Stream of Reading (Prepare to be Forwarded) – An Archive of What I'm Reading
In Trump’s America, the press is under attack. You know what I’m talking about—in your head, do a montage of Donald Trump saying “fake news,” congressional candidates body-slamming reporters, and so on. But on Tuesday, that war intensified, when a swarm of bees lingered outside Vox Media’s New York City offices. What Are Bees? “Bees…
In a matter of just a few years, Unilever’s Axe has gone from unabashedly (and often crassly) celebrating male stereotypes to forcefully opposing them. And its new campaign, from 72andSunny Amsterdam, represents its boldest step yet in combating what it’s now calling “toxic masculinity” and its debilitating effects on young men. The new work is…
There is no longer any excuse for heterosexual men, as a group, to be bad at sex. If someone gave you the magic formula to make your partner cum and you decided to save it for a special occasion indefinitely, it would have to be assumed that you actually just don’t care. Maybe it feels…
There exists a certain unspoken heterosexual mating ritual that has persisted for the past decade or so, possibly longer. It is this: A twentysomething adult man, immediately after having sex, throws on a pair of enormous, egregiously shiny basketball shorts. Often procured from the mysterious chasm between his bed and the wall, the garment usually…
Last week, Merriam-Webster added more than a thousand words to the dictionary. Among them, “to ghost” was defined as abruptly cutting off all contact with someone by no longer accepting or responding to phone calls or messages. With Valentine’s Day approaching – a time of year some data analysts have found is actually a peak…
Image via Playboy. In late 2015, Playboy announced it would be a nudie mag no more. Their final issue featuring nipples and vag shots came out in January/February 2016, with Pamela Anderson on the cover, signifying the end of an era. It’s now the end of the new era. The first no-nude issue featured the…
Something unexpected happened in the Oklahoma Legislature on February 8 that had Karo Chowning feeling pretty optimistic. That morning, lawmakers in the House Public Health Committee blocked one anti-abortion bill and a second was tabled without discussion. It was certainly unusual for a deeply conservative Republican government that over the years has distinguished itself by passing…
There’s a quote attributed to Steven Winterburn that I like: “Before you diagnose yourself with depression or low self-esteem, first make sure that you are not, in fact, just surrounded by assholes.” I find that many of the people I coach need to do this sort of examination, because we all tend to have a specific…
If you want to sleep with a robot, you don’t have to wait decades for a Westworld-style theme park of carnal delights. The future of virtual sex is already here. Strap on enough hardware, and the avatar of your dreams will grind to the beat of your teledildonics. Today’s smart dolls are becoming increasingly lifelike — nowhere…
As 2016 drew to a close last month, I opened my newsfeed with dread, braced for more gloomy tidings. Sure enough, amidst the news round-ups and “best of” lists was The New York Times’ most popular article of the year: “Why You Will Marry the Wrong Person.” In a year when Americans voted to turn…