Advice Columns

[newmanium]

Amy Alkon is really bugging me lately. She has a hatred and contempt for overweight women (not men) that borders on the pathological. She acts as if a few extra pounds makes a woman vile and disgusting, but in one of her recent columns, she defended a woman who lied about her age, calling it a 'harmless little white lie'. Gee, dishonesty is okay but flab is immoral.

In another, she described fat on a woman as the equivalent of a man being homeless in regards to dateability. Huh? A double chin is the same thing as a meth habit? Saddlebag thighs are as bad as untreated mental illness? Wearing a size 18 is the same as living on the streets?

[dwanollah]

You read her last one too, newmanium? Yeah, I wanted to scream. And she started throwing around "We blame FEMINISM for all this pro-fat bullshit!" bullshit....

Women really have no greater enemy than other women sometimes, huh?

[newmanium]

Yeah Dwan, I really hate her female misogyny. How many of these men whining about fat chicks have six pack abs and full head of hair? Alkon is too quick to believe everything the men say and discount the woman's side of the story.

I thought it was funny that she got dumped from a newspaper after insulting overweight women. She keeps whining about how unfair that was. She really comes across as a junior high bitch making fun of the less attractive girls.

I remember one column where a woman was worried about the behavior of a coworker which seemed to me like borderline stalking, but of course Amy was contemptuous of the woman's fears.

[thneed]

[blue]Dear Prudie[/blue],

I took too much Ambien and had sleep-sex with a woman I barely know. Should I tell my wife?

[Auroranorth]

Well, I know of a Pagan who says she's sleep-cast spells at times while on Ambien, so I suppose it's possible. I'd go get checked for STDs, myself.

[tszuj]

Law and Order: SVU did an episode on sexsomnia once.

[Deleted]

Please someone tell me I'm not the only one pissed off by Prudence's response:

Dear Prudence,
I am a senior in high school and stuck in the midst of prom season. Everywhere I turn, other girls are talking about dresses, and makeup, and dates. My problem is that, unlike most of the other girls, I have no interest in attending prom. It's not that I don't have a date, or a dress for that matter; I just don't get the whole "prom" thing. When other girls hear that I don't intend to attend, it stirs up a flurry of questioning and disbelief; they don't seem to understand why I wouldn't want to go. Do you have any advice for how to deal with these people? Or should I just bite the bullet and go to please everyone else?

—Not a Prom Queen

Dear Not a Prom Queen,
Don't go to please everyone else—go to please your future self. I felt the same way as you (I was really good at being alienated), so I didn't go to my high-school prom. It helped that no one asked me, but still, I shouldn't have let that stop me. I'm sure I would have had a good time. But even if I hadn't, every time I watched a prom scene in a movie or saw kids in stretch limos on their way to the prom, a part of me wouldn't say, "Why was I such a cluck not to go to my own prom? I don't even know what a prom is really like." You don't even sound as alienated as I was, just indifferent to the whole rigmarole. Good—this also means you're the kind of person who won't become hysterical when the cocktail napkins at your wedding reception are the wrong color. You have only one high-school prom. Don't miss it.

—Prudie

The idea that the prom is some all-important ritual that absolutely everyone has to go through for their lives to be complete is absolute bullshit. I didn't go to mine and nearly ten years later I still do not regret that decision nor have I ever wondered what I missed. I had no desire to go so I didn't, and I don't think I'm less of a person because I didn't. Prudence shouldn't be laying her own hang-ups on the letter writer.

[SweetOblivion]

I barely remember my prom. I didn't want to go either, but my dad made me go. Didn't mean shit to me.

Unbunch your pearls and your panties, Prudence.

[chonies]

When I read that response I thought Prudence was being tongue in cheek and was trying to call the girl out on the fact that the girl herself said she had no idea what the fuss was about. I read Prudence's answer as a "well, go and find out what the prom fuss was about." The letter writer seemed kind of huffy in a special-snowflake way, and a bit snotty about other people who do actually like going to the prom. In a way, it's a lot like the brides who have super-alternative weddings pooping on the brides who actually do want a traditional white wedding. Not going to the prom doesn't make anyone morally superior to the folks who do go to the prom, and I was getting a whiff of that from the letter.

I don't think Prudence was trying to say, "prom! squee!" but that the letter writer had two choices: go and find out, or tell everyone to eff off. I think she could have been more direct and included things like, "you can go in your mom's old Honda," or "why are you hanging around people who really don't know very well" or "you can watch prom-themed movies with your friends and then go in a campy way."

[SweetOblivion]

I think you're right, chonies. I probably shouldn't post to the interwebs until I've had my caffeine. ><