Sometimes we choose a friend who mirrors our fantasies, dreams of a self we wish we could be.

Children crawl before they walk, walk before they run--each generally a precondition for the other. And with each step they take toward more independence, more mastery of the environment, their mothers take a step away--each a small separation, a small distancing.

Sexual freedom is about choice. It's the freedom to say no as well as yes.

For those who have lived on the edge of poverty all their lives, the semblance of poverty affected by the affluent is both incomprehensible and insulting.

Interesting, isn't it, that even though more than two and a half decades have passed since the sexual revolution brought women a new measure of sexual freedom, there's still no word in the language that doesn't reek with pejorative connotation to describe a woman who has sex freely. Since language frames thought and sets its limits, this is not a trivial matter. For without a word that describes without condemning, it's hard to think about it neutrally as well. When we say the words 'promiscuous woman,' therefore, it's a statement about her character, not just her sexual behavior.

The ideal visions of one age eventually are seen as its excesses by the next.

No revolution creates a wholly new universe. Rather, it reflects the history and culture that spawned it.