Everything you'll need to know about planning a wedding can be found in Abby's booklet, "How to Have a Lovely Wedding." To order, send a long, business-size, self-addressed envelope, plus check or money order for $3.95 ($4.50 in Canada) to: Dear Abby, Wedding Booklet, P.O. Box 447, Mount Morris, Ill. 61054. (Postage is included.)
Husband's Demand to Tape Sex Is Part of Troublesome Change
DEAR ABBY: Over the years, you have provided your readers with numerous comments and some helpful, serious advice. But, Abby, your age and the changing technology have caught up with you -- and passed you by. The advice you gave "Living a Nightmare," whose husband wanted to videotape their sex act, was so off base. I had to let you know that you are out of touch with today's men and technology.
Today's women claim that the men in the U.S. Senate are not in touch with women's needs (Professor Anita Hill's charge of sexual harassment against Judge Clarence Thomas), and you are not in touch with today's men's needs. Abby, men have been capturing the sex act through photography since the invention of the camera. So, for your information, a man does not have to have a tumor on the brain to possess an age-old desire.
Abby, had you been up on the video technology available today and attuned to male desires, you would have given your correspondent at least one of the following options: 1. View themselves on the monitor without a tape in the camera. 2. Tape the act and she keeps the tape. 3. Make him agree that the two of them will be the only viewers of the tape. 4. Use the tape as a bribe to get all those things she's always wanted and couldn't get before.
Abby, you need either to retire or get a male adviser for males' problems. -- ALPHONSE BUSH, LOS ANGELES
DEAR ALPHONSE BUSH: I heard from other video-wise male readers who also disagreed with my answer, but there will be no mea culpas from this corner, because "Living a Nightmare" said that her husband's behavior had changed so noticeably that even his co-workers had mentioned it.
Furthermore, the issue was not the husband's wanting to videotape their sex act -- it was his heavy-handed tactics. When she advised her husband that having their sex act captured on a videotape made her uncomfortable, he told her that he would not have sex with her again unless it was on film! And when she suggested they consult a marriage counselor, he flatly refused. After her husband had been "badgering her every night for two months," she finally wrote to me.
I have always felt that what happens in the bedroom of two consenting adults is their own business, providing they are both agreeable and neither is harmed. The wife felt that his request was degrading, but he continued to badger her; therefore, I concluded that his behavior was sick. Whether it was a symptom of a potentially life-threatening illness would have to be determined by a medical doctor.
I rest my case and stand by my answer, even though it's entirely possible that the husband was more brutish than brain-damaged.
P.S. I already have a male adviser. I sleep with him.
Bird Lovers Sing Their Goodbye to Pennsylvania's Ex-Governor
DEAR ABBY: In a recent column in the Delaware News-Journal, you condemned the traditional Labor Day Pigeon Shoot in Hegins, Pa. I was pleased to learn that you were compassionate enough to have written to then-Gov. Dick Thornburgh in 1986, protesting that barbaric tradition, and you asked him to please put an end to it. You said he responded with a courteous letter defending the live pigeon-shoot as a time-honored tradition.
Well, Abby, last week, on Election Day, Dick Thornburgh suffered an unexpected defeat in his race for the U.S. Senate. In Philadelphia, the newspaper headlines read: "Wofford Stuns Thornburgh!"
In sustaining this totally unexpected defeat, Dick Thornburgh must have felt as stunned as those doomed pigeons of Hegins for whom he refused to take merciful action. -- JANICE DILLON, WILMINGTON, DEL.
DEAR JANICE: I have received a few letters asking if it was just a coincidence that the letter about Dick Thornburgh and the Labor Day Pigeon Shoot in Hegins appeared in my column just a few days before the Pennsylvania elections. I assure you, it was. I am not so egotistical to presume that my column was in any way responsible for Thornburgh's defeat. Suffice it to say, it didn't help him any.
Read on:
DEAR ABBY: Re Dick Thornburgh's letter to you describing the Hegins Pigeon Shoot as "a time-honored tradition": May I remind him of a few other "time-honored traditions"?
-- Public hangings
-- Segregation
-- Cockfights
-- Bullfights
-- The caste system
-- Apartheid
-- Binding the feet of female infants (in pre-revolutionary China) to impede their growth
-- Leaving elderly people out on the ice to die
Some of these "traditions" needed a war to stop them. Others ended because they became illegal. I thank God we have people who see injustices for what they are, and have the courage to fight for change. -- ROSALIE BEREZICK, TRUCKSVILLE, PA.
DEAR ROSALIE: Thanks for writing. I am reminded of the immortal words attributed to Edmund Burke (1729-1797), the Irish-born British statesman: "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."
DEAR ABBY: Greetings from Oregon. I'm writing concerning that POW bracelet which Karen A. Tamura of Cerritos, Calif., found in her garage. (It was engraved "Lt. Cmdr. John McKamey.")
I, too, am a veteran, and I've always wished that I could have gone to Vietnam, but I was too young at the time. My older brother went to Vietnam, and he came back a different man: psychologically screwed.
I've read thousands of pages about that war and talked to numerous vets, and yes, they are very reluctant to talk about it.
Abby, if you can't find the family of Lt. Cmdr. John McKamey, please send me that POW bracelet. I will put it on my wrist and wear it to my deathbed, or until all POWs have been returned or accounted for. -- GREGORY WANG, BEND, ORE.
DEAR GREGORY: I have some happy news for you. Read on:
DEAR ABBY: I'm replying to Karen Tamura from Cerritos, Calif.: John McKamey is alive and well and residing in Pensacola, Fla. He's a wonderful man and I'm proud that I met him. -- DENNY GLYNN
Most teen-agers do not know the facts about drugs, AIDS, and how to prevent unwanted pregnancy. It's all in Abby's new, updated, expanded booklet, "What Every Teen Should Know." To order, send a business-size, self-addressed envelope, plus check or money order for $3.95 ($4.50 in Canada) to: Dear Abby, Teen Booklet, P.O. Box 447, Mount Morris, Ill. 61054. (Postage is included.)
First Lady of Columnists Is Not of Presidential Stock
DEAR ABBY: I am a man who used to think your column was just another women's gossip column, so I never bothered to read it. Then my wife called my attention to something you wrote, and I'm glad she did because I have been an avid reader ever since.
Abby, I have a question you probably have been asked before. Are you a descendant of President Martin Van Buren? His wife's name was Abigail. -- BRANDON WELSH, PHOENIX
DEAR MR. WELSH: No, Abigail Van Buren is my pen name. However, Martin Van Buren's wife's name was not Abigail -- it was Hannah. Hannah bore him four sons, then died, leaving Van Buren a widower.
Martin Van Buren moved into the White House with four bachelor sons. One day, Dolley, the wife of James Madison, our fourth president, came to the White House accompanied by her beautiful young niece, Angelica Singleton, who was visiting from South Carolina.
President Van Buren's eldest son, Abraham, promptly fell in love with Angelica. They were married shortly after and moved into the White House where Abraham served as his father's private secretary, and Angelica assumed the duties of the first lady.
However, there were two presidents whose wives WERE named Abigail -- John Adams (our second president) and Millard Fillmore (our 13th president).
I have probably told you much more about American presidents than you care to know, but I became fascinated with the American presidents B.C. (Before Column), and have been hooked on the subject ever since.
DEAR ABBY: What is this world coming to? My hairdresser, who is gay, told me that a powerful gay group is trying to legalize same-sex marriages.
Abby, I have nothing against homosexuals, but I can't understand why they need a "license" to live together. Please enlighten me. -- FREDA IN FRESNO
DEAR FREDA: In most states, married couples have the legal right to be on each other's health, disability, life insurance and pension plans. They also get special tax exemptions, deductions and refunds. A married person may inherit property and have rights of survivorship that avoid inheritance tax.
If a couple is married, the spouse is legally "next of kin" in case of death or medical emergencies. Marriage is more than a piece of paper; it provides a couple with LEGAL protection.
I have had letters urging me to remind people with AIDS to see a lawyer and have a proper will drawn up in order to ensure that whatever they leave will go specifically to a person of their choice. In the absence of a will -- the nearest next of kin (usually the parents) will inherit everything.
DEAR READERS: If you're looking for the perfect Bat (or Bar) Mitzvah gift, get "Deborah, Golda and Me: Being Female and Jewish in America" by Letty Cottin Pogrebin (published by Morrow). And buy one for yourself, but don't lend it to anyone -- you'll never get it back. It's a book of interest to both sexes.
Hot off the press -- Abby's new booklet, "The Anger in All of Us and How to Deal With It." To order, send a long, business-size, self-addressed envelope, plus check or money order for $3.95 ($4.50 in Canada) to: Dear Abby, Anger Booklet, P.O. Box 447, Mount Morris, Ill. 61054. (Postage is included.)