Learning from Jerry Seinfeld and Kesha: How to politely decline a hug
I recently watched a video of Jerry Seinfeld rebuffing a potential hug from Kesha with some serious awkwardness. The question is: how does someone who doesn’t want a hug (a totally okay thing for lots of legit health/social/psychological/whatever reasons!) go about politely decline a hug without seeming like a dick who doesn’t know who Kesha is?
What Love Is: My review of Carrie Jenkins’ book (+bonus story about mutual fangirling!)
I’ve mentioned it several times here, but I finally need to write my official review of Carrie Jenkins’ What Is Love: And What Could It Be. I started reading the book in March and immediately adored it… not because I agreed with everything, but because it’s so interesting to watch someone apply their super analytic, logic-based brain skills (the author’s background is in the philosophy of MATH, for fuck’s sake) to something as squishy like love and relationship structures.
The future of marriage is SO GAY: Eavesdropping on a human sexuality professor, Part 3
When I was in New York last month, I sat down for a chat with a friend of a friend who’s a professor of Human Sexuality. Hunter Kincaid is an visiting lecturer at Hunter College and an adjunct professor at Pratt University, and we met up to muse over about how anal sex is like homeschooling, the […]
The ethics of asking consent before you cry on a first date: Eavesdropping on a human sexuality professor, Part 2
Can we talk about consent? A lot of us are hyper aware of consent around physical acts, like, “Oh I’m doing this. Is that okay? Do you like this? Do you like that? Are you okay with me doing this? Is that too hard?” Last night on a date, I got into an interesting discussion about crying during sex and whether that’s something you should seek consent for…
Unexpected polyamory and what it taught me about myself
Polyamory isn’t something that I thought I’d ever be interested in. My husband and I were together for three years before I met someone who changed that. I struggled in the beginning with what to do. I couldn’t ignore my feelings for this new man, and cheating on my husband was out of the question. I knew I had to talk with him about these new feelings I was developing and what to do with them…
How I gently eased into sharing expenses with my partner
I moved in with my partner of two years about seven months ago. It’s my first time living with someone, at the not-so-tender age of in-my-thirties. When we started to share rent and utilities responsibilities, we had to figure out a way to make things equitable, while also easing into the whole finance sharing idea in general. Here’s how we do it…
How do you handle money and debt in a relationship?
My partner and I are cool with a lot of things, but in certain arenas we just don’t line up. How do you reconcile it when one person in a relationship feels that debt is a sad reality of this modern life, and accepts debt as “just something that happens,” and the other person is more in line with the “DEBT IS AN EMERGENCY” kinda deal?
I’m just curious how people reconcile different attitudes toward saving money.
Screw the “romantic mystique” — let’s think about love
We base some of the biggest decisions of our lives on romantic love, and yet we resist actually examining love… for fear of overthinking it and somehow erasing its magic. FUCK THAT. We should all be thinking about this shit, since we all base huge life decisions on it. So, here’s some of my recent research…