With a side of “men=pigs” (sic). From Samhita at Feministing:

The endless obsession with how women are going to die alone because they have brains and casual sex [and “post-feminist” “freedom” –BG] has truly become the gift that keeps on giving. Mix one part college student sample, a few scattered inconsistent findings based on loosely correlated “evidence,” sweeping generalizations reinforcing female anxiety around mating and some slut-shaming for good measure and voila, you have yourself “relationship advice” from a “doctor.” The CNN health blog writes about a new book, Premarital Sex in America: How Young Americans Meet, Mate, and Think about Marrying, by none other than “get married early” Mark Regenerus and sociologist Jeremy Ueker.

CNN concludes from a precursory look at the book men have the upper hand in the sexual economy. This is not  because women are judged based on their promiscuity or lack thereof in a way that men rarely are or because men face pressure to have casual sex like a stud and deny their romantic feelings for relationships. Or because when you are a woman between 18-23 male attention and the desire to “be in a relaysh” has more impact on your self esteem then say when you are a 30-somethinger like me. Or maybe because by 23, you still don’t know what you want out of a relationship. No, no, men have the upper hand in sex and dating because women have too much freedom, sex and education. [See CNN file photo w/article, left, of young woman relishing her freedom.]

[CNN:] Researchers found that since women in the 18- to 23-year-old group feel they don’t need men for financial dependence, many of them feel they can play around with multiple partners without consequence, and that the early 20s isn’t the time to have a serious relationship. But eventually, they do come to want a real, lasting relationship. The problem is that there will still be women who will have sex readily without commitment, and since men know this, fewer of them are willing to go steady. [Go steady? – BG]

“Women have plenty of freedom, but freedom does not translate easily into getting what you want,” Regnerus said. [“So maybe you don’t need it so much. At least not if you want a man.” — BG]

Though it’s not based entirely on fiction, it’s rife with unexamined assumptions. Bottom line, if women no longer need men then why would they be competing for men? Feh.

Bonus: Good stuff on men being humans! With feelings! here.

Keep your man by letting him stray? So, according to CNN, advises Australian memoirist Holly Hill, who writes, “One of the main things that I have learned is that a woman that negotiates infidelity with her partner is far more powerful than a woman who is sitting home wondering why he’s late from the office Christmas party,” she says. Most powerful of all, BG would submit, is the woman who chooses a guy who doesn’t cheat.

Of course, in Hill’s insultingly dim view of the opposite sex, fellas like that are few and far between. (“Men are hard-wired to betray women on the long-term.”) Look, I know cheating is depressingly common. And if a couple makes “an arrangement” that works for them, then geh gezunt a heit. But — yes — monogamy is a choice. So when a couple makes that choice, I’d call that negotiated fidelity. That’s a much better place to start.

Via Broadsheet:

God! Would you just let me have a LIFE?! According to CNN — dateline: Opposite World — this is what some parents are, or need to be, saying to their kids. Specifically, parents (in the story, mothers) who are looking online for a new partner, and kids (mainly adults themselves) who are, true story, hacking into their mothers’ email and sending rejections to potential suitors. (Another reportedly drove back and forth yelling at her mom while on an outdoor date with an online beau. Check, please!)

Who knew that the “younger generation” — those perhaps most likely to be Tweeting/Facebooking/LiveJournaling about how gross it is that mom’s on eHarmony– would (along with CNN, just a bit) be the ones perpetuating the ancient-in-Internet-years canard that online dating is WhereYouMeetLyingWeirdos.com? Why is online so different from real life? Who says that guy/gal in a bar is telling the truth? How often does the person you meet in person come right out and say, “I enjoy snowboarding and film noir, and in about three months I’m going to start to pull away”? (or “Please enjoy my backyard compound?”) True, some parents, unseasoned daters and e-flirters, might be a tad fuzzy regarding red flags; fair enough. But at the same time, depending on the circumstances — and speaking of bars — their brick-and-mortar options for meeting people might be limited. Online seems ideal for second-timers (if not, like, everyone).

Of course, it’s pretty obvious that what’s really going on here is not “Yikes, mom’s dating online!” but rather, simply, “Yikes, mom’s dating!” — circa 2009. There’s no doubt that seeing a marriage end and a parent move on can be challenging, even devastating. But sometimes, I guess, we just have to let them grow up.

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.

Via Broadsheet:

Turns out there’s an old law on the books in Wisconsin that prohibits couples from leaving the state to marry and returning with a union that’s not valid in Wisconsin. Not sure this is what the drafters in 1915 had in mind, but this would apparently include going to California, say, to marry a partner of the same sex and then coming home to the Badger State. The offense: fraud, carrying a penalty of up to nine months of jail time and a fine of up to $10K.

Would anyone actually want to prosecute them? Ya, shore, you betcha. “Someone has to prosecute them,” Julaine Appling of the Wisconsin Anti-Fraud Family Council told CNN. “That’s a defrauding of the government.”

See you in court, say Wisconsin couple Kathy Cox and Kim Whalen, who, having been together for 20 years, plan to visit CA to tie the knot in August. “The pioneers get the arrows, and the settlers get the land,” they told CNN. “So we’ll take a few arrows.”