DoubleX is starting a new partnership with The Washington Post Magazine. Each week our contributors will argue over a certain question, and we invite you to join in. This week, recent talk about whether John Edwards is the father of mistress Rielle Hunter’s child makes us wonder: How should a wronged wife handle a love child?

Emily Bazelon: If Elizabeth Edwards wanted to give her husband a public flogging, I’d hand her the wet noodle. And if there was a way for her to wreak revenge on his mistress, Rielle Hunter, without hurting the baby, I’d give her that, too. But there isn’t. And to despise the child would be wrong and also soul-killing. Even (especially?) if the father of that child is your husband. A wronged wife should somehow set aside her own anger to give a rat-fink husband the space to have a relationship with his baby. A financial one, for sure, and visits, too. If she can’t countenance that, then she should get rid of the rat fink.

Hanna Rosin: That all seems lovely and humane and correct—but totally unrealistic. Even a woman as brutally honest and smart as Elizabeth Edwards has blind spots. I don’t think a wife should despise a love child. But I do think she should have the right to ignore the child. I guess what I’m arguing for here is some old-fashioned repression. Once upon a time, you could deal with these things quietly: Keep it all under wraps and save everyone’s dignity. A cheating husband should accept responsibility, but a wronged wife should be allowed to continue to pretend that it all isn’t happening.

Tags: John Edwards love child, Rielle Hunter; elizabeth edwards; marriage and commitment

Anyone remember the pleasure of reading Possession, the literary thriller and romance by A.S. Byatt? She has a new novel, The Children’s Book, in the same genre that she has dubbed postmodern-Victorian. The book centers on Olive Wellwood, a children’s book author saved from poverty by her rich and philandering husband. Byatt has an amazing ability to colonize the minds of her characters; some would say it’s her flaw. The book follows the family through various tragedies, global and personal, and winds down in a soap-operatic way. It takes some indulgence to follow all of her historical digressions and stock characters, but well worth it. Lately I have been dreaming about Tom, the favored and tragic eldest Wellwood son. DoubleX will devote its podcast to the book next week. Come and listen!

Tags: A.S. Byatt, Children's Book

Rachael, I agree it’s astounding that Dunn, whose profession is political communications, apparently has never heard that Mao, one of her two “favorite political philosophers,” is probably the greatest mass murderer in human history. She thinks the lesson of his life is “follow your own path.” Could it be possible she doesn’t know that under Mao, if you didn’t follow his path, your next path was to a mass grave?

Farcically, she also misunderstands her other favorite, Mother Teresa. As Dunn tells it, the nun received a letter from an affluent person asking to come to Calcutta to work with her. Mother Teresa replied, “Go find your own Calcutta.” Dunn explains Mother Teresa was saying, “Go find the thing that is unique to you ... not somebody’s else’s challenge.” Uh, no. Mother Teresa was saying you don’t have to come to Calcutta to address suffering—find the suffering where you are and minister to it. Maybe Obama should get Dunn a copy of Political Philosophy for Dummies.

Uh-oh. Just when we were all forgetting the name Van Jones, it looks like the Obama administration might have another PR problem on its hands. Reason’s Nick Gillespie points to this video that Glenn Beck uncovered (yeah, yeah—don’t shoot the messenger) featuring White House interim communications director Anita Dunn calling Mao Zedong one of her “favorite political philosophers.” She cites the Communist dictator to “make a simple point ... you fight your own war. You lay out your own paths.”

Dunn has worked for Obama since early 2008, and the video is from June 5, so this isn’t some archival footage from decades ago that’s being used now to make Obama look bad. (Media Matters says this was a speech to high school graduates.) It’s quite simply stupidity or cluelessness on Dunn’s part. She could have cited an untold number of sources for her banal words of wisdom—essentially, think for yourself and make your own way—and yet she drew her inspiration from the man who’s responsible for the deaths of 40 million to 70 million people.

Tags: Anita Dunn, Glenn Beck, Mao Zedong, obama administration

I’m all confused about which age group is supposed to be the Entitlement Generation. I thought it was mine; after all, I’m always hearing my elders snark about how today’s twentysomethings never graduate in four years, won’t submit to cubicle culture, and can’t get out of our parents’ basements. But it looks more and more like seniors are trying to strip us of our title.

Yesterday, Philip Rucker revealed that seniors are fretting over proposed Medicare cuts that might result in them losing some benefits. Sen. John Kyl of Arizona (a member of the over-60 club himself) is livid. “Seniors like the choices they now have, and they don’t deserve to have them ripped away,” Kyl complains. “That’s not right, that’s not fair to take these benefits away from seniors.” What benefits so concern the good senator—doctor’s visits? Prescriptions? Hip replacements? No, no, and no. Kyl and his constituents are flipping out because the cuts could affect a special Medicare program that bestows “freebies” on seniors: free aspirin, free thermometers, free Band-Aids. Nancy, a 68-year-old Tuscon resident who gets a free gym membership, “said she supports health-care reform but does not want Medicare Advantage subsidies to decrease.” Health care reform is all well and good, as long as the taxpayers continue to bankroll my yoga classes.

As though complaining about health care reform (ironic, given that health care expansion is by its very nature a transfer of wealth from the young to the old) weren't enough, seniors are being pandered to by officials who have decided to give them all $250 in January, just for being old. Usually seniors get a cost of living adjustment in their Social Security benefits at the beginning of the year. Never mind that there shouldn’t be such an adjustment in 2010, because the recession has driven the cost of living down. Never mind that 2009’s adjustment was artificially inflated by high energy prices that dropped quickly, giving seniors a huge boost in their buying power over the past year. It’s apparently unthinkable that we might start a year without doling out more cash to old folks, so $250 a piece it is. That’s $13 billion total.

It’s maddening. But the young people who are watching our national debt balloon while our statesmen fight for the right to free Band-Aids have no one to be mad at but ourselves. You can’t blame seniors for liking free stuff—who doesn’t? And you can’t blame politicians for representing the interests of the people who put them in office. That’s their job. But why, exactly, is it seniors who propel politicians to success? It’s not their numbers. (18-to-34-year-olds have an edge of about 30 million people on people over 65.) It’s their voting record. Old folks vote. Young people don’t. And unfortunately, this is accepted wisdom that we don’t look willing to subvert anytime soon. Despite the much-hyped “youth vote” in the 2008 presidential election, fewer than half of eligible 18-to-24-year-olds voted, while 70 percent of seniors did. Even worse, election experts say the youth turnout then was about Barack Obama, not about a sustainable surge in political interest among young people.

If we want to begin to wrest control of the political system away from the Centrum Silver set, we’re going to have to start rolling out for every state and national election, not just getting on board when a particularly cool candidate comes along to replace a particularly loathsome one. Until we start competing with seniors’ numbers at the polls, we should have zero expectation that we’ll compete with their influence on politicians—or that we’ll be able to stop the politicians from spending workers’ money on retirees’ freebies.

Photograph of senior woman by Digital Vision/Getty Images.

Tags: entitled kids, generation y, health care, Medicare, voting

It’s looking more and more likely that the “balloon boy” drama of yesterday was a big hoax—not only is there the comment by 6-year-old Falcon Heene that it was “for a show,” but video footage shows the dad launching the balloon himself. Even if it wasn’t, I don’t think we’re done talking about the Heenes yet.

We’ve heard about their quest to discover extraterrestrial life and all about the storm chasing, but has anyone else seen this video? CNN’s morning host John Roberts played a brief clip from it and asked father Richard Heene about the boy’s use of profanity.

I’m bad at making out rap lyrics when they’re performed by the pros, and I can’t decipher everything going on here. But the boys do say “pussified” and “shut the fuck up.” That’s not even the worst, though. After a line about dumping “a big load” on the side of the road (with one of the boys waving a roll of toilet paper, just in case you didn’t get it), they flash to another one of the kids sitting in a toilet “dressed up” as Mr. Hankey, the Christmas poo, from South Park. (Please let that be chocolate pudding.) The parents even make cameos.

I understand there’s a legitimate debate in this country as to whether we overprotect and coddle our children. I admit that while I will always stick up for the parents who let their 10-year-old walk to soccer practice or ride the subway, I’m probably in practice a little overprotective of my own kids. (I about fainted when I realized my 6-year-old could stand up on the crossbar of his bike. I’m so not ready for him to be in the X Games.)

But the Heenes aren’t just letting their kids be adventurous. They’re abdicating their responsibility to teach children how to conduct themselves in polite society. And if the Octomom can get a reality show, the offers can’t be far behind for the Heenes, even if they admit this is a hoax. Jon Gosselin finally came to his senses and is trying to get his kids off television because he’s worried about them (though I’m not convinced it’s not at least partially about the money). If even he can see that putting his kids on TV might warp them, how awful would it be to put these kids on television precisely because of their already warped upbringing?

Tags: balloon boy, balloon hoax, falcon heene, Heene family

Poor Ariel. She’s got the lusty red hair, but it’s tough to make the cover of Playboy without hot legs. (They’re required for more than just running, dancing, it seems.) She, and many equally deserving characters, were beat to the honor of being the first animated Playboy cover girl by none other than Marge Simpson, who poses coyly on the front of the November issue.

Somehow Marge as the first animated bunny just doesn’t seem right. Jessica Rabbit would be an obvious contender, for more than just the pun. I polled our Facebook fans and got some other great suggestions. Kathleen Orin and her husband had a list of 13, including April O’Neil from the Ninja Turtles, She-ra, Daphne from Scooby Doo, and Smurfette (“if you're going blue hair/yellow body, why not blue body/yellow hair?”). Facebook fan Cherise LaPine Grueninger suggested Jane Lane from Daria. (Although really I think Quinn is more in the Playboy mold.) And Maya Archer-Doyle offers “Little Lulu, if you asked Roman Polanski ... ”

What other fine specimen of animation do you think deserves a cover spot—either on Playboy or Playgirl? Submit your nominations in the comments section or on the DoubleX Facebook page, and we’ll run a photo gallery of the best picks.

Tags: cartoons, comics, Disney, Playboy

A question from the latest Desire Lab, our project on female desire: When I raised the topic of rape fantasies in my New York Times Magazine article, "What Do Women Want?" I did so with some hesitation—and with some uneasiness from the psychologists I had spoken with about the subject. Let’s state clearly what probably goes without saying: This discussion is not an endorsement of sexual assault. But it would be enlightening to hear your analysis about the appeal of such fantasies. And it would be illuminating to know whether there are lots of women out there whose imaginings don’t include the themes of violence and submission at all.

Please do feel free to comment on each other’s contributions, but remember to be respectful. This is a space that aims not for judgment but insight. Please send answers to desirelabxx@gmail.com.

In my review of Barbara Ehrenreich’s anti-positivity jeremiad Bright-Sided, I mention being bullied into smiling as a kid. “No one’s ever asked me to smile,” a dear male friend commented upon reading the piece. Well, no kidding. For reasons I cannot fathom Ehrenreich never mentions gender, but women are humanity's traditional ambassadors of perkiness. Men wear solemnity like they wear gray. It’s dignified.

I’d suspect that this were all in my head were it not a relatively persistent theme in American literature. I’m thinking of Dorothy Parker’s short story “Big Blonde,” in which Hazel Morse is driven to a suicide attempt by her suitors’ insistence that she be a “good sport” and “snap out of it.” There’s Lorrie Moore’s story “You’re Ugly Too,” in which the protagonist says of her Midwestern town, “You weren’t supposed to be critical or complain… You were never supposed to say you weren’t ‘fine thank you—and yourself?’… you were supposed to be Heidi … all men, deep down, wanted Heidi.” And though this example isn’t gendered, I think also of Joan Didion’s wonderful “Many Mansions.” Describing her “favorite house in the world,” she writes:

The bedrooms are big and private and high-ceilinged and they do not open on the swimming pool and one can imagine reading in one of them, or writing a book, or closing the door and crying until dinner.

There is something dark and horrid about a house without corners to cry in, which—exaggeratedly, no doubt—is the world Ehrenreich describes as our own.

What else, commenters? Help some struggling English Ph.D. student write a thesis.

Portrait of a young woman smiling by Stockbyte/Getty Images.

Tags: Barbara Ehrenreich, Bright-Sided, literature