Sure enough, several angry emails from ladies upset with my disparaging the silhouette of every female person over 20. Sample:

“…Why don’t these women who’ve past their sell-by date just go away.

And conservatives are the ones who are supposed to have a true respect for women?”

Conservatives, as I recall, are the ones who believe that “human nature has no history.” It follows that we are at ease with the fact that the human female is visually attractive to the human male at, or shortly after, puberty, and for only a few brief years thereafter.

***Civilized*** male conservatives, among whose number I very much hope to be counted, regard the visual attractiveness of women as a welcome lagniappe in the grand scheme of things, other attributes being far more important practically all the time, and those other attributes being the grounds for our respect.

None of which means we can’t pass comments & have a little cheeky fun with our human nature — which, after all, we take pride in being comfortable with. (In contrast to Lefties, who are very reluctant to admit that any such thing as human nature even exists.) NR’s own Rob Long, a card-carrying member of the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy, was a scriptwriter for the TV show Cheers, which was, to put it very, very mildly indeed, not above getting the odd laugh out of female visual attractiveness, or its absence, and the male response to same.