My bf, such as he is, is a HUGE Philip Roth and John Updike fan. HUGE. I told him that if Roth were less of a whiny entitled asshole, he would have gotten laid more, and we would be spared his on-page whinniness. Now I can send him this link! Entertainment will ensue. Many many thanks.

Dear aging white male academics; most young girls do not want your bods. It’s creepy. Stop already. Thanks.

Also: me so sorry me dumb for have addiction to legal widely-available substance me use since age eleven. Ronnie smart for point this out. Me never hear smoking bad for me before! Me never advised to quit in condescending tone by stranger! Me never try quit multiple times, me never defeated by fact me addiction have less successful quit rate than many illegal addictive substances! Ronnie FIRST PERSON for present this perspective! Ronnie FRIENNNNNNND.

Anyway, since we’re besties, I think it’s time that I tell you I’m getting pretty tired of writing this “Tiger Beatdown” thing. How about you come on over and do it for me? You know, since you could clearly do a better job than I. Heck, maybe you’d like my lungs, too? I’d gladly throw them in as part of the package.

Katy Rolphie writes only for the male gaze. Sure, she thinks she’s writing for women, but only to tell us what the men are thinking. And apparently, Roth and Updike are throwing an epic wobbly over how no-one’s paying attention to their man-porn rapey-type fantasies any more.

Why were they considered great writers? Oh, right. Because they were all angry (not so) young white men, the only Authentic[tm] voice of the age.

Rolphie is a male apologist and cheerleader. She writes so that the men who read her pieces are reassured that the womenfolk are only thinking about babies and men and sex with men at all times.

Personally, I was pulling for Oz (having been forced to read “Rhyming Life and Death” against my will).

@Taybeh Chaser

“other times I’m 95% sure I’m reading the slobberings of a lying hetero cis-dude who thinks he knows what women want based on what a couple of his exes liked or due to his own encyclopedic familiarity with internet porn”

Once while reading a short story published by Small Romance House Which Shall Go Unnamed, I had the lovely experience of running smack into, out of the blue, breathless descriptions of the female love interest’s shaved pubic area and her thrill for the cock (with bonus cat!fights over said cock and the reduction of women to their genitals in conversation).

Nothing against women who swing that way, but my encyclopedic experience with bad Internet porn says “all signs point to Dude,” in spite of the female penname.

One other thing Rolphie omits is any gay male writers, past or present. She mentions Michael Chabon’s “Mysteries of Pittsburgh” only in passing, and you’d never know from there that the primary sexual relationship in the book is between two men.

As my mom was certain I should do nothing but bake bread from yeast and knead it myself etc. ,etc., etc., etc., while always picking up to help the ‘men’ for no pay, though my brother and male cousins got paid for doing exactly what I did to ‘help out,’ and etc. etc. etc.

I just want to pull the byatch in and byatch slap her for her ignorance — and tell her like I’d like to tell all feminists of whatever age and gender that still almost all agri biz is performed by women and men still get all the profit.

Gads, the lengths byatches with silver spoons will go to show they are better than the rest of us, even to reactionary ….

Love, C.