The Sex Issue

Generally, your magazine is adept at presenting both sides of an issue. However, David Halberstam’s article “Discovering Sex” in the May/June issue appeared to be biased against women who choose, or long, to be full-time homemakers. The author stated women were expected to take care of their children and help their husbands, and equated this with “never having any thoughts” of their own. He may have simply been paraphrasing the ideas of society in the 1950s; nevertheless, I felt the piece seemed to present homemaking in a negative aura. As a professional practicing social worker graduated summa cum laude from the State University of New York, I work and see children every day in broken, abusive and neglectful homes, and the “togetherness” and support of a healthy, functioning family is exactly what they require. When I am fortunate enough to have a family, I am looking forward to being fulfilled by “making of beds, shopping for groceries, matching slipcover materials, eating peanut-butter sandwiches, chauffeuring Cub Scouts and Brownies and lying beside my husband …”