While I’m irritated at the advice offered in the U.S. News & World Report article, mostly because it makes a lot of nasty assumptions about the people involved, (men don’t talk about their feelings, can’t function on their own without a woman to do their thinking for them, and women are judgmental harpies who will withhold sex when no money is coming in), at its root, it does try to pass along some truly valid advice.

First of all, every person’s situation is different, and with any advice article you have to know that it’s generalizations. You or your partner may well be the exception. Likewise, your relationship may be in trouble for reasons that can’t be solved by talking more, less, or having sex (as that article suggests). If your partner becomes abusive or is becoming seriously depressed, get professional help. Seriously. Don’t turn to blogs for tips.

“There are plenty of sunny day relationships, and sometimes we don’t know that we’re in one until it starts to rain.”

The Situation
Job loss is hard, no matter who you are, and it’s harder still when you can’t bounce right back. Our economy is to blame for this, and we’re also going through a cultural shift, one that’s been building up for a while now. There are a lot of factors here, and few, if any of them, have to do with you or your partner personally. Part of what makes it so hard is not having the ability to control your prospects. Before, you could go back to school, rewrite your resume, look into different lines of work, or get an entry level job somewhere. Now, you’re pretty much screwed every which way, unless you have a very specific skill set that’s in demand.

It’s not your fault
It’s hard times right now. We all need to make sacrifices. What’s critically important is not blaming one another, but supporting each other and taking the time to remind one another (and yourselves) that you do love each other, you will get through this, and you can fix this. It may not happen over night, but you can do this, together.

What’s hard, as I mentioned before, is not having that element of control. In some ways, it’s a lot scarier to be blameless when you have job loss. At least, if it was your fault, you know what you did and you can avoid doing it again. You can start over somewhere else. When the economy just sucks, you probably were laid off for no other reason than the company just couldn’t afford you anymore. That’s scary, because you really didn’t do anything wrong.

Sex IS important
If your relationship is a sexual one, sex is important for both people as a stress reliever and as a way of reaffirming the physical bond. That’s not true of everyone, but it is true for a lot of couples in committed sexual relationships.

Fighting isn’t bad. Picking fights is.
Tip toeing around the issue won’t help anyone. If you haven’t had at least one break down moment and confronted someone about why they’re being such an ass, you’re either walking on egg shells or you should start sharing some tips with the rest of us. Try and listen to one another and remember that yes, this sucks, but it isn’t your partner’s fault, unless he or she did screw up the economy or played a big role in the current economic crisis, (in which case, you’ve got way bigger problems, called Karma with a capital K).

Use a fight to listen, not treat your partner like a punching bag. It’s a time to express how angry, frustrated or hurt you are because of something they have done. If they have been treating you badly, let them know. Don’t use your partner as someone to dump your shit on because you’re angry or upset about other things. That’s not what he/she is there for.

Fighting can be productive and bring people together. They happen when emotions reach a boiling point. Most people don’t like confrontation and try to avoid it, and that’s why fights tend to be explosive – they feel like they just can’t take anymore, and usually one little thing will “set them off,” – it’s the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. Even though most fight start off passionate and emotion fueled, don’t let that emotion blind you to what your partner is saying or how they’re reacting. If you’re angry that they’ve been treating you badly and they apologize, don’t keep going and blaming them. Yes, they made you angry, and getting out anger can be therapeutic, but try and know what you need from your partner in order to make it okay. If a heartfelt apology and a hug doesn’t fix it, what will?

When it’s too broken
The truth underneath all of this is that hard times bring people together and pull them apart. Ever heard of a sunny day friend? There are plenty of sunny day relationships, and sometimes we don’t know that we’re in one until it starts to rain. You can be supportive and cheer your partner on without debasing yourself. You can tell him or her what they need to hear in order to pull it together and do what they need to do.

Why relationships are important
Being in a partnership however is meant to make life a little bit easier – through support, love and companionship. Your partner should be able to hack it without you nudging them along. That doesn’t mean it isn’t nice to have someone’s support and help at difficult times in our lives.

Exhibit 1: Offensive stereotypes apply to everyone and if you don’t like it, get your own damn site!!! Nyah!!

Yes, we’re the crazy, emotionally damaged ones. Thaaaaat’s riiiiiight… And when we try to say that while some, even many women may at one point in their life or another fulfill this stereotype, you surely can’t believe all women do? Shouldn’t we see this as an opportunity to improve communic… why are you screaming? What is that? Ew, is that a used condom? Why are you putting hot sauce in a used… I don’t want that. Stop… stop laughing.

Exhibit 2: We hate logic here! You just try and make sense and see what kind of rating you get, logicpants!
Women, you just don’t understand. Sometimes men just need to vent. It isn’t always rational. It isn’t always logical. Sometimes, it’s down right hateful. But just like you need to hate on men sometimes, men too need to hate on women. On the internet. With fists of one star ratings! You bitch!

Exhibit 3: I don’t have a retort, I just have maniacal laughter. Coincidentally, my comment has 5 stars.
God, why can’t you just leave us alone for ONCE in your goddamn lives, women! So what if we’re talking about you, or making offensive, misogynistic generalizations about you and everyone else you share a gender with. So what? We just want to hang out with our buds on this public website devoted to picking up women! Or objectifying them! Or SOMETHING! Shut up women! Also, hahahahhahahahhahhahahaha. There. What are you going to do, cry about how you’re on your woman’s period? Whatever.

I don’t generally bother with stuff like this, but I want to point a few things out. After all, everyone’s got an opinion, and I’m no exception. For those of you lucky enough to have no idea who Carrie is or what all of this is about, she’s the former Miss California 2009 beauty queen. Perez Hilton, a gossip blogger, was a judge for the competition and asked Ms. Prejean what her stance on gay marriage was. It should come as no surprise that Hilton, an openly gay man, would be offended by her answer, which was not at all in support of gay rights. Prejean was later fired for “failing to meet contractual obligations.”

I’m not going to get into a big to do over what she said or what’s right or wrong – I think that people have a right to say what they believe, regardless of whether or not we like it. If Perez knew of Prejean’s stance on the issue, it seems an awful lot like a set up to make a beauty contest the platform to air his grievances about it. It just doesn’t seem relevant within that context. I believe in equal rights for everyone, regardless of religion (or lack there of), sexual orientation, gender or color. I also believe in free speech and freedom of thought.

I think that the mania following Prejean’s statements and eventual firing are complete bullshit, though, and that’s why I’m writing a blog post about it. Oh Perez, why did you have to make a beauty contest about gay rights? I’m not saying it’s not important or relevant, but you effectively made the contest a morality issue, and I fail to see how boob jobs, eating disorders and bleached roots have any fucking thing to do with morality and human rights. Hindsight is 20/20, but no matter what Prejean said, it would only ever possibly be a moral issue after you broached the subject. Way to go.

A movement has started to “stand with Carrie” which presents a really touchy issue: do we support Carrie for standing up for her convictions even if that could have cost her the crown, or do we condemn her for winning anyway and making the Prop 8 issue an excuse to behave badly? How can we choose? How can I honestly say that I don’t support Carrie? I may strongly disagree with her, but I sure do support her right to say whatever the hell she wants, even if it pisses off a really angry queen. The reason I support her is the same reason I support gay rights. It’s about freedoms. And I can’t tell you how pissed I am at Perez Hilton for lacking the common sense to see what kind of a hot mess he’d create with that question. There is NO way Prejean could have answered that question without it becoming a huge issue. If she said no, it would have been to please Perez, and the entire thing would have been rigged. If she said yes, as she did, and ANYTHING went awry, it would be because the entire thing was rigged. It’s a no-win situation for Perez. How could he have missed that?

What makes this all the more disgusting is Prejean’s behavior. I’m so loathe to use Fox as a legitimate news source, but I feel like it’s oddly fitting here.

What bugs me about all the people saying she was fired for her convictions, get real. Maybe she was, but it’s equally probable she was fired for being a douchebag and not fulfilling her contractual obligations. Perez basically set it up where she couldn’t be fired without everyone who agrees with her saying it was because of her beliefs, rather than any bad behavior. He also made it pretty much impossible not to support Carrie Prejean, regardless of whether or not you agree with her. Damn it, Perez. Not only did you shoot yourself in the foot, but you basically threw a public hissy fit that landed every supporter of Gay rights under a banner of anti-free speech, no matter how ridiculous that is.

Marche’s article isn’t so much a thoughtful analysis of what’s happening, so much of an acknowledgement that something has happened, but he isn’t quite sure what. He does touch on it briefly, when commenting on Lily Allen’s song, It’s not Fair, in which she complains, “You’re supposed to care, but all you do is take … It’s not fair, and I think you’re really mean / You’re supposed to care, but you never make me scream.”

Whenever observing a sea change in one gender, it’s pretty important to see what’s going on with the other gender. It’s pretty clear that there’s an attitude among the male gender that if you pay lipservice to your lady, you can avoid doing any leg work in bed. Lily’s complaint is that she can’t have her cake and eat it too – she has to choose between a good lay and a good man; she can’t have both.

More women are recognizing that there isn’t a whole lot of point to sexual freedom if you aren’t getting good sex. The benefits of casual sex don’t outweigh the risks. If you’re going to bother with it, it should at least be fun, even if it does come with the increased chance of contracting herpes. If it’s okay to go and have casual sex, then it should be just as okay (if not more so) to take care of those needs all by yourself.

Lily’s is a false choice, however. There are plenty of good guys out there, and Marche inadvertenty identifies himself as one of them when he talks about the lack of sexually empowered women who aren’t just airheads. Marche doesn’t want to take just anyone home, he wants a little more, and there’s nothing wrong with that. In fact, it bodes well for future gender relations. The idea that there’s something empty and unfulfilling about sex with just anyone – especially someone who’s all body and no brains – suggests that even casual sex isn’t just about carnal desires. Casual sex is evolving as a cultural concept from a purely physical and empty exchange to something far more appealing and understandable. Casual sex, at least for Marche (and most likely a growing number of people, male and female), is much more about seduction. Seduction involves a lot more brains than cup size.

Seduction is almost entirely about mystery and intrigue. In a homogenized sexual culture where everyone is getting the same wax, the same boob jobs and the same smiles, there’s hardly anything left to the imagination. We’re becoming cookie cutter people and inevitably, we’re stripping ourselves entirely of our identities, our mystery. We are no longer interesting or discoverable.

What Marche is really lamenting is the rarity of seduction in our modern times. No one is getting seduced anymore, and that’s a shame.

In Dan Neil’s LA Times article, he talks about just how bizarre these ads get – you’ve probably seen some of them:

Consider the new Quiznos ad for Toasty Torpedo sandwiches (Nitro). This one’s a little hard to describe but it appears that Scott, a Quiznos baker, has had some kind of dangerous liaison with the oven, which speaks to him: “Scott, I want you to do something,” the oven says in a husky male voice. “I’m not gonna do that again,” Scott says. “That burned.” “We both enjoyed that,” the oven answers.

The oven then demands that Scott make a foot-long Toasty Torpedo and — I quote — “Put it in me, Scott.”

Weird. Gross. The idea that Scott the Quizno’s guy is diddling the sandwich oven doesn’t inspire me to go out and buy a Quizno’s “toasty” sandwich. It makes me seriously consider calling the health inspector. Neil goes on to offer some theories as to why this is a current ad trend:

For one thing, these ads target a young audience, digital natives who have had their normative values defined by life online, which is generally pretty risque (I have no doubt there is a man-on-toaster website out there). For another, humor is about the only defense advertisers have against the commercial-skipping fast-forward button on the DVR. And sex is, on a cosmic level, pretty hilarious.

True, sex sells, but there are some things you just don’t combine. My lunch and your penis are two of those things. As a young audience member and a product of our Rule #34 culture, my threshold for what I consider funny and what I consider gross is considerably higher than say, my mom’s. I can certainly understand how Carl’s Jr.’s ads might be passable as funny, and to a degree they are, but they’re mostly just stupid. Much in the same way Axe Bodyspray commercials are stupid. But Carl’s Jr. knows what audience its targeting, and I think it does so successfully. There is a pretty significant douchebag demographic, and they do spend money on douchebag things. So yes, if your product appeals to douchebags, don’t fight it. Embrace your inner douche. That’s the Carl’s Jr. lesson.

Other restaurants, however, are family establishments, or appeal more to the lunchtime business crowd (I’m looking at you, machine-fucker-Scott). Or in the case of Burger King, someone, (I’m not naming any names, crispinporterbogusky), thought a great way to market to children and their parents was to get Sir Mix Alot to update his homage to the bodonkadonk. For children. I can see the brain trust meeting now – “but that song is so much a part of our culture, it’s no longer about butts, it’s an anthem. A buttthem.” Yes. It is. For college douchebags. I don’t see many four or five year olds rocking the popped collar, oh wait. (Photo: men.style.com)

Neil tries to make sense of this madness by suggesting that by sexualizing its products, the fast food industry is making a last ditch effort to salvage its distinctly unsexy product. But in our economy, is that a big threat? Are people going, “you know what, we’ve really struggled to make enough money to buy dinner and we can afford to get more food at McDonald’s. Screw it, though, those dollar menu items aren’t sexy enough. Let’s go get an organic head of lettuce and some locally produced mayonaise.”

I doubt it. No, I think this, like many trends, is just a poorly thought out way of keeping up with the Joneses. It works for Carl’s Jr. because Carl’s Jr. is a douchebag with a douchebag product. It cannot work for Quizno’s or Burger King.