…[G]ays could begin getting married in Iowa in just three weeks.
“If gay and lesbian people must submit to different treatment without an exceedingly persuasive justification,” the Iowa justices wrote, “they are deprived of the benefits of the principle of equal protection upon which the rule of law is founded.”
Whatever the final result may be, it seems to me that the decision reminds us that gay life in America is not confined to certain zip codes of lower Manhattan, West Hollywood, Miami’s South Beach and Chicago’s Lakeview. It is as American as Iowa.
From yesterday’s New York Times: New research — well, not thatnew — shows that as men age beyond about 30, their chance of fathering a child with an autism-spectrum disorder or schizophrenia increases, just as their overall fertility decreases. According to NYU psychiatry researcher Dr. Dolores Malaspina: “It turns out the optimal age for being a mother is the same as the optimal age for being a father.â€
As the Times’s Lisa Belkin writes: “The push and pull between timetables and dreams, between our bodies and our babies, is at the core of many women’s worldview, which also means it is at the core of relationships between the sexes. This tension feeds the stereotype of woman as eager to settle down and men as reluctant, and it’s the crux of why we see women as ‘old’ and men as ‘distinguished.'”
Indeed, says Dana Goldstein of The American Prospect. “Imagine a world in which the stereotype of women rushing men to the altar, biological clocks on overdrive, simply disappeared, as men took full 50 percent ownership over the reproductive process. Or in which wealthy 50-year-old divorced men ceased to be such catches for 30-year old women, because of weakened sperm. I wouldn’t want to return to a society in which both men and women are pressured into settling down and having babies at an unduly young age. But I do like the idea of rejiggering our notions about the intersection of gender and aging. It isn’t just women who have a lot to fit into their lives in terms of career, romance, and parenthood. Science is beginning to tell us that men are facing the same pressures.”
This is not to say we want men to have reproductive challenges. But given that science shows that they do, it’d be nice if culture would catch up.
Suppose scientists could erase certain memories by tinkering with a single substance in the brain. Could make you forget a chronic fear, a traumatic loss, even a bad habit.
Researchers in Brooklyn have recently accomplished comparable feats, with a single dose of an experimental drug delivered to areas of the brain critical for holding specific types of memory, like emotional associations, spatial knowledge or motor skills.
The drug blocks the activity of a substance that the brain apparently needs to retain much of its learned information. And if enhanced, the substance could help ward off dementias and other memory problems.
So far, the research has been done only on animals. [Elephants: FAIL.] But scientists say this memory system is likely to work almost identically in people.
One might think that that “Brooklyn” lab is actually BG’s — that this one would be THE killer breakup app. What, indeed, if you could neuralize that night, that “loser,” those five years too many?
Yeah, well, you wouldn’t want to. No, really. Every breakup/hookup/screw-up: like it, or LIKElike it, or not, it’s part of who you are. (Don’t make me say “learning experience.”) Each one helps you say to yourself, “Okay, not that.” Each one gives you an opp to look back and say “See how far I’ve come.” Each one reminds you, looking back, that you survived: that all this love business is the messy stuff of life, not the sloppy kiss of death. So no neuralyzers being developed over here, sorry. We put our R&D dollars toward the Affirmatron.
“When Sasha and Vivian started asking questions a year or so ago, I read them a pop-up book about the sperm and the egg and what married people do when they really, really love each other and the daddy remembers to take out the recycling without the mommy asking and the mommy doesn’t emasculate the daddy by making snide comments about his earning potential.”
Laura writes:Â I’m 36, divorced (for over five years), and have been seeing a great guy for four months. But last week, a guy I fell head over heels for a year ago came back into my life (after having moved away for a year). I really like the guy I’m seeing, but have never felt that “magic” with him — as so wonderfully talked about in “Sleepless In Seattle” in the attic scene with the old wedding dress. I did feel “magic” with Mr. Return.
My plan of action is to spend time with Mr. Return on a non-sexual, nothing but friends basis to see if there is, truly something there. I want to be fair to the guy I’m dating, as well as to my soul — after all, I so want to find my destiny, and believe that abiding love has that “magic.” Do you have any other ideas? Do I sound like I’m totally barking up the wrong tree? Your advice is most welcome.
Lois Lane writes:Â I’ve been married for seven years (not happily) and about a year ago I met up with my ex-boyfriend from high school. It was like we never broke up. My husband can provide for me with material things but not emotionally. On the other hand my ex is there for me emotionally, but not for material things. Should I divorce my husband or should I stay for the sake of the kids? I’m so sad!
Filed under: News,Psychology — posted by Rose @ 10:04 am
Speed dating may seem like a waste of (tiny microcosms of) time, but some researchers at Indiana University recently found a way to put it to good use: By having subjects (male and female) watch tapes of numerous speed-dating interactions (male-female), they measured which gender seems to be more adept at picking up on flirting cues, both come-hither and get-outta-here.
Turns out, it’s a draw.
“… [M]en and women were shown to be equally good at gauging men’s interest,” says the study, “and equally bad at judging women’s interest.”
So apparently it’s hard to get when women are playing hard-to-get. Score one for feminine mystique!
“‘The hardest-to-read women were being misperceived at a much higher rate than the hardest-to-read men. Those women were being flirtatious, but it turned out they weren’t interested at all,’ said lead author Skyler Place, a doctoral student in IU’s Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences working with cognitive science Professor Peter Todd. ‘Nobody could really read what these deceptive females were doing, including other women.’ ” (“These deceptive females?” Sounds either coldly anthro-scientific, or the opposite, like he’s gonna go on to say, “YOU made me do this study, Linda, YOU did!”)
Here’s something else I’m having a hard time getting. Behold this little nugget:
“Researchers expected women to have a leg up in judging romantic interest, because theoretically they have more to lose from a bad relationship [ital mine], but no such edge was found.”
An icky amount of such cavalier sexism has been coursing through the “scientific” studies I’ve read of late. This one’s so broad I’m not even sure which presumptions are being referred to: That women don’t have time on their side? That they often wind up financially lesser-off post-divorce? That they’re all just, y’know, thisclose to tripping over the line into full-blown nutso?
If you’re as worked up as me, unwind by playing your own Meta Match Game.
— I swear I did not know that DePaulo was gonna name-check that same baby-shower “SATC” ep as I linked to in my most recent post. All the same, I will take this opportunity to remind you what great minds do.
— In other tried-but-true cliches (including the use of “tried and true,” shame on me), Geller eloquently discusses how those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it. (Translation: She recommends all those entering marriage to read up on its history.)
— If a Mormon can decide to take the Sarandon-Robbins alternate route to happiness, then change is inevitable.
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From today’s 
