Umm... I wish ... but I've learned over time not to trust many people. Just close family, close friends, and myself, of course. I hate thieves, I hate moochers, I hate slackers, no one has ever really helped me significantly, I've always had to help myself, know what I mean?

I didn't know she cheated on her husband. I read the dedication to him in atlas shrugged and believed it without verification. Silly me. Men are assholes, women are bitches, and it's never gonna change. Like Gollum, my favorite character in the Lord of the rings said: they will hurt you, cheat you, trick you, lie. Wicked, tricksy, false.

Rand's life was reality...Atlas Shrugged was fiction.

Many fiction writers would never attempt to live the same kind of lifestyle, depicted in their own books. A portion of the writer's personality is infused, of course, but we must remember to separate fantasy from reality.

I think she loved and admired O'Connor to a point, but knew that he was no Rearden. and no matter how much she might have wanted him to be, Branden was no Galt. If she had met her equal, or the equals of her own heroes, I think she would have looked no further. as it was, she looked.
Dagny looked for Galt her whole life, consciously, and several passages discuss her despair that she will never find him. I think that was actually Rand's despair. Dagny's lovers were the closest to that ideal as she could find at that time, but she continued to yearn for "him". Having found him, she looked no further.

I'm certain that this will never be proven, however, I believe that Ayn suffered from estrogen deprivation.
That can do a number on your emotional processes.
Other than that I think that Ayn loved both men and found a different type of solace in each one.

would you believe that FRIENDSHIP and sex have nothing to do with each other! she loved her husband and maybe wanted to have sex with someone else and maybe HE was having sexual affairs with other women; who knows.

That's plain hypergamy, nothing unusual, all women are wired that way.

The culture, undoubtedly stemming from religious teachings, is sex simply for its own sake is inherently bad in and of itself—something to be allowed only to express love or for procreation. Procreation and love are separate issues from just having a good time. Once we can control pregnancy and disease, what is wrong with an orgasm among friends?

Rand made many mistakes in her writings, and she was internally inconsistent at times. For example, Rand’s more explicit sex scenes seem to be rape fantasy oriented, including the initiation of the use of force. The theme is clear in both “The Fountainhead” and “Atlas.”

Wikipedia says ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_fan... ): “Studies have found rape fantasy is a common sexual fantasy among both men and women. The fantasy may involve the fantasist as either the one being forced into sex or as the perpetrator. Some studies have found that women tend to fantasize about being forced or coerced into sexual activity more commonly than men.”

Maybe Rand portrayed her rape fantasy in her writing and acted out her animal desire for sexual variety with Branden and others not yet known or whose identities were suppressed to keep the idol from having clay feet. I suppose it depends upon the fantasy of the participants.