MightyPen

I wasn't asking about degrees or difference there. I asked if you'd be okay with her sleeping with others -- paid or not -- provided there was no "emotional involvement". My point is that is it's not usually the cheater's ideas about cheating that will determine the impact on the relationship; it's the other person, the one who was lied to, who will do that. No; it works for you, singular. We don't know if it works for you, plural. Your wife has not been consulted. No, it's your, singular, marriage. It's not your wife's. She's not aware of what her marriage is; she thinks it's some other marriage, because you haven't told her otherwise. It's possible that you're right, and she's happier not knowing. It's also possible that she'd rather know so that you can both get on with more honest lives with other people. Who knows? I will point out that it's my experience that people are first-rate at rationalizing things to justify behaviour they've already decided upon. Look, my only points are these: if you feel no guilt about sex outside your relationship because you don't feel attached, then that's fine. If you recognize that you're still engaging in infidelity, that's good. As long as your wife doesn't find out, things will be good. But you're putting your relationship at substantial risk, repeatedly, even if you don't think seeing escorts is a big deal. If your wife does find out, I doubt she'll be interested in whether there was emotional attachment or not, no matter how important a distinction that is for you. Beyond that, it's maybe worth examining what one means by "guilt", what triggers it, what doesn't, and why.

If you found out tonight that your wife had been regularly sleeping with other guys for several years, and that she had lied to you about it (at very least by not telling you)... would you be okay with it if she just shrugged and assured you that she wasn't emotionally involved with any of the men? It's not "emotional involvement" that makes infidelity toxic to a relationship. It's the lies; the betrayal of trust; the pain of learning that one's trusted partner could be having sex outside the relationship and keep it a secret. Seeing escorts is less risky than an affair, that's true. But it's delusional to think it's not infidelity. Take responsibility for your actions by recognizing what they are, and by not diminishing its gravity or the risk to your relationship that it really represents.

This will be a strange one: Godel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter. I read this in my early 20s at a delicate time in my life, when I was trying to figure out who I was and how my own mind worked. I remember being amazed by the way Hofstadter communicated his thoughts about ideas and expression, and how he made concepts twist and fold upon themselves to produce new and unexpected things. It was a completely new perspective for me, a window into a new way of thinking about things. As a side effect, it made me more open to things that were unfamiliar and different.

NICE! Thanks so much for posting this. Now (pilots aside) we can resolve world conflicts just like in !

Oh, I definitely did. Comments on related articles were coming so fast and furious you could barely read them. And I do mean furious! :)

It was a very good week in law for the United States, that's for sure. President Obama's eulogy for the Charleston shooting victims was again eloquent, moving, and... graceful. Sad that this duty was necessary, but uplifting to see it done so well. It's a good time to be alive.

Yeah, it's kind of hard to separate the Confederate flag from racism, since at its heart the Confederacy was first and foremost about racism, particularly slavery. There's an interesting overview of that history HERE. I understand that some people can honestly perceive that flag as a more general and positive symbol of pride for the American South, without having any racism in their minds. There's nothing wrong with THAT; there's plenty to be proud of from that region. But it misses the point that the very same flag means something else to others. Fact is, we now know of one murderous dude (let's not say his name) who most certainly perceived, and flew, that flag as an explicit symbol of white supremacy. And lots and lots of other people perceive it as that, and rally around it for that reason. It reminds me of that joke about Fox News: "No, no, totally not racist... but #1 with racists!" Hey, the swastika itself had been around for thousands of years with positive connotations before it was sadly appropriated for an mad, ugly, racist cause. Too bad that ruined it for everyone who liked the symbol for those other reasons... but it did.

The audience, and the context. Here it's not hard because we're talking about the workplace, and sexualized imagery just doesn't belong there. The shirt was no more appropriate than a manager's office wall being covered with images of seminaked women in posters and swimsuit calendars. There's no complete and itemized list of the rules to share here, though. Like all social things, it's a dance and the music is always changing. Knowing what's appropriate requires awareness of social expectations. It's the nature of social interaction that we are, at least to some degree, beholden to others. Why? I personally think it's bang-on. Is it possible that it seems lopsided to you because you just don't perceive workplace sexism as being a big deal? 'Cause others perceive it as a very. big. deal. No, there's no hypocrisy. Again, context; my previous post touches on this. Sexualized imagery in the workplace is bad. Sexualized imagery in other places is okay. Matt Taylor didn't screw up because he finds women sexy, or because he owns a shirt covered in nearly-naked cartoon women posing with guns. He screwed up because he wore that shirt to the office -- and on that day, an extremely public office when he clearly should have known better. I mean "impose" in the sense of "place upon, out of self-interest, without much regard for whether it's accurate regarding the subject." A particular woman in a particular context may be perfectly willing to engage in that fantasy, and that's when it's cool. Other times people just try hard to make the subject inhabit the fantasy, regardless. And so... No, because consensual roleplay is okay, and the transactions we're discussing are consensual. The fantasy being played out represents a pretty shallow and limited idea about who other, complex human beings really are... but it's a fun place to visit in small doses. No. Matt Taylor's intentions are irrelevant. "I'm sorry, it never occurred to me that you'd be offended by these pictures all over my shirt of Jews counting money." DUDE. You should have known. That Taylor didn't have the insight to recognize the inappropriate and sexist message his shirt was sending in that context, doesn't mean he's not responsible for the impacts of his actions on others. Hey, cool. Take from my typings whatever works for you. Reddit has exhausted my patience and my former, limited optimism regarding a lot of these discussions, though. So if I don't return to this subject it's not because I don't value back-and-forth... just that I've been here too many times before. :)

He's not part of the Avengers but he's part of the Marvel universe, so he fits "canonically" alongside those guys in New York. I agree, Tobey Maguire is kind of imprinted as "my" Spider-man. Saw no need for the recent Andrew Garfield reboot (was 1.0 really that long ago? Really??). Nevertheless, yeah, the new movie will be 3.0. I do NOT understand. That said, it will be interesting to see him stick his head into the Marvel Universe films, just to see Spidey in a new context.

No. My comparison is apt in that it parallels the nature of the offense in the eyes of others. Your qualification about how pervasive the images are addresses "why did Matt do something so wrong and stupid?", but it doesn't at all diminish the fact that it was exactly that wrong and stupid in the first place. I do agree that the casual reduction of women to an exclusively sexual role is so pervasive in the culture that people sometimes don't recognize it for the belittling insult that it can be. There's nothing innately wrong with sexual imagery of women, or of men. Even the imposition of fantasy sexual roles upon members of the opposite sex can be healthy in the right context -- hey, it's the stock in trade of we who are posting here, either as sellers or buyers. It's when women are reduced exclusively to a sexual fantasy role, especially in a place where they've earned acknowledgement as something else, that there's a deep cultural issue. This type of reduction happens to women far, far, far more than it does to men. And it's what happens when you wear pictures trumpeting women as semi-naked objects who embody male sexual fantasies, to any professional workplace whose business isn't porn. I have trouble deciphering your last couple of sentences. It's possible you're suggesting that Taylor only apologized because the world got angry about something it shouldn't have. I give Taylor more credit than that, and think it's much more likely that he realized what he'd done was wrong, rude to his colleagues, and deeply offensive to all the women in that setting who had worked so hard to swim against the cultural current and be something else. And he apologized for THAT.

Spiderman is awesome! I can't believe they're planning yet another reboot. And Spiderman is supposed to appear in Captain America: Civil War, finally appearing alongside his Marvel Universe companions.

That's an odd thing to say, as you don't have any idea what I might or might not know about Rosetta and the people who work on that project. That's true. Hold your horses. Citation, please. Where do you get your information that NOBODY on the team was offended by the shirt? That's true. But that doesn't mean the shirt itself wasn't a problem. They were annoyed because journalists proceeded to show interest in the women on the team only in their capacity as "a woman", and that eclipsed all interest in their actual work as scientists and engineers on the project. And condemnation too. There were immediate comments from women pointing out that the casual and witless sexism Matt Taylor exhibited was EXACTLY the kind of thing that had made their own careers in science and engineering more difficult. Matt Taylor himself disagrees with you. That's why he apologized. For a parallel that you might find more perceptible: it's much like Taylor had decided to wear a shirt covered in garish, cartoony caricatures of Jewish stereotypes counting piles of money, and then expressed surprise at all the outrage. If you wear that to the office, and especially when you represent your project in a very public capacity, don't be surprised when someone stops and instead of asking about the project says, "Dude. What the FUCK is up with that shirt?"

Well that removes all doubt. Troll, 1/10.

Dude was an idiot and deserved the massive rebuke he rightly received, since his stupid shirt reduced and trivialized women, and was a rebuke to every woman who worked on Rosetta. He at least earned a few points back for recognizing his error and apologizing in a way that showed he really understood the gravity of the mistake. I'd be equally contemptuous of any woman who wore a shirt covered in pictures of penises. Except... you'd never see that.

Yup. Put simply, men are the present. Women and the children they've traditionally cared for are the future. A species whose behaviour favours the future, survive. Those whose behaviour favoured the present, are all extinct.

Thing is, right out of the gate you're phrasing the question to demonize views that differ from yours. Read back over your posts. As you phrase it, the only reason people might want to put limits on speech is because they're unenlightened, shrink from debate, and uncharitably out to crucify people. I think your portrayal is itself uncharitable and belittles from the outset anyone who would disagree with you. Pot, kettle. Personally I think that it's reasonable to place some limits on speech in some environments (the workplace and schools, for example) to preserve a civil environment where people are trying to get things done, and counter discrimination against traditionally powerless groups. It's not just fire-in-a-crowded-theatre stuff, but casual expressions designed to demean groups you don't like. Want to do that in your own home? Sure, go ahead. Want to be an obnoxious bully to your colleagues at work about their race, gender, or sexual orientation? Sorry, dude -- you lose. BUT... while I cautiously support hate-speech and hate-crime laws, there should always be specific fora in which anything can be discussed. That way, people looking to engage in fiery debates on hot-button topics have a place to do that without censorship, and the rest of the world doesn't have to put up with it in their daily lives unless they want to hang out in those places.

I'll throw my own two cents in here, or at least one of them -- since I can just borrow one of them Phaedrus, who expressed a lot about my own state of mind. CERB has served for a long time as a sounding board for my own thoughts about sex and human relations, and other things. And I read attentively and learned a LOT from the other clients and the women who posted their own fascinating perspectives. I found a few months ago that I had said a lot of what I had to say, at least for now. And as Phaedrus mentioned, even the discussions by others seemed to cycle around to the same topics. I've seen that wheel turn a few times now, and haven't been much inspired to post and (probably) repeat myself. Finally, I have some other (good) preoccupations in my life that are consuming some of the energy I expended here. C'est la vie. Some of it has been the new law and in particular the constraints it put on language here. A core part of the appeal here was to "speak" openly about topics seldom discussed elsewhere, at least not in the same way. With the necessary self-censorship and obliqueness, that charm evaporated. The double-think intruded badly into my own ability to generate and express my own thoughts. A few familiar faces have departed, and that puts a dent in things too. But that kind of churn and change is natural, not just here but in life generally. You miss people, but you adapt and meet new ones. So less of a factor than the others. As this post shows though, I'm still lurking. I expect my own wheel will turn too, and I'm hopeful there will come a time when I'm once again motivated to jump in with both feet. I've got only good wishes for the community in the meantime.

Yup. I spent some time there for a while, and my conclusion about that community is best articulated by . (Or by the "same actor".)

I'm having trouble seeing why the word "tattooed" is in that one sentence at all. Purely about her appearance and has nothing to do with the facts of the case. Like if they'd just thrown in "buxom" or "blonde" -- wtf?

Although there are many good comments in the thread, I think this one is the most important. I can't really tell you how "a book about my life as an escort" will sell, because that doesn't narrow down what the book really is enough to define the interested market. A book much like Belle du Jour is sexy, exciting, sex-celebratory, deliciously frank and scandalous, and has young, brilliant, gorgeous, and well-off people being young, gorgeous and well-off while having sex. Who doesn't read that? This is why Belle du Jour was such a best seller. I don't know what approach your book takes, so I'll just invent a hypothetical book that may or may not resemble the one you are writing. It's a thinly fictionalized account of a mature escort finding her way through the world of sex work. a) it will draw as directly as possible from her own real experience, which would be a primary strength for the book. It's a personal story. b) It will comment on her own self-assessment as she incorporates sex work into her own life: the tension between that and who she was previously; and the tension between that and who she is during the rest of the time when she's not doing her new job (comparing and contrasting with the other roles and relationships in her life). This is the primary, personal story in the book. c) It will comment on the reality of sex work versus i) the public perception of sex workers and what they do, and ii) her own perception of those things before she started doing it. This includes both "wow, most of these clients aren't bad guys after all!", some "wow, a lot of men really are the immature jerks you'd expect." It has some "wow, this is way less glamorous than it sounded in Belle du Jour," and quite a bit of "omigod this is really a lot of hard work and it takes an incredible amount of time just to manage, advertise, prepare, and execute." Because she's challenging social conventions, this is the social and political commentary in the book. d) It will possibly have some sexytimes stories. "He slid his fingers gently along the inside of my thigh..." kind of stuff. This stuff is very, very, very hard to get right and easy to get wrong. But if she does get it right, this is the sexy story in the book. e) It will examine the clients she has seen, what they have in common and what makes them unique, the relationships she has struck up with them, how they differ from popular expectations of who sees escorts. It will also confront the issue of married men seeing escorts, probably concluding that this has its regrettable side but in the end is more constructive and healing than destructive, and better than many of the alternatives. In the course of that it will examine the role of sex in our modern lives and relationships, how sex and intimacy can be neglected, and the sex worker's role in helping with that. This is once again social commentary. For such a book: a) is a strength that gives fundamental value to the book, but doesn't predict any particular market. b) skews heavily toward a female market of 25-50, who are interested in identity, the larger role of sex in a woman's life beyond sexyfuntimes, and contemplating their own futures or reflecting on the lives they have lived so far and the personal conventions they're questioning. c) will interest a few men interested in social issues, but mostly women in that same 25-50 age group, informed about sex and ready to explore and challenge conventional views about it. d) well, women 25+ and men 40+; the men segment depends on how it's written but mostly the younger men aren't inclined to read about mature people's sex. e) strong with men who will identify with the clients (age 40+?); very weak with men who don't want to identify with those clients; moderate with women 25+; strong with women 40+ who are, or were, married to men just like those clients. So this book scores best with women 25-50, and strongest with those 40+; and moderately with men 40+. The sex itself isn't the selling point. The personal story is the selling point, and interest in this story is supported by the social commentary and the sexy story. Interest in the political commentary will be incidental. A small segment of people will be interested in this aspect, but mostly it's something that's just delivered alongside the rest, like vitamins in a loaf of bread.

I kinda like that the thread title implies that there are "warranted dick pics". :)

A woman's back? Huh! I didn't know she'd gone!

Helen Mirren (69)! Smart, sexy, outspoken. What I'd give just for dinner with her!

Haha! Their replacement is dubbed "Project Spartan." I hope they keep the name, and use Gerard Butler as as spokesman.

What you're describing are behaviours, and behaviours are shaped as much by culture as biology. Both genders are equally competitive; but the way that competitiveness gets expressed is channeled by the culture in which it takes place. Men are culturally encouraged to act out overtly and physically, and so guess what... they tend to do just that. Women have been encouraged to conform to a non-threatening, male-devised ideal (passive, gentle, etc.) and guess what... for a long time, that's the direction they tended toward, at least publicly. Happily, these are no longer those times. Women have always been equally capable of competition, aggression, and violence in those forms that the culture permitted. See: women competing for/fighting over men, and the vaunted danger of "mothers defending their children". These are both roles that men are comfortable with women inhabiting, so the culture "allows" them. But what they reveal is that women possess these attributes just as much as men, when given the opportunity to express them. Today, we see the dramatic rise of women gamers, since they can move into that sphere on equal footing with men because their gender isn't apparent online. They frequently dominate the areas they play in. Women also serve in the armed forces of several nations as extremely able troops, pilots, and commanders. The inclinations and behaviours of the human genders are very nearly interchangeable; and there is much, much more variance among the set of all men, than there is between men and women in general. Be wary when citing evolution as direct explanation for complex human behaviour, or as the source of a box in which to confine it. The evidence is all over the map, and we tend to see in it whatever we're looking for. That particular study takes some attributes of the face and extrapolates wildly on why they might take their shape. They haven't proven causation, they're just putting forward one possible interpretation. It's just as likely that faces have been shaped by climate and diet. But if you prefer, we can certainly claim that all through primates' evolutionary history, while both genders have been expressing their equal competitiveness and propensity for violence, women used more subtle and varied methods to achieve their goals. But men a) tended to resort in dim-witted frustration to just punching each other in the face, and b) were forever too slow and clumsy to move their faces out of the way. I imagine the women found it amusing to watch.