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Romantic love, one of the great organising forces in Western societies, is in crisis. Just look at the low fertility rates, and correspondingly high rates of singleness and sexlessness, in the contemporary West.
Or take divorce. Even high-profile advocates for …
There are four simple principles to South Korea’s 4B movement. These are all refusals, since the “B” stands for “bi”, meaning “no” in Korean. No heterosexual marriage (bihon). No childbirth (bichulsan). No dating men (biyeonae). No sexual relationships with men …
If Oxford’s needlessly infamous sex-party scene (think the Piers Gav, or termly ketamine-fuelled fumblings in someone’s Cowley living room) is anything to go by, it’s a wonder anyone at all takes kink culture seriously. My sources assure me that spending …
How do you solve a problem like Rupert Campbell-Black? Since 1986, Jilly Cooper’s fictional show jumper has been mounting his way across the wives and daughters of her invented (but awfully familiar) county of Rutshire. Through 11 novels, the most …
A man named Javier urgently needs my help. He’s just hired a new associate named Raphael at the company where he works as a manager. Raphael is openly gay, which Javier is fine with, he quickly assures me — but …
If you are a child of the Seventies or Eighties, chances are that your formative sexual education was considerably influenced by rifling furtively through a Nancy Friday book. Even today, thanks to well-thumbed titles like My Secret Garden and Forbidden …
Throughout history, the happy convergence of men and women — and their by-product, children — has driven human civilisation. No less than Freud saw this need for family as intrinsic: “Eros and Ananke [love and necessity],” he writes in Civilisation …
In a recent appearance before the National Association of Black Journalists, Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump caused a furore by questioning the racial “identity” of Democrat Kamala Harris. “Is she Indian or is she black?” Trump wondered. “I respect either …
As Britain’s summer of crisis continues, the penitentiary industrial complex could soon be overwhelmed. Not because of a lack of resources: estimates put the prisons’ budget at £4 billion. And it’s not for a lack of bipartisan thinking: the Labour …
According to an old joke, Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung are enjoying some pastries in a Viennese coffee shop. The younger analyst hesitantly asks the elder: “Tell me, Herr Professor Freud… vat lies between fear und sex?”. With furrowed brow, …
The pioneer dream is deeply engraved in American culture and history. It’s simple but powerful: setting forth into the unknown, with just a few belongings and your immediate family, and creating a self-reliant, flourishing home in an unforgiving environment. As …
These days, we tend to interpret figures from long ago as if they lived just across the road. Such is the thesis of French sociologist Olivier Roy, who argues that an erasure of national cultural history is well underway. We …
In 1882, General Charles Gordon rediscovered the Garden of Eden. This renowned military hero, who had played a significant role in quelling the Taiping Rebellion and was later to perish at the Siege of Khartoum, had been dispatched to the …
Grand announcements in the world of AI are not rare; in fact, they are almost as frequent as new Tory Prime Ministers. Nonetheless, last week’s launch of OpenAI’s latest glittering iteration of its GPT series, GPT4o — the “o” is …
“In matters of sexuality we are at present, every one of us, ill or well, nothing but hypocrites”, said Freud — a sentiment that came to mind as I watched reactions to the government’s announcement about sex education on Wednesday. …