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You are not the first of Rand's readers or the last to make the mistake of thinking that Rand's goal was to deliver microwave-ready, single-serving packets of moral instruction when in fact she was, before anything else, an artist who wanted to tell a story. The remark about Mickey Mouse is a case in point. She wanted to achieve a particular effect at a particular point in her story by juxtaposing the silliness the character connotes with the sense of solemnity of the moment. That is all, and The Fountainhead's enduring commercial success suggests that the succeeded. It does not imply general disapproval of Mickey Mouse or more broadly of popular art. I'm not sure what you mean by "low art." Is it bad art (vs. good) or popular art (vs. esoteric and esthetically demanding)? You find all degrees of goodness (i.e. skill and effectiveness) in both highbrow and lowbrow, and Rand was aware of this. Her published writings and the available biographical material show that she had a lively affection for popular art - the operettas, pop songs and silent movies of her youth, Merwin & Webster, Mickey Spillane, Ian Fleming, Greta Garbo, Marilyn Monroe, The Untouchables and Charlie's Angels among others. The virtues of the cartoon form that you point out - immediacy and intensity - are reasons why they probably aren't the best medium for high art. (Did you know that she supervised a comic-strip serialization of The Fountainhead in the 1940s? She couldn't have created it as a strip, but she had no objections to an adaptation.) Another example is your statement that Roark does nothing to promote himself. He doesn't use self-promotion as a substitute for talent the way Keating does, and for dramatic reasons we see more of Keating doing this, but this doesn't bear the weight of the conclusion you draw - that he never does this and that Rand necessarily disapproves of such activity. His buildings get published. That requires the architect to supply drawings or photos and to provide supporting information to a reporter. He builds here and there all around the country, so the word is getting out whether we see him get it out or not. Yet another example is what you say about trade secrets. The characters in Atlas Shrugged have a particular purpose in keeping a secret. This won't support the generalizations you draw about what Rand did or did not advocate generally. (How many well-plotted stories, short or long, in any medium, can you name, in which the characters don't keep secrets?) Some of Rand's characters have more than one partner over a lifetime, but they aren't polygamous or promiscuous as you seem to suggest. Kira Argunova's love is Leo; she takes up with Andrei under duress (as the story makes clear), not because she prefers the arrangement. In any case it works out badly for all three of them. Dominique Francon has a lover whom she eventually marries, after two intermediate husbands, but never more than one partner at a time. Dagny, too, has only one at a time. Hank Rearden has more than one sexual partner simultaneously, and this arrangement, too, works out badly. Verdict: Rand did not show multiple-partner arrangements in a favorable light. Most of the rest of what you say comes down to the fact that your tastes in art and entertainment are different from Rand's. No argument there.

If all it is is paying someone to strip on camera, then it's not like prostitution, it's like softcore porn or going to a strip club. It's looking at a beautiful stranger naked. The main reason why prostitution (as it is usually practiced) is a bad thing is because it divorces sex (a physical and emotional act) from emotion and from values (at least on the part of the prostitute - the client is of course free to allow himself to be convinced that there are emotions involved, and that's also a problem). Finally, the fact that it's illegal allows for the easy victimization of sex workers. So long as you don't engage in the same kind of evasion (you don't treat the person on the other end of the camera as a sex partner), there's nothing immoral about looking at a naked woman. You should also make sure that the site you're using is a legal establishment, and the women on the other end of the camera are in a country that legalized and polices their porn industry. P.S. Please note that I don't have any personal experience with prostitution. While I am confident about what I said (that my description of prostitution is usually true), I can't say that it is always true, and therefor I can't provide you with a reason why prostitution would always be wrong. But, so long as you can have sex with a real, emotionally involved partner, seeking out prostitutes is definitely always immoral. If you can't have a real partner, for objective reasons, then, under certain conditions, a prostitute might be a moral way to achieve greater physical pleasure than just masturbation. Again, I have never tried having sex without emotional involvement, and I'm not convinced that it's even possible, but I won't tell someone else to never try it. If anyone ever tried it, please let me know how it went. It's hard to find people who had this experience and are at the same time equipped to understand what the difference is between real sex and just plain physical contact.

Hi Nicky, thanks for your comment. Let me reply to some of the points. You are right that it's a fault of Walt Disney - sorry for mispeaking. However, it doesn't make him any less great. Sir Isaac Newton had far more redeeming faults of his own in modern eyes, and yet he was also a superb heroic man, who lived and died as a non-tragic hero. Even today, many heroes, even those who are not and never were or never will be tragic heroes, still have many faults, and we need to accept them as such. Many people I admire or look up to are Republicans, or Democrats, or are self-proclaimed Christians, or are militant vegans, or support the prohibition on drugs, or are homophobic, or whatever, and they are still great people, which provide inspiration and that I love. Well, he should have networked much more instead of being anti-social and keep to himself, etc. (which, BTW, was a huge mistake that I have done as well). Ayn Rand ended up growing out of that, as is evident in Atlas Shrugged and in her later deeds, so it's OK - no one is perfect. You may be right. Perhaps I should say "classical Objectivism" or whatever. Sorry if I mispoke. <p> Yes, you may be right - sorry for mispeaking . Like I said it was an "Argumentum-ad-Tooheyum" and despite Rand's burning desire to describe Ellsworth Toohey as the ultimate evil, there are many good things that we can learn from him, from the eyes of people living in 2013. This is like the fact that Milady de Winter in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Three_Musketeers is actually insurgent, sexy, formidable, resourceful, and awe-inspiring, and a model of emulation (while the real villain in the story is the Queen - Anne of Austria.). </p> <p> Regarding humour I should note that http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Peter_Ustinov is quoted as saying that "Comedy is just a funny way of being serious." (which is just one of his great quotes) and I give more insights to contemporary stuff like that here: </p> http://www.shlomifish.org/philosophy/philosophy/putting-all-cards-on-the-table-2013/ <p> The rest of your points may be considered as accepted by me in a silent agreement. </p> <p> Regards, </p> <p> — Shlomi Fish </p>