Comments

1

The more I think about the letter from the woman who was accusing the FWB as being a pedophile, the more ridiculous that letter seems to me. It's not like the dude is exclusively dating 18 year olds. After all, he was fuck buddies with the LW who wasn't 18. Ok, the FetLife post about the 18-year-old having great tits is a bit obnoxious, but as some FetLife regulars posted in that thread, such phrasing isnt't totally uncommon when people are looking for a third.

I wouldn't be interested in dating an 18-year-old, but like Sportlandia wrote in one of the first posts to that thread, it seems as if many of the regular respondents, and the LW, were treating the 18-year-old as if she has no agency. She's an adult and can make adult choices.

2

How could we be treating the 18yr old girl as if she had no agency, surfrat, re the paedophile letter, if none of us had said anything, because Sportlandia was one of the first commenters?
He was repeating one of his mantras.
The way the professor talked about this young woman may be regular type speak on fetlife. Fetlife is filled with douchebags, so the bar is set very low.
Yes Dan, the commonwealth countries with PM’s vote for the party with a leader, then once the election is over, their party can change leaders. This has happened a bit in Australia over the last decade. How does the French vote in their President. Their model is more democratic if I remember from all the talk in these threads right after the last presidential election. Great to read some US states are trying to shift things a bit. Bout time.

3

PPUPs reply provides some additional insight that her initial letter left out, including the fact that Mr. PPUP was dealing with guilt and shame concerning his sexual needs. No wonder it took him a while to express his interests in non-monogamy and why PPUP's reaction shut down the conversation thereafter. Hopefully, their counseling session will help them both communicate about their concerns and interests. It sounds like Mr. PPUP does need to reassure PPUP about the status of their relationship in a poly dynamic. If Mr. PPUP wants two co-equal partners that sounds like it may not work for PPUP, but she may be fine if their relationship maintains the primary status.

*

No oral sex, no kissing? Has this woman found partners who share these limitations? I really cannot imagine not kissing my partners, and no oral sex takes away a really enjoyable part of foreplay.

*

Sorry, Kinky College Prof (KCP) is only correct that having sex with students at your institution is wrong. However, his point two is inane. It assumes the fact that it is trying to prove, that something is inherently wrong in such relationships. It also assumes that people in kink spaces are going to look askance at such relationship. In the kink scenes I have experienced, no one would have given such relationships another thought. If KCP is participating in the kink scene in his college town, other may be making the assumption that this is a student-teacher relationship, and may be responding to that belief. It is also rather bizarre that KCP thinks no one should have a problem with typical D/s interactions: flogging someone to tears, whipping them bloody, or caning them so that they get welts, but thinks an age gap per se should cost someone their reputation.

His third point is even more inane. The only way to avoid having anyone regretting their relationship with you is to no have any relationships. Someone may always regret their relationship with you, you cannot predict that reason before a relationship starts, and an age gap is no likelier the cause than a myriad of other factors.

4

Speaking of women’s agency, Dan.
Er no, you can’t hook up the guy who wants a blow job with mr random. She said No.
It’s their marriage, with two children, he’s got to negotiate with his wife. Not sure why he even wrote to you. She said No. not happy with her answer, get a divorce.

5

Really SA? An age gap of twenty seven years, fine while this guy is forty five. He can still do the moves. He keeps himself fit, sure he can maintain his virility much longer. And virility isn’t just getting his cock hard. We all know there’s a pill for that.
However he fares physically, when the woman is forty he’ll be sixty seven. The same age I am now. A mother and a grandmother.
So No to you too, age gaps are very important aspects of relationships. Just not for older men who want to land a much younger woman with a nurse build in, for later on.

6

PPUP sounds exhausting.

7

I've known a couple of situations where teachers married students that they met while the students were in high school.

The one I know best, well, their daughter is getting married next month, she's been my daughter's best friend since kindergarten. I found out how they met after I'd known them for a dozen years or so, and never would have guessed - nothing creepy or exploitative in that marriage that an outsider could spot, that's for sure.

Another was while I was in high school myself - our biology teacher had married a student a week after she graduated, a few years earlier. I never met her, but I knew people who knew her, and while it certainly seemed very creepy to us fifteen year olds, word was that they were happy. I might add that this school had quite a culture of in appropriate relationships, and twenty years later another teacher was finally caught and charged for doing what he had been very obviously doing even back when I was a student there. He'd been ploughing his way through the cute girls like a stallion for years.

When I was in my teens, I had sex with men of all types and ages - I was curious, and not as interested in having a "relationship" as I was in seeing what was out there and what all this was about. Interested in the different types of power that money, age, attractiveness, force of personality gave people. Certainly some of what I did was stupid, and I hurt some people and some people hurt me, but even more than forty years later, and after having put quite a bit of thought into it, I really can't regret it much or see myself as a victim of all those older men who got to have sex with my sixteen and seventeen year old self. I got something out of it, too.

9

@2 it's not a mantra, it's just routine. We have this idea that men are responsible (as in, they deserve the blame or credit) actors and women are passive receivers. It's non stop! I know you see the pattern.

10

@agony Did you grow up near Seattle (naming the community would be the same as publishing the teacher's name), or is this a common thing for biology teachers to do?

11

First, I would say that if they are in a small town then the chances of her being a student where he teaches is high. I would be looking to avoid any women who were students where I taught if I was this particular prof. But if he's in a larger city with multiple colleges then he only needs to avoid students at his college.

Second, I doubt the 18 year old is thinking about life when she's in her 30s and he's in his 60s. As I noted in the original thread, I dated a woman who was about 50 when I was 20. I wasn't thinking about 20 years later. I was thinking about that moment: we shared interests in particular kinds of music, cinema, photography. Nobody was accusing me of being manipulated or her of being a pedophile, although I'm sure her friends probably teased her about being a cradle robber, me being jailbait and other vernacular that existed at that time. Again, the fetlife post phrasing wouldn't be my move but beyond that a guy in his 40s who is in an open relationship should be dating whoever he connects with (as should his primary partner).

12

@ 10, no, it was in Edmonton. Hmmm, I wonder if there's something about biology teachers.....

13

Regarding electing the U.S. President by popular vote.

First off, I support it. As I keep saying, acreage doesn't vote. Soil doesn't vote. People vote. In 1790, 95% of the country lived in rural areas and only 5% lived in urban cities. Did anyone wring their hands about how poor city-dwellers would be at the mercy of rural folk? The idea that the EC was intended to protect the interests of small states or rural areas is a myth. It was intended to prop up slavery. It was intended to allow slave states to get the value of their slave populations for voting purposes without allowing their slaves to actually vote.

There's a risk that a very close election might take weeks to finish counting (California, for example, accepts absentee ballots postmarked by election day so long as they arrive no later than three days after the election, and they take longer to process because of the signature verification process.) But it's still better, and more resources/better tools could make this process go even faster.

I think a strong argument can be made that the person elected should have a majority vote of those who choose to vote. Right now, the Electoral College solves that. The winner can have a narrow plurality of the popular vote (like Bill Clinton) and still get an overwhelming majority of the Electoral College. If no one gets a majority of the EC, then Congress decides. (Ugh.) To deal with situations where no one has 50%+1 or better of the popular vote, there are some things we could do:

Option 1: Throw the election to Congress to decide, as is currently done under the 12th Amendment when no one gets a majority of the Electoral College. Terrible idea! If we're going to do a Constitutional Amendment to abolish the EC, we have better options for handling this that could be done with the same amendment.

Option 2: Run-off election with just the top two candidates in four weeks. I don't like this idea not only because of the drop-off in voter turnout but also in the huge expense to manage a second election.

Option 3: Instant Run-Off or Ranked Choice Voting. You rank your favorite candidates in order of preference. Your first choice gets your vote. If no one gets a majority of first place votes, the candidate with the fewest votes drop out and those ballots roll over to each voter's second choice. This continues until one candidate has at least 50%+1 of the remaining unexhausted ballots. While some voters might not rank more than one, is that any different than a voter who doesn't show up for the runoff a month later? At least they had the option without having to turn out again, and without the expense of another election.

14

@5/LavaGirl: The issue is whether there is something per se wrong with an 40-something man having sex with an 18 year-old woman. There is not, although it does appear to cause a lot of hand-wringing from people observing such sexual relationships from the side lines.

The letter writer who touched off this topic was so bent out of shape that she thought her lover was a criminally sexual deviant. One might laugh, but that is no joking matter. The professor who commented, labors under the belief that an age disparity runs afoul of BDSM norms to such a degree that a male dominant would be seen a persona non grata. That is facially nonsense.

As a practical matter, does a younger person in a May-December relationship need to consider end of life issues? Yes, if they are going to make a lifetime commitment, but if the connection is purely sexual, then not at all. But even in the cases in which that younger person does need to consider that issue, it is their business, and not for the hand-wringers on the side lines to make that choice.

15

Love how you men bring out the ‘let’s put women in their place’ lines, when you don’t like what’s being said.
Nobody is hand wringing SA. Making a observation about how Patriarchy looks. Not my business who other adults date, or marry. I was countering your statement that age gaps are not significant. Yet they are. It’s a double power imbalance if the man is much older than the woman. He’s got the perks of Patriarchy, and experience in life.
I’m not talking ten-fifteen yr age gap, even though I believe being peers or close to is more equitable.
If some forty five year old man had come sniffing round my daughter when she was eighteen, he’d have heard from me. Her partner now, she is thirty, is a thirty six year old man.
My twenty one year old son has an eighteen year old gf. Blossoming beauty she is too. They have a lovely, equal relationship.
As a young woman I was with older men, not twenty seven yrs older, and looking back I can see how I was no match for their life experience. It wasn’t all negative, I had fun and learnt stuff. Got my heart broken.

16

PPUP, I was a bit hard on your bf.
You’re got to be true to yourself first. This all sounds way too messy, as I view it. EmmaLiz called it on the other thread, it’s a set up for recriminations forever.
Don’t pretend feelings you don’t have. Sure look at them and check if you have any interest in poly/ ENM.
It’s been a jumbled communication between you two. About something that is suddenly so important, ‘ to do’ lists are being written up.
Tell old/ not at thirty six he’s not/ rolo, to back off, and you go check by yourself. However you do it. Your call. Give the process six months, then you two be straight with each other.
Along the way, go to single/ couples counseling, not to convince the other, to find better ways to communicate with each other.
Don’t be scared to part. Single life has great benefits. And after the grieving, go find a man who loves you and wants the same relationship structure.

17

I was so caught up with the 40-18 relationship that I forgot to add my two cents about the LW who wants nothing to do with most bodily fluids: To be blunt, I hope she enjoys a good circle of friends who help fulfill her need for social connection or she can find what would be typically described as a selfish lover who is all about PIV only. Any other guy is going to run.

18

You guys try to imply my motivation is some older woman’s jealousy, yet my motivation is to protect the girl.
I went to therapy for five years, during and after the affairs with older men, because I realised I was relating to them as father figures. Giving them way too much power over me, always in charge of the momentum. No. I wanted to be as equal as I could be to a man.
My ex is six months older than me. He still managed to slip and slide.
This is one of the biggest Perks of Patriarchy, great name for a band, older men landing younger women, can see why you all are so up in arms here, because I’m exposing it.
When the wife gets a little worn, it’s an accepted rite of male passage, to dump her and get a younger model. Or just start off with a younger model.
Yes, older men can be more interesting than one’s peers, as a young woman. Males being so slow to grow up. I don’t regret those affairs, I learnt a lot from those men. Part of my sexual fabric. They were under ten years older than me, and still miles ahead.
These young women need protection from older, much older men, not pluck their beauty for them selves.
This professor or whoever he is, is a predatory male. A tool. A sleazebag. A douche bag. And I never want to have to think about him again.

19

But there are other kinds of power, than age and the patriarchy. There is also some power in youth, physical attractiveness, and not giving a shit.

I don't disagree that there can be real problems in such a relationship, especially if it means one person has real control over the living situation of another. But it's not necessarily that imbalanced - it really depends on the details and the people involved.

20

I don't think I have a horse in the Pygmalion race, and I am in no position to gainsay any points made here, but I find myself thinking of the people I know, and I cannot come up with one older man of my own acquaintance who left a woman around his age for one much younger. I'm old, I was in a fairly public career, and I know a lot of people. Maybe I'm missing one or two, but I can't think of any at all. Gay men, yeah, all the time, all over the place, but as has been pointed out, that's completely different. So it doesn't seem like a common thing, to me. I'm not in academia, so maybe that's it. I know from just general cultural knowledge that it's a thing.

21

@15/LavaGirl: "Nobody is hand wringing SA. Making a observation about how Patriarchy looks. Not my business who other adults date, or marry. I was countering your statement that age gaps are not significant."

I never said said age gaps were entirely and in all matters insignificant. What I said in my earlier comment is that there is nothing inherently wrong in such a relationship within the kink community, and that the Kinky College Professor was incorrect in saying so. Likewise, in the original column, I stated that the 18 year-old in question was free to have sex with a married man in an open relationship.

You have been the one to bring up martial relationship with age gaps, introduced the topic of patriarchy, and volunteered that you would interfere in an adult child's sexual relationship. There is probably a lot more to say on all those topics, but I don't see the relationship in question in any of the letters as being controversial.

22

The fact that the guy's response to the LW was "I'm not perfect" kind of settles the issue for me. If everything was so proper in his mind, he could have / should have said as much. The wording of his FetLife post and his response to the LW suggest to me that whether he's being inapropriate in reality, he feels on some level that what he is doing is wrong, and when it comes to a relationship with an 18-year old, that's the kind of personal baggage that ought to be unpacked before jumping into sex.

23

@17 - The other options are:
- The very rare man who shares the same feelings. I actually know of one, so I know they're out there. But yeah, talk about limiting your dating pool.
- Guys who find the propspect of no kissing of any real quality and no oral preferable than having those things with the other women available to them.

Open question to everyone - is this a part of her sexuality to be accepted and embraced (love thyself, after all) or a mental hangup that would benefit from some personal work/therapy? I'm thinking of germaphobes, and it seems like basically a type of sexual germaphobia.

24

@5 My partner is 17 years older than me. She and I are an amazing match, love each other immensely, and are looking forward to marrying soon. I'm in my 30's. Nonsense like your comment ("But think about how wrinkly she'll be when you're still looking young!) pisses me off to no end. And besides being small-minded, given your comment @18, I think it's also a little disingenuous. You're not worried about her getting stuck with a wrinkly old man. You have had issues with older men in your past, and you're projecting them onto the current situation. Another perfect example - 2 friends of mine have been dating for years. She's in her early 20's and in grad school, he's in his late 40's. They both know the relationship ends when she graduates because she's moving to pursue her career and he has family in the area. They're also both mature enough to know that a relationship can end and still not be a failure. Their relationship works for them, mine works for me, and it's entirely possible that our 18-year old woman in question is in a relationship that is currently working for her.

I'm sorry your experiences dating older Men were so negative - I really am. And it's possible that's what is happening here. But it's possible any relationship is somehow unhealthy for one or both parties. Age gaps are not by themselves evidence of such.

25

@Lava I generally find an 18/40 combination inappropriate (IMO, 21 is significantly more advanced than 18, but whatever) but I guess my question is - how does that not then imply that an 18 year old woman literally should not be allowed her own sexual agency? At what point is a woman allowed to want a significantly older man? We obviously see in this thread alone proof that many nascently sexual women have authentic, self-inspired desire for older men - but at what point would you say they are exercising their own agency versus a groomed product of the patriarchy? What is the difference between men and women that we assume an 18 year old man dating an older woman isn't being manipulated or taken advantage of in some way?

26

@15 - "in charge of the momentum" is such a great expression for this situation. It conveys so much with such an economy of words. I've never heard it before. If you coined the expression, kudos.

27

Glad the PPUPs (when did it become PUPP, and what can we read into the acronym change as far as who picks the acronyms? The plot thickens) are going to couples counselling. They both sound reasonable and like they are invested in this relationship, so I hope they can indeed see nuance better than some commenters can and work this out.

I thought a narwhal was a BBW who likes dating couples? Ba-dum tish.

Good to see both sides of the horny professor issue. Thanks for that, Dan.

Sublime @3b, I've met some people who seem to never involve tongues when they kiss. I took it that was what the caller meant -- no wet kissing, not no kissing. A person with those preferences wouldn't last long with me, either. And I disagree that Kinky Prof's second point is "inane." It's wise. When you get a bad reputation on the kink scene, you'll be avoided. I'm glad at least some guys out there realise the consequences of their sleazy actions and make it a point to embody Not All Men.

Sublime @14: There is nothing WRONG with a 40+ year old having a relationship with an 18-year-old, but it does reveal something about the maturity level of the 40+ year old, which could understandably render them undateable in the minds of many peers.

Smajor @82: Exactly what I said. This guy knows he's being a sleazebag. He can't justify it in his own mind, let alone to his partner.

28

@27: "I thought a narwhal was a BBW who likes dating couples? Ba-dum tish."

Gee, BiDanFan, I never figured you for one to make body-shaming fat-woman jokes. Thanks.

29

Gee, NoCute, I never figured you would equate "shaming" with "mentioning" twice in one week. First I was shaming sex workers, now I am shaming BBWs, a term I chose very carefully to avoid any shaming. You're welcome.

30

KCP here. @Sublimeafterglow, you comments are ignorant at best and dangerous at worst. Viz:

(1) The schools in my area are in a consortium. Any student at any one may wind up in my classroom. And don't misunderestimate the ability of academia to hang you high for something that is technically not a consent violation.
(2) Typical D/S relationships are ostensibly negotiated between equals. If a woman is much younger than me, makes much less money than me, and is not as experienced in D/S as I am, she can not in any way be seen as my equal.
(3) My local kink scene is very much a college town kink scene. Any relationship with a much-younger woman will raise questions. The way to avoid the appearance of impropriety is to to avoid the appearance of impropriety.
(4) Many people have regretted relationships with me. But NOT for my violating their consent.

In short, if someone feels victimized at any point after the interaction, they have been victimized. It is my job as the power-haver to ensure this does not happen.

31

@29: You say you chose the term "BBW" carefully so as to avoid the appearance of shaming; yet you equated that BBW (I suppose to avoid saying, "fat woman") with a narwhal--a whale. The term BBW is not what the problem is in that sentence ("I thought a narwhal was a BBW who likes dating couples? Ba-dum tish.").

If you truly didn't see that equating a fat woman with a whale is offensive and body-shaming, and that it doesn't matter whether you call the woman a "fattie," an "overweight woman," a "disgusting pig," or a "BBW," then I would hope that my comment would have shed light.

As far as your shaming sex workers goes, that was from a different comment thread, and I didn't even recall that you were one of several people who brought up an irrelevant possibility that the woman was a sex worker. My comment wasn't directed at you specifically.

32

@27/BiDanFan: "I've met some people who seem to never involve tongues when they kiss." I have meet a number of "lip-kissers" as well. I assume these are among the people who one reads complaining about their partners "sticking their tongues down their throat," when in fact they just don't enjoy the feel of their tongue against their lovers. It is hard to estimate, but I have found about 1/10 to 4/10 women fall into this range of kissers.

"There is nothing WRONG with a 40+ year old having a relationship with an 18-year-old, but it does reveal something about the maturity level of the 40+ year old, which could understandably render them undateable in the minds of many peers."

I think most of these May-December relationship are predicated on a younger person enjoying the maturity of an older lover, whether in the context of a "teacher-student" dynamic or Dd/lg dynamic. The older partner enjoys incorporating those aspects of their personality into their romantic-sexual relationships. That does not mean that in some cases an older partner really is stunted personally - such as the college professor who takes a new 19 year-old lover every two years - but like anything else, one has to look at things in context, and not reduce a judgement down to one data point. In the letter which kicked off this discussion, the older man appeared to have a successful open marriage and lovers who were "age-appropriate." His lover was free to decide that she would not date him, but she cannot say she is doing so based on his perceived immaturity. If he had otherwise evidenced his maturity during their relationship, that one data point should not lead to a new perception.

33

NoCute @31: Your comment was not phrased in such a way that it appeared intended to "shed light." Rather, you came across as shaming me for shaming people I was not shaming. However, now you have actually explained your position, I take the point that even making a respectfully phrased joke about someone's body type is making a joke about a body type, and I'm sorry my effort to not be offensive failed.

Sublime @32: I have also encountered people who almost literally do stick their tongues down their partner's throats! Or who treat my tongue like an oyster they're trying to suck down their own throat. Then there are those who go for staccato trills in my mouth. So many bad kissers...

Regarding the original Mr December and "context," I refer you back to SMajor's comment @22. He did not defend his choice by stating that she was mature, that she initiated the relationship, that the group sex romp was her fantasy, none of that. He said, "I am not perfect," and that is what would have sealed my contempt for this middle-aged man. Yes, he does have the choice of other lovers who are age appropriate, so why is he following this sorry path? Most of us in his position can clearly see that it's a terrible idea to date someone so young (and so can he), even if the younger person in question cannot, which is why it's up to us to turn those young people down. His not doing so is indeed an indicator of immaturity, even if it not part of a pattern. Of course data points of course lead to new perceptions, all the time. If you started dating someone you thought was great, then found out they voted for Trump, would that one data point not significantly alter your view?

34

Whoops, too many of courses there. Where is my pre-coffee proofreader?

35

@BiDanFan: Sorry I did a poor job of communicating. I realize that my comment @28 wasn't a "shed light" kind of comment; I was really certain that you'd see what it was I found offensive without explanation. It was my comment @31 that was intended to "shed light," but the way I wrote it suggests I had already tried to do so.

36

@13, and Electoral College in general.
While I know that it's a Progressive Article of Faith that everything the founding fathers did was because of Slavery, I don't actually think the EC was one of them.
Like the Senate, the idea of the EC was to make sure the STATES were represented in the selection of the President. Eliminate the EC... and the States largely become nothing but interesting local government entities with almost no say in the Federal government.
And if the vote is close, my God, are we going to recount the entire country to figure it out????

37

I got you, NoCute. Hope we're all good now.

38

Agony @12 and deadrose @10,
I don't know if it's a common trait among biology teachers, but my AP biology teacher back in the 80s was living with a recent former student and my understanding was that she was not his first.

Of course, I also lived across the street from a history teacher who slept with students and was trying to groom every boy in the neighborhood.

39

@3. Sublime. I would disagree that a kinky or 'scene' gay professor isn't under some form of community 'surveillance' in his sex life. As a grad student, I socialised with one of the profs on my dissertation committee on the nightclub gay scene. He was monitored closely--every guy he slept with, every time some student watched him get jiggy in a nightclub; was this coercive? Could it affect his teaching or the student's educational experience? It was easy for me to give his exhibitionism a wide berth, since it involved mincing and a foudroyant, self-mocking self-display, both of which I found secretly antipathetic. (I wanted absolutely nothing self-mocking in my sex life). People said things like, 'good. Don't look at him'. He wasn't especially into younger guys, and in fact conducted himself correctly.

40

@3. Sublime. The reason oldrolo can't say, 'I will prioritise our relationship over outside partners' is that in effect it means 'you have a veto over my trying ENM'. The couple have tied themselves in knots. PPUP is fair and reflective but will always be able to find a reason not to say, 'go on, have blow-out dadt sex 'behind my back''. Oldrolo is (probably) naturally less reflective and (unwarrantably) instinctively feels that his wanting other partners is a 'big ask' and an imposition on PPUP. Either someone breaks the logjam or they split....

41

@22. smmajor. To me, you're obviously right.

Sublime, what Lava says is correct. Very often, women find men's greater age and experience romantically and sexually attractive, and men find women's youth the same. This tends to give men the upper hand in relationships. (Without the relationships being wrong, or the older men manipulative, their structure redounds to the guys' benefit and can reinforce patriarchal assumptions).

42

40yo guys aren't in principle 'emotionally stunted' for wanting to date 18yo s. But the scenario in question didn’t sound to me like thought-through ageplay, where the fantasy or kink was carefully demarcated. It sounded like a guy on a reckless sex jag.

43

@3, I really dislike receiving oral, and wet sloppy kisses and body fluids are a bit of a squick. That said, there are plenty of activities besides oral, and a stack of towels at the ready takes care of the rest. My husband doesn't mind, even though these things have gotten worse with time. I have at least one acquaintance who doesn't like getting “dirty", she keeps towels handy and takes a shower immediately afterwards. Like any other preferences/aversions a partner may have, there are workarounds. Obviously, if giving oral sex is necessary for your satisifaction then that would be an incompatibility, but there are plenty of people who are perfectly fine with not going down on their partner.

44

@23, for me it is definitely something to accept (or not!) as a part of how I am. It is not a mental hangup that requires therapy or something that needs to be fixed. It's a texture aversion, and it happens in the context of food, etc. as well. An actual physical sensation that I can't stand. No one thinks people have a hangup if they just don't like the feel of e-stim or floggers or tickling...

45

@36 - Bullshit, TIM. I never said that everything The Founders did was about slavery, but Electoral College absolutely was. If they were about upholding the state’s interests, then Electors would have been picked by state legislatures before any voting took place and regardless of how the vote went. The 3/5ths compromise was about slavery and it doesn’t work without an Electoral College. Yeah, it has an impact on the number of members of the US House of Represntatives your state gets, but that doesn’t have a huge impact since they represent different districts with varied interests. Without the EC, it doesn’t matter if you’re slave counts as 0/5ths or 3/5ths or 5/5ths since they can’t vote and add 0 to the popular vote.

The concern about a nationwide “hanging chad” Florida 20000 debacle is a legitimate concern, and I’ve been mentioning that since 2000 as something that would need to be addressed. But that concern is irrelevant to the Electoral Collegge’s racist origins.

46

"In short, if someone feels victimized at any point after the interaction, they have been victimized. It is my job as the power-haver to ensure this does not happen."

@30 Bullshit. I'm glad you are conscientious (seriously) but that does not for a single second prove this logical fallacy to be true. People feel all sorts of ways that don't reflect the reality of the world they exist in.


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