Blog by Sumana Harihareswara, Changeset founder

29 Oct 2001, 9:30 a.m.

Alexei and I discussed a while back the myth-motif of…

Hi, reader. I wrote this in 2001 and it's now more than five years old. So it may be very out of date; the world, and I, have changed a lot since I wrote it! I'm keeping this up for historical archive purposes, but the me of today may 100% disagree with what I said then. I rarely edit posts after publishing them, but if I do, I usually leave a note in italics to mark the edit and the reason. If this post is particularly offensive or breaches someone's privacy, please contact me.

Alexei and I discussed a while back the myth-motif of The Woman Who Has A Secret And You Can't Ask Her About It Ever. Examples abound. Usually the man falls in love with the woman, and she makes him promise never to ask about, oh, the way she kills each baby a day after she gives birth, or where she came from, or where she goes every Sunday morning. And then he asks and something horrible happens.

Well, Modern Humorist's take points out the other side of the coin, and I love it.