Topic: history

Why I’m Still Skeptical Of Marriage

Why I'm Still Skeptical Of Marriage

So a lot has been written on this here website about marriage: imaginary weddings, real weddings, marriage equality for gay people, desire to marry, pressure for to marry, etc. I have even puzzled out my own unexpected case of wedding fever. Hell, Ashley and Jennifer take a moment out of each week to decide which fictional character/animal/wheat product they would marry, given the opportunity.

But one position that’s been underrepresented is that oft-caricatured hallmark of second-wave feminism: skepticism. Believe it or not, there are plenty of reasons for a person, male or female, to be reluctant to participate in this storied institution, and they don’t all have to do with hating men or burning our bras. More »

Retro Romance: What Dating Was Like In The 1980s

Retro Romance: What Dating Was Like In The 1980s
Men.
Women.
Fashion.
Drinks.
Dinner.

America in the 1980s was bookended by the murder of John Lennon in 1980 and the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989. In between there was MTV, AIDS, Duran Duran, crack, Michael Jackson, and Tiananmen Square.

If dating in the 1980s had to be summed up in one word, it would be the mall. It was the best of times and it was the most consumerist of times. Guys and girls were shopping for love in all the greedy places. Here’s what dating was like in the 1980s… More »

What Anne Frank & Other Famous Historical Figures Would’ve Really Thought Of Justin Bieber

What Anne Frank & Other Famous Historical Figures Would've Really Thought Of Justin Bieber
Shirley Temple
Margaret Thatcher
Abraham Lincoln
Cleopatra
Napoleon Bonaparte

Yesterday, Justin Bieber said something that irritated a lot of people (in fact, Amanda literally threw stuff across the room and screamed). While visiting the Anne Frank House in Germany, he wrote this message in the guestbook: “Truly inspiring to be able to come here. Anne was a great girl. Hopefully she would have been a belieber.”

Yeah. Uhm. More »

Sex Tips From History: Get Circumcised So Your Wife Never Has An Orgasm

Sex Tips From History: Get Circumcised So Your Wife Never Has An Orgasm

Hello everyone! It’s time now for a new column called “Sex Tips From History,” wherein each week I will spotlight a useful sex and/or love tip from that greatest sex instructor of all, history. Some of them are going to be awful, so maybe don’t try them at home. Or do, but be aware that some people hate history and hence will not take kindly to your attempts to bring it into the bedroom. More »

Les Misérables: French Revolutions, In Order

Les Misérables: French Revolutions, In Order

If you’re anything like me, all this talk about the Les Mis movie, with its glancing attentions to the Paris Uprising of 1832, has reignited your long-dormant interest in French military history (I assume you’re already all talked out on Anne Hathaway’s weight loss and Russell Crowe’s singing voice). Between 1789 and 1905 the French tried to have a revolution at least once a year, to keep things fresh. Here are a few of the best ones. More »

Hot Stuff Guys Used To Do: Be Cicisbeo (The Male Equivalent Of A Mistress)

Hot Stuff Guys Used To Do: Be Cicisbeo (The Male Equivalent Of A Mistress)

I think one of the things that makes me not want to develop a time machine and go back to the 18th century right now (despite the great wigs) is the notion that I would probably be married off to someone I didn’t like very much, who would then take a mistress. While I would do… nothing. At least, nothing in terms of fun and flirtations and romance. I would bear children, and I would knit. Knitting. That’s a thing ladies do. They knit like fiends, slowly forming the nets that mirror the metaphoric web called life which has so trapped them.

Wrong! Not true! And not the case for all women. If you eneded up in, say, 18th century Italy, you would totally not knit, because you would have a cicisbeo (sometimes called a cavalier servente).

While men were permitted mistresses, in Italian culture through the 18th and 19th century a somewhat similar arrangement existed for women More »

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