My older sister Catherine warned me.
She had picked me up from the airport a week before Christmas in 2006. As the dusk gave way to dark and the Texas horizon rolled out before us, we rode in silence—until I confessed. I had come dangerously close to cheating on Nathan (some names have been changed), my […]

I kissed a girl and I liked it. So go the lyrics of Katy Perry’s top-of-the-charts song playing endlessly on the radio. Apparently, she’s not the only one. Some married women like it, too—a lot. It’s what piqued their interest in “the lifestyle” and locked them in for life.
Part one of my swingers article, “The […]

1967 may have been the summer of love, but 2008 will go down as the summer of sex. Women flocked to the theaters to see if Carrie would really walk down the aisle with Mr. Big in Sex and The City: The Movie, and they are tuning in on Thursday nights for a peak at […]

Those who weren’t in the workforce 46 years ago might find Mad Men a bit of a shock. Not only do the employees of the Sterling Cooper advertising agency smoke and drink at work, the men are sexist pigs, and the women, still several years away from feminist bra burning, play second fiddle—when not fiddling […]

Let’s face it: Breakups suck.
But in the era of social media where Facebook friends morph within nanoseconds into real-time lovers, then descend just as quickly into frenemy territory, splits and their attendant issues now live on the World Wide Web for all your so-called “friends” to see and engage with. News about relationship difficulties, alleged […]

Elisabeth Moss, best known for playing presidential daughter Zoey Bartlet on the West Wing, portrays young secretary-turned-copywriter Peggy Olson on AMC’s Mad Men. Here, she discusses her character’s journey, her on-show style and her off-show dating life.

The 1970s are over, but some things seem to be making a comeback: lava lamps, wallpaper, Donna Summer’s concert tour and…swingers. The fascination with “the lifestyle” (as swingers fondly call it) is seeping into suburban, upper-middle class social scenes. Over drinks and dessert, discussions once focused on home renovations and restaurant openings are giving way […]

Marriage is not going so well for my husband Rob and me. Our fifth anniversary approaches, and we haven’t had sex in more than a year. We’ve buried our feelings about that deep. We also avoid talking about finances and children, and anything else you could file under the category “future hopes.” Outside of an […]

On the surface, Joan Holloway is a secretarial stereotype: the super-sexy, head-turning queen bee of the office, the one who’s having a hot affair with her married boss. But as played by Christina Hendricks, Joan is so much more, and one of the many delights of Mad Men, which begins its second season on AMC […]

I am a closet exhibitionist. Very few people know this about me because I’m a bookish introvert who has seldom been the life of a phone call, let alone a party. However, the vast majority of my masturbation fantasies involve me having sex with one or several partners, while one or several other people […]