I have been reading this exchange quietly while trying to figure out why my

computer is logging multiple copies.  I thought Henry Jenkins's posting was

interesting and valid.  Stephen's response to Mary seemed excessive.  I think

that stridency and anger slam a lot of doors -- perhaps understandably but

also unnecessarily.  I suppose I might make a mistake and say something like

"sexual preference" just because I haven't thought about it, I haven't

considered the semantics.  I don't think that makes me either an evil person

or a hopeless fool, just unaware.  So, educate me.  Having been married to a

teacher for ten years I know that destroying the pupil is not a great

educational technique.

I appreciated Henry Jenkins's laying out why he dislikes "orientation."

 While I, in fact, would NOT have used "preference" I had not seen any

pitfalls in "orientation."  PC has gotten a bad name but I agree that the

desire not to hurt people is an admirable one.  Words carry great weight.

 Which is probably why I wince when I read the word "queer."  I don't think

of my gay friends as "queer," because to ME, just as a reader of words, queer

means "odd, not right."  My cousin who died of AIDS was not queer to me.

I have just read a great book called THE FAMILY HEART:  A Memoir of When Our

Son Came Out, by Robb Forman Dew, which I think should be required reading

for mothers.  For a straight mother, particularly of sons, it is painful and

tender and enlightening reading... because Dew makes every crazed, emotional,

wrong-headed assumption AND THE FAMILY LIVES THROUGH IT.

Well, this has little to do with film but couldn't resist.

Selden West