To the Editor:
Re “Why We Need to Talk About Teen Sex,” by Peggy Orenstein (Opinion guest essay, April 14):
As a psychotherapist and psychoanalyst who has worked for decades with teens and college-age students, I’m disturbed but not surprised by the trend of choking during sex.
Choking is obviously very dangerous, and unfortunately, social media has made this once uncommon practice more mainstream.
Education is the key with both our youth and parents. Yes, sexual strangulation needs to be part of ongoing conversations about safe sex practices. There clearly needs to be more accountability about this behavior.
There is a line, a boundary, where rough sex, whether it’s consensual or not, crosses into danger, causing devastating long-term effects for participants.
Arden Greenspan Goldberg
San Diego
To the Editor:
While reading this essay, I was reminded of how feminist writers and activists waved warning flags about the pernicious effects of pornography on women back in the 1970s and ’80s. They published books and essays on the subject, marched in demonstrations and spoke out in the media. They were continually derided as prudes and censors.
Decades later, with violent porn pervasive online and a generation of young women subjected to the sadistic sexual violence normalized by porn, it turns out those prudes and censors were actually Cassandras.
I thank Peggy Orenstein and the researchers in this story for bringing new attention to the issue.
J. Jamakaya
Milwaukee
To the Editor:
I taught a course on human sexuality to college students during the AIDS epidemic. When I heard about sexual strangulation, I considered briefly: Should I link this practice to arousal and orgasm when speaking to these high-risk young people? I knew that many would then experiment. I chose not to mention it, but I taught them, through role play, how to verbally refuse inappropriate sexual invitations.
Today, I hope instructors in my position will discuss with their students sexual strangulation with a potential partner and help them practice responding to sexual pressure.
Pornography makes partners look willing. Evolution favored a strong sex drive. The planet doesn’t need it anymore.
Elizabeth Powell
St. Louis
The writer is the author of “Talking Back to Sexual Pressure.”
Emergency Abortions and the Supreme Court
To the Editor:
Re “5 Takeaways From the Supreme Court Arguments on Idaho’s Abortion Ban” (nytimes.com, April 24):
Reading about the hearing at the Supreme Court, I was taken aback at the careful attention some justices paid to ensuring that physicians whose conscience precludes them from performing abortions are excused from violating their beliefs. But some doctors are being forced to violate their conscience by being prevented from performing an abortion on patients whose precarious condition might decline precipitously without such a procedure.
Being forced to refuse medically indicated aid, knowing that the dire consequences violate the Hippocratic oath to do no harm, is an affront to their consciences, which must be considered with the same attention.
Susan Swartz
Philadelphia
To the Editor:
Re “On Emergency Abortion Access, Justices Seem Sharply Divided” (nytimes.com, April 24):
You write that since the Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade, uncertainty about the parameters for legal abortion in several states has led to complaints about doctors being forced to “think like lawyers.”
I am equally concerned that complex medical decisions are being made by nine lawyers being forced to think like doctors.
Jon D. Morrow
New York
The writer is an obstetrician-gynecologist.
Our Father, Who Led Columbia, Would Be Saddened Today
To the Editor:
Our father, Michael I. Sovern, played a leading role in resolving Columbia’s 1968 protests. He served as Columbia’s only Jewish president, from 1980 to 1993, and helped negotiate a peaceful end to weeks of anti-apartheid demonstrations.
We cannot know what our father, who died in 2020, would do if he were still president, but we have no doubt he would be deeply saddened by what is happening at the university that he loved and served for more than 60 years.
We believe that he would not want politicians and outsiders not affiliated with Columbia to exploit sincere student protest for their own gains, and, as in the 1980s, he would want protesters to ensure that they do not keep the university from providing the excellent education from which he and so many others benefited.
Finally, we know he would agree that anyone expressing opposition to the Israeli government or Hamas should not make Jewish or Palestinian students feel attacked or unsafe.
Jeff Sovern
Elizabeth Sovern
Doug Sovern
Julie Sovern
Hiring Discrimination
To the Editor:
Re “Study Uses Fake Résumés to Measure Bias in Hiring” (The Upshot, April 15):
The study on hiring discrimination in large U.S. companies, as reported in your story, highlights the importance of social capital in landing a job, especially for people of color.
The study found that even with equivalent qualifications, applicants with Black-sounding names were contacted by employers nearly 10 percent less often than those with white-sounding names.
In a world where such discriminatory hiring practices persist, the ability to build social capital — the relationships and networks that help open doors and advance someone in their career and life pursuits — is paramount.
Research shows that social capital — and in particular, cross-class relationships — is the greatest predictor of economic mobility. Educational institutions, from high schools to community colleges and trade schools, should prioritize helping students build social capital.
By teaching them how to build relationships, facilitating connections with industry professionals, creating mentorship programs that pair students with successful alumni, and, most important, teaching students how to make meaningful requests of those alumni, we can put more people on the path to successful careers.
Because opportunity should hinge on merit, not a name.
Nitzan Pelman
Berkeley, Calif.
The writer is C.E.O. of Climb Hire Labs, a national nonprofit teaching students and job seekers the art of building social capital.
Trump’s Own ‘Fake News’
He not only sought to bury damaging stories. It turns out that he and his fixer, Michael Cohen, working closely with David Pecker, the publisher of The National Enquirer, also concocted and released wholly untrue stories about his political opponents (for example, “Donald Trump Blasts Ted Cruz’s Dad for Photo With J.F.K. Assassin”). So says Mr. Pecker, under oath, in a Manhattan courtroom.
James P. Pehl
Marlborough, Mass.