I wonder if that Dr. HTS Anthropologist has any idea what the HTS social scientists are doing in Iraq. I know she had no idea what I was doing, nor did she ever seem remotely interested.

I find it all rather appalling. And who’s paying for all this?

It does make me wonder what people are trying to do when they write “luv”. Is it because “love” is too confronting, too emotionally resonant, too suggestive of sex? Is “luv” suitably infantile that the emotional and sexual connotations are toned down, reduced to mere “cuteness”? Is it the linguistic equivalent of a photograph of a kitten in a girl’s bedroom? Usage certainly seems to be gendered in my experience; I don’t know many men who use the abbreviation (correct me if I’m wrong, male “luv” users).

It was these qualities that made the Pentagon Diva blog so icky to read — voyeuristic and masochistic sex talk couched as girlish infatuation.