7/19 Shock! Horror!

The Prudecutor actually came close enough to getting one right that I might actually give her a B+ for one answer. It may take me almost the entire next week to recover. Another 4x200 (with bonus):

L3: Here we have the dreadful occurrence of the Prudecutor managing not to get one wrong when the letter in question was not a complete softball the way some others have been. Some people are Natural Survivors who do their causes all the possible good in the world by being Out and Visible on the Front Lines. LW3 is not. A little more about the benefits of Choice Feminism, or skepticism about how LW3's unwilling and unenthusiastic participation could conceivably help the cause could have improved the answer, but basically it was on the right track. And, as always, I raise an eyebrow when the Prudecutor launches off on an assumption that the working world is so homogeneous that the same Corporate Culture is to be found in all working environments.

LW3's shaming coordinator would do well to take a page from the example of Virginia Trant in The Big Crunch. Shame is to be applied to those who don't contribute to the endless round of charitable collections undertaken by wives whose straying husbands leave them with little else to do (besides helping murder their pregnant schoolgirl mistresses), not to survivors who recognize that their contributions are better off remaining monetary.

L4: What interests me here is that the Prudecutor completely fails to make even the tiniest nibble at the most interesting piece of information in the letter. F4 is insisting that BM4 appear in less than all her usual hirsute glory for the wedding. That would seem to be the vital clue. One recalls when She Who Must was squired for an evening out and an unimpressive dinner by an old flame, Chappy Bowers. While the meal itself was less than inspiring, it was Chappy who gave SWMBO pause by using a coupon for the meal and trying to get a reduction on their bill because they didn't eat the bullet-hard potatoes included in their Selection of Vegetables. A man who would do that would very likely be the sort to investigate the contents of a woman's shopping basket, and that simply would never do.

As for the wedding-related problem, who the flip cares? This is LW4's greatest concern? If it were not for having so many friends who practice in the Family Division and do divorces, I should tell LW4 in clear and ringing tones not to marry F4. But I am too kind to my friends to advise so.

L2: Here there are clearly established procedures (or certainly ought to be) for what W2 can or cannot do given her position and the situation. It would appear from L2 that OP2 is positioning himself so as to take most particular advantage of the lifeguards' situation as they enter or leave their chair. But this requires definite confirmation as being a strong point in W2's favour should she choose to take direct action of the sort indicated as being her preference in L2. Given the Prudecutor's fondness for the idea that all employment cultures are alike, it is almost strange that here she chooses to take a more individual view of the situation here at hand. But this is enough of a technical question that it hardly seems fair to put as a question to the Prudecutor. W2 should do what she is able to do to remedy the situation, and perhaps one might understand if she were to go a little beyond what is most strictly permitted in the situation. It is like Emma Woodhouse wondering if she went beyond what she could say about another woman when she told Frank Churchill she thought Mr Dixon sent Jane Fairfax's pianoforte.

L1: Now one can practically hear all the wolves gathering at the door to proclaim that what occurred was absolutely not rape, at least in the more recent encounter. The Prudecutor actually starts out on somewhat safe grounds, though slightly inexact about implied consent. But then, while it is far from me to be out of sympathy with the Prudecutor or anyone else who cannot stomach the thought of intimacy taking place with her (or his) partner for life without the assistance of the prior consumption of at least a bottle of wine or preferably two, she must allow that not everybody is like herself. LW1 and H1 clearly are not. They are entitled to their own agreement. And I cannot help but wonder what is wrong with being punctilious, a quality surely in great demand among many couples trying, in the face of considerable difficulty, to conceive offspring.

Where I shall tackle LW1 is on two fronts. First, is it so clear that H1 violated their agreement? This led to an agreement that he shouldn't be afraid of coming close to me in similar situations as long as he asked my consent. From LW1's description of the recent encounter, it's hard to say what constitutes what. Is starting to kiss her always a sexual advance? Did her conduct have anything to do with the situation becoming sexual? This is most unclear.

But I feel on firmer grounds questioning whether the situations were so very similar as LW1 maintains. C1 went to a friend's wine tasting. That event was supposed to so comparable to a night of party and drinking? Who organizes such wine tastings? Who gets that drunk at them? From LW1's description of the recent encounter, even if we overlook any possible effect on the relationship of six years of marriage, it sounds as if she only realized her state of inebriation when she could only recall half the encounter. How reasonable is it to suppose that H1 ought to have recognized her drunkenness and how sober is he supposed to be in the agreement to be able to be competent to make such a determination?

I have no quarrel with the couple having an agreement, but think that the agreement needs to change. As to whether or not the couple ought to divorce, of course they ought to divorce. Claude Erskine Brown is in desperate need of a brief. When he is briefless for too long, he starts looking for young lady barristers to take to the Opera. And we all know what happens then.

Moral: "As a bacchanalia, the Blind Tasting ranked very little higher than an afternoon out with the Temperance Society or a vicarage tea party."