Recently in Relationships Category

Last week I linked to a study from OK Cupid about race and dating. OK Cupid released some more data, including who likes to use strap-ons and what slang daters are familiar with, and who thinks they are a genius (guess who thinks they are geniuses more often than not?) The data I found most striking however, was the data on who has considered suicide.

OK Cupid blog notes that the straight identified people are less likely than "other" to consider suicide. But the number that struck out to me was that the most likely group to consider suicide are bisexual identified women.

Thoughts?

Thanks to Dave for the link.

Earlier this year, Rihanna became the center for a media spectacle after being attacked by then boyfriend Chris Brown and having pictures of her released. Brown has made several public appearances, "apologizing," and defending himself. But Rihanna hadn't made a peep, it was just continual speculation about whether it was her fault (!) or if they had gotten back together.

Well, Rihanna is speaking out now. She will be on the Today Show this Thursday, along with 20/20 this Friday and is featured in the December issue of Glamour. Some bits of her interviews have been released and she is putting forth the words of a confident, young woman that got the support she needed to deal with this painful and humiliating situation.

Speaking to "Good Morning America," the singer will send the message, "This happened to me. ... It can happen to anyone," according to excerpts of the interview released on Tuesday (November 3).

Rihanna, 21, also reportedly tells Diane Sawyer that the attack by Brown was especially difficult because of how she felt about him before the incident occurred. "He was definitely my first big love," she said in an interview that will continue on Friday night's "20/20."

The singer also opened up for the December issue of Glamour magazine, describing how she coped with the aftermath of the assault. "I went to sleep as Rihanna and woke up as Britney Spears," she said in the Women of the Year issue, out on November 10. "That was the level of media chaos that happened the next day. It was like, 'What, there are helicopters circling my house? There are 100 people in my cul-de-sac? What do you mean, I can't go back home?' "

A number of you have rejected this weekend's profile of the Obamas' marriage (and accompanying slideshow) as yawn-inducing celebitician/politicity pop-love drivel. Alas, I have the will power of a goldfish, and so I was possessed not only to read the big long Presidential love exposé but to write about it. Here. Now!

Fortunately for you, I was much less interested in the intimate details of the Obamas' marriage than I was in the idea of the presidency as it was overwhelmingly, if inadvertently, presented throughout the article- as a partnership.

While I enjoy a juicy detail as much as the next, and yes, Presidential date night = cute, I couldn't help but notice this surprising theme woven throughout the article.

When I had originally posted on Facebook this shockingly well summarized study from OKCupid about race and reply rates on the popular dating website, I had just written the word, "duh." Race has always been a part of dating for me, whether it be what race my parents find acceptable, finding that my white boyfriend that I thought wasn't racist really was, or figuring out on first glance when a man likes you for you, or because he has a thing for Indian chicks. But my friend Dave took me to task and noted that they actually analyzed an enormous set of data that they then published, so that gets more than a, "duh." I will upgrade to a, "that is fucked up," and "duh."

But enough with my Facebook shenanigans. This study is interesting to no end and not just because I am writing a book on dating. The study found that even though OKCupid has a unique matchmaking system where race shouldn't matter...

First of all, how do we know that race shouldn't matter? Are we just making some after-school-special assumption that "true love is colorblind?" No, we're not: we know race shouldn't matter to replies because the races all match each other more or less evenly, and reply rate correlates to matching.

...it does:

* Black women are sweethearts. Or just talkative. But either way, they are by far the most likely to reply to your first message. In many cases, their response rate is one and a half times the average, and overall black women reply about a quarter more often.

* White men get more responses. Whatever it is, white males just get more replies from almost every group. We were careful to preselect our data pool so that physical attractiveness (as measured by our site picture-rating utility) was roughly even across all the race/gender slices. For guys, we did likewise with height.

* White women prefer white men to the exclusion of everyone else--and Asian and Hispanic women prefer them even more exclusively. These three types of women only respond well to white men. More significantly, these groups' reply rates to non-whites is terrible. Asian women write back non-white males at 21.9%, Hispanic women at 22.9%, and white women at 23.0%. It's here where things get interesting, for white women in particular. If you look at the match-by-race table before this one, the "should-look-like" one, you see that white women have an above-average compatibility with almost every group. Yet they only reply well to guys who look like them. There's more data on this towards the end of the post.

My childhood friend Mollie sent me not one, but two copies of her former professor's book, when she noticed that I was thinking and writing a lot about work/family balance issues (thanks Mollie!). Getting to 50/50: How Working Couples Can Have it All by Sharing it All by Joanna Strober and Sharon Meers is a deeply-researched, very practical guide to getting real about some of the most critical unfinished business of contemporary feminism.

Unlike Linda Hirshman's Get to Work, which leaves many readers feeling judged and misunderstood, or Leslie Bennett's The Feminine Mistake, which leaves many readers thinking doomsday thoughts, Strober and Meers approach the subject with healthy doses of both realism and optimism. They are women who have been through it, and lived to tell the tale. (Both are heterosexual, and so their own life examples are from this perspective. Unfortunately they didn't do much to look at non-hetero couples or non-marrying types).

After reviewing all the research that proves that dual working families are actually healthier, happier, and more economically viable, they go on to talk about some of the roadblocks to making it work and their suggestions for getting past those roadblocks.

One of the insights that really struck a personal chord was that women have to truly let go of the notion that they are inherently more fit to parent, that they can simply do it better, by virtue of being women.

I've had some recent experiences with what would probably best be described as "chivalry." It reminds me of a bunch of very instructive class discussions that I had when I was teaching Intro to Women's Studies at Hunter College about gender roles within heterosexual romantic love. My students--by and large--still liked the idea of differentiated expectations, including monetarily, for women and men within a dating context.

Here's what Dictionary.com has to tell me about this loaded word, chivalry:

1. the sum of the ideal qualifications of a knight, including courtesy, generosity, valor, and dexterity in arms.
2. the rules and customs of medieval knighthood.
3. the medieval system or institution of knighthood.
4. a group of knights.
5. gallant warriors or gentlemen: fair ladies and noble chivalry.
6. Archaic. a chivalrous act; gallant deed.

I've been thinking a lot about where chivalry and care taking coincide. I think relationships--of any variety--should be based on a mutual commitment to care taking for one another (in addition to a slew of other qualities). I rub your back, you rub mine...in all it's forms (dishes, love letters, oral sex, oh my.)

So can there be equality within chivalry? Can we reclaim old behaviors, like the somewhat ridiculous convention of opening a car door for someone, if we do it in our own way, within feminist relationships? Or does it all still stink of an earlier time when women were property and men were pursuers? (Think the gross "Take Back the Date" bullshit that the Independent Women's Forum is always pushing.)

As with all things thorny and romance-related, it seems like this ultimately has everything to do with your own relationship to the chivalry being bestowed on you. If having my car door opened makes me feel like lover man thinks I'm an invalid, not so feminist. If, instead, it strikes me as his way of expressing that he wants me to feel seen, appreciated, taken care of, it might actually feel like a fairly feminist act.

I'm experiencing chivalry in a heterosexual context. Breaking down the historic intertwining of chivalry and masculinity could be fun for me, and fun for folks in queer relationships. What does it look like for a woman to be chivalrous? Or have we been disproportionately chivalrous for hundreds of years while care taking within relationships with major domestic labor imbalance? (I can totally hear my childhood best friend right now exasperated and shouting, "Courtney, can you just enjoy some frickin' flowers for once?" hehe).

Your thoughts people?

*Confession: I'm also reading A Vindication of Love by Cristina Nehring, which has got me spinning on all of this stuff. A book review to come...

Sean Lennon and girlfriend, model Kemp Muhl, were photographed for a recent issue of French magazine Purple imitating the famous Rolling Stone cover of Sean's parents, John Lennon and Yoko Ono. (The original and the imitation are after the jump -- probably NSFW.)

I've always loved the John and Yoko photo. The original was transgressive, powerful, emotional in its reversal of gender roles -- her clothed, him naked. It says so much about the vulnerability that comes with truly loving someone, and about forging an egalitarian relationship in a fucked-up world.

Here's how photographer Annie Leibovitz describes the shoot:

"John took his clothes off in a few seconds, but Yoko was very reluctant. She said, 'I'll take my shirt off but not my pants.' I was kinda disappointed, and I said, 'Just leave everything on.' We took one Polaroid, and the three of us knew it was profound right away."

Funny how John's boy-nipples weren't even exposed. His pose is more fetal than erotic. Remarkably Yoko Ono is shown as a sexual creature without being reduced to a sexualized male fantasy. The reversal of convention is so much more powerful than the capitulation to cliche in the newer photo. John and Yoko's photo is both more intimate and more innocent.

That's not to say Yoko was against the female body being photographed nude, or ashamed of her body. Here's what Beatles-loving feminist Cara has to say about Yoko, nudity, and John and Yoko's infamous full-frontal album cover:

Just look at it (obviously NSFW); there she is in all of her bare glory. Just like John standing beside her, she isn't attempting to arouse the viewer. She's not using her nakedness to express sexuality at all. And she looks equally as confident as he does. John once said that they purposely picked the least flattering photograph, and especially by today's standards, Yoko would be considered downright unphotogenic by the mainstream. She has full pubic hair, some hints of cellulite on her thighs, a waist that is not particularly defined, and most shocking of all, large breasts that do not defy gravity, and an unremarkable yet undeniable bit of hang with nipples pointing downwards.

In other words, she looks like an average woman. Her body resembles the one that most of look at in the mirror more than the ones we see in magazines. It exists not for the pleasures of others, but for her.

(Emphasis mine.) I know Cara is writing about a different photo, but I think the sentiment probably applies to the Rolling Stone cover as well. In the imitation, the photo of Sean and Kemp, Kemp's body is presented the way we always see the female body represented: for the pleasure of others. Which is why it is not actually an homage to the photo of his parents. It's actually the exact opposite.

UPDATE: Read Cara's take here.

This weekly Saturday column "Ask Professor Foxy" will regularly contain sexually explicit material. This material is likely not safe for work viewing. The title of the column will include the major topic of the post, so please read the topic when deciding whether or not to read the entire column.

Dear Professor Foxy,

Yours,
Wavering-by-Worcester

Hi Wavering -

Ahhhhh the interwebs and social networking sites slowly taking away our ability to have any degree of privacy. This is a process and I am glad you want to go through it.

My first step would be to talk to your boyfriend and let him know that you are going to have this conversation. This will likely change the way your mother interacts with him and he needs to be prepared for that. It may just be an initial change, but you both need to be ready to deal with this change.

Next I would make a list of all of the questions your parents are going to ask and focus on the ones that will annoy you most. I don't know your parents, so I am just going to put out some possibilities:
Honey, do you think you can't get a man who really loves you?
He is getting his cake and eating it too.
Darling, you know you aren't actually ok with that.
In my day, we just called it cheating.

Then you need to think of calm, rational answers. And keep repeating them. Whenever we come out about something, be it our gender identity, our sexual orientation, or our relationship status, we have had time to process and work through it. Others will need that same sort of time. Keep in mind that if your parents have friends on the same site, they may need to end up explaining this to their friends as well.

Answer their questions with patience. I also caution that words like polyamory may not work for the first conversation. Keep it simple. "Mom, I know you keep asking me about the woman who says she is in a relationship with Jack. They are in a relationship. I've always known about it. Jack and I are serious and committed and we see other people. We are open and honest with each other and this works really well for both of us."

If she denigrates the relationship, I would point out ways that he has been great in the past. When he has been at family functions, when he has helped your family, how happy you are together.

And then, and this may be the most difficult part, let it go. It will take time for your mother to understand and accept this (just ask the majority of queer folks who eventually have accepting parents). Keep answering their questions, but also set boundaries. If either of them are rude to your boyfriend or questions his love for you, you can call a stop to that. Your relationship and partner deserves respect.

This is the last and most important part - prove them wrong by actions. Show them that for all of their preconceived notions of what a "real" relationship is, you and your man are happy and love each other. It takes time, but this will be the greatest convincer of all.

Best,
Professor Foxy

If you have a question for Professor Foxy, send it to ProfessorFoxyATfeministingDOTcom.

I am a few weeks late to this, but that doesn't take away the gag factor one bit. It is amazing to me as I have done research for my book, which is a feminist intervention on dating, how many of the terrible books that support antiquated ideas of how women should behave in pursuit of their romantic lives, are supported BY women. The newest in line by another woman that clearly hates women, Jordan Christy, is a book about how women can find love. How to Be a Hepburn in a Hilton World, is a nice dive into history when women were slut shamed for being sexual and chastised for their wanton lust for men. There is an excerpt from her book on MSNBC and I have picked two paragraphs here that give a little context to the "type" of woman she is talking about.

It's no secret that we girls start fantasizing about a fairy-tale wedding and happily-ever-after love story around the same time we start teething (I still have a wedding book that I compiled at age six!). Relationships are a big deal to us. We want to hear all about our roommate's new boyfriend, have to get every detail of our coworker's upcoming nuptials, and lament right along with Jennifer Aniston over Brad Pitt as if he cheated on us. We love to watch TLC's A Wedding Story, feverishly scan Us Weekly for the latest blossoming celebrity romance, and sob every time we see Sleepless in Seattle. We spend hours prepping ourselves for a date and even more time obsessing about what our potential children will look like and whether or not our initials mesh nicely. Conclusion: girls love love.

So why would you subconsciously sabotage all those efforts through your modern-day attempts at ?nding true love? This question baffles me daily. I'd like to think that it's out of sheer naiveté -- most girls don't appear to be in a lucid mental state when they're throwing themselves at some circus clown off the street and clearly aren't aware that they are actually driving that poor boy further away. But luckily, you will no longer have to be the victim of such careless ways in love, because we're going to start doing things the right way -- the old-fashioned way! And it starts by not messing with nature.

That is right ladies, not only is dreaming about perfect weddings natural, so is patriarchy and male dominance over your feelings, love life and dating choices. And if you act on how you feel, you are ruining your own chances at finding love (idiot!!!). It makes you wonder who is really being naive.

As I have talked to people about my project, I have come across the shame that women feel for wanting to ask men out, but feel like they can't because of myths such as those portrayed in the book above that make them feel stifled. And men, time and time again say, they like it when women ask them out. Now, I suppose any empirical evidence Christy or myself have collected is subjective since clearly she hangs around girls (not women incidentally as she continually refers to women as "girls,") that dream about weddings when they are "teething" (huh?) and I hang around people that have highly politicized and/or queer weddings, even if they may still be somewhat traditional. So naturally our evidence will be skewed by this subjectivity. That is the thing with love and dating, everyone has a different idea of what works for them, whether it is along or against the grain or somewhere in-between.

I guess what baffles me is not so much that many women feel pressured to follow these restrictive rules that ultimately make them unhappy. It is that we live in a culture that rewards this type of behavior. On some level they are right, there are some men that may prefer to ask women out because they want all the control--but is that the type of men we want to be with? Cultural norms around dating change with us and if we want egalitarian partnerships, our only hope is to do as we please with little regard to what we "should" do.

Similar to sentiments voiced in He's Just Not that Into You, and Why Men Love Bitches, many of these dating books only make sense if you believe that women are inferior to men. I am sure the authors of all of these books would say I am kidding myself, after all, I am 31 and unmarried, but I would much rather hold out for someone that recognizes me as a fully realized human being, rather than a possession that must play inferior and passive to get someone to like me and be with me. Just saying.

Stick it out till 4:35 for a great defense of Hillary. I heart you Colbert.

Thanks to Claire for the heads up.

Spencer Jones and Tyler Barrick were married at San Francisco City Hall on June 17, 2008, the first day California gay couples were legally allowed to do so.

Happily ever after? Well, sort of. But now their hometown paper, The Spectrum, in St. George, Utah, refuses to publish their wedding announcement. An excerpt from the gladd blog:

At first, the paper said they could run the announcement in the "celebrations" section of the paper - but only if there was no picture.

Jones and Barrick objected to being told their picture would be excluded, and in response president and publisher Donnie Welch decided that no announcement would run at all. He told the couple, "As our policy is to run marriage announcements recognized by Utah Law, I have made the decision to not run this announcement."

They are trying to get as many people as possible to email and call the publisher over the next few days, so do your part if you've got an extra minute:
Donnie Welch, President/Publisher, The Spectrum
435-674-6222
dwelch@thespectrum.com

Even if you don't watch reality television, or television at all for that matter, you'd be hard-pressed to avoid the recent controversy over Kate and Jon Gosselin, and their eight children. The stars of the beloved reality spectacle, Jon and Kate, Plus Eight, are divorcing. Despite salacious rumors about infidelity, they claim that it is just a gradual growing apart and, they add, the media spotlight certainly did help matters. It's hard to feel much empathy for a couple complaining of overexposure when they signed the contract that would expose their entire family, eight little children included, to 24 hour cameras.

But perhaps it's not just the media, or Jon and Kate, that are to blame. Kiri Blakeley, of Forbes.com, argues that female consumers are also culprits in this family dissolution. We're the ones hungrily scavenging for every last juicy morsel about the couple's demise, particularly the stories about what Kate did wrong, Blakeley argues. We're feeding the sexist media beast. She writes:

It's obvious who is devouring the Monster Mom headlines: Women. Research firm Mediamark estimates 73% of US Weekly's, 83% of In Touch's, and 77% of Star magazine's audience are female.

It's complicated. One of the most powerful ways in which we can practice our feminism is in our consumption choices. This can mean everything from where we buy our food to what kind of tampons we use to, yes, what magazines we read. The editors of feministing aren't afraid to admit that we've got some of our own guilty pleasures (All My Children, horror movies, reggaeton etc.), but they induce guilt for a reason--we know that our consumption of these things contradicts our values on some level.

No one's perfect. At the same time, I get incredibly sick of hearing everyone complain about the quality (or lack thereof) in the magazines marketed at women, and then turn around and support these same magazines by buying them at the airport kiosk. If we really want television programming or print media that speaks to our issues, then we need to tune into shows that reflect our desires, write letters to the magazines that don't.

It takes some self-discipline to avoid some of the more salacious crap on television and in print, that's for sure. But if we really want the media world to change, then we're going to have to start taking responsibility for our consumption choices. A guilty pleasure here or there makes us human. Blindly consuming "monster mom" stories about Kate Gosselin, celebrity weight loss exposes, or the latest Real Housewives series threatens to keep the sexist status quo very much in place.

I'm wondering how the feministing community draws the lines when it comes to television and media consumption. Do you allow yourself People magazine at the airport? Do you watch reality television that degrades women? Have you ever written a letter to the editor when a magazine did something you either loved or hated? Why or why not?

See community blogger crazyface8d on the topic.

This weekly Saturday column "Ask Professor Foxy" will regularly contain sexually explicit material. This material is likely not safe for work viewing. The title of the column will include the major topic of the post, so please read the topic when deciding whether or not to read the entire column.

Hi Professor Foxy,

Thanks for your help,
Sexually Stifled

Hi Sexually Stifled -
Thanks for writing in. You are clearly torn about your desire to maintain this relationship and your desire to be sexually involved with more than just your boyfriend.

Let's talk a little bit about nonmonogamy. Nonmonogamous relationships in all of their iterations (more about this in a minute) are just as valid and functional and workable as monogamous ones. The media and society really only portray monogamous relationships as valid and as soon as one person in a monogamous relationship begins to look at other people (GASP), the relationship is headed for doom. In reality, strong nonmonogamous relationships are much like strong monogamous relationships. The people involved talk about their feelings, their boundaries, and where they want the relationship to go.

It is also important to realize that there is a really wide range of nonmonogamous relationships. Some involve just the occasional kissing outside of the primary relationship, some just sex, and still others are polyamorous (many loves) and involve multiple relationships and lovers.

Now back to your situation, in this present relationship your boyfriend is really trying to accommodate your needs and desires. He gets big points for that. But I sense a real either/or in your letter "Is it worth potentially destroying an otherwise wonderful, loving relationship to have these sexual experiences?" You are pre-assuming destroying the relationship. Since you two are clearly having some good conversations about this situation, why not ask him about the possibility of opening up the relationship a little bit more. Not just for you, but for him as well.

You can keep your relationship as the primary and central relationship, but have sexual experiences with other people. Start off slow - maybe limiting it to kissing strangers at bars. See how that feels for both of you. You may love hooking up with others, but if he is engaging in the same behaviors: how do you handle it? Keep it there for a month or more, then see how it feels to ramping it up a little more: maybe making out without penetration of any sort (no oral, anal or vaginal sex or fingers into orifices).

You should make sure to discuss what I think of as a checklist for nonmonogamy:

1. What time and spaces are just for the two of you? For example, no kissing other people at family functions. Can other lovers come into your bed or do you have to go to a neutral space?

2. What behaviors are off limit? People in nonmonogamous or polyamorous relationships often reserve certain activities just for the primary relationship. These are not just sexual activities. A married heterosexual couple I know who are poly only hold hands with each other. Holding hands feels really intimate to them and they reserve that for one another.

3. What people are off limits? Can you hook up with friends? Just strangers?

4. What about sexual safety? Many, many poly people do not exchange bodily fluids outside of their primary relationships. Barrier methods are paramount here.

5. What must you tell other sexual interests? Do you tell other people you hook up with that you have a primary relationship and that needs to be respected?

6. What details do you share with each other? What do you tell each other after you hook up with some one else? This may actually become a turn on over time. Jealousy is normal and natural and should not be a deal killer, but rather something to be talked and worked through.

7. How do you honor your relationship? This is so, so important. After you hook up with someone else, what do you do to reconnect as a couple? Do you have dinner just the two of you? Do you cuddle for an hour? This step can be the most relevant to keeping your relationship healthy and strong. The other person needs to feel loved and cared for.

While this list may seem a little exhausting (and I am sure readers can suggest other things to think about), how much better would all relationships be (monogamous and not) if we took the time to talk these things out? Even monogamous people flirt with others, desire others and should talk to their partners about it. I would suggest reading the Ethical Slut by Dossie Easton and Catherin Liszt. It delves into these issues in a clear, easy to understand way.

Here is the other issue. Right now, you have already broken the boundaries of your monogamous relationship. You need to determine whether or not to tell him. I lean towards yes. If you want to be able to talk about opening up your relationship, trust and honesty are necessary and you need to re-establish that after you tell him.

Monogamy may just not be for you. You need to seriously think if you want to or can be monogamous. Fantasizing about someone else during sex is not necessarily a problem, but clearly it is for you. Your desires are increasing, not decreasing. Being a nonmonogamous or polyamorous person may be the healthiest way for you to be true to who you are.

Best,
Professor Foxy

If you have a question for Professor Foxy, send it to ProfessorFoxyATfeministingDOTcom.

I suppose it would follow that, after a byproduct of anal sex has been named after you because you do things like group together gay sex with incest, you would shut up and never open your stupid mouth about anything that has to do with copulation, dating, or really anything. You would think that, but that is not the way of Rick Santorum. Only this time it is about how black men don't like to get married and if the Obamas want to be a role model they better stick to some more normal and regular dating rituals.

via Salon quoting Santorum,

Number one, I think it's great that the president has a date night with his wife. He's a role model.He's a role model in particular, whether he likes it or not, in the African-American community.

And you have an African-American community, particularly in the poor inner city areas, we're looking at out of wedlock birthrates in three quarters to 75 percent (sic) of children being born out of wedlock. Marriage is an institution that's a bridge too far for too many African-American woman and is not desirable among African-American males

Um, what? Conservative logic is baffling and will stop at nothing to demean, since it is not just gays that are destroying the institution of marriage it is those "welfare queens and deadbeat dads too." Santorum has to play off every stereotype he can find.

But he continues,

Here we have a president of the United States who says that marriage is cool. You have respect for your wife, and you treat her with the respect and dignity that she deserves. And she is part of this team. And it's not just part of professional team, but it's also part of a personal, romantic team. I think that's all great. So I think it's important that he keeps having his date night.

I think he has to realize that flying to New York is self-indulgent. Go down to the corner bar and have a drink, a shot and a beer. It does not matter where you go with your wife, is that it's with your wife. That's really the point... I would make the argument, the simpler the date, the more normal it is.

Santorum is so glad that Obama is being an Upstanding Black Man, but lest he get too showy, Santorum must put the Obamas on notice, since he knows how to be "normal."

I know it is hard to deconstruct something that is so devoid of logic, you start to feel like you are talking in circles. It is not just an insult to the black community that they are "looking at out of wedlock birthrates in three quarters to 75 percent (sic) of children being born out of wedlock." That is not just offensive but it is inaccurate. Statistically more women are choosing to have children out of the institution of marriage. It is certainly not a sign of a crumbling world and a crumbling community, but instead showing us that marriage is not something that should be the backbone of our society as would have it.

Personally, I think the date thing was not something to get all in a fit over, but I also didn't fall for the "oooh ahhh they love each other so much, marriage is so great and the Obamas have shown me why!" Great, people are excited that the First Lady and her dude have a great thing going, but the bigger issue of what constitutes as normal marriage and not hasn't changed. The Obamas have to play up their marriage as stable and normal so they can fight every ignorant stereotype about black people and marriage, along with reinforce that fundamental to the American dream is getting married, being "normal," staying married and having some babies within the sanctity of that marriage. It is quite a conundrum.

Hey all - Sorry for the late post. Had some technological glitches.
Thanks!

Hi Prof. Foxy,

Thanks so much for any advice you can offer!
Sincerely,
Paranoid Wife

Trigger warning.

Do Something, an organization "using the power of online to get teens to do good stuff offline," has made a video re-enactment of the Chris Brown/Rhianna conflict as part of their 1 in 3 Campaign (designed to education young people about dating violence). It's obviously based on the actual police notes from the incident, making it highly realistic and unavoidably horrifying:

While I could understand why some people would be outraged by this bold PSA tactic, I'm completely in support of what Do Something is doing. They're making the incident--which has been so obscured by the media hype, ignorant commentary from pundits and the public alike, and so much disrespect--real again. A woman, a man, out of control emotions, and inexcusable violence. If Rhianna weren't already horribly outed by this whole incident, I might feel like it were an invasion of her privacy, but at this point, it's just so public. It seems like the most respectful thing we can do for Rhianna is make sure that this whole thing inspires young people to get educated about relationship violence--as the ad does.

What do you think?

On Saturday I went to a reading by Tristan Taormino and Jenny Block, both talking about their recent books about non-monogamy. The event was hosted by Whole DC, a soon to be opening feminist sex shop and community center sex positive community center and boutique in Washington DC (so excited to have one in my town!).

It was great to see these two authors together, whose books really complement one another but provide very different perspectives. Jenny, in her book Open (read an excerpt here) shares her personal story of being in an open marriage with a man and how she came to that relationship style. Tristan, in her book Opening Up (Q&A here), shares the stories of more than 100 couples she interviewed who were in non-monogamous, open or polyamorous relationships.

The conversation that occurred after the reading was really interesting. I'm generally fascinated by discussions about relationships and I think there is a lot to learn from different models that people are using to make their relationships.

Some food for thought from the conversation:

• From Tristan: "Cheaters do one honest thing. They acknowledge that their current partner isn't meeting all their needs. Then they fuck it all up by lying."
• A main difference between monogamous and non-monogamous relationships is that non-monogamous ones don't have limits or boundaries that are established by society. They have to do the work of establish the terms themselves.
• Monogamy works for those who choose it, but not so well for those who enter into by default.
• Non-monogamous people are every where, in every walk of life. These relationships are extremely diverse, there are no standards for how they work.

I know conversations about non-monogamy have been quite heated at Feministing in the past, but I thought it was worth continuing the dialogue. I highly recommend both their books as well.

Sarah Haskins' latest!

It takes a certain je ne sais quoi to unabashedly argue in favor of marital rape. Of course columnist Dennis Prager doesn't call it that. No no, he prefers to use some sort of bizarre high school logic about how ladies who really love their man will "give her body" on demand.

It is an axiom of contemporary marital life that if a wife is not in the mood, she need not have sex with her husband. Here are some arguments why a woman who loves her husband might want to rethink this axiom.

And here I thought the "if you really loved me" argument was only relegated to after-school specials! How wrong I was.

First, women need to recognize how a man understands a wife's refusal to have sex with him: A husband knows that his wife loves him first and foremost by her willingness to give her body to him. This is rarely the case for women. Few women know their husband loves them because he gives her his body (the idea sounds almost funny).

Haha, because the ideas of men's bodies as commodities is ridiculous, of course! Outside of the insulting notion that men only recognize love through sex, Prager also seems to think that sex is simply about women "giving" their bodies to men. (In fact, he writes some variation of the phrase "give your body" or "deprive your body" multiple times in the article.) The idea that sex could be a mutually enjoyable and wanted expression of love is lost on the dude. Which is actually pretty sad.

Prager goes on to write that men are no more than animals, and that "every man who is sexually faithful to his wife already engages in daily heroic self-control." (Seriously.) But don't worry, gals, Prager has a sensitive side:

Of course, there are times when a man must simply refrain from initiating sex out of concern for his wife's physical or emotional condition.

Talk about a keeper!

Yes Means Yes contributor (and long-time Feministing commenter) Thomas actually has a great essay that gets to the heart of what's wrong with Prager's ideas about sex:

We live in a culture where sex is not so much an act as a thing: a substance that can be given, bought, sold, or stolen, that has a value and a supply-and-demand curve. In this "commodity model," sex is like a ticket; women have it and men try to get it.

In this case, Prager seems to believe that men have an inherent right to the whole frigging box office.

Melissa, Jesse and Jeff have more.

In Japan where women have really low rates of heart problems they have found that women that live with their spouses and their in-laws have a really high rate of heart problems.

The researchers followed 91,000 Japanese men and women living in different household arrangements for more than 10 years. The participants ranged in age from 40 to 69 and had not been diagnosed at the start of the study with any serious illnesses, including heart disease, stroke or cancer.

By the end of the study, 671 participants had been diagnosed with coronary artery disease, 339 had died of heart disease, and 6,255 had died of other causes.

Women who lived with their spouses and parents, usually in-laws, were less likely to smoke or drink heavily, but were three times more likely to have had a heart attack, the researchers found.

The article feigns surprise in finding out that men don't have these same health problems, but fails to make the obvious conclusion that women get inordinate amounts of pressure from their in-laws to live up to certain expectations that increases stress in their lives. Many women are choosing not to get married or have as many children in Japan, but the culture of expectation around how women should act in the home seems resilient. I wonder if a similar correlation can be made with women that are living with their in-laws in the states?

via NYTimes.

Olbermann calls out support for Prop 8 and it is damn good. Watch it.

Full transcript here.

You're sitting in the airport terminal, rolling your copy of the Economist into a sweaty tube and waiting to see a significant other who lives far away. You're excited. You're aroused. But there's something else, a nagging feeling that gurgles in your stomach and won't go away. Is it pangs of guilt? It should be: The planet is about to suffer for your love.

As someone who has had my fair share of long distance relationships (LDRs for short) this Slate article really struck a chord with me.

By spending all their free time out of town or staring at a webcam--that is, in their apartments or airline cabins, rather than in parks, bowling alleys, and pubs--long-distance lovers erode civic commitment and social support networks. They have fewer chances to meet new people.

What's more, out-of-town daters have less sex than local couples--and long stretches of abstinence between visits could lead to negative health outcomes and thus higher health care costs. Distance also magnifies the impact of negative feelings like longing and suspicion; according to one study, intercity lovers are more likely to be depressed and less likely to share resources or take care of each other when sick. And they spend money on travel that they might otherwise save and invest--leaving them vulnerable to economic shocks and wearing away their future standard of living. Every one of these demons could be banished by simply dating local.

I couldn't agree more. I've been joking with some friends of mine about wanting to start a campaign against long distance relationships. Constantly missing your significant other, spending your life on the phone, always counting the days until you see them, or the days until you have to say goodbye again.

I think our increasingly globalized and technologized world is making LDRs much easier (and maybe more likely). Internet dating, email and social networking sites all make it much easier for us to connect with people who live far away. These things also make it much easier to maintain your connection with someone--you can always be connected to them, at least virtually. What used to be cheap airfare also makes it easier to visit one another (although that might be changing).

Now, it's not always easy to avoid LDRs. People move away, for jobs, or school, or other life decisions. I know there are couples out there who have made it work. But maybe Slate has a point--if we have a local food movement, why not a date local movement?

Thanks to Tanya for the link

I got wind of this new entrepreneurial venture, Ignighter, awhile ago from my friend Hannah and thought I would share it all with you. Two recent college grads (both guys) have started an online dating site that allows groups of friends to mingle and jangle, rather than depending on that one little love connection.

How it works: basically you get together with all your college roommates or your cubicle crew or your James Baldwin book club (look, I know someone who has one), and then you create a profile as a group. Once you've created your group's page, you can then browse the other groups and--if all parties consent--make a time to meet up and see how it all shakes out.

I see some major advantages to this scenario. First and foremost, it's way more natural than the big pressure of meeting a total stranger in a bar or whatever and hoping to hit it off. As we all know, online profiles rarely predict blast off chemistry. With this set up, you get to evaluate the vibe of a bunch of people in the flesh.

I also like that it sort of takes away the emphasis on ROMANTIC relationships. Two crews hanging seems like it would lead to a love connection or two and plenty of friendships, whereas when it doesn't work out one on one, sometimes it's hard to transition into a friendship.

And as the founders argue, it is safer. Though I haven't heard much about sketchy online dating experiences (have you, readers?), I do see the advantage of having your crew of friends around in case some meet up ends up feeling sketchy.

Downsides? The pictures on the site seem pretty white (no love for people of color?). I'm sure if you really get deep into profile browsing you can find yourself love of all kinds, but it would be nice to feature some people of color on the homepage.

So what do you all think? Group pumpkin pickin' date?

Reader Julia sent us a link to this posting on Madison, Wisconsin Craigslist. Pretty amazing stuff:

I'm married. Been married for 14 years. I moved away from my family to be with my wife's family, left my career, friends, & family behind. I now work out of my house because my wife got a "better" job else where and now I do ALL of the cooking and cleaning and take care of my 3 kids. She's the typical MALE now...comes homes, I have dinner ready. She works more at home. I play with the kids. She goes to bed, I have to go to bed. My whole life revolves around her now. She's the Sun and I'm Uranus. She leaves dirty clothes on the floor. Trash on tables. HAIR everywhere!! I SIT to pee now cuz I hate to clean up pubic hairs off the toilets....it's disgusting.

Yes, he's experiencing what many women have experienced for decades. But no one deserves to feel this way about their life or relationship. What I dislike about the entire tone of this post, however, is that he's not just pissed off about the unequal nature of his relationship. He's pissed because he's "THE WOMAN" -- as in, women are the ones who should doing all the shit work:

I feel I'm being converted to a female in some sick way. I AM NOT A WOMAN! I love women. But I now know what they put up with. It sucks. No thanks for dinner....not even "dinner was great dear...how 'bout I clean up the dishes"....NNOOOOOO. Just a couple of grunts and it's off to work....kinda like a guy going to the garage for the evening. I have tools. I'd love to go to the garage and work. But I think my kids come first. I'd love to have an affair but don't think I can deal with the guilt. If I start to PMS.......I'll scream. Oh...and don't think she's "MAN" enough to mow the yard or shovel the drive...nope...that's me too. Who gets the groceries....ME. My nipples stick out in the frozen food section too by the way. No one tries to pick me up though. I did get asked by the cashier what was for dinner once!!! I must have something written on my forhead. So women, ladies, how do you put up with it???

I'll admit to laughing at the nipples-in-the-frozen-food-aisle line, but I genuinely feel bad for this guy. In light of our conversation last week about balancing relationships with chores and the ins and outs of living together, does anyone have advice for this man?

Am I going to hate him for watching TV? Is he going to hate me for being so picky about the volume on the stereo? Will I end up doing his laundry by default and then being bitter about it? How do we get alone time? Who's going to clean the toilet?

These are just some of the questions that have been going through my head as of late. After a very, very long indy courtship, my partner and I are moving in. I'm totally excited and more than a little nervous. It seems to me that I'm embarking on a journey that will land me squarely at the center of feminism's unfinished business. How do we share lives and space without losing ourselves? How do we keep things equal, intentional, exciting? How do we take care of each other and ourselves simultaneously?

According to Alternative to Marriage:

• there are 11 million people living with an unmarried partner in the United States, including both same-sex and different-sex couples (2000 Census).


• between 1960 and 2000, the number of unmarried cohabiting couples increased one thousand percent.


• 41% of American women ages 15-44 have cohabited (lived with an unmarried different-sex partner) at some point. This includes 9% of women ages 15-19, 38% of women ages 20-24, 49% of women ages 25-29, 51% of women ages 30-34, 50% of women ages 35-39, and 43% of women ages 40-44.

So some of you out there must be in this lovely/difficult situation. Anyone got tips for how two feminists cohabitate successfully? Are there any great books on the subject?

*Um, please keep in mind that I have a one bedroom apartment, so tips like, "just make sure to have your own yoga room and give him a den with wood paneling and a humidor" won't exactly fly. I mean, not that you would. Just sayin'.

After California granted gay couples equal access to marriage, the state changed its official marriage licenses, which used to have spaces to fill in the names of the "bride" and "groom." The form now reads "Party A" and "Party B" instead. No big deal, right? Well, a one whiny, privileged hetero couple is very offended.

"We are traditionalists - we just want to be called bride and groom," said Bird, 25, who works part time for her father's church. "Those words have been used for generations and now they just changed them."   [...]

And Rachel Bird described her position as "personal - not religious."

"We just feel that our rights have been violated," she said.

To some, the couple's stand may seem frivolous. But others believe "bride" and "groom" are terms that are too important for the state to set aside.

"Those who support (same-sex marriage) say it has no impact on heterosexuals," said Brad Dacus of the Pacific Justice Institute. "This debunks that argument."

Oh my god, are you kidding me? Which right, exactly, has been violated? Their right to control the language on state marriage licenses? As PZ Myers says, (via)

The wingnuts have long been claiming that allowing gays to marry somehow hurts their heterosexual marriages, a claim that is patently silly and false, and now they've got two idiots who will voluntarily slap themselves with a penalty so they can claim genuine damages. This is not credible.

No, it's not.

On a related note... from the archives on the California same-sex marriage law, check out Miriam on why marriage isn't her golden ticket, Courtney on how gay marriage has her rethinking her personal views on getting hitched, and Samhita on how marriage laws erase transgendered people.

Today the Washington Post covers a new book with the earth-shattering thesis that, if women want to "keep a man" they should start scrubbing floors in lingerie, learning to cook steaks to order, and giving blowjobs in between.

Is that cover condescending or what? And that's not even getting into the content of the book...

Moore's slim treatise purports to explain how women should go about sex, relationships and marriage -- according to men. Here is his mission as a self-described reeducator: "I want to express my anger and frustration as a man with the women I feel are miseducated, misinformed, and ill-prepared about their responsibilities in getting and maintaining a relationship with a man of quality," he writes in the introduction.

Moore, of course, considers himself just such a man. Read his book, ladies, and you can snag a catch just like him. Your responsibilities include cooking, staying skinny, wearing sexy things around the house and doing whatever your man tells you to do (because, Moore writes, "Here's a little secret, ladies: men never really ask for anything. They command. . . . And believe me, what you won't do, ten broads around the corner will.")

Ugh. The sad part is, he's found this method successful:

Moore's girlfriend, Khanequa Tuitt, who's at the book-signing, recalls that when she first read his manuscript, she only got past the first couple of pages before calling him to curse him out. But now she's come to terms with his views. She's started "trying to stay away from wearing frumpy, flannel stuff," even when she's cleaning, for example.

Moore also keeps it classy with a "no fatties" message:

In his book, size matters -- a lot: "The fatter you get, the more you decrease your potential single-man pool. Let me give you an example. When you go to the grocery store to shop, do you pick out the nastiest-looking, most rotten, smelliest fruit or meat you can find? Oh, you don't? Why not? . . . It's the same with men when they see baby elephant-sized, out-of-shape women."

The interesting thing is that (as you may have noticed from the cover above), the book is "presented by" Zane, a best-selling writer of black erotica. (As M.Dot at Model Minority writes today, "Zane sells because her fiction allows Black women to be sexual in a culture that refuses to acknowledge that we are sexual, a culture that calls us ho's if are so inclined to be sexual, talk about sex, or even look like we are human and have a sexual appetite.") But Zane says her name on the book is not an endorsement -- it's a warning: "There are some men who feel exactly like he does. I feel like women should be forewarned and realize what's out there."