Susie starts off today's show with a sexual-political reflection on the issues surrounding the new movie Milk.
Next, Susie found a church that might be of interest to those couples looking for the go-ahead to have more sex. Pastor Ed Young from the evangelical Fellowship Church in Texas is asking all married couples in the congregation to have sex every day, for God's sake. This super-church reverend plans to wipe out extra-marital affairs, addiction, and pornography, all thru daily marital coitus.
Then, in the "Try This at Home" mailbag, Susie responds to an extra long letter from a listener who talks about his very successful three-way encounters, which were aided and abetted by the Jewish High Holidays.
Click on the link to listen to a chunky excerpt from this week's show.
"Can we ever have too much sex? Can we ever love someone too much? On today's show, Susie speaks with author Rachel Resnick about her new book, Love Junkie: A Memoir.
"Do your relationshipsruin your wallet, your friends,andyour own peace of mind? Yikes, everyone can learn something from this discussion. Susie and Rachel really getinto the heart of healthyversusobsessivesex.
"Then, in the "Try This at Home" mailbag, Susie responds to a listener who wants to know if she can truly be a good feminist if she also really likes kinky sex. —Who is she hiding in the closet from?
You can purchase the entire audio program, or get a sweet deal with a subscription to my weekly podcast.
Today, on my In Bed podcast, features three big topics: voyeurism, sexual myth-making, and
uncircumcised men.
Inspired by my sex advice guru, Cory Silverberg, I made myself honestly answer the question, "who would I
like to watch having sex, if I could have my pick?" Frankly, Cory is my first pick, because if he fucks as with as much empathy he writes, I'd be enthralled.
But on the tabloid gossip front, where there's a lot of glamour-pusses to choose from, I have an unusual reason why movie stars "Brad and
Angelina" make my top five:
$2 a show, for a year; why not? Listen to free shows and succumb! LINK
Cory's column, which got me thinking about all this, was about the myths we make up about what "great sex" really amounts to. He predicts that no matter who we chose to "watch perform," we'd get bored within an hour— and I think he might even be overestimating it.
Finally, in my Try This at Home mailbag, a worried listener asks: "Do women really turn up their noses at uncircumcised men?"
Are you ready for my All-Sarah, All-Sex,
All-Alaska joyride?
On my audio show this week, I get under
the covers with "Caribou Barbie."
What's up with Sarah's own story of pre-marital sex, drug binges, and
teenage pandemonium? How does having a Down-syndrome baby qualify you as a role model
for the right-to-life campaign? Should the governor always use law enforcement to wreak revenge on marital infidelity? And what's wrong with banning "My Friend Flicka" from the library if it doesn't follow the her church's doctrine?
All this, and how Sarah manages to "hug" McCain on the podium without appearing to be groped.
Finally, in my Try This at Home mailbag, I respond to a listener who wonders if he can introduce his favorite sex toys to his favorite call girl. I'm sure Sarah could weigh in on this, too!
UPDATE: After you've listened to me and had a few laughs, or poured yourself a highball of absinthe, sober up and listen to Gary Hart on the Palin insanity... I couldn't agree more with him. I think what's missing from his analysis is not only does the GOP elite "disdain" the notion of governance, but more importantly, they disdain democracy, because they have no intention of having ANY elected fool run "their country"— that's all to be done from an undisclosed location by people who rarely show their faces. McCain, Bush, Reagan... they've all been idiots, "America's Top Model," one and all. Palin is just the newest joke.
Illustration: This is an actual scene of Sarah Palin's life from a few years ago, when dinosaurs roamed the earth— that's according to her pastor in Wasilla! For more exciting Stone Age comix, see here...
I found out from Paul Krassner that George Carlin's daughter, Kelly, quoted my obit during her family memorial.
I'm so touched! It's just not the same without him around.
Carlin had the most perfect last words on dying:
"The most unfair thing about life is the way it ends. I mean, life is tough. It takes up a lot of your time. What do you get at the end of it? A Death! What's that, a bonus?
"I think the life cycle is all backwards. You should die first, get it out of the way. Then you live in an old age home. You get kicked out when you're too young, you get a gold watch, you go to work. You work forty years until you're young enough to enjoy your retirement. You do drugs, alcohol, you party, you get ready for high school. You go to grade school, you become a kid, you play, you have no responsibilities, you become a little baby, you go back into the womb, you spend your last nine months floating......and you finish off as an orgasm."
On my audio show this week, I reminisce about Carlin, and then— on another subject!— talk about the past and current state of "inter-racial" porn, which is like The Theater of the Absurd, antebellum-style:
To my amazement, John McCain has decided to make his entire TV campaign about stimulating the imaginary, yet titillating "horror" of Obama sullying the specter of white, and particularly, blond, womanhood. Any one of his ads that juxtapose Barack with Paris or Britney feel like they came right out of a peep show arcade. It's out of the Karl Rove playbook, to be sure. This is the guy whose entire "oeuvre" consists of perverse race and sex baiting. Focus on the other guy's cock, and your election is in the bag. I can't wait 'til he dies, and the "Rovian Porn Archives" are revealed. I'm sure his rivals the Vatican's.
Finally, in my Try This at Home" mailbag, I get a letter from a listener who asks, "Hospital Sex. Am I crazy, or does it really happen? Is it weird to be horny while recuperating from surgery?"
Darling, it's the most natural thing in the world...
Don't forget, you can send your confidential questions and feedback about the show to susie@audible.com. (Episode 352, Aug. 8, 2008)
Photo Credit: Laurel & Hardy in The Battle of the Century, 1927. Over 4000 real pies were employed in the climactic battle of the custards.
m
I just came back from summer camp: Camp It Up! to be exact. It's a family camp for gay/bi/lesbian tribes and their friends— a lot of floatin'-down-the-river, horse-riding, BBQ-chowing, fun.
Every time someone recognized me in the bathroom line, they'd say, in hushed tones: "Are you doing a workshop, here... please say yes!"
I knew they weren't asking for knot-tying advice; they had the same question as every straight, Ozzie-&-Harriet parent does: Will my lover and I ever have
sex again?
A lot of new moms and dads feel like they're in a time warp with their kids, with no hope of romance or erotic spontanaeity returning.
Well, thanks to my new acquaintance, Nicole Chaison, who edits the super-cool parenting magazine HausFrau, the sex-for-parents workshop (or should we call it a marathon?) can begin.
HausFrau deals with visceral family challenges: head lice, (best comic book ever on the subject)
traveling with kids, and of course, sex. Nicole sent me letters from her readers, who asked— without flinching— about loaded post-natal topics like low libido, boring sex, anal sex, privacy, children storming your bedroom door, and whether labor and orgasms
are related. We're publishing my answers in HausFrau's next issue!
I was inspired by one of the mother-to-be's who asked, "Can
I keep doing one of my favorite sexual activities without hurting the
baby?" She means fisting. Of course, this woman hasn't given birth yet, so she has yet to find out that her new favorite activity is going to be falling to sleep for a thousand years.
Meanwhile, here's a preview of what we talked about, from my latest In Bed audio show, where I shared a few of Nicole's letters, and my responses:
Tristan Taormino, Vivid Video's celebrated movie maker, author of Ultimate Guide to Anal Sex for Women and editor of the Best Lesbian Eroticaseries, has done it again: she's written a hands-on book, titled Opening Up, A Guide to Creating and Sustaining Open Relationships— about how to deal with all the issues that come up with non-monogamy.
Susie puts Tristan to the test! What if your lover throws a jealous fit at every play party and then denies it? How do you have kids and stay the course in a poly family? What if one partner is on the prowl and the other couldn't care less? Why do monogamous folks think they're doing any better? These two get a little carried away.....
If you like this sample and want to hear more, you can subscribe (for $2 a show) to my weekly show at Audible.com. I'm offering a 12-episode season on iTunes to give new listeners a taste.
Painting by: John Weiss. I got a wild hair to illustrate this story with photo stills of the old TV show, "Three's Company," but this portrait by popped up in my search. They're so much deeper.
Today, on my In Bed podcast, we
look into the politics of AIDS, and why "telling the big lies" is endemic to every funding and policy opportunity.
I interview author and epidemiologist Elizabeth Pisani about her new book The Wisdom of Whores: Bureaucrats,
Brothels and the Business of AIDS— a bracing look at how AIDS is perceived, sexually and politically, around the world.
I asked Elizabeth, if "number of partners" really does count, in certain situations, how do you do prevention education that isn't religious, moralistic, or hypocritical?
Finally, in my Try This at Home mailbag: What do you say to a listener
who asks; help, my new husband is forty years old and he's completely
in the dark about sex!
Don't forget, you can send your confidential questions and feedback about the show to susie@audible.com. (Episode 350, July 25, 2008)
Susie talks with legendary sex blogger, "Chelsea Girl." They discuss "viscous porn-starry spit," stripteasing your way to a scholarly interest in Victorian erotica, and Chelsea's always-revealing web diary, Pretty Dumb Things.
If you like this sample and want to hear more, you can subscribe (for $2 a show) to my weekly show at Audible.com. I'm offering a 12-episode season on iTunes to give new listeners a taste!
Today, on my In Bed podcast, I've made a special hour and a half compilation of my most personal interviews and oral histories of women in the porn business.
It starts with my memories of Linda Lovelace, whom I encountered in some of those "Only in LA" moments that define the 1970s for me. I witnessed her crowning stage moment at Cal Jam 1 on my first acid trip, in 10th grade...just for starters! The phenomenon of her career and my own early impressions of porn are inseparable. I recorded this before her untimely death.
Another personal history here is my memories of Traci Lords. I covered Traci as a Penthouse film critic, (and, bizarrely, appeared with her in the same movie, The Grafenberg Spot), before her revelations that she was working as an underage performer.
The other audio segments are frank interviews with my friends about their personal and professional lives in the sex business.
I've been sisters and colleagues with these women for many years... we don't put on an act, or dress up the facts. There's no politically-correct, cheerleading for porn—trying to make it cute for the mike. You may have never heard women talk about sex this way, and if you have, you're going to feel in very good company!
Don't forget, you can send your confidential questions and feedback about the show to susie@audible.com.
Photo Credit: Honey Lee Cottrell, 1984, Kathy Andrew's first leatherwork studio, for On Our Backs
Today, on my In Bed podcast, I take a look into the darker side of the Sex and the Cityphenomenon.
You know, I wouldn't care so much if those four neanderthal-ettes showed you how to shop for sexual insight— if that's their forté— but they even fail at that.
An unintentional erotic moment in the movie makes the point quite bitterly: three of the girlfriends realize that their fourth, Miranda, has neglected to shave her bikini line.
The camera shows a close-up of a couple of errant bright-red pubic hairs curling out from Miranda's upper thigh.
Her BFFs excoriate her: How can she destroy any hope of a sex life by refusing to shave! She must be turning her back on men altogether!
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, this is what red cunt hair, the most prized of all genital details, has been reduced to.
When the film debuted, I spoke to Susannah Breslin at Salon, about the nausea of SATC:
"Did you see the recent New Yorker essay, "The Fall of Conservatism," by George Packer? It paraphrases social theorist Eric Hoffer: 'Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.'
"Sex and the City is the 'racket' part of what once was recognizable as the sexual self-emancipation of the feminist movement... I can't watch these women, you know, make asses of themselves and be so petty and small-minded about sexual possibility. I take it too personally."
In the second half of my show, a news story in France catches my eye- can a traditional marriage can be
annulled because the wife isn't a virgin?
And finally, in my Try This at Home mailbag, I answer a letter from a worried mom: "My son is way too sexually precocious, and it's causing me alarm..."
Don't forget, you can send your confidential questions, and feedback about the show, to susie@audible.com. (Episode 347, July 4, 2008).
Photo Credit: This image is the top hit when you search Google for "Merchandising."
When it comes to turning boys and girls upside down, and shaking up every orgasmic assumption you ever had, no one does it better than transgender author, playwright, and performance artist Kate Bornstein.
If you've ever wanted to hear the un-cutesy truth about how people stay alive when all seems lost, this is it.
If you like this sample and want to hear more, you can subscribe (for $2 a show) to my weekly show at Audible.com. I'm offering a 12-episode season on iTunes to give new listeners a taste!
Susie investigates why people love Sex Games— the card-playing, "Truth or Dare" kind— and why usually-monogamous couples will push the envelope if "rules of the game" are employed.
One avid player named Amy told me: "Two reasons I like to play sex games: a), the joy of winning!— and, b), the threat of losing!"
Uh... don't let Amy get me in a headlock!
I discovered the iTunes sex side of podcasting when I met the people behind of one of the most popular new sex games ever, Great Sex Games. They certainly have improved "Spin the Bottle," but remember— I'm still too scared to play with Amy.
One of my author friends, Shanna Germain, just wrote a story for me* that involves a sex game called "Fuck Marry Kill." She was surprised when I told her I didn't know what FMK means— but I love that title.
Has everyone played this except me? The rules are, you get put on the hot seat, and asked to choose among a group of people— either your companions, or a hypothetical list they give you— who you would fuck, who you would marry, who you would... assassinate. What if all three amount to the same person?
If you like this sample and want to hear more, you can subscribe (for $2 a show) to my weekly show at Audible.com. I'm offering a 12-episode season on iTunes to give new listeners a taste!
Photo Credit: Yes, I have played Naked Twister. * More on this soon! I'm doing a new erotic collection....
Susie talks with feminist author Katha Pollitt, one of the mothers of American women's liberation, and notorious for her Nation magazine column "Subject to Debate".
Susie and Katha talk about how sexual liberation got separated from women's liberation, "Virginity or Death!" the sexual licks of the male ego, and global feminism at its most provocative.
If you like this sample and want to hear more, you can subscribe (for $2 a show) to my weekly show at Audible.com. I'm offering a 12-episode season on iTunes to give new listeners a taste!
ner
Today, on my In Bed podcast, Tristan Taormino and her lover Colten, along with Pal Joey, came to Santa Cruz— lured by my promise of "the best hot fudge sundae you ever had"— to talk to me about TT's new book, Opening Up: A Guide to Creating and Sustaining Open Relationships.
I was determined to stump Tristan on non-monogamy, but I give up! She has fucking heard it all!
Tristan and I tear into all the non-polite questions of open relationships!
Reconsidering the so-called "sexless marriage"
What to do with a lover who monopolizes your vagina at the play party... Cock-blockers!
“I’m not very jealous in real life, but my fantasy life revolves around competition... What gives?”
The visceral experience of jealousy
Your family-of-origin experience— doesn’t make any damn difference!
Porn star poly savvy
Reconsidering the so-called "Sexless Marriage"
So, what do people actually do at Tristan's "Open Relationship" workshops?
Monogamy— yes, monogamy!— as a radical choice
If I’m poly, do I have to say "yes" to everyone to prove a point?
When your lover’s getting all the action, and you’re sitting there fuming....
How kids feel about their “swinger” moms and dads? Or any mom and dad, for that matter...
How do you deal with the all-consuming crush part of a new, additional love, besides having faith you can ride it out?
My favorite part of TT's book are her interviews with dozens of lovers, who give you a real sense of the variety of human love. This is no single stereotype, like the "hip young triad splitting their espresso tab and licking each other in a daisy chain."
It's people with kids, it's people who did one thing for five years, and then changed it up— and then transitioned yet again. It's kinky, it's vanilla, it's long-distance, it's high school sweethearts, it's grandma, it's genderfuck. There is no one poly person or one poly question!
Tristan is also keeping a blog of her Opening Up book tour and workshops— that's how I'm keeping tab on her! Plus, all those cute doggie pictures...
Don't forget, you can send your confidential questions, feedback about the show, and requests for free show coupon cards to susie@audible.com. (Episode 345, June 20, 2008)
Click link above to listen to the whole interview...
If Betty Dodson didn't invent female masturbation, she was the first woman to wave the pink flag. This 78-year-old is not afraid to tell it like it is.
Susie and Betty discuss the G-Spot, inter-generational sex— and what it was like when Betty's mom first asked her daughter about her clitoris.
This special INWSB show for iTunes is part of a twelve-episode free sampler we've produced for iTunes Podcast fans, in their Health:Sexuality category. Thanks to Lorax and Kidder for all their help!
(If you're already an In Bed listener, this is your chance to turn on your skeptical friends, with a free taste! Then let them be seduced into the depravity...)
If you are intrigued with this sample and want to hear more, you can subscribe to my weekly show at Audible for less than 2 crackers a week...
My favorite part of my audio show is my
mailbox: the letters, secrets, and sex questions I get make me feel like
a priestess in a liberated confession booth.
This week, on
my show, I catch up with a stack of correspondence that I couldn't
delay another minute:
A female erotic film fan asks, "What are the best "Netflix"-style places to find porn rentals... with no bullshit, no spam?"
Listener James B. asks, "How do porn stars 'stay healthy'?"— and I ask, "Why do people NOT in the sex trade keep asking this question?"
The mainstream assumptions health issues in the sex and entertainment trade are astray from the reality— they say more about the spectators' fears, than the actor's bill of health...
Next, a husband and wife are looking into commiting themselves to a "female-led relationship," and from hubby's description of where they're at now, I wonder, how much is sexual deprivation part of this plan? It's no fun eroticizing domination and submission if you rarely, if ever, get off. When do kinky contracts become drudgery?
One of my favorite fans asks, "Will female ejaculation help a woman keep tight as a drum?" vanquishing all incontinence? One happy camper testifies, and I put in my two cents...
Finally, how can a interested client read between the lines of "masseuse ads,"
to find the the truly transcendent practicioners? Mere pedicures or
shiatsu will never live up to this! This one listener's story made me drool:
Devoted wife, Charla Muller, wanted to give her husband an unforgettable present for his 40th Birthday. This is what she came up with: sex, every single night, for 365 days.
This is a Southern, Christian couple with three kids and a life that, as Charla describes, had become increasingly "blah" in the sex dept.: "My cheese was every so slowly slipping off my cracker..."
She is funny. She is also clever, and hass written a book about this unusual year, called 365 Nights: A Memoir of Intimacy, which chronicles her husband's reaction, how they really made out for the next year, and what she gave him for his forty-first birthday: golf clubs.
I'd still like to pry a few more of the X-rated details out of her:
On the second half of my audio show, I have a science question: What are the erotic possibilities of hell freezing over, as opposed to the sexual consequences of hell boiling over?
A radical professor in Oklahoma asked his engineering students to define Hell, and only one of his students got an "A" for his answer— read here to see if you could do any better!
Finally, in my Try This at Home mailbag, a listener asks: "how can a menstrual cup bring my experienced vagina to a complete standstill?!"
Don't forget, you can send your confidential questions, feedback about the show, and requests for free show coupon cards to susie@audible.com. (Episode 342, May 30, 2008).
Today, on my In Bed audio show, I look at an exposé from reporter
Debbie Nathan, who just got back from a research convention of The
Academy of Forensic Sciences to discover what the geeks at the FBI have learned about the relationship, and potential, between
"real" and "computer-generated" (CG) pornographic images.
The police's particular interest, in this case, is child abuse. Sexualized images of real
children are illegal, but computer-generated images are not prosecuted in the U.S., as yet, because
they don't show actual kids.
This debate has gotten hotter, because it's now difficult to tell what's real— computer-editing programs
are facile enough to turn anyone, theoretically, into an amateur touch-up artist.
Many questions arise from
the Feds' investigations. Do virtual pictures attract people with ill intent or actions toward children? Or is this a bizarre, if preferable, method of harm reduction?
Back in the 1990s, the government outlawed CG images of
sexualized children.
But a few years later, ruling in a case called
Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition, the Supreme Court said CG child porn
is legal... the general consensus was that the
technological state-of-the-art for CG human images wasn’t so good
anyway.
If you concocted a CG image of a child having sex, the thinking
went, it wouldn’t fool anyone, because it was too low-tech to seem real.
Within a couple of years, though, people caught with child porn images
were going to court and claiming they didn’t have anything real, only
CG — and that if the government thought otherwise, it would have to
prove it.
The government developed several responses. One: find the actual child
depicted in the pornography, and bring that real child into court, or
bring in the cop who handled her case. This would show beyond a doubt
that the defendant’s material was not CG.
Another strategy is to match
the images in evidence to others previously collected by the feds, then
show that the whole set dates to pre-Photoshop times, back when
anything that looked like a photograph of a real kid really was real.
But what if child victims and old photo sets aren’t available? A third
government technique is to tell courts that the average person (an FBI
agent, a jury member) can still distinguish what’s real and what’s CG,
just by looking with the naked eye.
Is this true? The government would like us to think so. But in point of
fact, the boundary between real and CG is getting fuzzier by the year –
and the feds are nervous.
Check out Debbie's site to see more incredibly realistic (G-rated! of course) CG images, and to read the rest of her story... it's a science fiction novel come to life:
"After [the experts'] presentations, it seemed clear that the
technology exists to make real child porn look fake. And — much more
significantly — to make CG porn which looks genuine enough to fool
ordinary people.
An obvious question that comes to mind, then, is: how
much of this sophisticated child CG is already on the Internet?
My sense from attending the workshops is: Probably hardly any.
But the
scarcity has little to do with technology. The digital world is now
rife with graphics professionals and hobbyists who spend lots of time
creating reasonably real-looking virtual people as still images –
adults and kids. CG adults (especially women) often look “sexy.”
Sometimes they’re even having sex. But virtual kids are not portrayed
sexually (though teen girls often look “come hither”). CG kids remain
chaste, probably, because there’s no commercial market for child porn
and thus no significant money to be made by doing virtual renditions of
the stuff.
Hobbyists, of course, don’t need money to pursue their
passions. But even they are probably reluctant to do CG child porn.
It’s not like they can post it on graphic arts websites and get props
from fellow artists.
Plus, virtual child porn is legal in the US, but
it’s outlawed in many other countries. If an American’s CG smut got
emailed overseas, he could get in big trouble.
Given the above, I bet most defendants and their attorneys who raise
the CG defense are bullshitting. They’ve probably been caught with the
real thing..."
Also on my show, today, I get the dirt on a couple of cranky citizens from the Greek Island of Lesbos who aren't happy sharing
their name with lesbians.
A court date
has been set to stop a Greek gay rights organization from calling themselves
lesbians... it seems Jerry Falwell's spirit lives on, in every nook and corner.
Let us quote Sappho, the most famous Lesbian citizen of all, in both senses of the word:
I have not had one word from her
Frankly I wish I were dead When she left, she wept
a great deal; she said to me, "This parting must be endured, Sappho. I go unwillingly."
I said, "Go, and be happy but remember (you know well) whom you leave shackled by love
"If you forget me, think of our gifts to Aphrodite and all the loveliness that we shared
"all the violet tiaras, braided rosebuds, dill and crocus twined around your young neck
"myrrh poured on your head and on soft mats girls with all that they most wished for beside them
"while no voices chanted choruses without ours, no woodlot bloomed in spring without song..."
Frankly, I'd be honored to live in a place inspired by her work, and I'm sure many Lesbians and lesbians, are!
Last, in my audio show mailbag, a listener writes in who's having a hard time meeting girls in the cadre ranks of the anti-porn, anti-violence campaign he belongs to.... I've been this lad's shoes, myself!
Don't forget, you can send your confidential questions,
feedback about the show, and requests for girly cards to
susie@audible.com. (Episode 341, May 23, 2008)
Photos: Computer-Generated examples from Debbie Nathan's story.Sappho bust from Musei Capitolini.
The next guilty teenage boy you see on the street... buttonhole him, and whisper, "You're not doing it ENOUGH! You better beat off
like your life depended on it!"
A new study shows that regular
masturbation can reduce the risk of developing prostate cancer. Seriously.
The
Australian researchers who carried out the tests found men who
ejaculate more then five times a week were better off then men with
more modest numbers. And the younger you start, the better the results.
Also on today’s show, I take a look at one literary author's secret success in
writing erotic novels. Writer Rupert Smith takes on the "nom de porn"
as James Lear as he writes steamy gay porn fiction.
I think that erotic literature serves the same purpose as other genre fiction, but with a more literal outcome. A good crime novel, be it by Agatha Christie or Alexander McCall Smith, provides a failsafe formula of crime, investigation and solution. The porn parallel is encounter, seduction and sex. While a whodunnit plots this pattern across an entire book, a porn writer must repeat it several times within one novel, allowing the reader time to recover before revving up the engines again. The reason why dirty books remain in the shadows is very simple: the book trade is not comfortable with masturbation. Books in which children are abused, women murdered and men brutalised crowd the shelves of WH Smith. Books in which consenting adults enjoy each other for the healthy entertainment of literate wankers do not.
Finally, in my Try This at Home mailbag, a listener reminisces about her debauched youth in New Orleans, in our continuing conversation about why we love this city so much!
Don't forget, you can send your confidential questions, feedback about the show, and requests for free show coupon cards to susie@audible.com. (Episode 340, May 16, 2008)
Recent Comments