A Saudi judge has refused to annul an arranged marriage between an 8-year-old girl and a 47-year-old man on the grounds that the mother, who requested the annulment, did not have legal custody of the child. The father gave the girl to the man to pay a debt.

I was ready to launch into a rant about how slavery is apparently legal in Saudi Arabia and maybe would have taken a shot at those cultural relativists who argue that, given how flawed America and its history is, we have no right to judge other cultures by our Western standards. But then I read this sentence in the CNN article and understood that there was nothing, really, that needed to be said beyond the facts:

The judge did ask for a pledge from the husband, who was in court, not to consummate the marriage until the girl reaches puberty…

Tags: diatribes, his & hers
3 Comments »

If I get accosted by one more buxom 20-something woman trying to sell me skin care products, I’m going to scream.

Don’t get me wrong — I’m a guy, and there’s nothing wrong with looking… but you know the type I’m talking about. They lurk at the kiosks of your local mall, often wearing attractive clothing while sitting idly on their high chairs. When they see you walk by, they attempt to strike! An overly friendly sales pitch comes, and if they have their way, you’re walking off with $20 worth of herbal pillows, scented candles, or something else that probably winds up sitting in the back of a closet after one use.

As I found out when I did some last minute Christmas shopping, there are two such stands in my local gallery, the Stamford Town Mall. I previously knew about one at the left end of the mall because I let myself get suckered into the pitch a few weeks ago. While hustling to finish up before going on a trip, a lady of the mall suckered me in, scraping my nails and washing my hands for about 25 minutes before I finally gave in and bought a skin gel that I never opened. I vowed never to get suckered in again, and when I hit Pottery Barn this weekend to do some Christmas shopping, I hurried past the stand and thought I was in the clear.

I was free… at least until I was stopped on my way to the Barnes & Noble at the right end of the mall.

It was a different girl, but the m.o. was exactly the same. Low cut shirt, thick Israeli accent, attempting to sell me products born of materials taken from Nazareth or some other city with a holy reputation. She tried to give me her spiel, taking my hand and guiding me towards a cleaning bowl, but I quickly cut her off, saying that I’d already seen the demonstration. Her response? To give me a nail-cleaning demo that I also previously went through. I let her work, though I mentally checked out right around the time she asked me if I was going to buy something for my wife (I’m single). As soon as she brought up price, I bailed out by saying no and leaving for the B&N in one motion.

Victory was mine, but I am certain that another battle will arise soon.

Tags: easy go, his & hers
No Comments »

The comedian Todd Barry has a great bit on hanging out with the dread “we agree on everything” couple who “pretend to share the most obscure opinions in the world” as an over the top, contrived way of trumpeting just how miraculously intertwined their consciousnesses have become thanks to the Big L-O-V-E. Median interests do merge, of course, especially in marriage — that is if you want to create a home rather than two herds of competing hobby horses under a single shared roof. At the same time, individualism is the birthright of the bourgeois (see the fantastic Age of Abundance) and to completely undermine that, under whatever auspices, does a great disservice to the generations of those for whom individual pursuits, interests and rights were — and in many parts of the world still are — subverted to the all-consuming struggle to simply survive. Not to mention one of the great things about a long-term relationship is how differences in taste can broaden horizons, drag you out of self-wrought ruts, and, with surprising frequency, bring the funny.      

Last year, for example, in a piece I wrote for the now-defunct magazine Radar on extreme metal culture, I recounted a conversation in which I tried to differentiate for my wife the nuances between the death metal and grindcore bands I was about to go see:

My long-suffering wife, a financial attorney whose taste in music runs more toward the Decemberists and Built to Spill than Nasum and Tragedy, finds it difficult to take an interest in some of my interests, try as she might. 

“You must be excited to see Pig Destroyer,” she said as I headed off to last year’s Summer Slaughter package tour.

“No, it’s Cattle Decapitation,” I answered, perhaps a bit snippily. Does she ever listen to me? “Different band.”

“Wasn’t Pig Destroyer playing, too, though?”

“Actually, Cattle Decapitation is playing with … well, just plain Decapitation and Cephalic Carnage.”

“What’s ‘cephalic’ mean?”

“Um, head, I think.”

“Head carnage? Okay, have a … uh, good time?”

Likewise, this morning I somehow came to make a crack about Mario Van Peebles — that kinder, gentler cultural descendent of Richard Roundtree whose entire career has fairly screamed If only I came of age in 1971! Sadly for Mr. Van Peebles, my wife insisted I had invented the name and, so, a few hours later, disregarding the fact that she has, you know, a real job, I badgered her with an email linking to the African American star’s IMDB page. Subject line: Here’s the part where you apologize…

Her response?

I think I can be forgiven for not knowing the name of the star of the movie  How to Get the Man’s Foot Outta Your Ass, aka Baadasssss!, aka Badass, aka Gettin’ the Man’s Foot Outta Your Baadasssss! 

Umm…touche! I love my wife. Even more than Mario Van Peebles. What choice do I have?

Tags: art & entertainment, his & hers
2 Comments »

It was not an awesome week, man-wise.

My ex-boyfriend called me to see if we could possibly meet up for coffee. We broke up 7 months ago and when I moved out, I had forgotten some things. He wanted to return them. I thought, “This is nice. We can catch up, enough time has passed that we can be friendly with each other.” And besides that, I miss him. Not in the pining-away-for-my-lost-love kind of way, I just miss having him in my life. We loved each other intensely and had a ton of good times.  We had even talked about marriage and children in the future. But we each had a couple of  “sticking points,” if you will. And, for whatever reason, neither of us was able to give up our ground and meet each other in the middle. That didn’t erase the love, but it did make for an impossible relationship. So we broke up.  It happens.

As soon as I saw his face when he walked in the coffee shop, I knew this wasn’t going to be just a “How have you been? Here’s your mail” kind of chat. He had news and I wasn’t going to like it. My first thought was, “Oh God. He’s getting married.” I knew he had been dating someone but I didn’t think it was that serious. But it was even more serious than that. He is going to be a father. [Read more →]

Tags: his & hers
4 Comments »

When I first learned that Prop 8 stood firm in California, I was livid. I immediately hit the Internet and began researching why. What happened? Who was responsible for this?! The media immediately pointed at the large turnout of African Americans, and the irony that an oppressed minority group came out to vote for a black man, while simultaneously helping California write discrimination into its constitution. I could barely contain my anger. How hypocritical can you be? After all, up until 1967 blacks and whites couldn’t marry. The states wanted to protect the sanctity of marriage. Sound familiar? The very right you voted to take away from gays has only been yours for 40 years!

I blamed African Americans too. After all, 69% of African Americans voted for Proposition 8. Who else should I blame? Well, I gave it some thought and I came up with a whole bunch of people to blame. [Read more →]

Tags: his & hers, on the law
3 Comments »

I sent a link to this blog post to a gay friend — a parent, blogger, and Democrat who supported Obama. In the post, Radley Balko notes that black voters were in favor of a ban on gay marriage at significantly higher rates than were other ethnic groups. In California, the “Proposition 8 ban on gay marriage actually failed among white voters, 51-49. It was the 70 percent support from black voters that put the measure over the top.”

Gay people overwhelmingly vote Democratic and it is fair to assume that many were rooting for and some were even actively working to encourage high black voter turnout, so Obama would be elected and the Republican would not, (partly) because of the view that many gay people have that the Democrats are their best hope for legalized gay marriage. Yet that high black voter turnout is the reason that in California gay people cannot marry. It also didn’t help their cause in other states. But something troubles me aside from the irony that Balko discusses.

It is this response from my friend: “I was contemplating writing a blog very similar to this but was worried I would come off as racist, so I shelved it. This statistic is infuriating.”

We will soon have a black President. If you thought that this would make for better race relations and a more open dialogue among ethnic groups, consider people like my friend, who, despite being gay and being parents and having voted for Obama, are too worried about being perceived as racist to risk discussing something that is not only infuriating but has real consequences in their lives.

People have to get over this fear of being labeled racist, especially now.

Yes, we will soon have a black President, and he won a lot of electoral votes. But fifty-five million Americans voted against him. Many don’t share his views. Even the people who voted for him are going to disagree with him from time to time. There can’t be any walking on eggshells, any political correctness, any fear that dissent will get you labeled racist. You can’t be afraid to criticize a politician or fellow citizens, whatever group they belong to. 

We all must be free to speak our minds.  We must refuse to be paralyzed by political correctness and the imagined possibility of accusations of racism, which perhaps were not going to come at all. We must refuse to be cowed if those accusations do come. And we, all of us — black, white, Latino, other, gay, straight, liberal, conservative, libertarian — must leap to the defense of anyone who is falsely accused of racism.

Otherwise we’ll have a President — even if he’s the one you voted for — who can do whatever he wants, with the opposition too frightened to speak up. And then he’s not just a President any longer, is he?

Tags: his & hers, race & culture
5 Comments »

I read an article at Men’s Fitness and almost lost it. Do guys really need a guide like this? Hey, men out there… can you hear me? You are all fixer-uppers. It’s nothing personal. We love you. But let’s be honest for a moment… you are far from perfect. And these situations were so not on-point. “If she grimaces when you order the 32-ounce rib eye and suggests you order the chicken instead” — my advice — get out while you can! Here are a list of things I can see a guy doing that might warrant some fixing up… and no, these are not all based on my man, who was a major fixer-upper 16 years ago and is now only a mild fixer-upper:

• Hanging out with your ex-girlfriend, texting your ex-girlfriend, facebooking your ex-girlfriend
• Farting at the table or picking your nose in front of anyone (can’t you just go to a bathroom?)
• Choosing a sporting event over attending anything of importance
• Falling asleep on the couch in the middle of a get together with a group of friends
• Falling asleep on the couch during a holiday party at your aunt’s house

And by the way, if she’s running her hands through your hair in an effort to restyle it… take the hint!

Mandatory Disclaimer: I know I am not perfect and am happily making fun of the fact men think they might be!

Tags: his & hers
2 Comments »

Is it right for a woman to hate on a guy just because he lives at home?

According to a recent survey conducted by the New York Post, 52 percent of women said that they would not date a man who was living at home. I’m not defending those kinds of guys because I was one of them as recently as early May of 2007, but rather because it’s simply not fair.

Look at the economic climate that this country is dealing with. In many situations, people of both genders are being forced to stay home for financial reasons — anyone who chooses to live there and avoid paying rent or mortgages is making the smart call. Some men might have family issues to deal with that are easier to manage when they live at home. There are plenty of well-educated, well-adjusted, bright men with great futures who simply do not have the resources to get off the ground at present time. Women can’t use the privacy as a crutch to stand on either… if sexual urges hit, why can’t they simply go back to her place?

For the record, paying rent really is a bear when you’re 26…unless you work for Bear Stearns or something, and judging by the Dow’s recent performance, more than a few comfortable folks should be tightening their belts right about now.

Tags: easy go, his & hers
2 Comments »

A recent John McCain television ad attempts to depict Barack Obama as a “celebrity” on the order of Britney Spears and Paris Hilton, who make brief appearances in the ad, long enough — the McCain admen hope — for the average American, never a too discerning individual, to formulate somewhere in his often numbskull brain a few blurry equations. If these ads did not actually “define” candidates, as the admen intend (in this case that Obama is an “elitist,” whatever that means and whatever effect it has on his ability to govern), they would be laughable for the adolescent perspective from which they emerge. Not that history hasn’t shown that such ads don’t work; they apparently do: think Willie Horton and John Kerry. 

Political campaigns as played by the Republicans is a pretty nasty business; no tactic is low, cynical or pernicious enough as long as it can sway a voter away from the opposition. [Read more →]

Tags: his & hers, rulers & ruled
5 Comments »

According to the most reliable sources, the mythological Cyclops was tortured by the precise advanced knowledge of when and how it would die.

I’m no mythological creature, but I too know the precise how — if not the when — of my death. I will die by tripping over shoes my wife has left on the floor. [Read more →]

Tags: his & hers, reflections & recollections by Scott Stein
No Comments »

My wife is 8 months pregnant and she looks it. We live in New York City, with over 8 million people, but big belly and all she somehow becomes invisible when we walk on the street or take a bus or ride the subway. I become invisible too, even though I’m usually the only 6’2, 235 lb. Chinese man within a 100 foot radius. (Of course there might be another giant Chinese guy 101 or 102 feet away, but that’s too far for me to see.)

But this isn’t about me — this is about my wife, and how blind people are to pregnant women; and even worse, when people actually do see a pregnant woman, how rude they can consciously and purposefully be. [Read more →]

Tags: diatribes, his & hers
3 Comments »

I’m a feminist. Let’s just get it over with. I had an ERA button as a kid, I idolized Pat Schroeder, I signed petitions, and I got into arguments with lots of smart men and liked them anyway. Because I’m a feminist, I wanted to go after the Taliban long before 9-11, and these days I want to go after those assholes in Utah raising baby sex slaves just as much.

But, I didn’t want Hillary.

She did not set off a big spark of luv in my Anita Hill believin’ heart for a few reasons, but the main one is I believe we can do better.

The war. Gay marriage. The war. The stupid summer gas tax silliness. The war. What’s that Bosnia crap all about? Oh, and the war.

We can do better. Pat Schroeder and Arianna Huffington may not think so. Janeane Garofalo may not think so.

I think so and and my 76 year old “postfeminist” mother thought so.  I looked for more backup and found another hero of mine, a brilliant political thinker and feminist who said back in 2006, “I will not support Hillary Clinton for president.” She was right then and she’s still right. Don’t settle.

Tags: his & hers, rulers & ruled
1 Comment »