Lott's wife has posted (I have confirmed via email that it was really her) to the comment section of this Electrolite post:
When the screen name is used, it always, automatically registers as MaRyRoSh, NOT as MaryRosh or Mary_Rosh, which I am sure must have suggested to some that this was some amalgam and not a Mary who happened to have the highly unusual name of Rosh.The screen name was originally used by the boys for messages within the scout troup, for ordering old coins on the internet, and for posting some book and game reviews.
At some point later, each son got his own screen name and MaRyRoSh was rarely used by them anymore. As there would occasionally be some e-mail coming in and it did not cost anything to keep the screen name, I never bothered to delete it.
So when my husband later ended up using MaRyRoSh (which I was not even aware of, as I did not check that mailbox), he did not have to use much imagination to take up the fictional character of Mary who is a student of his (which of course our sons are). So much for the tranvestite or other pop-psycological spin in the media.
Of course, she's mistaken about the name used being MaRyRoSh. The Amazon review was by maryrosh and the AOL email was MaryRosh@aol.com. As for the psychological side of it, Mary's talk of being raped and wearing heels, were, at least to some extent, a ploy to win an argument, but who can tell if there weren't psychological overtones as well?
The Chronicle of Higher Education has an article (subscribers only) on Lott, Rosh and the 98%. If you have been following the affair, the only new piece of information is Lott's explanation for this Rosh post where Rosh attempts to find out who reviewed one of Lott's papers:
Mr. Lott says that those questions were "purely rhetorical" and that he was simply trying to taunt "Alpha Male" into confessing that he is not an academic and had never actually reviewed any of Mr. Lott's papers.
And Rosh's review seems to be completely gone from Amazon.com now.