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The popular dating app Bumble was forced to apologize recently when its anti-celibacy advertisement didn’t land the way that it had hoped. Bumble tried to tap into many women’s frustration with modern dating, telling women who are having trouble finding a significant other that “a vow of celibacy is not the answer.” But whoever is on Bumble’s marketing team failed to realize that many women are opting out of casual sex and hook-ups as they realize they prefer settling into a long-term partnership before they engage in a sexual relationship. Others are taking a break from dating…The popular dating app...

Our daughters deserve to be treated authentically; they should not become fodder for political spats.As the 1987 film “The Princess Bride” nears its satisfying conclusion, a distraught Princess Buttercup, thinking her Westley is lost to her, picks up a dagger and presses it to her chest. As she contemplates life without her Westley, Westley, reclining nearby, admonishes her with, “There’s a shortage of perfect breasts in this world. It would be a pity to damage yours.” Lately, headlines have been hyper-focused on female anatomy. Due to the leak of Justice Alito’s draft addressing Dobbs, a challenge to Roe, and the...

Last August, Pew Research announced the findings of a new study with a provocative headline: “Half of Christians say casual sex is sometimes or always acceptable.” As is the case with many studies, a “Christian” for the purposes of this study meant anyone who “identified” as one, without taking into account orthodox belief or degree of commitment. Still, the results are disturbing. In particular, what the study reveals about self-identified evangelicals is especially troubling. According to Pew, less than half of evangelicals surveyed were willing to say that casual sex is never acceptable. Seventeen percent said casual sex was “rarely”...

A new survey released by researchers at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education shows that loneliness is on the rise in the United States and depicts how it can lead to a wide range of other health problems. “Making Caring Common” is a project of the Harvard Graduate School of Education. The group conducted the survey in October and published it this month in a project report. The survey results suggest that 36% of all Americans feel “serious loneliness.” This grouping includes 61% of young adults and 51% of mothers with young children. The report was done based on an online...

Half of Christians say sex between consenting adults who are in a committed dating relationship is sometimes or always acceptable, and over half — with the exception of evangelical Protestants — say casual sex is OK, according to a survey by the Pew Research Center. Some 62% of Catholics, 56% of Protestants in the historically black tradition, 54% of mainline Protestants, and 36% of evangelical Protestants say casual sex between consenting adults is sometimes or always acceptable, according to the survey. Among those who are religiously unaffiliated, as many as 84% say casual sex is sometimes or always acceptable, Pew...

The dating app OkCupid has partnered with Planned Parenthood to bring together users who support the nation's largest abortion provider. In a move announced Wednesday, OkCupid is putting a special badge reading #IStandWithPP onto users' profiles if they agree that the government should not defund Planned Parenthood. OkCupid said more than 80 percent of its users have answered that Planned Parenthood should continue to receive government funds, and now the company wants to join them in that cause. "At OkCupid, we feel strongly about championing the causes that are meaningful to our members," the company said on its official blog....

Acceptance of gay marriage has long been a matter of when, rather than if -- in large part thanks to younger generations being overwhelmingly in favor.But just how quickly are views of homosexuality changing from generation to generation? A new poll from the Public Religion Research Institute has some insights.The poll tested how millennials (ages 18 to 34) view various sexual behaviors, including homosexuality. And about equal numbers say homosexuality is morally wrong (38 percent) and morally acceptable (42 percent). Another 13 percent say it depends on the situation, while 7 percent declined to answer.What's most interesting, though, is when...

‘Some birth control methods mix better with booze. As in, you don’t have to think in the heat of the moment. Are you ready to party?” That’s the text to an ad I see multiple times a week on my Facebook News Feed. It’s an ad for “Bedsider,” a campaign from the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, which, according to its Facebook tagline, is “here to help you get on top of your sex life.” It’s more than a little strange to see this campaign promoting casual sex as a way to prevent unplanned pregnancy. The...

Noting the comeback campaigns of Eliot Spitzer and Anthony Weiner in New York, feminist author Hanna Rosin wonders why “50 years into the sexual revolution” women politicians lag so far behind men in the sex-scandal tally. She notes biological and evolutionary explanations only to reject them in favor of the idea that women are just too unused to power to abuse it in that way. She’s cheered, though, by surveys showing that younger women are cheating on their spouses almost as much as men, and confidently looks forward to the not-too-distant day when we’ll “find ourselves willing to look past...

The American Sociological Assn.’s annual meeting got underway Friday in Denver, and among the weighty topics to be discussed is the practice of “hooking up.” For any readers who are not familiar, hooking up refers to “casual sexual activity,” according to one of the more tame definitions offered by Urban Dictionary. A study to be presented on Monday focuses on the social consequences for those who engage in frequent hookups. Two researchers from the University of Illinois at Chicago examined responses from more than 19,000 students who completed the Online College Social Life Survey last year. They found that both...

As we go about our lives, there is something happening around us that is not deemed “newsworthy” or “important” by many people. It’s toxic, troubling, and traumatic. It’s happening on college campuses. It’s happening next door to you. It’s the white elephant in the room that everybody notices, but does not want to address for countless reasons. It’s what our generation praises and feels empowered by, but refuses to let their parents know about. And shockingly enough, it’s happening at conservative conferences thanks to people who do not practice what they preach. So what is it? It’s the hookup culture....

Recently I had the opportunity to work with a group of people from starkly different backgrounds. Most of our conversations were simply small talk. Yet one woman was surprisingly open about her life. Without prodding, she often articulately explained her philosophy on sex and relationships. Having been married and divorced multiple times, she now welcomed “no strings attached” sexual encounters. She thrilled at the hunt and the conquest. However, studying her over a period of time I noticed that she was often depressed. One day she came to me and asked, “Why does casual sex hurt people?” This painfully honest...

[Men must be very attractive for women to consider casual sex] Everybody has anecdotal evidence that men are more prone than women to have casual sex, but a study by the journal "Human Nature" has some insights into the matter. According to researchers, the women who were interviewed for the study said potential partners in one-night stands had to very attractive. The research findings were consistent with past studies that showed that men's casual-sex partners did not need to be as attractive as their prospective partners in long-term relationships. "While men are not entirely insensitive to their requestor’s attractiveness, women...

The paradigm has shifted. Dating is dated. Hooking up is here to stay. ... To help me understand this phenomenon, I called Kathleen Bogle, a professor at La Salle University in Philadelphia who has studied hooking up among college students and is the author of the 2008 book, “Hooking Up: Sex, Dating and Relationships on Campus.” It turns out that everything is the opposite of what I remember. Under the old model, you dated a few times and, if you really liked the person, you might consider having sex. Under the new model, you hook up a few times and,...

During a class discussion on adolescence, a high school teacher recently asked her students whether they go on dates. We don't "date," the 12th graders reported. We "hook up." If you're in your 40s, "hooking up" might mean catching a friend downtown for lunch. But to people in their teens or 20s, the phrase often means a casual sexual encounter _ anything from kissing onwards _ with no strings attached. Now a new book on this not-so-new subject is drawing fire in some quarters for its conclusion: That hookups can be damaging to young women, denying their emotional needs, putting...

Internet dating has prompted a return to Seventies-style free love. But this time it’s got no soul, writes Naomi Wolf Casual sex is back. One more relic of the early 1970s is apparently returning to the scene: hipster trousers and peace movements have been joined by a resurgence of the “zipless f---”, as Erica Jong christened it. If you hadn’t noticed this, don’t feel too bad. It could have to do with where you live. According to New York magazine, arbiter of all things cutting edge in Manhattan, the new fleshpots are teeming in certain urban centres in America. At...