Salon.com > Meghan Daum

In defense of Katie Roiphe

Tue, 04 Sep 2012 19:52:00 +0000

FOR A LONG TIME, what I thought about Katie Roiphe was that everything would have been different if she hadn't neglected (or was it refused?) to make one crucial point. If only, in The Morning After: Sex, Fear, and Feminism, her 1994 treatise on the sexual politics of what was commonly called the "date rape crisis," she had said something like this: the problem with broadening the definition of sexual violence to the point where plain old regrettable or even unenjoyable sex is sometimes classified as "rape" is that it ultimately achieves the opposite of its intended goal. It downplays the seriousness of rape. By bestowing equal measures of victim (or survivor) status onto those who let their boyfriends go too far one drunken night as onto those who, through violence or other forms of coercion, have sex against their will, the whole notion of rape becomes a fluid concept. It becomes subject to interpretation as well as felony prosecution. And while that might not necessarily be the end of the world, it can sure be confusing.

Chasing down a dream house

Sat, 08 May 2010 00:20:00 +0000

For weeks now, I've been staring at photographs of my dream house. In these photos, which are available for round-the-clock clicking and friend forwarding on the Internet as well as in the form of a glossy brochure I can actually touch, the rooms are spacious and the ceilings are high. The furniture (sparse, tasteful, solid) is devoid of clutter, the floors newly stained and polished, the windows washed inside and out by someone who knew what he was doing. The place is small -- just 890 square feet and there's no garage -- but the yard is large and lush and the view over the fence is almost Mediterranean: terraced streets lined with red tile roofed houses and cloudbursts of bougainvillea. Under any other circumstances I'd call my real estate agent and demand to see it immediately. But as it so happens, this is my own house.

I'm selling it, and as one often does when selling one's house -- particularly in "challenging" markets like this -- I've primped and pimped the place beyond recognition. There is, at my agent's suggestion, a flower arrangement on the bathtub ledge in the shower. I've never in my life had a flower arrangement in the shower. But looking at the photos, I'm beginning to realize what's been missing from my life.

Destination: Nebraska

Thu, 06 Jul 2006 12:00:00 +0000

Nebraskans like to say that their state is a great place to live but you wouldn't want to visit. It's not that they're not a welcoming people. But let's not forget the adage that guests, like fish, start to smell after three days. Nebraskans tend not to like fish, at least for eating. With this in mind, the tourist would do well to see the state on a road trip, and refrain from lingering in any one place for too long. This is how most people see Nebraska anyway, while crossing the country on Interstate 80, a route whose descriptives have ranged from "stultifying" to "isn't that the same cow we saw five hours ago?"

First road rule: Stay off the interstate. There are, believe it or not, other routes here, many of them paved.

I'll guide you east to west, though you can certainly reverse the course if you're going the other direction (in which case you'll be coasting off the Rockies, then deposited into the barren plains of Eastern Colorado, which are a warm-up for the even more barren plains to come). But let's say you're coming from Iowa on that plebeian interstate, to which you'll bid adieu at Council Bluffs. You'll cross the Missouri River into Omaha, which might be the least Nebraska-like place in Nebraska. (You can do Bikram yoga here, as well as get decent sushi.)

“Music Is My Bag”

Tue, 20 Mar 2001 21:36:00 +0000

Meghan Daum is one of the most celebrated nonfiction writers of her generation, widely recognized for the fresh, provocative approach with which she unearths hidden fault lines in the American landscape. In her piece "Music Is My Bag," an essay (published in Harper's magazine last year) from her collection "My Misspent Youth," Daum tackles the peculiarities of teen music students who seem to have missed a beat. With precision and well-balanced irony, she implicates herself as readily as she does the targets that fascinate and disturb her.

"Throughout Meghan's book, there are a surprising number of moments when your jaw just drops in amazement at what she's saying," says Ira Glass, host of PRI's "This American Life." "Even when she's being funny, her writing has a clarity and intensity that just makes you feel awake."

Daum's essays and articles have appeared in the New Yorker, Harper's, the New York Times Book Review, Harper's Bazaar, GQ, Nerve, Self and Vogue, among other publications. She has contributed to PRI's "This American Life" and is a commentator for "Morning Edition." Born in 1970, Daum holds a master's degree in fine arts from Columbia University. She recently moved from New York to rural Nebraska.