WendyMcElroy.com

Wendy and I have been together for about thirty years now. Before me, she had lived for several years with George H. Smith. Their sex life had ended, he was becoming abusive, and Wendy and I met at a libertarian event and discovered we had a certain chemistry. (A chemistry we still have, I might add -- after three decades we still enjoy a mutually delightful sex life.)

This has left George with a simmering resentment towards Wendy and towards me, even now, thirty years later. He hates her, he hates me, and he still can't stand that she dumped him for me.

You prate, incessantly and at every opportunity, that you have A Degree In Psychology, and you repeatedly draw upon that supposed authority in your pronouncements. And yet, Psychologist -- while reading his endless rants, and his sharing of fictional stories he has written over the ensuing decades, about Wendy's past and present sex life -- you are blind to George Smith's obsession with, and vindictivness toward, his ex-girlfriend.

Or perhaps you enjoy those titillating fabrications, such as the one that Wendy has had oral sex with "hundreds of men" in the libertarian movement. Are you so gullible? Or so aroused? Even when he contradicts himself within the space of one page, you cannot see it. When he tells Wendy that she should pay him money, or else he will tell me lurid stories of her (fabricated) infidelity, you cannot see the clumsy extortion attempt.

(And spare me your protestations of innocence, if you and he have since deleted your posts. I have copies safely archived on my computer. On advice of counsel, I will not repost them; if you ever see them, it will be in a court of law.)

I don't know if you are so in thrall to George that you automatically and uncritically believe anything he tells you, or if you know of his fabrications and go along because it furthers your personal grudge against Wendy. And yes, I know you have such a grudge. Is it because, during the decades while Wendy was building a reputation as a libertarian feminist, you were merely a footnote?

You know -- because George announced it on that forum -- that he had nude photos of Wendy from the days they were together, and he liked to show those photos to friends and new sexual partners. (Do you still not see the obsession, Psychologist?) You perhaps do not know that he used to take those photos to libertarian conferences, and show them around to Wendy's colleagues. It was Wendy's discovery of this that led to her breaking off all contact with George in 1991.

We are fortunate that George long ago lost those nude photos of Wendy, or she doubtless would have experienced on-line "revenge porn" by now. George is convinced that someone stole the photos, prompting his most hilariously clueless statement of the whole saga: "What kind of creep steals another guy's stash of private porn?" I know who the creep is in this picture, and it's not the thief.

You, a feminist? I laugh at the notion. You participate in attacks by an abusive ex-boyfriend -- fabrications about Wendy's sexual history, attempts to blackmail her, and attempts to ruin her marriage by slander. You support a "cyber-stalker" and pathological liar who is angry that he can no longer show off nude photos of his ex.

This is how I know, Psychologist, that you are not suddenly appearing on Wendy's column to have a friendly intellectual chat about social construction. You showed up to attack, to score points against a libertarian feminist who is more famous, more accomplished, more decent, more ethical, and (in my humble opinion) vastly more intelligent than you.

Wendy has heretofore chosen to maintain a dignified silence, and has never attacked you publicly, but I have had enough. Know now, Sharon, that if you invade our "cyber-turf", I will be there. I will let people know of your vendetta against Wendy, and your scurrilous tactics against her. I repeat: you are despicable scum.