Easily Led

I love a good love story, and Gillian Kendall’s “Easily Led” is among the best I’ve read. That it’s a true story rather than fiction makes it even better. It reminds us that a love some would consider wrong can be even more right than the socially acceptable kind. Renegade love can feed our soul and transform our deepest self.

What bothers me the most about Gillian Kendall’s “Easily Led” is that men like Nelson, who refuse to be monogamous, seem to have a special power over women. Many times I’ve wondered how these women can endure, much less enjoy, playing second fiddle to another.

It bothers me not only because I definitely do not have that power but also because, the few times I have had the opportunity to be unfaithful, I have denied myself the quick and easy pleasure because it doesn’t sit well with my conscience. The reward for my choice never comes, however. I write this alone in my house in the woods. Why am I perpetually single while less-ethical men seem to find love so easily and so frequently?

Give me a reason why you published Gillian Kendall’s “Easily Led” [November 2012]. Give me a reason for not canceling my subscription. Her essay is well written but trite, narcissistic, and vapid. The sex scenes are not the problem. The problem is simply the emptiness of it, eight pages of beautifully written nothingness — like the rainbow that reveals itself in the skin of a dead mackerel or a puddle of motor oil. If this is where The Sun is heading, then count me out.