We’ve been told that hooking up costs society big bucks in health care costs, but it just got very expensive on a personal level for one California man.
A Beverly Hills man has been hit with a $2.4 million judgment in a suit alleging that he negligently infected his soon-to-be-ex wife with genital herpes.
The unfortunate transmission occurred after the defendant and his wife reconciled following a month-long split in mid-2007, according to the complaint. Not long after they kissed and made up, the plaintiff began experiencing “severe burning, itching and swelling,” and was diagnosed with genital herpes shortly thereafter.
It was only after this diagnosis that the plaintiff learned that her husband engaged in unprotected sex with several women outside their marriage, behavior that the complaint described as “high-risk.”
The award, which was handed down by a Los Angeles jury, gave the wife $500,000 for past pain and suffering, $1.63 million for future pain and suffering, $250,000 for future medical damages, and $62,000 in punitive damages.
“Herpes litigation is surprisingly common,” notes the article, although perhaps not so surprising given the prevalence of the disease: 16% of all Americans – “and a stunning 48% of black women” – carry the HSV-2 disease. Worse, “80% of those who have the virus never experience outbreaks or even know that they are infected.”
The $2.4 million judgment in this case “pales in comparison” to a jury award of $6.7 million last year to a woman who “contracted herpes after sleeping with a wealthy businessman.”
The plaintiff’s attorney in that case said the eye-popping verdict was “a clear message to all persons infected with a sexually transmitted disease that this type of behavior simply will not be tolerated.”
Register before Nov. 1 for this annual conference at Princeton University on November 12 & 13.
It begins Friday (8 pm) with “Friends with Benefits or the Benefits of Friends? The fall of friendship in the hookup culture and the need for its restoration to relationships.”
Saturday’s fare includes “Masculinity and the Real Man” and “Feminism and Femininity,” breakout sessions for students and faculty, and an expert Q&A panel.
Love & Fidelity Network’s third annual conferencelooks to be a good one.
As a stand-up comedian, I’ve seen hacks openly depict the most depraved, explicit sexual acts they can think of just to get a laugh out of the audience.
Everything is on the table except …
Today there is one area of sex that when discussed still makes people’s posteriors pucker with discomfort … abstinence. The idea of abstinence has become somewhat of a punchline in this country.
[snip]
If you’re abstinent it’s either because A) you’re ugly or B) you’re a loser.
[snip]
Maybe it’s just the lack of fun-factor, or maybe it started with harlotry being misused as a fulcrum for women’s liberation, but if you so much as suggest to someone that abstinence might be beneficial, you’ll often find yourself vilified as a judgmental jackass faster than Bill Maher can throw up his dainty hands.
Sure, Michelle Obama can run around the country and condemn little fatties for inhaling Little Debbies, but if you try and apply the same helpful, healthful concept to sex, it’s seen as pushy and/or prudish.
One often overlooked benefit of abstinence is deep mutual trust:
I can tell you beyond any doubt that my lady is able to control herself and stick to her values regardless of circumstance. Just as surely, she can say the same about me (Ben&Jerry’s benders notwithstanding). It is that display of self-control, that tangible example of living your principles through your life’s walk, that ensures her that I won’t be jumping on the first well-proportioned opportunity that comes my way.
Constantly we hear cries of women aimed at their supposedly overly jealous boyfriends, “What’s the matter? Don’t you trust me?”
No, he doesn’t. You slept with him on the first date and there is no reason for him to think that you wouldn’t do the same when a better offer comes along.
While we’re on the subject, has the whole floozie shtick really empowered any women out there?
[snip]
Then again, what do I know? I’m just a young, sexless, STD-free-moron in love. You should try it sometime … though I’m not here to judge.
The ‘marrieds’ in the U.S. are declining, according to Census Bureau data. The surprise is that marriage rates among those with a bachelor degree or better held steady over the last decade, while marriage rates among those with a high school education or less suffered the steepest decline. It used to be the other way around.
An analysis by Mark Mather and Diana Lavery at the Population Reference Bureau shows marriage rates dropping “precipitously among young adults ages 25 to 35 during the past decade, and the decline has accelerated since the onset of the recession…”
Marital Status Among Young Adults Ages 25-34 (Percent)
2000
2006
2007
2008
2009
Married
55.1
48.9
48.2
46.9
44.9
Never Married
34.5
41.4
42.6
43.9
46.3
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 2000 Census and American Community Survey.
Marriage rates are also declining among the total population age 18 and older: 57% were married in 2000, compared to only 52% in 2009 – the lowest percentage recorded in more than 100 years. Among women, the “unmarried” (est. 59.8 million including single, divorced, widowed, and separated) now outnumber the “married” (est. 59.5 million).
The trend is significant, note Mather and Lavery:
Starting in the 1970s, several factors contributed to a steady decline in marriage, including rising divorce rates, an increase in women’s educational attainment and labor force participation, and a rise in cohabitation as an alternative or precursor to marriage.
[snip]
These trends are significant because marriage is associated with many benefits for families and individuals, including higher income, better health, and longer life expectancy … Therefore the recent decline in marriage may contribute to worse outcomes for less educated individuals, beyond those resulting from the recent recession.
Cohabitation brings a new set of risks, especially for children born to unmarried parents:
In 2008, nonmarital births accounted for 41% of all births in the U.S. Although roughly half of these nonmarital births are to cohabiting couples, these unions tend to be less stable and have fewer economic resources compared to married couples. Therefore, declining marriage rates put more children at risk of growing up poor, which can have lasting consequences for their health and future economic prospects.
Star Parker, a former welfare recipient, understands these implications all too well.
Mike McManus, author of Living Together: Myths, Risks & Answers, tackles the top three myths about cohabitation, and he cites several studies to buttress his assertions:
Myth 1: Cohabitation is a step to marriage. The number of cohabiting couples soared 13-fold from 523,000 in 1970 to 6.8 million in 2008. The average cohabitation lasts 18 months, which means there are about 4.6 million new cohabitations each year. Only 30 percent “transitioned into marriage.” The 70% of couples who separate after living together experience a “premarital divorce.” Women suffer especially. They feel used and embittered. What was hoped to be a prelude to marriage ends with squandered time that cannot be recaptured.
Myth 2: Living together is a trial marriage. No, it is more like a “trial divorce,” in which the question is whether a breakup will occur before or after the wedding. [Based on studies] many who cohabit apparently lose respect for themselves and the other person. Couples who lived separately beforehand have more self-respect and more respect for their spouse.
Myth 3: What we do is nobody’s business. Not true. [It often has a very public impact.] The NCHS study reports that “by 2001 the majority of non-marital births (52%) occurred within cohabiting unions.” A Heritage Foundation study estimates that the 13 million single-parent families cost taxpayers $20,000 per family in 2004, a total of $260 billion. Half of that total comes from unwed births to cohabiting moms.
No one ever said marriage was easy, and too many marriages today end in divorce. But experience with the social experiment of cohabitation is proving to be a worse alternative.
There’s one bit of uplifting news for young adults in Mather and Lavery’s analysis:
Although marriage rates have dropped among young adults, it is important to note that most young adults will go on to marry later in life. The probability of an adult getting married at some point during their lifetime is still nearly 90%.
First, pledges of Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity marched across the Yale campus chanting “tasteless jibes involving obscenity, jingoism and necrophilia: No means yes, yes means anal.”
Next Yale’s Women’s Center and feminist bloggers “responded with histrionics,” condemning DKE’s actions as “an active call for sexual violence.”
A Yale News’ Viewseditorial put the absurdity in perspective …
However obnoxious, the [bros] chants were not [as feminists claimed] “an active call for sexual violence.”
[snip]
But we should not be surprised by the Women’s Center’s initial overreaction … In recent years, the radicalizing echo chamber of the Center has failed to represent the broader spectrum of women on campus after acts of public misogyny. While the Center spent their time painting murals of their own vaginas, the rest of women were left without a public voice. Their history of radicalism has alienated Yale’s women; few think of the Center as a representative forum in which to tackle gender relations.
… And points out the obvious:
Feminists at Yale should remember that, on a campus as progressive as ours, most of their battles are already won: All of us agree on gender equality. The provocateurs knew their audience’s sensibilities and how to offend them for a childish laugh …
We would all do well to remember that, at Yale, the effectiveness and inclusiveness of women’s advocacy is inversely proportional to its radicalism.
I remember going to the launch party for the television series in New York in the mid-90s and sitting in the audience, drinking in the behaviour of Carrie Bradshaw and her friends. As a single man, I thought all my Christmases had come at once.
It was as if a group of frat boys had got together and said, “Hey guys, wouldn’t it be funny if we made a TV show that persuades attractive women in their 20s and 30s that it’s fashionable to have sex with men like us without demanding any sort of emotional commitment in return? Not only that, but we’ll do our best to convince them that they actually have to go out of their way to induce us to have this no-strings attached sex by spending several hours a day on incredibly painful personal grooming procedures and then squeezing themselves into these fantastically uncomfortable shoes. The beauty part is we’ll persuade them that doing all this stuff for our benefit – spending their lives beautifying themselves and then submitting to our every sexual demand without asking for anything in return – is a ‘post-feminist’ choice.”
I was expecting at least some women to see through this. Not all single girls in their 20s and 30s could be so stupid as to think that giving it away for nothing is actually a form of post-feminist empowerment, could they?
But no. An entire generation of women fell for it hook, line and sinker. Far from being seen as sluts, women like Samantha Jones were regarded as ‘role models’. Suddenly, it become cool for women to allow themselves to be picked up in bars by selfish, predatory males who are only interested in one-night stands. Who cares if the men never bothered calling them afterwards? It was ‘liberated’ behaviour.
One recurring theme of Sex and the City I particularly enjoy is the idea that modern single women should have two completely different sets of standards when it comes to who they should sleep with and who they should marry. Apparently, it’s okay to share your bed with any Tom, Dick or Harry, but the only men you should marry are chief executives who look like male models and earn over ten million dollars a year. Great! That means they’re never, ever going to get married and will continue to sleep with less-than-perfect men without ever expecting us to put rings on their fingers.
This last point is the killer. The truly incredible thing about Carrie and her chums is that they don’t make the connection between their promiscuity and their inability to find husbands.
Duh! Since time immemorial, the way women have enticed men to make a commitment to them is by refusing to put out until the man gets down on one knee. But if you’re willing to trade access to your body for a Cosmopolitan and a copy of Vogue, why would a man bother to spend $10,000 on a diamond ring? The Sex and the City women are never going to ensnare the Masters of the Universe they fantasize about marrying because Alpha males can have sex with them whenever they want and then discard them like used towels.
Ouch!
Toby is “greatly looking forward” to the release of the movie on May 27. No surprise there.
This is an interesting question worth exploring. A paperback novel I’m reading contained this line by the male protagonist (paraphrased):
Why is it that some women can look sexy whether they are wearing a bikini or a raincoat down to their ankles?
Is it attitude? Carriage? Confidence? Or that and more?
artschoolnerd had this comment in an earlier post:
Sexy is how you carry yourself. It’s confidence. The skimpiest halter top in the world won’t turn any heads if the girl wearing it cowers or is apprehensive. When you remember someone sexy, it’s usually not what they wear or look like, it’s what they did and how they did it.
What they did and how they did it. That’s an interesting observation. Examples, anyone?
Is mystery a part of the sexy equation? Projecting a message that translates I have worth … I know who I am … and you can only guess ALL that I am and have to offer?
If so, does sexy become slutty when the mystery is removed from the equation? You, too, can know all that I am … and judge for yourself the worth of who I am and what I have to offer?
In a provocative article posted on CNN.com today, Hollywood sex symbol Raquel Welch “waves the red flag of caution over how low moral standards have plummeted.”
Margaret Sanger opened the first American family-planning clinic in 1916, and nothing would be the same again. Since then the growing proliferation of birth control methods has had an awesome effect on both sexes and led to a sea change in moral values.
The upside is that it empowered women to make better choices in life.
The downside is a loss of caution and, well, rampant female sluttiness.
One significant, and enduring effect of The Pill on female sexual attitudes during the 60’s, was : “Now we can have sex anytime we want, without the consequences. Hallelujah, let’s party.”
It remains this way. These days, nobody seems able to “keep it in their pants” or honor a commitment!
Sadly, there’s a huge difference between ’sexy’ and ’slut’ that too many teen girls are missing today. A Golden-Globe-winning actress with 45 films to her credit, Welch should know. She oozed a sexiness that men of several generations fantasized about and women tried to emulate. But slut? Never. And even she’s shocked by today’s behavior:
As a result of the example set by their elders, by the 1990s teenage sexual promiscuity — or hooking up — with multiple partners had become a common occurrence. Many of my friends who were parents of teenagers sat in stunned stilence several years ago when it came to light that oral sex had become a popular practice among adolescent girls in middle schools across the country.
The 13-year-old daughter of one such friend freely admitted to performing fellatio on several boys at school on a regular basis. “Aw come on, Mom. It’s no big deal. Everyone is doing it,” she said. Apparently, since it’s not the act of intercourse, kids don’t count it as sex. Can any sane person fail to make a judgment call about that?
In reality, any sane person has to feel sorry for these pathetic girls, because sluttiness is never attractive to either gender.
Women can be sexy as hell without decending into sluts, and Welch calls teen girls to a higher standard:
Seriously, folks, if an aging sex symbol like me starts waving the red flag of caution over how low moral standards have plummeted, you know it’s gotta be pretty bad. In fact, it’s precisely because of the sexy image I’ve had that it’s important for me to speak up and say: Come on girls! Time to pull up our socks! We’re capable of so much better.
It looks that way. Stephanie Chen’s CNN article, No Hooking Up, No Sex for Some Co-eds, reports students are choosing to disengage from the often alcohol-fueled hook-up scene that leaves many women with a hangover of the blues even if they manage to avoid getting a sexually transmitted disease.
It shouldn’t come as a surprise. While some researchers have found no long-term harmful psychological damage from hooking-up, other studies, writes Chen, “have shown the instability from hooking up can cause depression. Repeated rejection and detached relationships can also damage self-esteem.” Even researchers who discount psychological damage warn that the hook-up culture has become a “direct route for spreading STDs,” since those who practice this type of sex tend to engage with many more partners.
A growing body of evidence suggests women and men have very different morning-after reactions to friends-with-benefits, hooking up, and similar nonromantic sexual relations.
Jessica Grose at Slate.com pens an interesting piece on the shame cycle women feel after pursuing a life of casual sex. Feminist authors Julie Klausner and Hephzibah Anderson are among her several examples.
“When you cry about things not working out,” Grose quotes Klausner in a new collection of essays, “you’re crying not only because a guy you slept with now doesn’t seem to care you’re alive, but also because you’re ashamed of yourself for crying.”
Grose also quotes Anderson’s confession (in a book to be released this summer) at having such deep regrets about casual sex that she gave up “penetrative sex” for a year:
In a provocative