Essays

Originally Published in a Re-Issue of Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Lost World

Originally published in Playboy Magazine in January 1988. This essay aroused intense controversy for hinting that AIDS was not a disease to which everyone was equally susceptible. That was forbidden to say in the eighties, and has remained so until very recently. (A Los Angeles ad campaign in 2007 suggesting gays “own” the disease brought renewed criticism.)

Originally published in Redbook Magazine in February 1988. This Valentine’s Day essay brought more reader mail than anything the magazine printed in a year.

Originally published in Popular Mechanics Magazine in 1988. The future of man in space, as anticipated by NASA on the eve of the resumption of space shuttle flights. Full discussion of the difficulties that might prevent us from going to Mars was deleted by the editors.

Originally published in Playboy Magazine in February 1989. The 1980s were tough times for men. This essay examined men’s feelings in a new era of sexual relations.

Originally published in Playboy Magazine in December 1991. Playboy asked for an essay on how to argue in a relationship, how to fight fair.

Originally published in Redbook Magazine in May 1991. A brief essay.

Originally published in The New York Times in March 2006. The absurdity of some current patents, especially gene patents.

Originally published in The Wall Street Journal in December 2006. Do patients retain any rights over their own tissues donated for research? At the moment, the answer is no.

Originally Published in New York Times in February 2007.