First, Gawker pulled this quote from yesterday's Cary Tennis column. There are not words for how genius it is.
Second, in more advice-column letters reminiscent of TV shows, a woman writes to Dear Abby about how her BF is way jealous that she got a novel published and he didn't. It's just like that episode of Sex and the City that I unfortunately can't find on YouTube where Ron Livingston's Jack Berger gets all bent out of shape because Carrie's book is successful but he just lost his publishing contract. And then he dumped her via Post-It. Remember that? Yeah. TV is just like life!
That's right. Two from my home state of New Jersey, one from a pregnant woman who gets a little suspicious when her baby daddy ditches her at a club, one from a woman with an annoying laugh.
Gawker sums it up: "Abby provides the ladies with her trademark solid, no-nonsense advice, but nowhere does she tell them to just get the hell out of New Jersey, so in the end she fails them both."
And really, that's just good advice generally.
Gawker picks on Cary Tennis, who gives confusing and vulgar advice to a letter writer who wanted to know how to help her friend, who is indulging in some maybe dangerous behaviors with members of the US armed services.
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Then there was that letter to Abby a while back in which a man wrote in to ask what to do about something that happened while visiting his family: one of his brothers, masquerading as the letter writer, had sex with his wife, and the wife didn't know. Abby and Dan Savage both thought the letter was a fake, Savage and Jezebel had a feud, and now Jezebel gloats that the story seems to have been true or at least plausible, given that reports of a similar story have popped up in the news.
Okay, so. I fell off the planet. But I really want to get this show back on the road, so let's start again, shall we?
Oh, Cary Tennis. He gets a long, long letter from a woman who writes in about how dreadful her freshman year at an Ivy League college is, but I guess what gets to me is that her career goal is:
I chose the East, mainly because I was really impressed with the sheer opportunity that comes with going to a school like this, but also because I was (and still am, although not as much) interested in getting into the publishing world of New York, both as an editor to pay the bills, but then hopefully as a writer myself.
Okay, you know what? I'll put it out there. I hate this kind of Ivy League elitism. I got a job in "the publishing world of New York" right out of college with my Big State University degree. You don't have to go to Harvard to make it happen, and sure your school has a great alumni network, but employers don't care where your BA came from, just that you got it. My advice for this girl? Suck on it or go do what makes you happy. If life in the Ivy League sucks? Go somewhere else.
Cary's advice? Exploration and... exercise? I don't even really know. Not a word of it makes any sense.
Feministing hates on Cary Tennis so I don't have to. A woman writes in to complain about her boss, who is telling everyone she things the asker is a lesbian; whether or not the asker is justified in feeling offended becomes irrelevant, because, as Cary tells us, it's her fault for tricking people into thinking she's a lesbian.
Surely you have tired of people saying, with exasperating and simple-minded gall, that you are obviously a closeted lesbian. That is not what you mean to convey by your dress and your manner, is it? So what do you mean?
I imagine what you mean is fairly complex. After all, they don't call it a dress code for nothing. In your dress you apparently express a shifting code of private androgyny; you wear masks; you flirt with passing as this or that; you play at being seen a certain way, and yet, because you hold your true identity close to your vest as it were, you always prove the observer wrong. That is, you play the trickster; you express both allegiance and contempt.
Right. It couldn't just be that she doesn't like makeup or shaving. I sometimes go for weeks without shaving my legs. Guess I'm tricking people into thinking I'm a lesbian whenever I let that go.
I'll defer to Gawker on this one:
One week apart, Slate's Dear Prudence and Salon's Cary Tennis answer the same dumb letter, about how to deal with a religious child who thinks you're going to hell. Neither of their answers are illuminating or entertaining in the slightest.
I've got some advice letters of my own in the queue. Will try to get to those as soon as possible.
Two things, related to fear:
1. Pam at Pandagon discusses some Dear Abby letters about parents reconciling with their gay children. It starts with a woman who shunned her gay son, then when she found herself widowed and her other children were unwilling to take her in, her gay son and his partner welcomed her with open arms. So she learned a Valuable Lesson. The responses to Abby are pretty heart-warming, too.
2. On the other end of the spectrum, Dan Savage culls out some fake letters all of which have a common theme: fear. A surprising number of the fakes are derogatory towards women. Dan sums it up: "Fear, fear, fear—that's what the fakes are all about, SSLG. Fear of women, fear of sex, fear of homos."
Two old Cary Tennis columns, both with a common theme: "I am liberated and liberal, except that I hate ____." In one case, it's Republicans, in the other, it's women. And, as Cary gets more and more incomprehensible as time goes on, there is nary a coherent reply.
First: How can I love my Republican parents? The gist? "I'm an enlightened liberal. Republicans are responsible for all that is evil in the world. I don't talk to Republicans. My parents are Republican. They support me and were not abusive, but I don't like them." The thing that glares at me from the letter is that the writer doesn't actually talk to his parents about politics, so he may not know their stances on things, and has not tried to convey his own opinion or offer evidence as to why President Bush is maybe not the man to give your vote. It's just blanket, "Republicans are evil. My parents are Republican." transitive property.
Cary, essentially, suggests some role playing and an attitude adjustment. Which, yeah.
The next is from a woman who is uncomfortable because there will be a woman at her husband's friend's bachelor party. There will be strippers. She's uncomfortable with another woman watching her husband lust after naked women, although the writer herself trusts her husband completely. Her reason for not wanting the other woman, the groom's best friend, there?
Am I crazy to think she's going to be putting the wives and girlfriends of these guys down while she watches them watch strippers? Listen, if she were doing the stripping, I'd be fine with that too. But I think it is more of an "I'm cooler than all other women" type of position.
Um, what? I went to a bachelorette party last year with strippers. No one cut down any of the others' significant others. I seriously doubt discussion of anyone besides the stripper and maybe the bride will take place. So yes, lady, you are crazy. She's not cooler than you, she was just invited by the groom to take part in his pre-wedding festivities, and that is all.
Cary, unhelpfully, writes a long polemic about how bachelor parties are frivolous bullshit. But, yes, letter writer, you are reading way too much into the situation. It's actually pro-woman because it shows a respect for the woman invited that she's on equal standing with the groom's guy friends. Take your insecurities out of the equation.
