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Men attracted to emotionally unstable women, preferably no older than 18, studies show



This week’s peer-reviewed portrayal of fragile masculinity comes to you from the journal Science Advances, which recently published a depressing new study about online dating. Researchers looked at nearly 200,000 heterosexual users and found that while men’s sexual desirability peaks at age 50, women hit their prime at 18. And then it’s all downhill from there apparently. Can I just remind you that 18-year-olds are teenagers, and so this study is basically saying that straight men don’t find women attractive; they like girls.

#NotAllMen, I’m sure. However, this isn’t the first study to find men are fixated on women a lot younger than them. A 2010 study by OKCupid found that “the median 30-year-old man spends as much time messaging teenage girls as he does women his own age”. No doubt Roy Moore might have a thing or two to say about that.

I promise you I’m not here to promote the gay agenda and undermine heterosexuality, but I’ve got another alarming report to really top things off. A recent study, published in the Journal of Sex Research found that “men whose partners had less emotional stability reported better sexual function”. Sounds really healthy, guys.

While these studies may focus on sexual relations, they’re yet another reminder that we’re facing a crisis of masculinity that is reverberating across every aspect of our society. The far right is dominated by men, many of whom seem to be searching for a sense of identity. For feminism to get anywhere we must seriously address how we think about masculinity.

Matters of debate: Nixon v Cuomo

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Andrew Cuomo will debate Cynthia Nixon. Photograph: Darren Ornitz/Reuters

Andrew Cuomo, New York’s governor, has finally agreed to debate gubernatorial candidate Cynthia Nixon; the two will face off later this month. Nixon has accused Cuomo of being a diva about the debate, saying he has completely dictated its format. Apparently Cuomo has been very insistent that the debate must be seated, which has a lot of people intrigued. Is he really that afraid of standing against Nixon?

Sisterhood of the traveling Trumps

Omarosa Manigault Newman continued to play the media like a fiddle this week, releasing excerpts of conversations she taped while at the White House. One of these is a phone recording between Manigault Newman and Eric Trump’s wife, Lara Trump, offering her a $15,000-a-month job on Donald Trump’s re-election campaign. The offer came after Manigault Newman was fired, and some might consider it hush money. Lara Trump responded to claims the Trumps were trying to buy Manigault Newman’s silence with a sad statement about how “[w]oman to woman, I shared a connection with Omarosa”. Lara Trump lamented that the former White House official was “welcomed into the family as a friend and trusted confidant” and, with other women on the campaign tour, developed a “sisterhood bond that is unlike any I have experienced in my life”. Nothing brings the gals together quite like plotting to help their patriarchs overturn their rights to bodily autonomy, eh!

Rest in Power, Aretha Franklin

I love this video of the queen of soul talking about her hit Respect, and how she turned it into a “battle cry” for women.

Play Video 1:49 'A women’s anthem': Aretha Franklin on Respect – video

• This article was amended on 20 August 2018. An earlier version referred to a recently released phone recording in which Lara Trump offered Omarosa Manigault Newman “a $15,000 job” . That has been clarified to say a $15,000-a-month job.