According to Chinese custom, 8/08/08 is a super-lucky day to get married.

(Or, if possible, launch the Olympic Games.)

Advertising Age reports that The Parents’ Television Council (PTC) is wagging quite the stern finger at broadcast networks for undermining marriage, they say, by making affairs look much more interesting. Networks show sex between married couples as “boring, burdensome or nonexistent, while depicting extramarital sex as positive,” according to the PTC. “[Prime-time] verbal references to nonmarital sex outnumber references to sex in marriage nearly 3 to 1, and scenes implying sex between unmarried partners outnumbered similar scenes between married couples 4 to 1.”

Sure: Shows such as Desperate Housewives, Lipstick Jungle, and Sex and the City certainly have their philandering plot lines, even if they end up with Carrie ending up with Mr. Big. Sunday’s episode of Mad Men showed Don Draper having ho-hum coitus with his wife, while sultry, unmarried Joan Holloway had anything but. And let’s not even get into the implications of Swingtown. Of course, in fairness to writers — TV and otherwise — a happy marriage makes a happy couple … but maybe not so great a story. (At least once the reality-wedding show ends.) But still: have we come so far that it is no longer risqué enough to merely say “Sex Sells,” but that “Forbidden Sex Sells”? And does it not just sell, but also, you know, drive us to seduce the pool boy?

(more…)

Here’s a PSA from FOBG-run Theatre Askew:

This fall, Theatre Askew is inviting high school students to submit a letter to the next President of the United States. We’re encouraging students (up to 18 years) to describe their vision for the GLBTQ community, including the biggest challenges we must overcome, by the end of the next President’s time in office.

All letters will be reviewed by a panel of GLBTQ-community judges, who will choose the top letters for a special theatrical presentation (by some of New York’s leading actors) in the fall of 2008. Students whose letters are chosen will be invited to participate in a youth-based performance in 2009 using their letters as a jumping-off point to create an original theatre piece.

AND All student letters will be delivered to the White House in January 2009!

If you know of any New York-area youth who might be interested, or anyone who works with young people, please pass this along. Thanks!

Last week we told you that the top five cities for meeting men over 35 were spread throughout the country (#1: San Jose, #2: Salt Lake City, #3: Raleigh). Now the New York Daily News suggests that landing a man on the Eastern seaboard isn’t as tough as all that. In fact, New York has been ranked the #2 state to land a single guy, edged out only by Washington, DC. (Hey wait! That’s not technically a STATE! No fair!) According to the News, “there are currently 3.9 million men in New York City, and 35% of them are single.” Too bad there’s also 4.3 million women also living in the city, with nearly 70% of them being unmarried. (So, um, why isn’t the article — or, like, any article ever — about the best region for meeting single WOMEN, hrmm?). Apparently, though, a little move upstate will do some additional good to your odds: in Albany, 75% of men — and 75% of women — are single. (Now does someone want to do a study on why political cities are such singlesfests?)

Meanwhile, over at CNNMoney.com: Hoboken, NJ shows the most single people with 57.7%, followed by Cambridge, MA; Somerville, MA; Berkeley, CA; and Boston, MA (hello, college town). Albany appears at #15; New York City doesn’t show up at all.

Man. If only there were some sort of map. Oh, wait.

You may remember the AskMen.com survey finding that 77% of men had cried over a woman, and not just on the day they heard about Natalie Portman and what’s-his-name. Now, the BBC tells us that their peers across the pond (or maybe, like, all sentient beings) aren’t so different. Here’s what makes those blokes well up:

• Making parents proud
• Birth of first child/grandchild
• Tribulations of a loved one
• Letting a loved one down
• Letting yourself down
• Saying “I’m sorry”
• Winning/losing a hard-fought game
• The farewell scene in Weekend at Bernie’s < KIDDING

I have a feeling that if we keep making TOO big a deal out of the “news” that “real men cry!” BG herself will burst into tears. But come on fellas, do tell: what turns on your waterworks?

You thought the Ally McBathroom was controversial? While such progress is, in many parts of the US, stalling, the BBC reports that the Kampang Secondary School in Thailand — a country known for its tolerance, if not warm fuzzy embrace, of men who dress and live as women — is now providing its student body with girls’, boys’, and transgender bathrooms. (See super-keen sign at right; call it the international symbol for “adolescence just got a liiiiittle bit easier.”) Kampang is not the first Thai educational institution to set up such a system, though it may be the first secondary school to do so, reports FOX. This news has stirred not controversy but discussion in other schools now wondering if they should follow suit.

As for Kampang itself, head teacher Sitisak Sumontha estimates that “in any year between 10% and 20% of his boys consider themselves to be transgender.” (No word, it should be noted — and perhaps explored in a complicated socio-cultural dissertation — on girls who roll as boys.) He explains that the boys who desire to be girls are uncomfortable in either girls’ or boys’ restrooms, and that often, the girls and boys are uncomfortable there with them. So perhaps there’s still room for some diversity education, but at least in the meantime, these boys will be that much freer to heed the call of nature.

BG just stumbled across this oldish-ie but goodie in the Boston Globe Magazine by Erika Cann, who writes: “[A]s I hurtle toward 40, I find myself irresistible to younger men. While I used to be focused on 30- to 40-something mid-career professionals in Dockers, I find that in my pursuit of these “safe bets,” I’m tripping over young Zac Efron look-alikes who are falling to their knees. I have become an Accidental Cougar.”

Say what you want about the term “cougar” — what I want to say, for example, is: “How come we call women who date younger men ‘cougars,’ and men who date younger women ‘men’? — but that, really, isn’t the point of Cann’s charming piece, which is really about being open, adventurous, and patient in the safari of love. Go enjoy the rest after one more bonus teaser: “During this year and a half, I dated a handful of interesting guys all seven to 14 years my junior and was only once approached by a guy in my age range. I went out with him the same weekend I had a date with a 27-year-old, winding up at a string quartet one night and ‘Beerfest’ the next. I fell asleep at one of these events, but I’m too embarrassed to say which one.”

NPR’s recent on-air essay about sex without condoms has drawn quite a bit of debate. Speaking on the “What’s the New What” series, Oakland teen Pendarvis Harshaw reported that for his peers these days, forgoing condoms “signifies taking monogamy to a new level” — one where “partners are required to trust each other completely.”

Harshaw called this Commitment 2.0 “the new engagement ring.” Several commenters on the story agreed that in an age where people choose to get married later in life, or not at all, this step is an unspoken strengthening of an already serious and monogamous relationship. Harshaw — since you’re wondering, slash, getting nervous — urges that both partners get tested for STIs and use other methods of birth control.

(more…)

Here, your weekly installment of Ask Lynn, the advice column penned by BG’s alter ego at MSN.com (powered by Match.com). This week, we meet Torn-Up Tanya, who presents us with still another age-old dilemma: “Steve — or Mark?”

Steve: Emotionally abusive but penitent and up-for-counseling ex. Wants her back.

Mark: “Sweet,” “awesome” new guy she met, sorta by mistake, very soon after the breakup.

Whom should Tanya choose? (Hint: Maybe … Ed?) See what Lynn has to say, and then come back here to comment!

Friday tries to separate the men from the boys…

(more…)