Wer Printmedien sagt, soll Krebs kriegen.

Die Kursivierungen stammen von mir.

[...] an article in the British Medical Journal claiming that female sexual dysfunction is the clearest example yet of "the corporate-sponsored creation of a disease". According to the Times, critics claims that the condition exists only in the minds of researchers with financial links to the drug companies, who of course stand to make a fortune from a female version of Viagra. The paper says the one oft-made claim - that 43% of women over the age of 18 suffer from sexual dysfunction compared with only 31% of men - derives from a 1992 survey. In it, 1,500 women were asked questions such as whether they had ever suffered a lack of desire for sex or anxiety about their sexual performance. Anyone who said 'yes' to any of the questions was characterised as sexually dysfunctional. Which is rather like calling any man impotent if he fails to get wood after a night out on the beer.

Frage an die Briefkastentante der Washington Post: "Lately I've noticed my anger levels rising to (for me) new heights. I guess being unemployed and unattached has taken its toll. Although I haven't teed off on anyone yet, I can sense it's not too far off. Aside from getting a job and starting a new relationship, any advice before I start berating random strangers? "

His idea of a good evening out was to sit alone, dressed in a formal suit, at the bar of an expensive hotel, silently observing other people over the rim of his champagne glass. In his own house, he insisted on punctual appointments. If a person turned up even a few minutes early, Beckmann would come to the door and announce that Herr Beckmann was not yet at home. When he wasn't working, he read Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Romantic poetry, or books about mysticism. In 1924, he began a series of ironic self-descriptions with the following statement: "Beckmann is not a very nice guy. Ian Buruma: The Circus of Max Beckmann.

Und wenn du tot bist, dann lass ich aus dir einen Ring machen, den trag ich immer bei dir, und manchmal reibe ich ihn, und nichts wird passieren, Reibung wird sowieso überschätzt.

Was mich betrifft: Ich sehne mich gerade sehr nach einer fulminanten Rückkehr der Oberflächlichkeit.

Im Atlantic Monthly: Ein Interview mit Barbara Dafoe Whitehead, Vorsitzende eines National Marriage Project und Verfasserin eines Buches über die Schwierigkeiten gut ausgebildeter Frauen, einen kongenialen Lebenspartner zu finden. Ein wenig irritierend dabei diese Selbstverständlichkeit, mit der das ganze Konzept des "es muss doch den einen geben" nicht in Frage gestellt wird; sowenig wie der Glaube, dass man ein Recht darauf hätte, auf dem Feld der Romantik dafür belohnt zu werden, dass man immer brav gelernt und sich zur Type A-Personality entwickelt hat. Vielleicht wäre es ja weniger masochistisch, die ganze soulmate-Ideologie abzuhaken (merkt hier allerdings jemand an, der sich dank sehr erfolgreicher soulmate-Recherche vor neuneinhalb Jahren von diesem blöden Spiel verabschiedet hat). Interessant allerdings der dann leider doch nicht entwickelte Gedanke über die Notwendigkeit eines neuen "courtship systems". Zitate:

The thirty-something woman of today is three times more likely to be single than her counterpart of the 1970s. Indeed, both women and men—particularly those with high levels of education—are staying single far longer into their adult years than in previous eras. For both groups this delayed search for a spouse is a deliberate choice, but the effect of that delay on the two sexes is dramatically different. For men, the change in timing is merely an incidental matter with few repercussions. For women, however, the delay makes the search more difficult, fraught with anxiety, and shadowed by the possibility of ultimate failure.

What she found was that at the time in their lives when they feel ready for a partner, young women are at a loss as to how to find one. Contemporary young women, she points out, have been raised to seek fulfilling careers rather than husbands. And upon college graduation they want to spend time out on their own, making their mark on the world, rather than pairing off right away and exchanging their independence for family life. The problem, she explains, is that when these women reach their late twenties or thirties and at last become interested in settling down, the large pool of eligible young men to which they had access in college—with backgrounds and ambitions similar to their own—has disappeared. A woman at this stage in her life is likely to be trapped in a somewhat narrow routine that includes work, working-out, and socializing with a circle of friends. Her odds of encountering her future spouse in these limited spheres are extremely low. The difficulties of the woman no longer fresh out of college are compounded by the fact that, as time passes, she is increasingly faced with competition from younger women. And if her life goals include not just marriage but children as well, then she must keep in mind that her time frame is limited. Many women in this situation begin to feel a growing sense of panic, as they fear that their chances for the life they envisioned for themselves are slipping away.

What needs to change, then, she suggests, is not the contemporary woman's postponement of the search for a spouse, but the courtship system itself. A well-functioning courtship system, she emphasizes, should succeed in bringing a society's eligible young people into appropriate partnerships. But today's courtship system fails on that count, leaving singles who have aged out of the college scene to fend for themselves. She expresses confidence, however, that given the urgency of the need, new courtship mechanisms—tailored to fit the needs of busy professionals with limited time (both in the day and in their window for finding appropriate partners)—will spring up to fill the void.

chick lit fiction is really a cultural indicator of the absence of a common set of rules and rituals to guide women and men in their contemporary courtship practices. It is evidence of a watershed moment when we have mating systems in transition: an old one is receding and a new one has not yet fully formed.

Several women mentioned that at times in their life they felt that their intelligence or intellectual achievement seemed to work against them in their romantic relationships with men, but most women felt that there were some men "out there" who would be attracted to smart women. The problem was finding them.

Q: You talk about how there really isn't a courtship crisis for high-achieving young men. But I would have thought they would experience some of the same difficulties as high-achieving women with respect to figuring out where and how to meet suitable mates. After all, they tend to be on the same track as high-achieving women in terms of waiting until they're far beyond their college years to get married. A: It's true that you do hear some talk about these problems from men as well, but one reason it doesn't come up as much as a cultural theme is that the male biological clock ticks more slowly and men have more years to devote to their search. They're also able to choose among younger women. Of course, that pattern seems to be changing slightly—there's now more navigation up and down the age scale as opposed to the past when men married women who were about two years younger. However, I think that for men, as well as for women, the standard for someone who you'd want to spend your life with hinges much more today on emotional intimacy. It takes some trial and error and a pretty prolonged and dedicated search to identify the kind of person who is emotionally in sync with you and who is able to communicate and listen to trouble talk.

Q: You argue that a new courtship system reflecting contemporary realities needs to be developed so that high-achieving women will have some societal assistance when it comes to finding mates. You point to the emergence of online dating and the proliferation of commercial introduction services as an auspicious beginning. How optimistic are you about the prospects for a mating system that will one day make finding a desirable partner straightforward and relatively easy for the new single woman? Well, it's never been easy, but it can be a lot easier than it is now. I do think it is likely that a common set of practices, rules, and rituals will evolve to make finding a mate less of a do-it-yourself project than it is today. As for the Internet, it obviously won't provide the whole answer, but I think it will play an important role. In the past, technological innovations have had a huge impact on dating and mating. No one would dismiss the influence on dating of the automobile or the birth-control pill. What's more, the Internet is a technology that helps us to save time and manage information, and both of these things are important to the way the new single woman conducts her mating search.

Noch eine Ausrede: Der Blackwing 602 verschwindet.

Das sind die Materialien, mit denen man Geschichten schreiben sollte. Die New York Times über den zunehmenden Drang von Frauen über 40 zur Tätowierung: Over-40 Rebels With a Cause: Tattoos (Registrierung erforderlich):

Tattoos can bridge the generation gap. Six years ago, Christine Scheurer, 52, a compensation specialist at an auto parts manufacturer in Denver, and her 20-year-old daughter got matching tattoos. "I thought it would be kind of cool," Ms. Scheurer said. "It's not something you'd expect of someone who is 46. Most people are surprised. It sends a message: `She's a little wild.' "

Das ist gut. Wir werden eine Menge Spass haben, wir beide. Freue mich schon, wenn du in unserer Sprache zu reden beginnst.