If you're anything like me, you've probably complained that there aren't any guys out there, and the good ones are taken (or gay). Well, be glad you don’t live in Russia, where there's statistical evidence to prove it: the population is made up of 43.3 percent men and 57.7 percent women, meaning men are outnumbered by 10. 5 million. And you thought the options in New York City were disappointing.
According to Yulia Varra, a Russian woman who runs a class on how to meet and marry a man:
“Finding a Russian man over forty who has money and isn’t an alcoholic is extremely hard. Such a man will probably have a car, a weekend cottage, but often also a wife or at least a mistress or two. Yet, to many Russian women this is still a better option than settling for an indebted drunk.”
Varra’s class, called "How to Marry in Three Months" (not to be confused with her other class, "How to be a Better Lover") is intended to give women a competitive edge in the marketplace of Russian dudes. Classes like this are increasingly common, and, since Russian men are apparently more likely to be alcoholics, leave the country for work, and die younger, there is no end in sight.
Part of me wants to say it’s sad that, in 2011, women still feel like their only hope at happiness and economic success is to get married, even if they need to take a flirting class to make that happen. And part of me looks at the magazine rack in the drugstore and thinks if someone taught a class like that here, it’d be just as popular.
Comments ( 7 )
coverage for sexual reassignment is complicated for me not on moral grounds, but in terms of precedent and scope. that is, when does it stop? if a small-busted woman feels that, deep down, she is a large-busted woman and must have surgery to achieve the appearance that she feels most truly conveys her identity, then why shouldn't she be covered as well? what about penis enlargement? what about permanent cosmetics? it's an interesting proposition, but they "why" of it (beyond improving morale) needs to be more clearly defined.
I agree that reclaiming the n-word is dubious. It's co-option attempts to take away it's power to hurt from the outsiders who use it, but it's just such a powerful, nasty word that is too connected to slavery and cultural genocide. I would say that the biggest success story in these realms has to be embracing the word queer.
I think that Lady Chatterly's Lover or some of Henry Miller's works probably "angry up the blood" just as much, if not more, than garden-variety porno.
Me you sex
oddly enough the Chicago Tribune reported that the proper verb for Civil Unions is to certify. So people have been "certified"....which just sounds so technical and unfeeling.
Hmmm... shortage of men in Russia, (scarier) shortage of women in India and China... I think we need to hook that up.
I don't want to sound judgemental, but how do you not know that your wife was a man?
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