He could have left it at this. But no. He continues for several more increasingly cringe-inducing paragraphs about the physical and emotional sexual and reproductive lives of women — all the while using that authoritative generalizing voice of a philosopher-manque/insufferable prat.

The essay is just embarrassing. And so very very deserving of this response.

Thank you.

Mark may be a little uptown about how he puts things, but his main point seems easy enough to grasp: Even with abortions on every street corner and gays raising the “slut” bar into the stratosphere, bitches STILL don’t be giving up the pussy. Take away those two hardy go-to’s and man, we are NEVER gonna stop wasting whole afternoons on porn.

I hear him. Still, in making his not un-grandpa-ish point he does fall prey to a few similarly musty traps.

For instance, he mistakes the passion with which gays fight for the RIGHT to marry with their passion for actually GETTING married. For many gay men – who are absolutely as promiscuous as Mark seethes – the fight is for equal treatment under the law; having won it they will go right back to humping each other like gay rabbits. Far more lesbians will take actual advantage of the law, as it will allow them to formalize an arrangement they have favored since the dawn of lesbianism. (By the way, one could look at the preponderance of lesbian monogamy and the virtual nonexistence of a viable porn market heterosexual women and come to some reasonable questions about whether the sexed-up utopian society Mark pines for would be utopian for all, or just all straight men. But that kind of thinking isn’t going to get anyone laid!)

Another thing: This goddamned 500-channel universe fetishizing that has been around since McLuhan. Why is it anyone’s fault that when we finally got all those channels, it turned out there just wasn’t that much good TV to make? Have you tried to watch great-in-theory “Book TV” on CSPAN? All the way through, I mean, not just til you’ve clawed your first eye out. You want 499 more channels of that? Be my guest. What people were really longing for when they were imagining a 500-channel universe was the internet, and it’s hard to argue that opportunity has been squandered because look at us all on here vibrantly responding to what in the bad old days would have been a one-way gasbaggy hector.

Still, I am sorry the author is not getting enough ass. Then again, I’m gay, so… I am!

http://www.amazon.com/Kidults-Mandy-Patinkin/dp/B000059QTR

Is it a requirement that all N+1ers be identified by their Harvard connection? (The lovers, the dreamers, and…)

These posts that come out everytime N+1 breaks wind make me wonder what Choire's up to. The Devil's advocate or the Devil's flack — which is he playing?

"Jesus, are you offering to show folks your ETCHINGS?"