Cuddle Puddle
As a fellow junior at Stuyvesant High School, I agree with my peers, the members of the so-called cuddle puddle [“The Cuddle Puddle of Stuyvesant High School,” by Alex Morris, February 6]. My generation, at least in the liberal bubble of New York City, is probably more accepting of homo-, or ambiguous, sexuality than many before us. It’s not really a big deal. So I don’t understand why the cuddle puddlers think they are such a novelty. No one at school looks at them in awe as they walk around. Nobody really cares what their sexual habits are. I’m pretty sure that the only time anyone is interested in what they are doing is when one has to climb over them as they sprawl across the floor, desperately seeking the attention your article so generously provided. They seem to think, in their own self-absorbed way, that they are making a bold statement, but really, they’re just blocking the hallway.
—Shelly Jones, Manhattan
Once again, your magazine is on the cutting edge in terms of sharing the hottest new trends with your readers. However, your story on the cuddle puddle of Stuyvesant High School may actually go one step further and, in fact, be responsible for creating a new trend: an increase in homeschooling.
—Len Blajeder, Manhattan
As an older Stuyvesant alumnus, and a longtime subscriber to New York, I was appalled by Alex Morris’s depiction of New York’s best and brightest youngsters as little more than a group of empty-headed, depraved, sex-obsessed, future Paris Hiltonian boy toys. It adulterates the image of the nation’s most prestigious public high school, which has probably contributed more outstanding mathematicians, physicists, chemists, engineers, and college professors than any other.
—Bob Shapiro, South Orange, N.J.
Allowing your 15-year-old girl to experiment with gay or bisexual sex is the equivalent of handing your 16-year-old son the keys to a Ferrari Testarossa the day he gets his license. The only heroes in this piece were the parents who upon learning of their daughter’s lesbian affair gathered up all her love letters and text messages and sent them to the other girl’s parents. It took great courage for them to take a stand and demonstrate their love as parents. Children want limits because it shows that we care. As for Alair’s mother, who cooed, “You’re so cool,” she should be proud that she raised a self-defined slut, even if that makes her an “ethical slut,” as written about in “The New Monogamy” [“Mating,” by Em & Lo, November 21, 2005]. Someone should be taken to the woodshed, and I think it should be Alair’s uncaring parents.
—Julie Bucholtz, Weston, Conn.
You publish titillating articles in the vein of “The Cuddle Puddle of Stuyvesant High School” a few times a year, but I wish just one would be titled from an adult perspective—e.g., “Kids Sure Are Dumb.”
—Jonathan Fashena, Pleasantville, N.Y.
Adults, collectively, have a responsibility to allow kids a period of youthful experimentation, with all its absurd posturing—in private. Considering that most of us cringe just looking at the teenage hairstyles and clothing we once viewed as ever so cool, I can hardly imagine how Alair and her friends will feel about their all-too-personal revelations a few short years from now. I suggest that writer Alex Morris think back to when she was 16 and consider how it would feel to have her naïve yammerings of that difficult age floating around in the back issues of a major publication.
—Kathy Shaskan, Morristown, N.J.
Melania Shops
Beth landman’s recent “Intelligencer” piece about my wife, Melania, is total fiction [“Melania Trump Won’t Be Frock-Blocked,” January 23–30]. It must be the store [BCBG Max Azria], or the other establishment she mentioned [Completely Bare spa], looking to get some cheap publicity off the Trump name (which they did). Also, knowing Melania’s sister, the last thing she wants to wear is a dress worn by somebody else. Perhaps women should be careful about shopping at that very average store.
—Donald J. Trump, Manhattan
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