Let’s Talk About: (In) Fidelity.

Conversational post between duchess and Pearls N the Hood. Full disclosure: both of the authors are currently in non-married monogamous relationships, but both have also been in non-monogamous relationships (which might be a strong descriptor for a few of the instances in question) in the past..

Marriage and family. The big white dress. The partner who adores your every quirk. The adorable children who are always clean, never throw tantrums in public, and astonish all adults they meet with their cute antics.

That's what women are expecting, right? Okay, not really. We all know that marriage will probably involve a lot more compromise and a far fewer picnics in the park than we might wish for. And our children, well, perhaps the best we can hope for is that they don't throw a tantrum during our sister's wedding, where we, as the matron of honor, can't leave the altar without everyone looking at our every move.

And we all know that what works in one marriage probably doesn't work in all marriages, after all, the way we live our lives definitely isn't the way our neighbors, colleagues, or even our best friends live theirs. There can be similarities, of course. But on the whole, people live their lives in ways that make sense to them at the time—not in ways that make sense to everyone else. And marriages are going to be like that too.

Of course, there are infinite questions and compromises that take place in a marriage. In this conversation, we'd like to just explore one --fidelity. What does it mean? Does it mean that once you say "I do", you have sex with your spouse and only your spouse, for the rest of your natural life? Does it mean you're each free to sleep with other people as long as you're discreet and don't bring the details home? Or does it mean something entirely different?

Femonomics Reads The Internet So You Don't Have To: Massive LGBTQ Rights Fails

Sometimes things on the front lines of the fight for LGBTQ rights get a little brighter. And right now, arguably, is one of those times. The military is finally seriously moving towards repealing Don't Ask, Don't Tell: an unnecessary policy--see the militaries of Great Britian, Australia, and Canada for starters--that has caused thousands of good soldiers to be discharged from our armed services at a time when we need them most.

President Obama has directed that same-sex couples should receive the same visitation rights as straight couples in hospitals and that hospitals must respect the right of patients to have whomever they want make their medical decisions for them--including same-sex partners--something many LGBTQ activists consider the biggest step forward for LGBTQ rights in some time. Of course, it doesn't apply to all hospitals (just those receiving Medicare and Medicaid funding) and I'm sure there will be challenges to the directive by individual hospital staffers, but at least now the law is on the side of the LGBTQ couples.

But despite these steps forward, there's still injustice and tragedy in the world. For two of the most striking examples in the news right now (a lesbian teen from Mississippi named Constance McMillen and Clay and Harold, a gay couple from Sonoma County, CA) and what's being done to fight these injustices, follow the jump.

xkcd and pornography (and feminism?)

I heart xkcd and today’s comic made me literally laugh out loud.

Click through for NSFW awesomeness.

Counterpoint: All the Single Ladies--Why Settle At All?

[This blog entry is counterpoint to the well-stated opinions of Ms. Pearls N The Hood, found here.]

I’ll admit it—if Ms. Lori Gottlieb is one of Pearls’ heroes, on first reading of her article (found in The Atlantic, March 2008), had me casting her as one of my villains. I thought the notion of “settling” for a man was awful—an anti-feminist, misogynistic, backwards view of womanhood, marriage, and family. For someone who shares this viewpoint and wrote about it eloquently (if in strong words and phrases), see Jessica’s take at Feministing.

But when I took a step back and saw past the red haze clouding my vision, I took a deep breath and thought for a minute. Did I agree with Lori Gottlieb? No, absolutely not. But I don’t have a lot of rage anymore either. After all, we all know that the world is often a tough place and, for someone who desperately longs for a traditional home and family and doesn’t have one by the time they’re 40, settling might seem like a valid, even wonderful, option. As she says in a defense of her argument published in the Huffington Post, at least 1,000 women emailed her in response to her article and were “solidly in my little world,” where settling is a valid option. Obviously, Ms. Gottlieb isn’t alone in thinking like she does.

Would you please shut up?

I can't be the only one who's thought that in a social situation--right? Here's my story.

Hi. My name is duchess, and I'm a vegan.

The reasons why don't concern you. No, really, they don't. It doesn't matter if I'm vegan because I'm an environmentalist, if I don't like to eat animals, if I'm just trying to be healthier, if I get sick when I eat meat or dairy, or if I just don't like the taste. It doesn't matter if I wear leather or if I don't, or whether I belong to animal protection groups or not. (As for which of those really do apply to me: I'm not telling. Some do and some don't, and that's all you need to know.)

The Gender Politics Of Dining Out (v2.0)

So I went out to dinner again last night and something amusing happened. Remember this post, in which I asked why I was always given the Diet Coke and the man I was on the date with was always given the regular Coke, even though I never order diet?

Well, last night, it reached a new height (or low?). I was out with a group and I sat down. The waitress came by and asked me if I wanted anything to drink and, though I'm trying to cut down on caffeine, I was exhausted. So I of course asked for a Coke.

For the record, I'm sure I was clear about this partially because I never order Diet Coke but mostly because after the waitress left I thought of my other blog post and started a discussion with everyone at the table. The women, of course, were shocked that I never drink Diet Coke and related their own stories of "teaching myself to drink it" several years before.

The waitress, meanwhile, had left without hearing our conversation. She returned five minutes later and says, "Here's your Diet Coke!"

I stared at her in disbelief and the whole table laughed. She didn't understand why, but I thought she'd done a great job of proving my point.

Makeup on the Metro

An excellent way to save time, or a grooming habit that is better left for home, even when that means showing up somewhere with a naked face?

I've heard of this being discussed before, but I thought I'd bring it to femonomics--along with my own personal spin.

Now, if I'm going to talk about this, I guess I'd better own up: I apply makeup on mass transit all the time. Probably more than I should, because I'm pretty much chronically running late. I can usually get on the bus or train with just enough time for me to skid to a stop at my destination with thirty seconds to spare, but that's usually about as good as it gets.

you have got to be joking...but apparently not

I do try to read the news--both online and in print--but rarely have I found an article that enrages me so immediately as did this one, found at CNN.com.

The article is about called a website called BeautifulPeople, and the premise (according to the website itself) is that it's an "elite online club, where every member works the door." What does this mean? That if you post a picture and enough people of the opposite sex don't find it "beautiful," you're not allowed to use the dating site (and apparently about 80% "fail"). While this statement strikes me as wrong on so many levels, the website itself is even more egregious.

One of the worst quotes on the entire website is on the introductory page is at the bottom with a huge font (complete with an animated sliding scale), "Too ugly to sign up? Click here to browse BeautifulPeople as [sic] guest." For what reason, I ask you? To know what you "can't have"? To make you angry? To convince yourself you're much prettier than the other people and will "qualify" for the site (a dubious honor at best, IMHO) with no problem? To provide work-safe images for bored office drones who can't get to porn through the office internet filter?

the gender politics of dining out

I'd like to propose a scenario:

A woman is out on a date with a man. A host takes their drink orders, and it includes a Coke and a Diet Coke. Their waiter, coming over to introduce himself and deliver the drinks, brings them by. Where do you think he sets which drink? Would any waiter place the regular Coke in front of the woman and the Diet Coke in front of the man? Chances are, the answer's no.

I've grown up drinking regular Coke, and have never, ever, even in my super healthy-eating stages, drank Diet. In fact, I'd rather cut out soda entirely than have to "suffer" through drinking a Diet Coke sweetened with aspartame (I don't like Splenda either, for the record). But undoubtedly, on the (many) occasions when I've been out with a man and he's ordered a Diet Coke or Coke Zero, the diet drink is placed in front of me and the regular drink is placed in front of him without the waiter even asking whose drink is whose.

Now let's be fair--I'd say that in my little scenario, it probably is more likely that a woman would've ordered the diet drink (although I don't have research to back it up, at least among my friends it seems to be colloquially true).

But still. The first time? It was funny. The second, third, hell, even twentieth time? It was still funny, but by then it had also started to make me think. What does mean that a great majority of waitstaff think it's such a given that a woman will be ordering the diet drink that they don't even bother to ask and I end up swapping drinks with the guy sitting across from me at the table? To extrapolate further, why is the woman always considered to be the one "on a diet" or the one being "calorie conscious" and what does that mean for us both as women and as a culture?