Continue Reading...

Regarding my last two columns, this one and this one, I seem to have made an error that was offensive to many people who identify as bisexual, and I apologize. I do. I really do. I can really fall in love with my own nonsense sometimes. And to those who have written agreeing with me, I appreciate it, but I think I was wrong.

Here is the flaw in my thinking, courtesy of a kindly scholar of argument:

"Logically, your position relies on a fallacy of amphiboly that confuses two different uses of the term 'two.'  Being attracted to 'two' sexes is not the same thing as wanting 'two' partners. Could a bisexual person be polyamorous?  Sure. But so could a heterosexual person. You say that being lesbian means one wants to be partners with women (etc).  Does that mean that being a lesbian means that one wants to be partners with ALL women?  More than one woman? By extension, does being heterosexual (man wants to be partners with women) mean that a man wants to be partners with ALL women? More than one? Besides, being bisexual doesn't mean that one has 'two' attractions.  It means that one’s preferences don’t necessarily depend on sex.  It’s not that you want to have sex with 'both' men and women.  It’s just as easily that you want to have sex with either a man or a woman."

Continue Reading...

Near one oxbow of the Pequea, and not far from these highways, sits the Gordonville Book Store. Owned by an Amish man, the bookstore is a modest building with beige siding. On this snow-covered January day, laundry hangs stiff as card stock on the line between the store and an adjacent house. The store, which sells books, calendars, greeting cards, and gifts, serves mostly Amish and conservative Mennonite patrons. Sometimes English (i.e., non-Amish) people like me happen upon the store, and are pleased to find gas lanterns humming sotto voce and an Amish boy with a bowl cut and a high voice manning the cash register.

Continue Reading...

So how can we make peace with this Hannah, who, after finally getting what she wants — a good (enough) job and a nice(ish) boy — is overcome by OCD, a terribly crippling condition in real life, and possibly so in drama. A very smart commenter on Facebook recently noted that the ear-poking seems almost an act of desperation, as if Hannah were trying to dig out her neurosis with a Q-tip. It certainly does, but what about losing Adam has caused this syndrome? Is it stopping her from writing the book? Is the book stopping her from writing Adam? Was the plot stopping Dunham from writing an explanation for either of these? Hannah is poking around for answers, lost and alone. As are we.

Continue Reading...

"When I ask Meyer whether she's read Fifty Shades, she quickly, emphatically, says no. She doesn't wish James ill at all, she says, but 'it's so not my genre. Erotica is not something I read. I don't even read traditional romance.' Why not? 'It's too smutty. There's a reason my books have a lot of innocence. That's the sort of world I live in.' "

Her own "less-traditional" romance has been just as polarizing, though, with detractors labeling it as "abstinence porn." (Meyer was taken aback by the "the massive amount of fans that I hadn't expected, and the massive amount of people who hated it, which I also didn't expect.") She insists, however, that "Twilight" is about "true love":

Continue Reading...

Nonetheless, WhatsYourPrice.com conducted a survey about how honest people are in their online dating profiles, and like similar studies, found that a majority of people lie in them. Women tend to lie most about their weight; men tend to lie most about their height and income. (Oh, and their marital status.)

The survey also found the highest concentration of no-good dirty rotten online profile fabricators in Atlanta, New York and Washington, D.C., while people in Houston, Phoenix, Boston, Charlotte, N.C., and Minneapolis were veritable George Washingtons of Internet dating.

But even the big liars aren't full-on Catfish-ing potential mates, just lacing their profiles with minor deceptions and indulging in the same kinds of white lies that men and women have been telling over watery cocktails at bars since the beginning of time: That they are fitter, better educated, wealthier -- you get the idea.

Continue Reading...

Then why not let the New York Review of Books arrange your next blind date?

Celebrating its 50th anniversary this month, the literary journal that Tom Wolfe once called "the chief theoretical organ of Radical Chic" has been facilitating the union of the literati's not-so-theoretical organs since its founding in 1963.

And while the magazine's associate publisher, Catherine Tice, couldn't tell you why the journal decided to run personal ads, she can quote you the very first one: "Wife wanted: intelligent, beautiful, 18 to 25, broad-minded, sensitive, affectionate. For accomplished artist and exciting life. NYR box 1432," she told NPR.

Other favorites from the associate publisher:

Continue Reading...

In 2006 and 2007, Gallup went to 136 countries and asked people, “Did you experience love for a lot of the day yesterday?” Bloomberg broke down the numbers, revealing that there are actually a lot of gooey feelings going around in the world.

In the United States, 81 percent of respondents reported feeling loved in the previous 24 hours, but the Philippines came out on top, with 93 percent of people reporting that they felt that loving feeling for a majority of their day. Armenia, where only 29 percent of respondents felt the warm glow of affection, came in a sad last.

Other interesting findings from the data include indicators that marriage, while a boon for love, might not be the best means of experiencing it. According to Bloomberg, "Across the world as a whole, the widowed and divorced are the least likely to experience love. Married folks feel more of it than singles. People who live together out of wedlock report getting even more love than married spouses."

Continue Reading...

With the launch of Crazy Blind Date, an app that randomly sets users up based on demographic information, OKCupid seems to be throwing up its hands and admitting that when it comes to finding love, shared tastes can only take you so far. The app works like this: you pick a time and a location, and OKCupid pulls up a list of potential dates in the area, along with their first names, ages and scrambled photos of their faces. You pick one, and let Eros (or booze) do the rest.

Continue Reading...

I'm a fan of laughing instead of crying -- especially when it comes to the ceremonial excess of Feb. 14 -- so I bring you this year's 10 worst attempts to capitalize on Cupid's holiday.

[slide_show id="13199454"]

Continue Reading...

Continue Reading...

In this episode, Hannah winds up in said brownstone after Ray, irate that his neighbor is asking him to do anything outside the realm of the door of the shop, assumes a defensive rigidity. Joshua (who, we learn later, insists on the “ua”) is not irate back, but confused. “I was hoping we could talk neighbor to neighbor,” he says, perplexed. No luck. To this grownup, they're on the same street. To Ray, they're not even in the same world.

Continue Reading...

Continue Reading...

The Telegraph notes, however, that it's not clear if Putin personally invited the band:

Whether or not the Russian kingpin personally got on the phone, tracked down their agent and demanded that they “do the show right here” is pure speculation on the newspaper’s part. It’s a little hard to believe … but it’s also not impossible to imagine.

Continue Reading...

But the beginning of fall always made me feel ungrounded. I traced my anxiety back to my teens, when my father committed suicide on Yom Kippur. If there was a recipe to create an anxious person, my parents must have followed it: I was the only child of a depressed father and a mother who lived through the Holocaust.  As an adult, I became a workaholic, traveling the world, and avoiding any deep romantic connections for fear a man would leave me like my father did. At least that’s what therapy taught me. I needed her help again.

Continue Reading...

Trends like restructuring, privatization, mergers, downsizing, and relentlessly high unemployment are transforming intimate relationships. Chronic job insecurity is shifting the way we approach the idea of hooking up, having sex, staying together, and starting families. And it might just be changing the very nature of romance.

One minute you’re happily planning a life together and talking about having kids. Then, suddenly, everything changes.

Conservatives are forever preaching about family values, but their job-destroying, anti-worker policies have made it harder and harder for young people to put down roots and reach the level of stability required for long-term relationships and children.

Continue Reading...