“In my day, if we wanted to commit adultery, we trudged 14 miles in the snow to the next farmhouse over, and we made love on a scratchy bale of hay. You’d get your rocks off, but you’d also get a low-grade infection from all the minor cuts and scrapes. And we liked it! We loved it!”

— My attempt at aping Dana Carvey’s Grumpy Old Man routine

Time to dust off all your antiquated notions of who’s cheating, why and how. A story published this week in the New York Times says that marital infidelity is markedly up among the young and the old — never mind such well-worn scenarios as the Seven Year Itch or the forty- or fiftysomething midlife crisis:

“The lifetime rate of infidelity for men over 60 increased to 28 percent in 2006, up from 20 percent in 1991. For women over 60, the increase is more striking: to 15 percent, up from 5 percent in 1991. The researchers also see big changes in relatively new marriages. About 20 percent of men and 15 percent of women under 35 say they have ever been unfaithful, up from about 15 and 12 percent respectively.”

And what are considered the culprits of all this out-of-wedlock canoodling? The more societal scourges change, the more they stay the same… drugs and porn! Researchers quoted in the article say that newfangled voodoo fixes like Viagra and hormone replacement therapies have allowed seniors to “express their sexuality into old age,” while the proliferation of Internet porn may be “affecting sexual attitudes and perceptions of ‘normal’ behavior” among the impressionable young.

Other modern trappings — such as cell phones, IMs, and that Holiday Inn Express you stayed in last night — may also be to blame for the significant rise in adultery among women: “…married women are more likely to spend late hours at the office and travel on business. And even for women who stay home, cellphones, e-mail and instant messaging appear to be allowing them to form more intimate relationships.”

If I were a sociology undergrad, I’d try to impress the bejeesus out of my prof by tying all this in to other examples of how modern society, with all its lifesaving/moneymaking innovations, seems geared towards isolation: Bowling Alone, dinner alone, etc. And that then, when an individual, even a married one, gets to a point where he/she feels isolated even from his/her own spouse, a more despearte lurch towards intimacy, such as an extramarital affair, is more likely to take plac.e

Then again, I never actually took any sociology courses, so you tell me what you think in the Comments section below.

It’s election time and we’re ALL poll-crazy. But do we really believe that a pregnant woman’s weight directly affects her child’s political leanings? Or that American women “prefer computers to men?” Well, maybe this fella. But that’s not my point!

The Telegraph reports that Yankee ladies “prefer” to spend most of their waking hours with their computer, not with their suitor (or their family, or their Exercycle).

Oh. Oh?

1. “Women.” Women? So there’s no difference between your grandma and your boss? Kay.

2. Men. We’re not going to address men’s computer usage: time at work, time at Warcraft, and stuff like that? Oh.

3. “Prefer.” Do I prefer to write, read, communicate, be employed? If women were not at work on the computer machine, does that mean that men would also quit their jobs so they could cuddle and take walks all day? Give me a billion dollars and we can all go start a commune (with wifi, or I ain’t stayin’)!

Sounds like the researchers may not understand what computers actually do, or how relationships actually work, for that matter. What if I’m talking to friends and family on the computer, and what if I do that in intervals all day long? What if I’m wooing a man? What if I’m on the laptop while on the couch with my mate? What if I’m buying us movie tickets? What if I’m shopping online? What if by shopping you distinguish shoe shopping in person from buying foot spray and diaper wipes for the menfolk and babies online because I’d rather spend my meager free hours not running errands?

This study doesn’t address the millions of social science studies showing that, despite working as many hours or longer than men, women still do most of the household chores, cooking, child-raising, man-pleasing, key-finding, vacation-planning than their male counterparts.

If women did NOT spend more time on the PC than on exercising, they’d have to work out more than 9 hours every day. Does that sound right to you? But the study makes it sound like it’s unfortunate that we don’t. I think they also just called us fat.

Someone’s been reading academic journals for the articles! Marginal Revolution draws our attention to an article in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin entitled, no kidding, “Playboy Playmate Curves: Changes in Facial and Body Feature Preferences Across Social and Economic Conditions,” which posits that in lean times, men go for, well, lean women. In other words:”The Environmental Security Hypothesis says that in tough times men will prefer women who are good at production, generally older, taller, heavier, less curvaceous women with less body fat.  In good times, they will prefer women who are good at reproduction, generally younger, shorter, lighter, more curvaceous women.  Pettijohn and and Jungeberg look at the characteristics of playboy playmates from 1960 to 2000 and find:

Consistent with Environmental Security Hypothesis predictions, when social and economic conditions were difficult, older, heavier, taller Playboy Playmates of the Year with larger waists, smaller eyes, larger waist-to-hip ratios, smaller bust-to-waist ratios, and smaller body mass index values were selected. These results suggest that environmental security may influence perceptions and preferences for women with certain body and facial features. 

It’s not a new study, but it does invite speculation about what type of Playmate of the Year a 2009 economy will bring us. If things keep going the way they are now, my money’s on Rosie the Riveter.

Researchers at Florida State University embarked on a skin-deep academic journey to uncover men’s preferences for women’s hair length. They learned that men favor loooooong hair. Add thick and brown to the tresses equation and they’ll be swooning. Yes, you heard me correctly – brown. The men studied reported a preference for brunettes over blondes. So why the fascination with her, huh? And where, BG might wonder, does this leave redheads? (Here’s the advice from the report our tipster spotted at AOL Shopping — ! — which itself should tip us off that this inforrmation is more advertorial than scientific: “Don’t have long tresses? Fake it! Shop for a long, brown wig.” Sorry, Det. Scottie Ferguson, it actually does matter to me!)

But while we’re here, just for fun, how heavily does hair length/color weigh in your attraction to a potential mate? What happens on a bad hair day?

Let’s say I, all 34 unwed years of me, was Bristol Palin’s older sister. I wonder how our mom (first name: Hockey) would introduce us to constituents and rallygoers. Would she moon over Bristol’s courage and convictions for surrendering to a for-show, shotgun wedding to a gutter-mouthed hunk of man-child, then mention me with a half-joking, “And here’s our choosy one.” Or worse: “And she’s single, guys!”

Signs point to yes, if (if!) the McCain-Palin ticket falls into lockstep with the Bush adminstration’s marriage propaganda programs. And if this analysis of the pro-family photo ops that ran throughout both conventions holds water. Not only would I be shunted to the kids’ table come Thanksgiving (the sort of holiday embarrassment I’ve fretted about before), but I bet Bristol — half my age! — would be promoted to the adult table by virtue of her less-than-virtuous insemination.

If marriage must be mandatory for an invite to A White House Family Christmas, at least let it defy the Republican party’s seeming “do as I say, not as I do” pedagogy and stiff-limbed public appearances. Whether you’re single, married or somewhere in between, there’s little denying that the Barack-Michelle union’s got zum zizzle, baby — evidently enough to carry them through awkward spouse-gaffes with humor and aplomb. And that many think their mere presence together on a world stage could do more in defense of marriage than any “fatherhood grant.”

Poor Amelia over at The Frisky calls herself “one of the few” who loved the movie “The Break Up” (sic)* (WHY don’t movie people SPELL CHECK?!), “mainly because it made [her] laugh in that, ‘Haha, this is totally the way me and the fiance would be behave if we ever broke up, but I’m able to laugh about it because, haha, we are NEVER going to break up so it’ll never become a bitter reality!'” way.

Oops.

Now the movie is on her — and, we’re guessing, also Jennifer Aniston‘s — list of “10 Movies, TV Shows, and Songs to Avoid During a Breakup.” Many of which, I should note, are not what you might expect.

But only 10? I know, right? Add yours here!

* “breakup,” NOUN, one word: the end of a romantic relationship; “break up,” VERB, two words: to end a romantic relationship, possibly over grammar and spelling violations.

We know that getting teens to use birth control is about more than providing guidance counselors, or hockey moms, with fishbowls full of condoms. We know that there are a great deal of complicating factors, such as the fact that some teen girls feel they want to get pregnant. But what few people may realize is this: some teen boys not only want their girlfriends to get pregnant but, in some cases, are doing what they can to force them to.

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So now that youngsters (myself included) are heading back to school, let’s discuss the persistent annoyance of POPULARRRITTTTY. My bespectacled, retainer-clad self has always secretly loathed these social rankings. I always give off that what-EVER vibe, but secretly, I rely on the mantra of the social-success-challenged: “You’ll be sorry when I’m older, when I’ll be far greater than this.” Mom’s version: “They won’t grow up to be nearly as great as you!”

Could either of us be actually — scientifically — correct? A recent article in the New York Times explored various sociological studies of popularity, suggesting, for one thing, that those with aggressive, dominating attitudes within the hallowed high school halls (you know, those that lettered in every sport, ever, including picking on you) carried those traits into the “real world” … where they didn’t go over well. (Picture Emily Blunt’s character in The Devil Wears Prada, who was probably a popularity nightmare in high school.)

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From the “Crap Science” files over at Jezebel:

On the heels of The Re-education of the Female, which suggests [in 2008] that women keep their men by doing chores in sexy outfits, comes a study implying that male fidelity may have more to do with genetics than wifely subservience. According to scientists at the Karolinska Institute (sounds like a ballet studio, actually a Swedish medical school), two in five men carry a gene variant that makes them less likely to commit to women.

/snip/

Men with the gene, which, as the Washington Post notes, regulates the hormone vasopressin, are more likely to live with women without marrying them; if they are married, these men are more likely to fight with their spouses and consider divorce. Their female partners (the study only looked at heterosexual couples) also “reported lower levels of satisfaction, affection, cohesion and consensus in the relationship” than partners of men without the variant.

/snip/

…This study looks at first glance like another great way to reduce human relationships to biological imperatives. As if comparisons between men and male animals weren’t popular enough, the Post cites an earlier study in which the same gene variant was found in mountain voles, who are apparently more caddish than their prairie cousins…

/snip/

The most interesting research, however, has yet to be done. The Institute plans to study whether oxytocin, another hormone, affects women’s ability to commit. This study might take some of the annoying stereotypical sting out of sex research. Thus far, much of it has been about why men “can’t commit,” with the assumption that women want them to. Corresponding research into women’s predispositions might underscore the fact that we’re not all sad little lady voles who sit around waiting for our man vole to come home. Nor are we slaves to biology. Some men and some women want to commit, and some don’t, and our goal should be to avoid a mismatch of the two, not to pore over our genes for predictors of our happiness.

Word.

The BBC reports that while a woman is naturally attracted to men who smell like a good genetic match (this, to me, would be a musky mix of garlic, teen spirit, and his excellent dog), the hormone havoc wreaked by the birth control pill may turn her on to the wrong guys. “Wrong” here meaning too genetically similar for species diversity, not (necessarily) “that unbelievable douchebag I can’t believe she likes.”

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