Dear Merc –Why on earth did you print that pathetic diatribe from the “Roller Hater?” The Rose City Rollers exhibition bout against Seattle’s Rat City Rollergirls was an utterly entrancing spectacle of pageantry, camp, and hard-core skating skillz from start to finish! Sluts? There were sluts? Damn. I missed them. Uh, the fishnet comment above proves undeniably that these women are not insecure. Have YOU ever been in public in fishnets? Takes guts, my friend. Come on, ‘fess up. Which rollergirl rebuffed your lame attempt to pick her up at the after party?

That was Alice Passannante, who writes to complain about this week’s I anonymous, which says:

Have we as a city regressed to such a moronic state that we are moved by such horribly simple displays of stimuli; a bunch of sluts in fishnet stockings turning left for 20 minutes? Okay, maybe it’s not so bad; it gives some insecure women a place to showcase their underdeveloped athletic talents, and exploit themselves to a bunch of drunken moronic men.

Personally, I’ve always been into women playing sports. If those women happen to be wearing fishnets, all the better, but I don’t think it makes them “sluts.” Slut is such a great word, though, isn’t it. It’s the worst possible insult my mother would use, after all the others, if she really hated one of my many many many girlfriends. “She’s a slut, Matthew,” she’d say. And that was it. Game over. I’d take her word for it and ditch the lady in question. (My mother and I are very close. It’s a British thing). ANYWAY. Let’s get scientific and objective, here: