Sex & Culture

Is everyone on Match.com looking for a match?

In a word, no. The problem is, I see a lot of couples in which one partner is caught using Match, or Tinder, or Ashley Madison, or some other dating/hookup website. Partner B flips out, accusing partner A of cheating, or wanting to cheat. Partner A denies it, but doesn’t sound convincing: “Uh, I was um, you know, just looking around.” Sometimes that’s nonsense—A is cheating, just as B suspects. But frequently, A is window shopping. We all do it—we look at ads for things we can’t afford, look in shops at things we’ll never buy, look on EBay at…

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Bad Categories Prevent Smart Conversations

Don’t you agree that people who either murder someone or keep library books overdue should be punished? “Murderers and library book abusers”—that’s an example of a phony category. Other phony categories include “bullies and predators,” “porn and child porn,” and “S/M and violence.” I’ve spoken and written many times about phony categories and moral panics […]

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Ten Problems With Purity Balls

Purity Balls are more popular than ever. That’s the religious ceremony in which a girl (usually about 12) pledges her “purity” to her father and to God until she marries. Balls are like group weddings: dozens of dads wear tuxedos, girls wear (typically white) ball gowns, dads put gold bands on their daughters’ wedding finger, and then the couple has a First Dance together. The average age of first marriage in America is now over 27. That would make the non-sexual Purity Zone (from pledge to marriage) some 15 years long. If we adjust the figure for the demographics of…

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Gay Pride—A Reminder

Today is Gay Pride Day. Across the U.S. and many other countries, colorful parades mark the 45th anniversary of the riots around New York’s Stonewall Inn, credited with launching the gay rights movement. The riots were a series of violent reactions to yet another then-completely-legal police raid on gay bars. Today it’s almost impossible to imagine that only four decades ago, being gay was grounds for harassment, arrest, and jail time. And, of course, losing one’s job, one’s apartment, and custody of one’s children. A lot has changed since then. And a lot hasn’t. A huge number of Americans still…

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