To paraphrase Kay Hymowitz, I guess these "women-girls" are afraid of their "authentic selves".

Acting like people who defy gender norms are somehow less ambitious, less talented, or generally dissatisfied with their lives is being tossed around more and more, for both men and women.

FYI, that guy Chris, who says, "She'll come back to me when she's 37" is an idiot.

Holy Bullshit, Batman!

Reminds me of the, woman over 40 is more likely to die in a terrorist attack than get married, "factoid."

Yo, Chris. Take a hint. Look elsewhere, or stick with your hand. You're not getting any younger yourself.

Correct, Jessica. I can only imagine what young women must feel when they hear these gender stereotypes repeated. Women don't need men and shouldn't settle for "the nearest douchebag." And men don't need women, and most young men are not looking for a damsel in distress to marry. This is nonsense.

I believe that most adults, both men and women, at whatever age, are looking to be in a committed relationship with someone with whom they are sexually and otherwise attracted. Not all, certainly, but certainly most. That doesn't mean anyone should "settle" for someone they don't love.

This message spills over to the guys, too, you know. The last thing young men need to hear is that a woman
"needs" them, that they are still expected by society -- by women -- to be the macho "breadwinner" who will take care of his wife. It is attitudes like this that preclude men from being stay-at-home dads -- society tells men they HAVE to be the "breadwinner." Talk about gender stereotypes tying us down!

"That doesn't mean anyone should "settle" for someone they don't love."

I understand your point, Tim, and I wish the same for people, but I feel it necessary to point out that not everyone has equal access to desirable partners (has it ever been demonstrated there are enough?) through no fault of their own, and *lasting* romantic love at least, is a fairly recent concept, inspired by fairy tales and romance movies.

Chris in the OP, should consider himself lucky to have found himself with a doctor, however temporary, even IF he were a nice guy.

I think that picture of yours really says it all. And that face is amazing on about 50 different levels. Thank you.

Because *sniff, sniff* woe is me, a 39 year old male rookie nurse like myself who blew through his savings to go back to school, will probably never date or marry a lady doctor, if she considers her future.

So much of the 'settling' talk seems to be not only about marrying someone you might not love, but about marrying someone you might not even like very much. And isn't that a recipe for disaster? Place a bookmark in articles like these when people try to suggest that feminists hate men, because it's the anti-feminists who seem to come up with the rules that will make both men and women the most unhappy. Do people really need to be reminded that it's more important to truly care for the person you choose to be your partner? Rather than just make a desperate grab and hope for the best?

Happiness is not a one-stop shop. I don't understand the trend in America to disallow other people's lives if they don't follow a set agenda. I'm married. I love being married. But I wouldn't for a second suggest that it's the only way for anyone else to be happy. It isn't.

I pretty much figured that public meltdowns jumped the shark last week. She could have shortened the whole thing to, "Chris won't return my calls, so I'm going to show him."

Sadly, it seems there are women out there that agree with this. I've lost count of how many times I've read a personals ad from a woman in her early 30s who is desperate to marry and have kids before it's "too late."

I've learned to recognise those ads from the subject line and avoid them.

(For the record, I'm 31 and never married.)

The scariest part of the entire article was the last three lines...

“You’re so lucky, you don’t have to have sex with someone you don’t want to.” ... “OK, if you’re so unhappy, and if I’m so lucky, leave your husband! In fact, send him over here!” ... Not one person has taken me up on this offer.

Feeling pressured into sex by a husband you am not passionate about... that sounds like happily ever to you?

She already has a book out Jessica, about how she was an anorexic at elven, striving to be the skinniest elven year old on the planet. You can check out the editor's review on Amazon.com.

Methinks she's still struggling with a whole bunch of issues, finding a man being the least of them.

You...you mean it's not OK to be single at 30? If I don't get married within the next seven years, I have to settle for whatever man will have my sorry ass, or I'll be *desperately* unhappy? Oh Ms. Gottleib, you have saved my life! I don't know what I would have done without your invaluable article!

Ugh. I have two unmarried aunts, and they both seem happy enough without "a man". While I'm only twenty-three, I certainly don't feel some kind of desperation to nest before I'm 30. Perhaps Ms. Gottleib needs to stop projecting her personal discomforts onto every woman in the US.

Oh, Jessica. I love your worried face.
I'm 28, and I find that I'm so much happier when I'm single than when I'm in a relationship. That must be the denial talking. Good thing there are people out there to remind me that I'm sad and tragic because I'm without a man.

lol what a coincidence- I'm almost 30 and unmarried and I have the exact same face as you, Jessica!
Seriously, what is it that's so great about marriage that women should give up everything to be a part of it? What?

My boyfriend used to date Gottlieb. I'm glad she passed him up, not least because I wouldn't wish a life with her on anyone.

Ugh. I saw this on The Today Show yesterday and hoped it was some sort of hyper-realistic fever dream. I was appalled! Why didn't anyone tell me that life ends at thirty? I'm already eighteen! I need to find some random dude to attach to stat! I mean, sure, it'll be denying both of us a chance at happiness, considering neither of us will likely care that much for the other, but consider the benefits! 1. Free live-in nanny! 2. I can lead an exciting life of quiet desperation and repression.

I don't think there's much to say about this besides, "Wow, I hope this lady learns to love and value herself soon."

Hahaha...I LOVED that picture, Jessica!! Just brilliant. You ought to let us all post our "worried" faces on here. I'm 34, and giving the finger to marriage. I have a great boyfriend, a self-described feminist, but I am no where near ready to marry him. I'm very happy living alone, and can't really envision anything changing in the future. All I can say is that I hope those desperate women learn to value themselves.

Love the face, Jessica. :-)
Hate the article. Stupid, unimaginative and old.

That said, I still struggle with how to talk about this issue with some friends who ARE marriage obsessed. As they swoon away over dresses, flowers, rings, plate dinners and musicians before they have even talked with the partner in question about living together, let alone marrying. They think I am petty for having issues with marrying the person I love when my gay friends can't marry the person they love. And I do hear it- "well, you know, I am nearly 30...." AHHHH! It makes me crazy, for all the reasons here.

i'm appalled by this article on multiple levels, many of them already articulated.

what stood out to me (and has yet to be mentioned i think) was this line early on:

Most likely, she’ll say that what she really wants is a husband (and, by extension, a child).

too often, it seems to me, marriage is conflated with procreation (and in fact, as we've seen with equal marriage debates, often the "inability" to procreate is raised as a reason to deny marriage to same-sex couples). to me the presumption that the decision to get married is one about having children is as reductive as the assertion that womyn "must" get married even if it means "settling".

I can't imagine why this lady is still single at 40. She just sounds like so much fun! I actually feel rather sorry for her, along with being pissed at her moronic presumption about my life. She views her perpetual singleness as a personal failure and thinks it's some epidemic that the rest of us over-30-somethings are suffering from too. And she's clearly mentally ill: she's weighing the possibility of ending up alone against the guarantee of spending the next fifty years with someone she doesn't like very much...and choosing the latter? I don't get it.

I feel kinda sorry for her kid too, having to fill such a huge void. How many piano recitals will it take to cure Mommy's paralyzing disappointment?

I recommend reading the interview with her as well, which is here.

I think if she'd framed the issue more the way she talks about it in the interview and hadn't used Sex and the City (why is this show an example for *every* social psychology question about women?), it wouldn't provoke such a visceral reaction. Fortunately I'm too young to fall into her settle category, though I can understand why fulfilled 30 year old single women would be offended by the implications of her argument. I just think that there is an economic and social calculus that happens in relationships and the issue deserves a little more thought than you gave it.

Gee, I guess it was a mistake to wake up and dump the irresponsible loser I was engaged to at 27. Now here I am at 32, in a committed relationship, happily living with my boyfriend of four years. Yeah, my worried face looks a lot like yours Jessica!

nisemono: That line really freaked me out too.

“You’re so lucky, you don’t have to have sex with someone you don’t want to.”
“OK, if you’re so unhappy, and if I’m so lucky, leave your husband! In fact, send him over here!”

So...let me get this straight. She'd rather be raped by a husband on a regular basis than be single and..not raped? When I hear, "You have to have sex with someone you don't want to," I'm not quite sure how that's not considered rape. I guess spousal rape doesn't exist in Gottlieb's world. Puke.

I'd feel sorry for that woman if it weren't for her dictating the "true" opinion of all womankind. Perhaps if her journalism career doesn't work out, she could try being a Psychic Friend.

"I'm married. I love being married. But I wouldn't for a second suggest that it's the only way for anyone else to be happy. It isn't."

Amen, sgzax.

Thank you for reminding me. Marriage or independence is a personal choice, and I will not put one over the other for anyone but myself. I am limiting my comments to marriage:

"Do people really need to be reminded that it's more important to truly care for the person you choose to be your partner?"

Not at all. But I have learned through personal experience, 12 years in Japan witnessing and experiencing their culture, and US tradition, that the kind of love and commitment that keeps families together is not the same as the intense romance that occurs in the early stages of a relationship. People who can claim in middle age or as seniors that they love each other like the day they first met, are fortunate.

It must also be stressful. Personally, even at the age of 26, I acted like a giddy fool with my future wife, and we used to spend up to five or six hours on the phone every night, as well as whisking off for morning to night dates and sexual romps of 2-4 hours (we got a room on a clock, and acted like it) every weekend when we shared days off from work.

Try managing that with careers, children, other friends and commitments, and private time for yourself. You'd likely be cutting into your sleep time and performance at work, have little time to yourself, as well as spending at unsustainable levels, if you'd like to save for a house, future children's education, or retirement. My own honeymoon stage lasted a few months, and quite frankly, both my wife and I are thankful. We like some time to ourselves. She watches TV and reads. I spend time online, reading, shopping, doing home projects, watching my own programs and videos, driving, riding, and with my pets. Despite her performance, my wife prefers sleep to sex. Ah, well.

Stable relationships that have been good for the children at least, used to be considered the norm, even when romance or free choice were not the reasons for marriage. Were a lot of people, particularly women, unhappy? Of course. But marriage is not only about each partners' happiness. My wife is free to leave with my blessing if she believes she will be happier alone, with another man, or as a single mother (at the moment, explicitly not), but marriage is a commitment we both chose to make. I'll take my wife over any 20 year old Filipino nurse (or doctor) from work, as well. We also do not have the ugly kind of relationship that would traumatize the children. Therapy, separation, or divorce are possible solutions for those, or if it ever happened to us.

Do I not believe that maintaining romance, or having a happy marriage through growth and maintenance of love for one's partner is ideal? Of course I do. But that is an ideal. And it is great that there are so many who can do without relationships.

I'm doomed. I'm 41, never married, not in a committed relationship (or any relationship for that matter), and not really interested in settling. In fact, I'll emphatically say I *won't* settle. Why would I settle? I own my own house, have a great job, am well-educated, and am happy. Why would I settle for a relationship that won't give me the life I've already built for myself?

Interesting, though, was her comment: Having turned 40, I now have wrinkles, bags under my eyes, and hair in places I didn’t know hair could grow on women. I don't have many wrinkles (good skin, little makeup, no tanning, etc.), no bags (again, firm skin), and no hair growing in unwanted places. I actually like myself better now than I did in my 20s.

I will say, however, that I have met plenty of men who have said they aren't interested in a relationship because my baby-producing years are nearly over. They want someone young. What I say to them is - Goodbye.

I was trying to think of a good response to this article (and the horrible NPR piece she did on "All Things Considered" in the last couple of days on the same topic), but then I realized that Sara Bareilles beat me to it:

"Fairytale" by Sara Bareilles:

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cGQoPmefyA

Lyrics: http://lyrics-explorer.com/lyrics/artists/s/sara_bareilles/fairytale.html

“You’re so lucky, you don’t have to have sex with someone you don’t want to.”
“OK, if you’re so unhappy, and if I’m so lucky, leave your husband! In fact, send him over here!”

"So...let me get this straight. She'd rather be raped by a husband on a regular basis than be single and..not raped?"

I don't want to get inside this writer's head, but I hope she means that she would not mind having her friends' husbands, or sex with them, one and all, because of her alleged desperation. I note she may have personal issues. I have eyes myself, but my wife and I choose to stay together, and that is how I like it.

"When I hear, 'You have to have sex with someone you don't want to,' I'm not quite sure how that's not considered rape. I guess spousal rape doesn't exist in Gottlieb's world. Puke."

Her response to her friends are insensitive, and I hope, a very poor attempt at humor. However, as my own definition of rape is any time a woman feels sexually violated (even with realization after the fact), it is possible her friends do not feel violated, but the magic has simply gone, or they are bored. Maybe their husbands are balding, overweight, sloppy, demanding, poor fathers, and take their wives for granted, all things the women did not foresee when getting married. The friends were not reported to state that they have sex against their will. It is possible to consent to boring or bothersome sex with people you do not find particularly attractive.

I know this is serious, but this article is so out, it had me in stitches. How can this be in 2008 that people perpetuate such poopoo?! Was there a group lobotamy over at Atlantic?! What a bunch of sensationlistic nonsense!!!
Excuse me while I return to baking an apple pie so as to ensnare any man who will have me. Mee-ow!!!!

It's a shame really. I thought her book "Stick Figure" was a very clever commentary on the roots of anorexia in our society.
It makes me wonder if this was meant to be satire and she was just waaay to subtle. I doubt that is the case, though.

"How can this be in 2008 that people perpetuate such poopoo?!"

I see by reading that the article itself is probably not an attempt at humor or satire. I do come away with her sense of desperation and bitterness, against men, whom she claims do not "need" to settle for less (bullshit), and do not perceive their choices as "settling" (Hmmmm. Her friend Alan has a definite point.*); against her own so-called ticking biological clock**, and against her friends who have marriages yet seem to be unhappy against expectations. This gut feeling, and the comments above by the poster who's done some checking on this writer, lead me to believe this woman has some personal issues. She also needs a more diverse selection of friends, friends who are not also feeling their age and desperate, and friends who are not married and tired of it. Some younger women and feminists who have not lost the spark like herself, perhaps.

* "Men settle far less often and, when they do, they don’t seem the least bit bothered by the fact that they’re settling."

"My friend Alan, for instance, justified his choice of a 'bland' wife who’s a good mom but with whom he shares little connection this way: 'I think one-stop shopping is overrated. I get passion at my office with my work, or with my friends that I sometimes call or chat with—it’s not the same, and, boy, it would be exciting to have it with my spouse. But I spend more time with people at my office than I do with my spouse.'"

It is true that I spend only a few minutes a day with my wife, and none at all if I work or am out past my family's bedtime. We both enjoy the variety of experiences and social connections we have outside the home, and have few activities and no friends in common. I do not consider my wife bland, or an inferior choice to any woman I consider attainable, but I feel Alan understands me well. Here's to having one's own life, even within a relationship.

** It is a simple unfortunate fact of nature that around the age of 42, a woman is very unlikely to become pregnant in the conventional manner. The peak of fertility occurs at about 27. There is no cause for alarm. There is no need to settle for less "man" than what you deserve if you want one, and no need to forego a career, but having one's own biological children IF desired, does require some planning.

Readers will not like this. Readers will likely deny it, as surely as the president of NOW quoted in the article. But this article describes what science tells us, if a woman would like to have children in the conventional manner, with her own eggs. Ignore any alarmism you see. Come away with this:

"Reproductive freedom is not just the ability not to have a child through birth control. It's the ability to have one if and when you want one."

Making Time For A Baby
Sunday, Apr. 07, 2002
By NANCY GIBBS

http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101020415/index.html

[start quote]

Women generally know their fertility declines with age; they just don't realize how much and how fast. According to the Centers for Disease Control, once a woman celebrates her 42nd birthday, the chances of her having a baby using her own eggs, even with advanced medical help, are less than 10%. At age 40, half of her eggs are chromosomally abnormal; by 42, that figure is 90%. "I go through Kleenex in my office like it's going out of style," says reproductive endocrinologist Michael Slowey in Englewood, N.J.

[Author of book] Hewlett and her allies say they are just trying to correct the record in the face of widespread false optimism. Her survey found that nearly 9 out of 10 young women were confident of their ability to get pregnant into their 40s. Last fall the A.I.A. [American Infertility Association] conducted a fertility-awareness survey on the women's website iVillage.com. Out of the 12,524 respondents, only one answered all 15 questions correctly. Asked when fertility begins to decline, only 13% got it right (age 27); 39% thought it began to drop at 40. Asked how long couples should try to conceive on their own before seeking help, fully 42% answered 30 months. That is a dangerous combination: a couple that imagines fertility is no problem until age 40 and tries to get pregnant for 30 months before seeing a doctor is facing very long odds of ever becoming parents.

In one sense, the confusion is understandable: it is only in the past 10 years that doctors themselves have discovered the limitations. "I remember being told by a number of doctors, 'Oh, you have plenty of time,' even when I was 38," says Claudia Morehead, 47, a California insurance lawyer who is finally pregnant, using donor eggs. Even among fertility specialists, "it was shocking to us that IVF didn't work so well after age 42," admits Dr. Sarah Berga, a reproductive endocrinologist at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. "The early '90s, to my mind, was all about how shocked we were that we couldn't get past this barrier." But even as doctors began to try to get the word out, they ran into resistance of all kinds.

[omission]

"The implication is, 'I have to hurry up and have kids now or give up on ever having them,'" says Kim Gandy, president of the National Organization for Women. "And that is not true for the vast majority of women." Gandy, 48, had her first child at 39. "It was a choice on my part, but in most ways it really wasn't. It's not like you can create out of whole cloth a partner you want to have a family with and the economic and emotional circumstances that allow you to be a good parent. So to put pressure on young women to hurry up and have kids when they don't have those other factors in place really does a disservice to them and to their kids."

To emphasize a woman's age above all other factors can be just one more piece of misleading information, Gandy suggests. "There are two people involved [in babymaking], and yet we're putting all the responsibility on women and implying that women are being selfish if they don't choose to have children early." She shares the concern that women will hear the research and see the ads and end up feeling it is so hard to strike a balance that it's futile to even try. "There is an antifeminist agenda that says we should go back to the 1950s," says Caryl Rivers, a journalism professor at Boston University. "The subliminal message is, 'Don't get too educated; don't get too successful or too ambitious.'"

Allison Rosen, a clinical psychologist in New York City who has made it her mission to make sure her female patients know the fertility odds, disagrees. "This is not a case of male doctors' wanting to keep women barefoot and pregnant," she says. "You lay out the facts, and any particular individual woman can then make her choices." Madsen of A.I.A. argues that the biological imperative is there whether women know it or not. "I cringe when feminists say giving women reproductive knowledge is pressuring them to have a child," she says. "That's simply not true. Reproductive freedom is not just the ability not to have a child through birth control. It's the ability to have one if and when you want one."

Also from the same issue of TIME Magazine, regarding IVF:

"Even the most powerful techniques can turn back a woman's biological clock only so far. Women in their early 30s who want to use their own eggs have a better than 30% chance of delivering a live baby by artificial means. After age 43, the success rate drops to a forbidding 3%."

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1101020415-227541,00.html

[start quote]

"It's tremendously comforting for a 34- or 36-year-old professional woman to imagine that she has time on her side," says Hewlett, which can make for resistance to hearing the truth.

This is the heart of Hewlett's crusade: that it is essential for women to plan where they want to be at 45 and work backward, armed with the knowledge that the window for having children is narrower than they have been led to believe and that once it begins to swing shut, science can do little to pry it open. And Hewlett argues as well that employers and policymakers need to do more to help families make the balancing act work. "The greatest choice facing modern women is to freely choose to have both, a job and a family, and be supported and admired for it, not be seen as some overweening yuppie."

[omission]

Hewlett calls herself a feminist, but she has often crossed swords with feminists who, she charges, are so concerned with reproductive choice that they neglect the needs of women who choose to be mothers. In the history of the family, she notes, it is a very recent development for women to have control over childbearing, thanks to better health care and birth control. But there's an ironic twist now. 'In just 30 years, we've gone from fearing our fertility to squandering it--and very unwittingly.' The decision of whether to have a child will always be one of the most important anyone makes; the challenge is not allowing time and biology to make it for them.

[end quote]

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,227528-4,00.html

Dang. Is Lori Gottlieb really 40? Because she sounds like she's about 80 and somewhat senile. Like, she says: "What I and many women who hold out for true love forget is that we won’t always have the same appeal that we may have had in our 20s and early 30s."

The only way you can forget that is if you're suffering from some dementia, since it's impossible to turn on the TV, watch a movie, read a magazine, or shop in a store, without being reminded that it's women in their teens and 20s who are considered to be most appealing in our society. These same BS articles and special news reports get recycled every few years or so, usually fronted by a woman who acts with as much of a sense of discovery and import as a kindergartener with a new color crayon.

I turn thirty in September. I'll admit I'm having a few issues with the fact, but being alone isn't one of them. My definition of hell includes a spouse and children, so making my way alone is pretty much heaven in a box. :)

"So...let me get this straight. She'd rather be raped by a husband on a regular basis than be single and..not raped? When I hear, "You have to have sex with someone you don't want to," I'm not quite sure how that's not considered rape. I guess spousal rape doesn't exist in Gottlieb's world. Puke."

i would like to second A male's clarification that bothersome or boring sex does not equal rape. i realize this is not the focus of the thread, but i've become quite disillusioned with reactionary responses which use the term rape so ubiquitously and inappropriately, which i truly believe lessens the true meaning of the term..

"i would like to second A male's clarification that bothersome or boring sex does not equal rape."

Speculation on what those friends mean. And never to imply that such a relationship would be pleasant.

A male: have you considered starting your own blog?

You are always too kind, sgzax.

No, I prefer to choose my readers, and not worry about who likes me. I've sold some work, and had the opportunity to do more, but it wasn't for me.

"I will say, however, that I have met plenty of men who have said they aren't interested in a relationship because my baby-producing years are nearly over. They want someone young. What I say to them is - Goodbye."

I can think of something else.

Has this woman ever gotten an inside view of an unhappy marriage and what it does to people? Like, an inside view? Like, say, one's parents? I have. And coming out of a 20-year marriage, my mother told me never to stay with anybody who didn't love me passionately and whole-heartedly, never to let myself think I didn't deserve that. And, by the way, she subsequently found it and the advanced one-foot-in-grave age of...44.

And, God, I hate to do a "think of teh poor menz!" but...jeez. So she wants to marry some poor fool who thinks she loves him for who he is, just so she can get...what? Free babysitting? Nice.

too often, it seems to me, marriage is conflated with procreation (and in fact, as we've seen with equal marriage debates, often the "inability" to procreate is raised as a reason to deny marriage to same-sex couples). to me the presumption that the decision to get married is one about having children is as reductive as the assertion that womyn "must" get married even if it means "settling".

Indeed. And I'd like to approach this from another angle. I'll be turning 32 in a month, and I'm not really keen on the prospect of marriage, shacking up, or settling down in a committed romantic/sexual relationship. I was a few years ago, but not anymore, and not for a while. What I do want are children. And I do worry about how I can make that happen--I don't have a lot of money, I don't have a large extended family, I don't have any paid family leave in my job. And I do worry about difficulty conceiving as I age, about the difficulty of taking care of a toddler at a later age than I'd like, the increased hardship on my body of pregnancy and childbirth as I age, the increased rate of congenital defects.

In Gottlieb's world, I suppose that translates as worrying about finding a man. But of my worry is anger that I live in a society and culture in which women having children is treated like some kind of weirdo personal aberration every single time, so that we don't have reliable, state-run day-care, we don't have mandated paid maternity leave, we don't have the support systems in place which would make it possible for me to have a kid regardless of whether or not I have a husband/partner.

Bullshit. During the course of my life (I'm 20) my grandma has many boyfriends, but she has absolutely no interest in settling down. She sees no need for it and is perfectly happy with the way her life is now.

My Grandma is one of the most self-confident and strong women I know and I'm proud to be related to her.

I'm going to take a wild guess here and speculate that the main difference between my Grandmother and Ms. Gottlieb is that my Grandma has a fucking spine.

Okay. So, if you have to have sex with someone you don't want to have sex with, what is it then?

Just an inconvenience? From my point of view, if I have to have sex with someone, I damn well better want it, whether it's my spouse or a total stranger.

I have been a reader of Feministing for a long time but this is my first comment here.

I don't believe this article is sincere.
I suspect that the woman who wrote that nasty article is just shamelessly promoting herself... possibly to create interest in new men.

“By the time she turns 37,” Chris said confidently, “she’ll come back. And I’ll bet she’ll marry me then. I know she wants to have kids.”

Great! Like Chris I'm a single guy in his 30's and obviously nothing would make me happier than finding that special someone with lukewarm feelings for me to trap in a passionless and confining marriage by using our future children as anchors.

Clay

"So, if you have to have sex with someone you don't want to have sex with, what is it then?"

1. mercy fuck
fucking someone you really don't want to but you do it anyhow because you don't want to hurt their feelings.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=mercy+fuck

If the author reported that the sex was against her friends' will, or that they felt violated by their husbands, obviously that would be rape.

There is a difference. Imagine being with your boyfriend or husband at the age of 50, 60, 70. Will he still be THE man you fell in love with? Will he still be so hawt, the one you had sex with perhaps at practically every opportunity early in your relationship? Perhaps not. Is he going to lose interest in sex, and never ask you for it, just because HE is not as attractive or virile as he was in his youth or his prime? Is he going to stop wanting sex with you, just because you are aging and your body changing?

Iiiii don't thiiiiink sooooo. Seniors want it, and do it, too. In long term care, the younger female residents, say in their 40s, might be on the pill, just in case they get it on with the men. And hetero is not all. What would one expect when a group of single men and women are living together, maybe for decades? They won't form new relationships, or simply hook up? They magically stop wanting it just because they reach a certain age, or their spouses are out of the picture? Not. They will hit on staff of the opposite gender as well, male as well as female, young and not so young.

Just fair warning for the women who may be imagining a long term relationship now or in the future. You have a right to your bodies, and the right to say no. I hope none of you will ever be exploited or abused. But it doesn't mean your man will never *ask*, even if you have made prior arrangements like for procreation only, only during the "safe" time of the month, not when the kids are awake or older kids still living in the house, or not after he gets a gut.

The flip side may also be true: men may be having sex with their partners whom they do not find as attractive as when they first met/got married. Should I consider that rape as well, of the man? It may be loss of that old spark, or actual changes in her personality or physique. There are married women who still want sex from their long term partners. What happens if their men no longer want them? Time to start kinky sex to get him interested? Time for a Hitachi Magic Wand just for her? Time to fool around? Time for a breakup or divorce? Are the men just assholes for wishing their wives were something or someone else?

Aaaaand... my girl crush on Jessica has commenced with that picture.

Seriously though, I'm 21 and the straight girls I knew in high school (granted my school was in Texas) are lining up to get married and have babies all before they hit 25. I'm assuming there's always going to be some women who want to marry and procreate young, but it seems like a scary flashback to the 50s.

A male: I see what you mean.
I wasn't trying to say that these husbands are raping their wives every night.
I was speaking in the context of the article, she quotes her friends saying that they have to have sex with someone they don't want to. The problem I have is with the "have to." It's one thing to have sex with someone when you don't necessary feel like it, but are being generous and doing it anyway and having to do it.
Honestly, I have no idea what is going on in Lori Gottlieb's friends' bedrooms. I was mostly bothered by the fact that when her friends told her that they "had to have sex with someone [they] don't want to," she implies that this is what women SHOULD settle for, even aspire to, which to me, is a throwback to times where women had no voice in their marriages at all.
I just wanted to clarify that.

"It's one thing to have sex with someone when you don't necessary feel like it, but are being generous and doing it anyway and having to do it."

Yes, that is the problem with only a single sentence to go on, and based on that writer's report. Is it the "have to" of being compelled to do it against one's will = rape? Or is it "only" a chore, like "having to" cook and clean, and one of the traditional "duties" of a wife, or "having to" bear a firstborn son?

And I will point out once more that such a relationship hardly sounds desirable. Just raising the possibility she may not be talking about rape. Considering her four pages of views and generalizations about women, men, parenthood, and marriage, I can't say I know anything about her friends.

BTW, I found this. I am more acquainted with the term marital rape or simply rape, than "wife rape."

TRIGGER ALERT:

The Wife Rape Fact Sheet
Excerpt from the National Violence Against Women Prevention Research Center

http://www.musc.edu/vawprevention/research/wiferape.shtml

Patricia Mahoney, M.A.
National Violence Against Women Prevention Research Center
Wellesley Centers for Women, Wellesely College Stone Center

What is Wife Rape?
Wife Rape is the term used to describe sexual acts committed without a person's consent and/or against a person's will by a woman's husband or ex husband. Sexual acts may be committed through physical force, threats of force against her or a third person, or implied harm based on prior assaults causing the woman to fear that physical force will be used if she resists.

When a woman submits to sexual acts out of fear or coercion, it is rape. A wife does not need to be "putting up a good fight" for it to be rape (even according to the law). Sexual acts include but are not limited to penile vaginal intercourse, the insertion of genitals into the mouth or anus, or the insertion of objects into the vagina or anus.

How Common is Wife Rape?
Two studies have documented similar rates among random samples of women:
Ten to fourteen percent of ever-married women have experienced at least one forced sexual assault by a husband or ex-husband (Finkelhor & Yllo, 1985; Russell, 1990).

Studies of battered women staying in shelters and women seeking relationship help show one-third to three-quarters of those asked reported sexual assaults by their husbands or intimate partners.

[omission]

Why Would a Man Rape His Wife?
Our ability to answer this question is limited, as so little research has focused on husband-rapists. It is, however, clear from survivors’ reports that it does not stem from wives withholding sex, which is the most common myth. Most women who report being raped by their husbands also report having consensual sexual intercourse. Researchers who have spoken with husband-rapists conclude that husband-rapists rape to reinforce their power or control over their wives or families, or to express anger.

[end quote]

I shouldn't be surprised, but apparently, a lot of IPV/DV among women seeking services of a women's shelter, is sex abuse, if they are over two to seven times more likely than "ever-married" women to report being sexually assaulted. [I don't know if they are using the term sexual assault as synonymous with rape. Clearly they consider any form of insertion without consent to be rape.]

Considering that rapists are the problem in rape, I wonder why "so little research has focused on husband-rapists"? I believe the same holds true for rapists in general, or at least reporting on them. Most of what I see is about victims, and the scale of the problem.

Here's the deal, Lori:

Settling for "Mr. Good Enough" at any age will result in eventually being stuck with "Mr. Not Good Enough Anymore" a little late. In most cases, marriage requires you to spend a considerable amount of time together, make major financial and personal decisions together, maintain a home together, and possibly raise children together - you cannot successfully do these things with someone you think is "okay" and maintain your sanity. You can only overlook major differences in values, priorities, and personalities for so long. Inevitably, you will be unhappy with "Mr. Good Enough" and try to change him. In turn, he will get tired of your attempts to turn him into something he's not and want out. And then you might have to try to find "Mr. Good Enough II" at 50.

That should be "a little later".

I'm reminded of how some people recommend settling for arranged marriage (not to e confused with forced marriage) instead of marrying for love...

...but forget to mention that it depends on lowering your standards. Of course you'd be less likely to want to divorce a spouse who doesn't love you anymore, if your standards were so low you were happy to marry someone who didn't love you in the first place...

I found the article just plain sad. There is something to be said for being a little less shallow and superficial in determining who you will get into a relationship with, and not expecting perfection because it just doesn't exist. But the article goes far further than that to suggest that it's better to be married to a person who you don't even particularly like, whose touch makes you shudder, and even who is gay, rather than not be married at all.

I think what the article portrays, without intending to, is how lacking we are as a society in supportive social structures, particularly for raising a child. Fertility IS on a limited timeclock, and women who want children should not have to marry men they don't like just to have a baby. But being a single mom is intensly difficult in a hypercompetitive capitalist society where work work and more work ALWAYS has to come first, where the most you're entitled is 12 weeks of UNPAID leave. Marriage is basically the only legally and socially accepted way to take advantage of economies of scale and share domestic burdens.