This post first appeared in 2008, before Tiger Woods and Schwarzenegger’s love child. But the same arguments keep coming up. And I’ll keep pushing back.
Amber Rhea gets the hat tip for this article in New York Magazine: The Affairs of Men: The trouble with sex and marriage. That’s the title in the magazine, anyway, but when you click on the link, the title that comes up is What Makes Married Men Want to Have Affairs?, which is a very different sort of question. Asking why men want what they want is never, ever, the same question as why men do what they do.
The author, Phillip Weiss, gets us off to a depressing start:
When the Eliot Spitzer scandal broke in March, I had only sympathy for him: another middle-aged married guy tormented by his sexual needs. I’m 52 and have always struggled with the desire for sexual variety. Everyone gets an issue, and that’s mine; it’s given me pleasure and pain, and jolted my marriage. I’d only talked about my issue with any honesty over the years with about six or seven people, and when you leave out my wife and a therapist, they are all men.
So the conversation had a conspiratorial male character. When people at dinner parties cried out, “What was Spitzer thinking?” I whispered to a friend that I knew damn well what he was thinking: He wanted some “strange”, to quote the old Kris Kristofferson line. Or we passed around JPEGS of Spitzer’s date, Ashley Dupre, and commented on her luscious body. The governor’s plight had the effect of outing me. When I told one married friend about my torment, he cut me off. Everyone in our situation has had one or two episodes. Straying, wandering eye, a blowup. If you have a pulse
What situation is that, I wonder? The situation of the middle-aged married male, caught between his promises and his urges? Apparently. Here’s Weiss’ stunner:
An article of faith among the men with whom I discussed these issues (and an idea ignored, if not contested, by most of the women I know) was that the hunger for sexual variety was a basic and natural and more or less irresistible impulse. I haven’t ever seen anyone who doesn’t deliver on every single demand their sexuality makes on them. We make the mistake of thinking some people have a stronger will, they don’t, says a forward-thinking friend. There is no more unnatural principle of social organization than sexual exclusivity. But like other of my male sources, he didn’t want me to use his name. Don’t get me divorced! was the refrain. All of these guys nursed a fantasy, as quaintly surreal as an old tinted postcard, of a perfectible world in which we might have sex outside our primary relationships and say that it doesn’t mean anything.
Yikes. Let’s just say, the piece goes down hill from there. The bold emphasis above is mine; it illustrates the classic fallacy of what I call the “myth of male weakness”. Here’s how the fallacy works:
1. Men naturally desire sexual variety.
2. That desire for sexual variety is very strong.
3. That desire is, in fact, so strong that it can never be resisted, and in the end, will always trump the will. It’s only a matter of time.
I’m not an evolutionary biologist, but just for the sake of argument, I’ll happily concede that monogamy is not a “natural” state for either men or women. Then again, neither is using the toilet rather than peeing down our legs; from about age three on, each of us has been trained to master (most of us with constant success) what is a frequent, imperious urge. Saying that something is “natural” is only a compliment when it refers to organic food — it tells us nothing about the capacity for human beings to exercise control over their behavior. #1 and #2 may, for the sake of discussion, be true — but it’s absurd to conclude that #3 “naturally” follows.
Weiss’ friend makes an extraordinary claim, one he seems to back: I haven’t ever seen anyone who doesn’t deliver on every single demand their sexuality makes on them. We make the mistake of thinking some people have a stronger will, they don’t. That’s a succinct argument that what I’m calling the “myth of male weakness” is in fact reality. And what’s so infuriating about it is that it’s nearly impossible to disprove, particularly in light of revelation after revelation about the falls from grace of which Eliot Spitzer’s is only the most recent and most spectacular.
I can’t prove I’m faithful to my wife. I can’t prove that there isn’t a whopping disconnect between what I write on this blog, what I tell my spouse and my students, and how I behave when no one is watching. One of the reasons why so many men do cheat, I think, is because they live in a culture that expects them to be unfaithful. They might conclude: why be accused of something you didn’t do, when you might as well be accused of something you did? That way, at least, you had some transitory pleasure before the condemnation that seemed inevitable anyway. Trying to prove a negative, that one hasn’t been unfaithful, is more or less impossible. That’s a difficult reality for many folks to face.
So you’ll have to take my word for it when I say that I’m faithful to my wife, that I don’t use porn, that all of my sexual and romantic energy flows towards one person. Let me say also that I know what it is to be unfaithful; I cheated on my first two wives. (In my first marriage, I was serially unfaithful, beginning days after returning from the honeymoon). I remember the sense of shame I felt the first few times I cheated, and I remember that the cheating got progressively easier with repetition. The second betrayal is, usually, ten times easier.
When I was cheating (and these affairs ranged from the purely sexual to the intensely emotional), I always described myself as being in the grip of a compulsion I couldn’t control. I wasn’t consciously lying; I genuinely believed that in the face of my desire for what my father called “everlasting novelty”, I was helpless. A budding feminist, I never claimed that the inability to be faithful was uniquely male — rather, I tended to say (to my closest confidants, anyway) that none of us, men or women alike, had sufficient will to resist the sudden, brutally strong demands of eros. It was a neat trick; like most philanderers, I convinced myself that I was a victim rather than a volunteer.
The sense of being “weak” was fairly accurate. The will, after all, is a muscle: it can be built and strengthened, or it can atrophy. People aren’t born with strong or weak wills any more than a body builder is born with bulging biceps. Like a rock-hard physique, the will is strengthened through repetition and discipline. When someone who has never lifted weights walks into a gym, looks at a pair of 30-pound dumb bells, and says “I can’t do curls with those”, that person isn’t lying! Because he hasn’t yet built the muscle, it’s true that he isn’t yet strong enough. But if that same fellow walks in and says “No one can do curls with 30-pound weights, and I am sure I never could”, then he’s buying into a myth about weakness. The problem with the Weiss article is exactly that: it confuses what men don’t believe they can do with what they haven’t yet been adequately trained to do.
I learned, over time, what it took to be faithful. The answer is not “meeting the right person”; no relationship alone is enough to guarantee fidelity. Infidelity is always about the person who chooses to cheat, and rarely about the person being cheated upon. My wife is beautiful, strong, and I love her with all my heart. Her looks and my devotion to her are not the foundation upon which my commitment to monogamy is built. I don’t cheat on my wife because of a commitment I’ve made to myself. In the end, if I’m unfaithful to my spouse, she might not find out. But I will know that I am a cheater; I will have betrayed not only my wife, my family, and the community that trusts me but also the man I have worked so hard to become. Polonius is a fool, but his most famous line, “to thine own self be true” resonates for me here, even if I quote it out of the original context. Love alone is not reason enough to be faithful. Fear of being discovered isn’t sufficient either. In the end, the strongest and best reinforcement for the will is the profound desire I have — that I think everyone has, deep inside — to be a person of radical integrity. In a strange way, it’s radically selfish. (It’s also, I think, consistent with Aristotle, but that’s for the philosophers to deal with.)
Of course, I don’t just want to have integrity in order to flatter my narcissistic self-concept. While sexual fidelity alone is not the foundation of all other virtues (I’d rather have the philandering Clinton as my president than the apparently monogamous current occupant of the Oval Office), our suspicion that men are incapable of fidelity is at the root of our profound cultural mistrust of all things male. The men’s rights advocates are right: we live in a society that places little faith in men. The MRAs fail to see, however, that men have gleefully, willfully, often pathetically and repeatedly done all they can collectively to destroy that faith. We are the architects of our own adversity, and the chief way in which we perpetuate the problem is by convincing ourselves that we are, in the end, helpless victims of testosterone or eros or what Coetzee calls the “rights of desire.”
Whether marriage has any meaning in the modern world is not the subject of this post. Whether monogamy is the ideal state, or whether we’d all be happier in polyamorous communities is not something I feel like writing about today. But what I do believe is this: monogamy can be one particularly satisfying and challenging vehicle for personal and collective growth. I also believe, as the Greeks did, that dishonesty and betrayal are guarantors of future unhappiness. Exercising the will, building the will, using the will, is often hard work. But the great reward is to be able to say to oneself, at the end of the day, “I have been today who I longed to be”. And no “new skin” or “strange” can compete with that.
UPDATE: Let me be clear that this is one of those areas where private moral satisfaction and communal good are coherent with each other. I realize that the last couple of paragraphs here seem to imply that the only reason to be faithful is to continue to hold oneself in high esteem. That’s not a bad thing, mind you, but it’s an incomplete reason. Our families and our culture at large also desperately needs men and women whom they can trust and upon whom they can rely. Marriage may not be, as the conservatives allege, the bedrock of society. But infidelity and deceit do do real damage to hearts and hopes. And while our greatest loyalty may be to a God, and then to ourselves, we also obviously have a responsibility to others. Men can be who we need them, wish them, long for them to be.
Isn’t this the same moron who longingly suggested having an affair in front of his wife, then turned into Mr. Prissypants when she said ‘sure, if I get to have one too’?
One thing I’ve always found odd about the male weakness argument is that I always thought self control was also classified as a “masculine” trait. So why does that go out the window for sexual stuff? Men are supposedly more able to control their emotions than women (not something I believe, but certainly plenty of people believe it). Isn’t the desire to cheat on your spouse an emotion? At least, it certainly seems more a matter of emotion than logic.
before Tiger Woods and Schwarzenegger’s love child.
This line made me giggle a bit, just because if you’re reading it quickly it could sound like they had a love child with each other.
I have already read this post in the past but I still enjoyed it the second time around. I completely agree with this. If someone doesn’t put all the love, communication, work, passion, and so on into a relationship, someone is very likely to cheat at some point. It certainly isn’t easy and it isn’t second nature, but it can be done. I’ve been with my husband for 6 years now (married for one). Of course I find other people attractive and I’m sure he does too, but I have yet to be tempted to act on it. We have a sold relationship that has seen multiple hardships and I think those hard times brought us closer together.
With past boyfriends, when tempted, I thought of it this way: If he cheated on me, how would I feel? I’ve always decided that the potential pain and turmoil was not worth a few minutes of pleasure that I can ultimately get in my own bedroom. My method certainly isn’t a new one, but picturing the person I love in such extreme pain conjures an awful feeling.
The parts of the article that were quoted make me quite angry, actually. What a ridiculous idea- that we (or just men) have no control over acting on our sexual urges and desires. We are all adults and we are all responsible for our actions, no one is pulling puppet strings and forcing us to do anything. Sorry this was so long, the subject must have pushed a button.
I disagree. Familiarity breeds contempt. It’s not a matter of looking for variety but a matter of becoming so bored and disgusted with our partners. They’re the same old thing over and over and over again. What starts out as endearing turns out not so. Long term closed monogamy is a recipe for a fucking disaster. We like to say that 50% of marriages fail, but a lot of those second marriages succeed mostly out of pure exhaustion. After a certain age people just give up and go “well he/she ain’t much to look at, but then again neither am I.” Fact is, honest and open marriages make a lot more long term sense. A regulated safety valve on sexual pressure is far more effective than the backdoor nonsense of affairs and high priced prostitutes. Like you say Hugo, cheating is destructive because of the deception more than anything. Let’s get rid of the deception but keep the sex.
Now I know Hugo that your lived experience anecdotally supports your idea of full monogamy. But you’re anomalous. Most people don’t get a kick out of self abnegation. It seems like you do because you’ve got (or rather had) a penchant for addictive, impulsive behavior. Like most recovered addicts I know, you turn the addiction around by centering your life around it’s denial. That active denial produces a sense of control and power not dissimilar to a kind of high(hence the oftquoted phrase “high on life”). A healthy and sane alternative to real addiction for sure, but most of us ain’t like that. Self abnegation isn’t all that exciting for much of the human race.
Oh, boy. Tiger and Arnold are such hypocrites. If they get to get themselves some “strange”, then by rights they should grant the same privilege to their wives! But strangely enough, adultery laws have always been harsher on females than males.
Fiona’s comment (‘Isn’t the desire to cheat on your spouse an emotion?’) was excellent. If a man really couldn’t control his wife-cheating emotions, that would make said man a hysteric man.
Hugo,
I’m not sure why you even mention points 1. and 2. above. If you don’t believe that monogamy is a natural state, they’re sort of a given.
As for 3.
- 3. That desire is, in fact, so strong that it can never be resisted, and in the end, will always trump the will. It’s only a matter of time. –
that’s evidently bollocks. There’s enough evidence that men *can control themselves*. But I’d still agree with the author’s friend and say that there is an illusion that people are stronger than they think, which is precisely *why* Fiona is right above to say that self-control is considered a masculine trait!
I understand why *you* don’t think that’s the case, since you are living and telling your own redemption narrative and that’s great – for you. But it’s not a fair basis from which to generalize. Your experience is not representative of men, I’m sorry (neither is mine, btw).
Also – however weak males may be with respect to temptation – they’re still responsible for what they’re doing.
Dobb – “disgusted”? Really?
it’s funny, the big difference between hugo and this dude Philip Weiss who wrote the article, is that weiss is so clearly lost, and hugo is so clearly found. not in the christian sense, god forbid, but in the sense of figuring out what one is and what one stands for. the reason weiss has to be “conspiratorial” or whatnot is that what he is proposing is that he, philip weiss, and a couple of his buddies, should have some free reaches into the cookie jar, whereas others should not. his wife doesn’t get to go to the cookie jar (notwithstanding that as the competent/hardworking one she deserves it more, if anyone does). the young guys who might date that waitress get less cookies too — surely she has not serious relationships, she has tattoos! of course he’s “afraid” to voice his “opinion” — “i want more cookies than everyone else” is not an “argument” or a set of values, just like “yee-ha” is not a foreign policy.
–”But the great reward is to be able to say to oneself, at the end of the day, “I have been today who I longed to be”. And no “new skin” or “strange” can compete with that.”–
That was the best part Sir.
Dobbs,
I’m happiest monogamous and I promise you it’s not because I get a kick out of self-abnegation.
(what a bizarre notion) People who find monogamy enormously difficult, frustrating, depressing etc often do seem to develop these bizarre notions about those of us who find it relatively easy and I do wish they’d entertain the notion for more than a split-second that Not Everybody Is Like Them, Imagine That! Please, stop trying to apply your strictures about the necessity of non-monogamy to the human race as a whole; there are just way too many exceptions in terms of those who aren’t crushed to tiny slivers by the act of remaining monogamous for it to possibly be an inherent human trait, anymore than being heterosexual is an inherent human trait, regardless of whether or not the majority is preferentially one way or the other.
I agree, for those who hate it as you do, by all means, get rid of the deception (which is my only objection to others practicing non-monogamy, on an aside) and keep having the sex! But please stop trying to frame it as something everyone else should be doing or they are masochists, unnatural, recovering addicts, etc…I’m sure homosexual folks can tell you how both (a) tiresome and (b) unconvincing these lines all are.
In Hugo’s defense,
“monogamy can be *one* particularly satisfying and challenging vehicle for personal and collective growth.”
He is not generalizing. If he’s speaking ‘for’ men it isn’t in a way that simultaneously disavows any practice that could lead away from monogamy, rather he’s pointing out how the oversimplification of men’s desires shouldn’t absolve men from using faulty science or only the convenient part of a science as a sophistocated excuse for being an asshole, denying empathy, or for the female presence in the conversation being an afterthought.
And I’d be cautious about playing the “You lived an experience therefore it’s anecdotal and you’re wrong” card against Hugo, because a) It makes the argument a meritocracy instead of an engagement with what he specifically says, b) It diminishes the life and educational experience he has to offer us, and c) The same argument can be used against you. I’m referring specifically to the idea of disgust with a partner and familiarity breeding contempt. Contempt can certainly grow with familiarity, sure, I’d be naive to think otherwise, but it’s just as naive to ‘post hoc ergo propter hoc’ contempt and familiarity. If monogamy leaves you feeling trapped in more of the same, that might be because you personally aren’t great at monogamy, rather than being because everyone who is different from you at monogamy is an abberation against nature.
Just want to say I love being monogamous, and Hugo this was so vindicating to read with all the naysaying and cynicism I’ve received as a man for the way I live my life (funny how we’re turning the corner and open discussion of polygamy is becoming less of a conversational taboo than monogamy is). Power to anyone who chooses and is happy not to be monogamous, too. Both practices have the capacity to hurt, and both practices have the capacity for empathy.
Hugo I’m curious to know what you think of some of the new science around empathy. There’s a great video called “The Empathetic Civilisation” on youtube which you might be interested in.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7AWnfFRc7g
Weiss’ friend states an absolute, so of course it’s wrong. But it’s pretty close. People who try to deny themselves a large swath of their sexuality almost always fail at it. It’s why abstinence only education doesn’t work, it’s why Republican senators get caught foot tapping, it’s why people who don’t want to be monogamous cheat.
I’ll echo LisaKansas and say I’m just characteristically monogamous. It doesn’t take any effort, willpower, anything, to not cheat. I just don’t. I’m aware that other women are cute; I don’t care.
Can you change who you are? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. But can you deny a big swath of your sexuality successfully? Few people can. (And like basically everything, innate ability to do this isn’t particularly gendered, no.)
WTF?!? Tiger Woods had a love child with Arnold?!?
How THAT elephant got in my pyjamas I’ll never know
I know… I wrote in haste with the flu. But it’s a happy image, no?
The slash practically writes itself!
“i want more cookies than everyone else” is not an “argument” or a set of values, just like “yee-ha” is not a foreign policy
I am so stealing this.
A person who longs to be non-monogamous, but bristles at giving their partner similar free rein, is not somebody who is naturally polyamorous or stifled by monogamy; that person is simply a selfish asshole.
This was a beautifully written article, and I definitely felt a connection with what you were saying. When I was in college, I was very unceremoniously dumped by my first love (no cheating involved), and ended up in a terrible relationship with (literally) the guy next door. It was total dysfunction from the beginning, and I barely cared about him at all. I thought to myself, “Why not cheat?” It was the perfect opportunity–I doubt he would’ve cared that much or even found out, and he certainly deserved it for the way he treated me. But the fact was, once I’d made up my mind to cheat, I realized why I couldn’t.
It had nothing to do with him; I was not the kind. I was not the kind of person who would betray another, period. And it didn’t matter if he’d done it first, or if he was a lousy boyfriend, or anything else. Having integrity was a part of me, something I had spent a long time building up, and something that was far more important to me than vicarious thrills.
We inevitably split, but I learned so much about myself from that sub par relationship. I am happy with monogamy. Yes, I get urges, and yes, I’m not blind, but the truth is I do not WANT to cheat. And that’s what I think people who push non-monogamy so hard just don’t understand about those of us who enjoy it. They think that by controlling our urges we’re somehow not being our true selves, but that’s exactly the wrong way to look at it. My true self puts others first. My true self would not break anyone’s trust. I don’t know who I would be if I did that, but it wouldn’t be me. The momentary discomfort of not getting what I want would only be a fraction of the despair I’d feel if I made myself into a cheap liar, or if I hurt someone I loved. So why do it? I don’t want to. It wouldn’t make me happy, and it wouldn’t make the person I was with happy either. And as you stated– what the hell is wrong with wanting to be a good person? When you question that… well, I can only imagine the kind of person who would angrily decry the quest to better oneself. What does that say about them? I know what it says about me. I enjoy what I have. I care about others, and I put them first. I’m happy that I try my best. It’s that simple in a way, I like who I am, and I wouldn’t change it.
Thank you for this piece– I wish you and your wife the best and your marriage and I have the utmost honor and respect for men (or people in general) like you. You are a rare breed, but congratulations on being one of the fine few who can traverse a difficult road that most give up on. Thank you.
Familiarity breeds, well, familiarity.
Honestly, I’m tired of the “weakness of men” argument. Mostly, because I can recall too numerous times hearing it as a teenager and as a young woman. I’ve never had a problem with monogamy but what I think many men (and women, truthfully, as well) lack is perspective.
That new person is exciting because they are novel and new. They represent what you feel you are missing, but they do not possess it. They will also become familiar eventually, and then you will be right back where you started. Maybe what people need the freedom to be honest about is boredom, saying to one’s partner, “This is old hat, I want to try something else”, instead of trying to find every which way but engaging with the person they’re with.
Apologies in advance for this being scrappy and incoherent, but if I don’t dash it off now I’ll forget:
I have always been monogamous, and appreciate Professor (or should it be Dr?) Schwyzer’s making a number of points that nobody would likely accept from me, as if innate monogamy were like inherited wealth.
What still disturbs me (though somewhat less after reading this post than after reading about this practice in earlier threads) is Professor Schwyzer’s identification as [his wife's name]-sexual. That’s an intensification of the sort of insularity that makes me think that family values often do more harm than good. Obviously I have nothing against that sort of thinking as applied to actions; it is how I have always behaved. But make that an identity and basically one becomes an isolate. Nobody else in the world is [my love]-sexual; with whom have I any community then?
To borrow from Professor Schwyzer’s reflections on cougars being less objectionable than silver foxes, I’ll extend the thought and say that it’s all very well and good for heterosexuals. If it fractures the ruling heteroarchy, it might even be a net gain. But applied by my ilk, the end effect would be almost certainly anti-gay. Lose a sense of communal feeling with others and we’d be easy pickings for the strongly united Christianists who want to pack us off into oblivion. There would be no pull on those who have what they deem sufficient access to privilege through economic or other means to seek just treatment of sexuality.
That’s an interesting point, Douglas. I don’t think Hugo meant that everybody should be monogamous. I think what he meant was that none of us should break a promise to be monogamous after we’ve already made it.
Some people are able to have safe, respectful, fulfilling non-monogamous sex lives. The point is to not bullshit about it, or treat your fuckbuddy like a jizzdumpster. Nobody likes to be lied to or tricked.
And how does being gay AND monogamous AND family oriented make said gay couple easy pickins for Xtian weirdos anyway? A gay couple can choose to live within a larger gay community in the middle of a gay-by boom, and have kids or not have kids.
Sometimes people do have to leave a conservative little cowpatty town to find some peace in a city where people aren’t minding everybody else’s business. It’s worth it, imo. I hated the stupid little town I was in so I moved to Toronto. It’s that simple if you truly are a target.
Another great article! Thank you.
What I don’t get is what makes someone choose a monogomous relationship when they are into variety, and feel that betrayal is the way the right way to go. Being single would be far more congrous.
Could it be that betrayal itself is an attraction or weakness? There are many reasons why some people get a buzz from betrayal, such as mistrust of the partner, social pressure to stay in a marriage, insecurity about being single, an overblown sense of importance (more important than the partner anyway), revenge for the partner not doing what is expected of them, claiming power or superiority rather than a respect for equality..etc.
Sexual urges are powerful, even for a woman. Us women can be driven to distraction by our sexual urges. Even door knobs can take on a whole new meaning! Some will go for the full-on neighbours knob, and some for the nearest object to hand. I can’t buy that men’s urges can possibly be any more powerful than a woman’s can be. That’s a myth. So I can’t entirely buy that sexual urges alone are the only reason for sex outside of a monogomous relationship. Perhaps the sexual urge mixed with a taste for betrayal is a more potent mix for some people.
@Lyn
Well, if you go by Dobb’s wall of text, apparently disgust and contempt also play a big role in cheating on your spouse. @_@V
I’ll admit that I do feel a bit like the lifelong Jew (or Catholic) being told by a relatively new convert that I’m not practising the faith properly. But my concern is not about the practice but the identity. I’m not even saying that Professor Schwzer is (quite) advocating that other monogamous people should follow his example, just that it’s not quite safe for people in a permanent and extremely small minority to adopt a practice that individualizes what had been a main point of commonality. If I simply saw such a suggestion without context, I’d think it a ploy devised by someone who found same-sex love or romance to be preposterous to fracture the sense of community between those so inclined.
You closed comments on Unsexed by Eirasexuality already, Hugo? I’m sorry your trolls are giving you so much grief. I guess it wouldn’t hurt to respond here.
I’d have no problem taking Women’s Studies with a male prof, gay, straight, married, single, what have you. As long as he’s a good prof. Unfortunately, openly gay or just readably gay teachers suffer even worse persecution than they do in most other fields. Blame that on all the Republican slippery slope arguments designed to cripple the Second Wave. “Letting women work? What about family values? Next thing you know, they won’t want to get married at all…then they’ll be having children out of wedlock and marrying other women and dogs and goats and letting homosexual perverts run amok in society…” Blah blah blah…The stuff they said about the Third Wave was even worse.
People still believe that BS. I hope that a large percentage of the grad students I’ve seen online discussing QueerTheory are working toward profdom. I think a more diverse mix of Gender Studies profs will improve the profession all around.
And Douglas, Hugo is not THAT kind of Xtian. I’m not a Xtian, and I despise Xtian busybodies. I don’t even bother with most Xtians in general, because the religion itself is patriarchal, anthropocentric, poorbashing, elitist and as pratised by some, nonsensical bordering on psychotic.
Despite the flaws in the religion itself, Hugo manages to be a fair, well rounded, liberal-minded human being, and a good teacher. Believe me, it’s a really unusual Xtian who can put the kind of ethical bent into his discussion topics that will draw my interest and keep me coming back.
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