AR
 

I cannot believe how stupid, stupid, stupid they were. First off, they were on the 2nd bus, so they knew they were unlikely to get eliminated. They are not long for the game.

This is definitely the show I would do. It looks like so much fun.

Her Husband's Asian Obsession
 

This is how she put it:

So her relationship with a "good friend" (her words) "fizzled" after she found out her husband had made a pass while drunk, but (1) her good friend didn't lead him on; (2) her good friend rejected his advances; and (3) her good friend didn't rat him out and instead had the discretion to regard it as a regrettable, isolated mistake on his part. She responds to his admission that this happened by dropping the good friend.

Her "blanket fear of his being in contact with Asians" can't possibly be motivated by the misbehavior or distrust of said Asians. It must be motivated by the fact that in her little stories, the only people who've conducted themselves honorably are Asian. She must be confused by their strange and unpredictable behavior. True, she'd be doing Asians a favor by avoiding all contact with them. I wish she would be less discriminatory and instead avoid contact with polite society in general.

Her Husband's Asian Obsession
 

Yes. It's usually easy to continue to be friends with someone your husband has hit on, even if it's "not their fault."

If her story is true, her husband has a fetish for asian women. Why is it surprising that she would want to keep him, and as a result, herself away from asians? If her husband liked 12-year old girls, would you suggest that she continue to invite 12-year-old girls to their house because to do otherwise would be discriminatory? From what she says, it's a blanket fetish. Maybe that's not the case, and it's really just two isolated incidents. But lets take the hypothetical as she presents it, rather than assuming she's dreamed up this fetish for him. (And, if she has, based on two incidents, there's no question there's a racial bias at play)

Her Husband's Asian Obsession
 

My point was that she assumed his only contact with female asians as he "moved up the corporate ladder" would be if they were his secretary. Surely there is a possibility he could be working alongside or under one at some point (no pun intended)?

And why should they be the object of her fear? He's her problem. Her blanket fear is misplaced.

TM

Her Husband's Asian Obsession
 

Ah. I like the way you do that. But let's go to the other end of the silly analogy front. What if her husband liked women in general and whenever he was around them, he lost track of his wife's existence? Should she be trying to keep him away from all women or addressing the problems they have with their marriage?

Keeping him away from asians doesn't fix the problem and frankly, it's a stupid idea because it's not possible. Admitting that you have a prejudice with regard to asians because your husband lusts after them is similarly stupid.

TM

Her Husband's Asian Obsession
 

1) I was assuming she knew that the head of accounts receivable at Mid-State Office Supply has a secretary who happens to be asian, hence the word "inherit". You're right--if there's no basis to expect him to encounter an asian woman in his work, except as a secretary, then there's a problem. But based on how she wrote that letter, I think that inference is unwarranted.

2) I think she said her fear is having asian women around her husband, not around her: To wit: "My stomach is in knots every time we are in the presence of an attractive Asian woman. "

Her Husband's Asian Obsession
 

I fully agree that her problem is her husband, not asian women. But, I don't see the racism in worrying about his being around asian women until they resolve the problem or she files for divorce from his sorry ass. It's an intermediate solution narrowly tailored to remedy past problems.

Her Husband's Asian Obsession
 

First, an attraction to Asian women is not a fetish.

Second, do you actually know any married couples with recurring infidelity problems? 'Cause usually it results from the man's racially undifferentiated attraction to women. And there's a word for a wife who tries to keep her husband from interacting with any women because the husband has an infidelity problem. The word is "divorcée." The fact that she hasn't thought to herself, "I should keep him away from all women" and has only thought "Aha! Asian women!" makes this both a doomed enterprise and essentially a racist one. She wouldn't be reacting this way if she didn't think that Asian women will react differently to her husband's approach than women generally.

If you're at a party and see a married man chatting up a chick with big tits, and then you see the wife swing by and grab him by the elbow and steer him over to a group of guys, you don't typically think that the woman is misogynistic. But it is based on the woman's implicit judgment that the interaction will result in the Other Woman agreeing to something. Married women don't stay up at night worrying that their husbands will ask and get shot down. They worry that there are women in the world who will say yes. I think this woman's obsession is based as much on her view of Asian women as exotic, inscrutable and wanton as they are in her husband's fantasies.

Her Husband's Asian Obsession
 

If she has a specific secretary in mind (which is possible), then I agree with everything you've said. No harm, no foul. But clearly, her husband is gay.

TM

New Sex Toys!
 

Y'all need a Trigasm Vibrator

Even if toy's were otherwise acceptable, I don't think vanilla fan would be getting one; it's designed to give you "a style of orgasm that comes from simultaneous stimulation of a woman's clitoris, G-spot and anus."

Employment Law Question
 

Okay, so my brother (a non-lawyer in his mid-30s) recently interviewed for a job. Word gets back to him that one of his references was asked how my brother would handle having a woman boss. Do all guys who might have woman bosses get this question, or did it only come up because my brother's Mormon? It just struck me as a bit odd.

tm

AR
 

I backed up the Tivo to confirm that yes indeed, he did yell "Come on Flo." Priceless. They edit all that shit out of Survivor (talk about previous versions), which I think is a mistake.

I really like the girl from South Dakota with the potty mouth. I think the kid who thinks he's got the AR game in a choke-hold is going to get his ass handed to him at some point. I'm glad that all 3 top teams got the trip to Hawaii; I'd have felt bad for the couples if the asshat kid who they waited up for had dashed ahead to win the "stage-win" prize.

As far as the fatties go, they were obviously going to be the first ones gone.

Shame on the two So. Cal. teams for not smoking everyone else in getting from Dodger Stadium to LAX. Gotta use your home turf advantage, and they totally didn't. SHAMEFUL. And can you believe the fugly "models," lollygagging around? Free coffee? Thanks very much. You're so sweet.

All in all, it looks like it's going to be another great season. This episode was pretty humdrum, however. No breakdowns or crackups yet.

Her Husband's Asian Obsession
 

Atticus, this is bullshit. At least some women worry that their husbands will ask. Other women's saying yes raises a new host of worries (disease, pregnancy, hubby thinking with his little head and dissipating the marital assets, etc.) but for rational women who are honest with themselves, at least part of the worry arises from the propensity of hubby to ask, not of the other women to acquiesce.

If I see a wife lead her lech of a husband away from an attractive woman at a party, I would assume that she's making a not-so-implicit judgment about her husband -- and it goes something like this: "If I don't stop him, he'll either embarrass himself, or embarrass me." Edited to say, if the woman at the party is a misogynist, is your point also that every woman who worries about a cheating man is a misogynist?

And FWIW, I think you're reading racism into the letter where it might not be warranted. I interpreted the letter writer's feelings about Asian women to be reflections of her worst fears about her husband, fears which she has obviously been loath to articulate and admit to. The fact that they encounter a lot of Asian women in her city and his workplace is not relevant to his propensity to cheat, but does serve as a constant visual reminder to her of his propensity to cheat. If he liked busty blondes and they lived in So. California, she'd have the same problem; and I don't think it would be because she thought busty blondes were dumb homewrecking whores. The only difference would be that busty blondeness is not an immutable characteristic, but it's got a lot of the same misogynistic possibilities.

Otherwise, your point about infidelity is well-taken. Of course the problem is with all women/any woman, but she is projecting her fear onto Asian women because her husband has demonstrated a strong preference for Asian women.

The truth, of course, is that her husband probably will cheat, and it will likely be with a woman who is not Asian, and who resembles, but is less attractive than, his wife.

Employment Law Question
 

Mr. Lex has a female boss and occasionally people will ask me if he likes having a female boss. I tell them I don't know whether he likes having a female boss, but I know he likes and respects his boss - like people assume that men can't handle being told what to do by women - even if the woman in question is extremely competant, experienced, and a good manager. I'm not really sure if it is more insulting to the man or the woman, but it definitely doesn't compliment either.

-TL

The Naked Channel... Playboy, etc
 

SD is my sock puppet. I've thought that the same thing would work. Here's why it would stand out. If the Naked Channel existed, then men would have, in the back of their head, one nagging question when they watched TV, "Is this better than seeing a naked woman?" And 9 times out of 10, the answer is No. Plus, this channel would finally provide a reason to have picture-in-picture display.

Plus, I think you could get sponsors. Run them on a crawl like on CNN or Fox News. "You're watching the Naked Channel. Redhead Kimberly is brought to you by Bailey's Irish Cream." You'd have to have the channel as part of the Digital lineup because of the nudity, but other Digital channels, (BBC, etc) have commercials. Are you telling me that Budweiser and Coors wouldn't want to present Jenny, the shapely brunette, or Suzi, the buxom blonde, to America?

Two questions remain: (1) should the women be naked the entire time or should they strip, and (2) how much money does it take to start a cable channel?

Playboy has, untl recently, been bleeding cash. Part of this is because the magazine has to fight a two-front war. On the one hand, magazines like Maxim and FHM get stocked on more newsstands and have a nubile female celebrity on ever cover. On the other hand, magazines like Penthouse and Hustler have hardcore sex on their pages.

Leaving aside the pictorials, the editorial content in the magazine isn't what it used to be. Playboy used to have great articles (no, really) and would have interesing interviews. The editorial content in magazines has been on the decline for decades. Esquire recently cancelled a fiction contest because the submissions they received lacked quality. The magazines that succeed deliver short pieces, charts, graphs, lists, and other fills in lieu of articles. See Maxim, Entertainment Weekly, Rolling Stone under new EIC.

The problem is Hugh Hefner. Hugh had a specific vision for his magazine, but that vision no longer holds for his target audience. men 18-30 don't aspire to have a bachelor pad with jazz on the stereo where they can serve cognac to a stewardess while discussing Norman Mailler. Those guys listen to Limp Bizkit and want to find a girl with implants who's into threesomes.

Christie Hefner has solved some of the problems by having Playboy buy hardcore cable channels like the HOT network, but Hugh's lifestyle is a drain on the finances of the company and while lots of guys would want seven girlfriends, no one wants to be 70.

If I was in charge of Playboy, I'd hire someone from Maxim to make Playboy's articles shorter and more relevant to the demographic or hire someone from Nerve to make the magazine edgier.

Edited to add the bit about picture-in-picture