Dear Sasha: I know a 34-year-old woman who's incredibly bright, very cultured, well-read, PhD educated, drop-dead gorgeous and by far the best lover I've ever been with. I'm 30 and live in Scandinavia. She lives in Southern France. We have no plans to live in the same country - let alone in the same flat - anytime soon. We've known each other for seven platonic yet lustful years and just got together for a weekend of sensuality, romance and wildly satisfying unprotected sex, 14 days after her last period. She's pregnant.

Both of us want kids and we've been in love with each other ever since we met. I'm going back to France to spend a week with her next week. Abortion, or "oh-so-21st-century family"? Do we have any chance of raising a kid who won't turn out as fucked up as ourselves? Can a good dad be a six-hour plane ride away? Would I be a mere sperm-donor uncle or a full-blown father? Bonus question: what the fuck is going on with our citalopram-lexotan-booze-binging generation? » Science Pal

Dear Pal,
I love the way people fret about the state of today's families, as though families have ever, in the history of being families, enjoyed any kind of universal constancy. As far as I can see, it's never been better. Gays and lesbians can openly raise and adopt children, people who want to wring each other's necks don't always feel obliged to stay together "for the sake of the kids" (the only time this is ever a good idea is if you exchange scathing witticisms during squabbles that your children can use later on to entertain their friends at parties), women in our part of the world barely ever die in childbirth anymore, and people who are emotionally fit to have kids but who are biologically challenged can take advantage of some pretty groovy technology.

Look at the person on the other end of your lustful union: 34, doctorate degree, two weeks after her period, no condom. What was that classic C+C Music Factory ditty again, "Things That Make You Go Hmmm"? At the risk of sounding Biblical, could you find a better vessel for your sperm? If I got my hands on some similarly qualified baby butter and I was so inclined, I'd clamp my legs around it like a pitbull.

The other redeeming quality about your situation is this: you are real friends. This is more than you can say for at least half of all co-habitating and breeding couples, despite all the optimistic "I'm marrying my best friend" avowals people spout at their weddings to give their decision some added credibility.

I can't tell you what your role would be in all of this, and no doubt if your lover chooses to keep this child - and I want to stress how much I believe that this is fundamentally her choice - he or she will grow up cultivating a well-rehearsed collection of criticisms about the uncommon circumstances of his or her family. I understand this is what you get for having a child, no matter what you do to and for them.

Dear Sasha: I've been seeing my girlfriend for about a month, and we're both very inexperienced. She won't go down on me without me wearing a condom. Should this be the case? I've never had any other sexual partners, but she claims that she's read in magazines that the guy should always wear a condom. But I get practically nothing out of it. ° Cheers

Dear Cheers,
I am not here to provide ammunition against safer sex - or someone's distaste for semen - although it does seem unlikely that if you've never had any other sexual partners, you have a sexually transmitted infection. I support your girlfriend's safer sex practices though, and perhaps her fear is actually that she will pass something on to you. An effort to protect you from something she may have contracted (an example would be oral herpes) but is shy to discuss at this early juncture shows attention to your health. That's a good thing. Before you get both tested for STIs, this is a compromise. Any one of the jillions of Web sites that discuss safer sex practices will give you a list of others too.

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