are literally incapable of seeing the big picture. She marries a monster. Moreover (I understand--I've not read the books and have no intention of doing so), later in the books she becomes a monster, losing her soul in the process. That's the story. That's the big picture. To echo Driscoll, there is nothing remotely good about this on any level. (I could add here a few remarks about the fact that such books are not going to encourage chastity in girls who read them.)

"Love is never wrong."

At least that's what I read on a bumper sticker next to the "Coexist" sticker.

Man arrested for having sex with a picnic table.  Apparently, it was near an elementary school.



End Picnictableamouraphobia.  Picnictableamours are just as entitled to a reduced tax bracket as so-called normal marriages.

Modern Life



Impressive and disturbing visual images.

Well, that was pretty foreseeable



It ought to be too obvious for words: never, ever have something permanently attached to your body that (a) you might get bored of, (b) makes a statement about some transient stage of your life or (c) seemed like a good idea at the time, but that time was when you were three sheets to the wind.

"Tattoo regret" may fuel next big industry:

After a decade, adult-film star Alexis Amore is looking to remove the Playboy bunny tattoo below her belly button. She also wants to get rid of a crown and the letter "a" on her wrists.

"I got them when I was really young," said the petite 30-year-old. "I'm a little bit older and a little bit wiser now. And it's not very classy to have tattoos on your wrists and stomach."

An adult film star is worried about "classy"?

Keefe declined to release the firm's revenue total but did say Tattoff is a multimillion-dollar business. He estimated that tattoo removal could become a $10-billion-a-year industry. And this is catching the eye of investors and firms that would like to help Dr. Tattoff expand.

Tattoos are big business, and it costs more to remove a tattoo than to get one.

Most tattoos run about $100, depending on the size of the piece, the colors used and the skill of the tattooer. It usually costs about $750 to $1,500 to remove one, Keefe said, because it requires five to 10 treatments at about $150 a pop.