Response to: An open letter to Steven Spielberg

I’ve been takin’ a lot of heat for my recent post about Animaniacs. Though I’ve been called a “daft cunt,” “fucking retarded,” and “more sex hating then [sic] a puritan in jamestown,” (among other things,) the following email not only makes saying something worth it, but my entire life worth it. (Thank you to this person for giving me permission to share!)

Hi, I recently followed you on the Twitter, and today I read your “Letter to Steven Spielberg.” To put this email in context, I’m a 36 yr old guy. I have 3 step kids, two of them are female. I’m constantly trying to be the parent I wish my stepdad was.(he was an animal.) It has been a long, learning 6 years for the whole family, and I’m always looking for ways to modify my behavior to make not only myself better, my family better, but the world better as well. Well, I have a bunch of posters in my garage of women in bikinis, stuff like that all over. I LOVE women and I love the female body, so pretty much before about three hours ago, I didn’t see this as a problem. Your letter really struck a chord with me. I’ve never thought about these pictures affecting any of my step kids or my wife even for that matter. My excuse as “loving women” is just that, an excuse for me to look at women objectively. And as much as I really love women and I really love my “man cave,” if I can positively affect my children I HAVE to do that as a MAN, as a parent, and as a human. My family deserves my best. It’s already hard being a step dad, (whole different story) but that’s my role, I need to be the best stepdad, and a role model to my boy and also my two girls. It’s easy to just say you’re going to “do the right thing,” it’s a whole different thing acting on it. When I return home from working (I work out of town for 3 weeks at a time), I’ll be removing those posters and such and, scariest part, explaining to them why. I sincerely appreciated your VERY well written story, Charlene, and I wanted you to know that you made a difference in the world today and affected at least 5 peoples lives for the better. Thank you for the story.