Marriage 3.0

A friend recently asked me: why has public opinion on same-sex marriage “evolved,” in Obama’s coinage, while public opinion on abortion grinds itself deeper into a rut? It’s an interesting question.   Americans across demographic groups have grown steadily more tolerant of same-sex marriage (or ... Read More

Here are hypotheses 10 through 18 on how social media might change your love life. Click here for Part 1…     ASSORTATIVE MATING ON STEROIDS  Like marries like today. “ Assortative mating” is one of the major marriage trends of the last 60 years. We marry people who are more like us in ... Read More

So, I guess Facebook is here to stay.  In honor of its over-subscribed IPO, I’m brainstorming about how social media might be existentially changing our romantic lives and intimacy. Here’s the first installment.   I’ll post part 2 Wednesday.   JEALOUSY LOOMS LARGER   Romance might get ... Read More

What could be better than starting your morning, visiting your online haunts, and being confronted, bleary-eyed, with a picture of a blonde woman in a catsuit having her breast suckled by an almost 4-year old boy standing on a chair and staring into the camera, under the Mothers-Fighting-Mothers ... Read More

What do you get for being a governor who cuts $860 million from his state’s education budget and forces schools to slash their arts education?  A Lifetime Achievement Award for support of the arts from the Pittsburgh Opera. That’s what’s happening this Saturday to Pennsylvania governor Tom ... Read More

In November of 1977, Houston hosted a national women’s conference to hammer out a broad agenda against sexual inequality. It was hailed as the most diverse American political gathering in memory—aside from the absence of men.* At this time, feminism was popular, even mainstream. A majority of ... Read More

Warning: Don’t read this if your funny bone’s in traction, or if your tongue can’t be planted firmly in cheek…  On a talk show I heard an ex-agent describe the Secret Service as an “adultery-prone culture.” This got me thinking about what would actually make a work culture “adultery-prone ... Read More

“Plan Now. Relax Soon.”   The Concierge of a fancy resort has sent me this “Quick! Relax, Goddamnit!” email.  My husband and I are looking forward to attending a wedding at the resort next month. The Concierge urges me to make “pre-arrival” relaxation arrangements, which isn’t all that ... Read More

In 2003, a man broke into Vonette W.’s house in the middle of the night, wearing a scarf to cover his face. He held a gun to her head and raped her. After the crime Vonette called the police, and  forensic evidence was collected at a nearby hospital. The evidence didn’t match with anything in the ... Read More

“For one night of pleasure, I lost everything.”   “I tanked my marriage, for lust.”  Jeremiads of sexual decline and fall have enthralled us for centuries. Whenever I hear a headline like, “Marriage Ruined by Cheating,” or “An Open Marriage Fails—It Just Never Works,” I’m tempted to point to a ... Read More

It looks like a new front in the “war on women” has opened up, and it involves America’s nuns. A friend of mine who belongs to a women-led Catholic community alerted me to this development, which she finds appalling and surprising.  The Leadership Conference of Women Religious, which ... Read More

Pew research released yesterday finds a “gender reversal” in career aspirations. Sixty-six percent (66%) of women between the ages of 18 and 34 now rate a “high-paying career” as one of the most important goals, compared to 59% of men. Both men and women ranked marriage and parenthood as more ... Read More

Do you and your partner have “couple friends”--other couples that you socialize with as a couple? Have you thought about their role in your marriage? University of Maryland professor Geoffrey Greif has. He and co-author Kathleen Holtz Deal conclude in Two Plus Two: Couples and their Couple ... Read More

Like their namesakes from fable who live under bridges, “Trolls” are people who write nasty remarks and live underneath an online article, in its Comments section.  Media mavens and content providers—the new term for "writers"--seem to agree that Comments sections, while theoretically promising ... Read More

Mea culpa if, out of irritation, I joined Troll-land, the last place on earth I want to be, when I wrote on Samantha Brick’s now-infamous “don’t hate be because I’m beautiful” article last week. By way of background and at the risk of beating an exceedingly dead horse: I disagreed, and still do ... Read More