"If you have been vaccinated for polio, mumps, measles, chicken pox, hepatitis, or rabies, it may be ..." — Katha Pollitt

Sure, men like a challenge - but so do women. And nobody likes to be challenged all the time. I know plenty of long-standing happy couples who slept together right away, spent hours yakking on the phone, split checks down the middle, and lived together for years before the wedding.

Ariel may look a lot like Barbie, and her adventure may be limited to romance and over with the wedding bells, but unlike, say, Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty, she's active, brave and determined, the heroine of her own life. She even rescues the prince. And that makes her a rare fish, indeed, in the world of preschool culture.

I think the meaning of abortion is what the woman says it is: For a woman who wants a child but can't have this one, it can be sad; for a woman who doesn't want a baby, it can feel like a huge relief, like having your whole life given back to you.

My mother had an illegal abortion in 1960, which was the year the birth control pill came out, but I guess a little late for her, but - and I never knew. I found out when my father, after her death, got her FBI file.