"If these were 40 year old men screaming for 17 year old girls, they'd be on To Catch a Predator so fast it would make your head spin."—Anonymous, about how Twilight fans behave.

NOTE: Time for a change.

CALTECH

"What the fuck did you do?"

Raj looked up. It was Howard.

"I beg your pardon?"

Howard strode fast across Raj's office. Without preamble he reached across Raj's desk and grabbed Raj's shirt and faced Raj's face so close they could sniff each other's breath. A blind man would know from Howard's breath that he was so very pissed.

"You cunt," Howard said. "You called the cops and had them arrest my mother."

"What choice did I have?"

"You could have escaped through the window—"

"I did that, and she bearhugged me in."

"Yeah, but—"

"She took my clothes, my shoes, pulled me when I tried to get out. What's the word?"

"Loneliness."

"She imprisoned me, Howard! She kept me in her house without my consent! "

"Oh, please. I—"

"Yes, you. But not me." Raj pushed Howard off so suddenly that Howard landed on his ass. "Whatever it's been between you and your mother, I'm not going to have any of it."

Howard rose right away. "But you didn't have to involve the cops. Now I must bail my mother out of jail." Sparks could have been shooting off his nostrils. "You know my mother's only lonely."

"And that makes it all right to bearhug someone into somewhere he doesn't consent to be?"

"For God's sake, Raj, she's only a woman!"

"What? A woman? What the fuck do you think is this? A TV sitcom? Where the audience are laughing when when I had to climb through the window just to get out, and still laughing when I found myself screaming as your mother bearhugged from behind?"

"Gotta admit it would make a good comedic scene."

"So you'll laugh at that."

"Yes."

Raj closed his eyes, took a long deep breath, and pointed at the door.

"Get the fuck out of here."

"What?"

"If your mother is a man and I am a woman, will you laugh?"

Silence.

"Picture that scene again. Except this time you change the actors. Instead of an funny Indian scientist, you have a teenage girl. Instead of a fat Jewish mother, you have a man at your father's age. Can you do that? Can you do that and still laugh?"

Still silence.

"Think! If the audience watch a man bearhug a woman by force to his house, would they laugh? Would you laugh? No! They—you would scream 'rape!' 'Rapist!' 'Kill that rapist!' But because I am a man and your mother is a woman, you laugh."

Silence again.

"This is the United States of America, 2013." He shook his head. "To think people would find that scene funny...it is past time to deconstruct this double standard."