Irritable1

Well, I didn't doubt the money part of it, but the language he uses, which I'll accept as normal for his class, since you tell me so. I still find it unattractive though, and think it may be working against him with the readers.

Seriously, even ones that young? Wow

We hates him, my precioussss! (Alex, I mean) Edit: I mean, really.... if your precious princess had a precious ex, wouldn't you double-check before defiling said precious ex in the back of a limo? And with that, I'm going to bed.... Thanks for a fun discussion, all!

Seems a bit gauche for Alex to just have assumed. Makes me think of that whole droit du seigneur thing. Edit: though I suppose in Matt's case it's a fair assumption? I can't understand him not at least checking with Wade first though.

Wait. Is it really necessary for his lordship to boink Matt just so he gets to make a statement about his own lordly role in the relationship? Seems like overkill. Also, makes me hate him more, but then everything does, so

Wouldn't he HAVE to say something like that, though, just to be polite? You can't very well tell someone you're propositioning them because they're convenient.

Oh sure, but I hated him before any of that happened. I thought most readers did.

Just a quick comment, Cole, that one of the reasons I really appreciate your work is that your characters often lose their dignity: behave in inappropriate ways, make dumb mistakes, treat other people badly--and then they find ways to regain their self-respect. I like the realism and the compassion with which you treat them.

Except he shouldn't be riding in his condition But really, I haven't been reading CAP long enough to be fond of anyone but Robbie, and yet I totally hate Alex. It's bizarre.

Not arguing that it's a rational fear. It'd be one of those fictional archetype thingies. The mustache-twirling aristocratic cad.

I believed it was the former but now that we've gotten into masculine and feminine attributes I don't know anymore. As a feminist, I'm deeply uncomfortable with these sweeping statements. [redacted for huffiness].

I'm wondering, Mark, if Alex's problem is partly in the way he talks. He's extremely formal at times, almost like something out of historical fiction. Even the royal princes don't talk like that in their interviews. So lord-loving readers may feel like he's a modern guy but kind of pompous and hence phony. And non-lord-loving readers may be triggered into a subliminal fear that he's NOT a modern guy and will get Matt in the family way and then abandon him in the workhouse. Edit: I'm an unattached reader, but his scenes set my teeth on edge, and I can't pin it down as due to anything else.

Sorry about this. I hope that you can find a way to work around it. Can you live in DE and work in other state park systems?

I love Uncle Stavros I so hope he's not been the one ordering the hits!

If feminine effort is synonymous with losing games, it's not surprising there's still issues with implementation of Title IX

Free associating a bit... One of the vile ads in favor of Prop 8 that I saw showed a (fictional) mother horrified because her young daughter had come home from school, to announce that she and her best friend were going to be princesses and get married and live together forever. It was absurd because kids routinely ask to marry whoever their favorite person of the week is. I've had to turn down marriage proposals from both my own offspring. Repeatedly. Most parents do. And it really says something about the culture of homophobia, that something so normal and harmless can be turned into a symptom of attack by the "alternative lifestyle" or whatever. I mean, a lot of positive, willful effort had to go into making something so stupid and pointless. It's partly why I don't have a lot of patience for trying to talk this stuff through. I'm really not sure that kind of propaganda is about ignorance as much as malice.

OMG OMG EW EW EW EW

Hm. International Baccalaureate? I believe that's an external exam, right? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Baccalaureate

Graeme, what do you consider a behavior that could be corrected? It seems to me that most people of goodwill just live their lives without being a nuisance to their neighbors, gay or straight. If they've already advanced to the point of interfering with gay families or trying to withhold hospital visits, that's not someone whose motivations I'm keen to examine. Of course if we're talking about voting that's a whole different thing

I agree that this is all so much hair-splitting when you're on the receiving end of exclusion, harassment or worse. I think the how you feel vs how you act arguments from the anti-gay side are unspeakably cruel for a lot of reasons, but this is one way to turn them around: I don't care what your motivations are for feeling like being a jerk, as long as you can behave normally around other people. Edit: I'm really struggling with my response here because I heard something that astonished me recently about some "kids in the playground" I thought I'd understood years ago. But it's not my story to tell. I agree, again, that focusing on male effeminacy or other non-gender-norm behavior can be and usually is a problem, but it's not always about an intent to bully.

I think there is a difference between homophobia and hostility to people who do not meet stereotypical gender norms. Edit: though I'm not sure whether I believe that there's a moral difference. But I agree that kids are more likely to knee-jerk into the latter, and there's a chance to help them out of it..

I read it as intended to convey "anti-effeminate."

I don't feel that there's a way to be tactful with someone who wants a say in your sex life, or the right to judge your sex life when it has nothing whatsoever to do with them. I truly think it's just a way for the unintelligent to try and assert power.

They don't usually look so adorably dismayed, but I would still spare them were they not so unspeakably delicious. LOL. Come out here and I'll show you a whole new way to appreciate them! Hey, the Glint brought me a live mussel attached to a rock, on the beach last week! She cooed over how great it was... and then asked permission to eat it. My vegetarian friend said, "Okayyyy, that's a true carnivore's thought process right there...." [for the record, I said to throw it back because it was under regulation size] Do people fry mussels? Oh, and I have to defend Manhattan clam chowder. I have a theory it's descended from cioppino and it has to be judged by a different standard...

Ok, this: made me giggle. Poor startled Pete.