Those idiots are too jeuvenile to regard as worthy of comment.

From what I can tell of your writing and the nature of your posts, you are both witty, clever, compassionate, strong and upstanding individuals whom clearly deserve every equally as fantastic person you encounter and that graces your lives.

I think you’re the shit, just based on that criteria alone. And so would anyone worthy of your interest.

Let’s not be sexist AND miss the point.

Aw, you’re no fun. Fair enough.

(Or should I say, w yr n fn. Fr ngh.)

You know, if I read that three times fast, I bet Cthulhu will appear.

Unlike, say, Jupiter.

There seems to be this idea–separate from misogyny, though there was obviously a lot of misogyny in this case–that if you’re not pretty, you’re not human. Anyone remember the Brian Pepper situation? I posted about that on the Snopes message board. Emailed the site administrator to explain, as a lay expert on Crouzon Syndrome, that Pepper had obviously suffered facial trauma–that his symptoms could not be explained by any craniofacial dysostosis with which I was familiar. Got zero response from the Snopes administrator and, as you can see, didn’t get a universally promising response in the thread, either.

Later discovered that someone had found his home phone number and called him to harass him, then taped it for distribution. Fun.

He may be a really nasty piece of work–I have no idea what “gross sexual imposition” means in Ohio–but the fact that any human being could be fair game, to this extent, bugged me. It also bugged me that other people reading these sites who might have suffered similar trauma might well be driven to suicide by the way Pepper was treated.

I want to clarify that I didn’t mean to dignify these jokers’ comments with an answer by saying I think Jill’s pretty. I do, but my real reason for saying that is that when I see people attacked for their looks, of either gender, I feel like that’s what they need to hear right then. Maybe that’s a bad strategy when I’m dealing with folks who are being attacked by misogynists, because I recognize that implies that it matters whether or not they’re seen as “pretty,” and of course it shouldn’t.

And I do know that, when I was once attacked for being Jewish, my answer to that was not “I’m not Jewish.” So I can totally relate where you folks are coming from on taking offense to the “pretty” thing.

I don’t know. It’s a complicated world with some very nasty people in it, and I don’t feel like it’s always possible to respond to their hostility in a dignified, enlightened way. Or if it is, I’m still struggling with that.

Of course, that’s easy for me to say. I’m a total babe.