Dear Sasha: Recently, I was involved in a casual, occasionally sexual relationship with an ex-boyfriend whom I still loved, and who claimed to love me. The arrangement suited both of us. I was too busy with school for a bigger commitment and he was interested in playing the field (although without any apparent success). However, I made it clear to him that if he started seriously seeing someone else, our sexual relationship would have to end.

After several months of this I found out that, in fact, he had been seriously seeing another girl - a girl I had seen him with on numerous occasions but who he had always characterized as an obsessive, stalker-type who wouldn't leave him alone, not someone he wanted a relationship with. However, he had been lying to us both, letting both of us think that we were in monogamous relationships with him so that we would have unprotected sex with him.

I decided to cut him out of my life forever. I figure if he had actually cared about either of us he would have allowed us the courtesy of making an informed decision before potentially endangering our health and reproductive future. Some of our mutual friends think I'm overreacting by not wanting to speak to him again. What do you think? » Sticking To My Guns

Dear Sticking,
Have you ever noticed that oftentimes when people tell you that you're overreacting, they have a vested interest in your reaction's aftermath? For example, if someone has hurt you and tells you that you're overreacting, it's often because they don't want to deal with the resulting guilt from your pain. In your case, your mutual friends obviously don't want to have to deal with any social discomfort your resolution causes, but put any one of them in your place and think of how they would respond, is what I think.

I also think that someone who feels no compunction satisfying selfish, frivolous desires by slandering another (with whom they are intimate no less!) should be forced to live with an actual, foaming at the mouth, mismedicated stalker for a month or two and see what it's really like. This fellow didn't just woopsy-daisy fool around, he deliberately fabricated circumstances where you believed something really quite awful about someone so his sexual experience wouldn't be compromised by a negligible lack of sensation. Talk about insensitive! He is accusing this woman of mentally unstable demeanour when, in fact, he seems to be the most qualified for such a label.

With this in mind, and with respect to all the top-drawer guys out there, let's look at some facts. How many women, and I mean documented cases, have you heard of who have restraining orders against them versus men? And how many women abuse and/or kill their partners out of jealousy rather than self-protection versus men? Why do we then so readily accept, with men as our source, that so many women inherently possess these qualities when there is factual evidence that men act out on them more frequently and certainly more brutally? Why? Because there is nothing that women hate more than being perceived as clinging and crazy, yet we seem to need to believe that so many other women are, to set ourselves against this skewed and overblown stereotype. Sure, women can go psycho (I've trashed a few apartments and savaged a few shins myself), but I think that some scrutiny is in order when the Crazy Bitch tactic is used to rationalize a curious situation.

I'm going to encourage you to live up to your handle and never speak to the shitfucker again. We do not tolerate or advocate people screwing with our mental and physical health and we can only make that clear by being very serious in our response. Oh, and go see the film The Corporation. I think you'll find it very interesting.

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