I'd argue that there should be some room in all your young, strong hearts for an old fart expressing self-consciously over-the-top affection -- stripped of leering, absent any hostility, filled with honest, doofy admiration -- for positive traits he notices in many, many women and almost no men. There ARE observable differences in the genders, you know, and so many of them seem to break in the ladies' favor. I do not think you should be so quick to take this as an affront.

Meanwhile, I'd like to share a story apropos of the argument in this thread about whether women "are" their body parts. Back in the 1990s I was editing a story by Laura Blumenfeld about the then-trendy topic of the female condom. When we were done with it, the story had to be approved by a top editor at the paper, because it was about sex, and The Post was very, very nervous about sex. He liked the story, but asked us to take out the word "vagina," which he found distasteful. (Er, he found the WORD distasteful.)

Laura and I argued strenuously that you cannot write a story about the female condom without indicating how it is used, and that it is absolutely impossible to explain this without using the v word. And that there is nothing wrong with the v word.

The editor got all huffy and declared that he would rewrite it himself, which he did. And so there appeared the following line in The Washington Post; it is still in the archives: "The female condom lines the inside of a woman."

Voila! In trying to be tasteful and sensitive, this editor put into the Washington Post a line SPECIFICALLY equating a woman with her ladypart.

Big difference. They say they love women, but if you substitute "pussy" for "women" their comments make more sense. They love "pussy" - not "women".

I've got news for you un-evolved Neanderthals: women do not = pussy.

“To be honest, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with simply saying, “’I love having sex with women.’”

Hey, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that either. But no one mentioned in this post has “simply said” that. They have said, “I Love Women” when they mean that they love having sex with women. It’s a subtle difference, and it implies that they think of “women” in general as “women’s bodies.” That’s what I take issue with.

"I am, in fact, both generalizing (all women are not alike) and diminutizing (I find these things, God help me, “cute”). I am guilty of this and apologize"

Do you also hate on love letters and the romantic poets?

What's pathetic is that he thinks he's being funny. A gynecologist giving a "ma'am-ogram" ? That's not funny, even for the 12-year-old humor that Weingarten peddles. The "dainty, charmingly embarrassed chick" & the rest of that spiel just shows how sexist Weingarten is, as Emily points out above. All of the traits Weingarten cites are found equally in men and women.

What a waste of newsprint - Weingarten has a lot of bad karma to face.

I agree that this is bleah. Number one, it's not accurate. I'm a woman, I love the vulgar and common, and I only pursue cleanliness in a way that's barely adequate, by no means comically zealous. If women are "instinctively kind," then men are too, we're all one freakin' species and we have the same instincts. (And being a man isn't an excuse for lacking a sense of decency, taste or decorum.) Secondly, I don't want the people in my life to regard my traits as "enviable" and "beyond understanding." I want them to think I'm cool, understand me, and sympathize with me when I have a problem.

It's lame to define "women" by a batch of traits that not all women possess, because then women who aren't dainty and charmingly embarrassed get looked on as gross, weird, and less than real women.

I find that phrases like, "ma'amogram" and "an instinctive kindness, and instinctive appreciation of tastefulness and decorum, a charming embarrassment over coarse bodily functions" to be kind of creepy. He likes women...because they blush when they fart?

If you'll excuse me, I'll just be over here comically pursuing decency.

i think the smarminess and condescension might make this more icky than "i love having sex with women."