Rudynate

All those prestige labels don't interest me much. I love great clothes, but the only place they can have a logo is on a discreet label on the inside of the garment.

I think the most I have ever spent on a suit was $800.00. I have bought several items in a particular consignment shop I like. I don't have a thing for used underwear, so I've never bought any. I do want to buy a Burberry suit but haven't yet.

Please tell me you are not planning to die intestate.

My prominent San Francisco cardiologist would put them in the drinking water. During my first appointment with him ten or so years ago he said, "All roads lead to statins."

salmon en papillote

I think the risk from statin use is way overblown and I am even someone who experienced ill effects from statins. It wasn't statins that created the problem but that I was on the wrong statin for me. Switched to a new statin and problem solved. It all has the same feel to me as the anti-vax hysteria, except that it should have gone away by now. My brother-in-law became convinced that his statin was affecting his mental status and stopped taking it for that reason. He doesn't seem any better or worse off since he stopped.

That's OK. Others will understand. I think it's funny that, upthread, you were all about designing your own sexual orientation and not being a slave to biological determinatism, etc., etc, and now you're saying that homosexuality is an abnormal phenomenon that should be studied.

You've said what it is but not how it happens. Big difference.

Yes, my statement needs a little qualification. It depends on the area. There was one field I follow that experienced a flurry of publication in the mid-90s to the early oughts and nothing significant since then, so that is the current state in that particular field. OTOH, I have biotech clients who are working at the bleeding edge and haven't published yet. In that area 2 or 3 year -old references are dated. It doesn't mean that the information is useless, just that the field has moved on. I don't have any feel for how fast-moving the field of gender and sexual orientation is. So it is hard to say what is current and what is dated. I have a friend who is a mental-health professional. When he was fishing for a topic for his thesis, he said he was thinking about something related to the cause of homosexuality. I said, "Why would you do that? Studying the 'cause' of homosexuality is premised on the idea that it is something abnormal or exceptional and it isn't. You don't see anybody studying the cause of heterosexuality." He agreed with me and kept looking.

In the sciences, articles more than 2 or 3 years old are considered dated.

You know you have lost when you go ad hominem.

The operative language is "they theorize." OTOH, my quotation is evidence-based.

Although no single theory on the cause of sexual orientation has yet gained widespread support, scientists favor biologically based theories.[13] There is considerably more evidence supporting nonsocial, biological causes of sexual orientation than social ones, especially for males.[17][18][19] From wikipedia.

The Kinsey scale.

Those are associated with sexual orientation, but they are not sexual orientation. Much like a phenotype is a function of the genotype, but it is not the genotype.

Very intelligently, you have chosen a lifestyle that is congruent with your sexual orientation.

You agreed with Mike's clarification but then you persist. I think your definition of sexual orientation must have come from some extreme right website. I certainly agree that the heteronormative lifestyle you are living is a matter of choice. And I do believe that bisexuality exists as a sexual orientation and I do believe that you are bisexual, but you didn't choose your orientation any more than someone who has no attraction whatsoever to the opposite sex did.

Exactly. It seemed the OP could use some historical context concerning the contamination of the national discourse by radical religionists.

There is a new process that they are starting to use in Europe - alkaline hydrolysis, that uses a strong lye solution. It is being used in the US for pets. We had to have one of our cats put down a year ago, and that was the process they used to dispose of his remains. Two days later, they gave us a little wooden box containing a little bit of fine white powder. I'm wondering how they dispose of the lye solution.

In the 70's, the Christian right (Jerry Falwell, Anita Bryant, et al. ) popularized the idea that sexual orientation was a "lifestyle choice" and we've been stuck with that notion ever since. It just isn't like having a favorite color, or liking Italian food, or reading Proust in your spare time, and you know that. It seems like you cherry-picked that definition to fit the point you are trying to make.

LOL - Roger Sterling: "This would be a great business if it wasn't for the clients."

I don't know about providers, but I can say that use of tri-mix among older men is very common. My husband uses it because PDE5 inhibitors give him a pounding headache. I use it occasionally because, more and more, cialis tends to mess with my BP, without giving me a good boner.

I use whatever is around. I like to cook with wine, brandy and liquor but I don't see any point spending a lot on the booze I use in cooking. There's usually part of a bottle of red sitting around and some white in the refrigerator. Mostly I follow the conventional guideline of red wine with meat and white wine with poultry and fish, but chicken with a sauce made from red wine can be good and I like to make a red wine sauce for salmon sometimes. Almost anything is better with brandy added to it. I just use some cheap California brandy. I wouldn't waste a good cognac or armagnac, when it's just going to be cooked off.

But that's one of the reasons for hiring. Being as choosy as you want is perfectly reasonable. I'm pretty flexible and I like so many "types" that I almost don't have a type, but sometimes, things just don't work. It wasn't my fault or his fault. -he was ready to do whatever I needed but I had decided I was done. I paid him for the entire booking and we even chatted for a little while, so things didn't end on a sour note.