Jess, Hanna—It’s striking that in the varying decisions on whether to stay together or break up made by Silda Spitzer, Elizabeth Edwards, Jenny Sanford, and Elin Woods, all the wives, until their husbands’ infidelities were spectacularly exposed, apparently felt they were in good marriages. I find it hard to draw any feminist conclusions about the advisability, or not, of leaving a husband you discover has been unfaithful. For one thing, the average happily married woman who finds her husband is cheating is not going to be contemplating being financially set for life—unlike the foursome above—if she leaves. And I don’t think it’s an antifeminist decision to decide to stay in a decidedly imperfect marriage if a woman feels that on balance—especially if there are children involved—it’s better to stay. It’s all so individual! It’s perfectly understandable that Elin Woods, devastated by the image of her husband’s Cheaper by the Two Dozen weekends, realizes there’s no going forward, and it’s equally understandable that Sila Spitzer concludes life is better with him.

Tags: cheating husbands, elin woods, Elizabeth Edwards, Jenny Sanford, silda spitzer

As news of actress Brittany Murphy's death spread throughout the blogosphere last night, her name—both spelled correctly and with a misplaced "e"—was a trending topic on Twitter. Her 32 years were summed up by strangers in less than 140 characters, often peppered with RIPs and copious frowny faces. I know that this is the way people communicate now. I'm not going to go on some sort of Andy Rooney-style rant, or insist that their grief or upset, however brief, wasn't real. But there's certainly a lack of gravitas when a person's death is sandwiched between raves for Avatar and shout-outs to your girl Snooki from Jersey Shore.

Commenters on Gawker's post about Murphy's death were similarly nonplussed about the lack of depth in Twittered and blogged responses. "Here comes my favorite part. When every internet commenter offers their 'condolences' and their 'deepest sympathies,' " one wrote. "Guess what internet commenters? Her family doesn't give a shit about your condolences." That's a pretty over-the-top harsh reaction—but there is something unsettling about the superficiality of the grief of total strangers.

Tags: brittany murphy, death, twitter

As the health care bill moves through the Senate pockmarked but alive—with a crucial 60-40 procedural vote in the wee hours Monday morning—my inbox includes a message from the National Women's Law Center calling Senator Ben Nelson's abortion provision "unwise, unworkable, and unfair." The NWLC complains of "burdensome hurdles," singling out the rule that would make women who get abortion coverage make two separate payments each month, one for the abortion coverage and one for everything else. This is truly an idea only a diabolical bureaucrat could love. When is it ever a good idea to be punitive by imposing stupid inefficiency?

But the other just-for-Nelson concession doesn't seem so bad to me. Under the Senate bill, states can choose to bar abortion coverage in the new insurance exchanges. Or they can choose to allow it. Yes, this will leave some women in conservative parts of the country who enter the exchanges without insurance that covers abortions. But it's a lot better than the blanket ban in the House version of the bill because of the Stupak Amendment. And Nelson's opt-out also makes abortion a state-by-state decision, often the best way to prevent the issue from detonating politically. Given what's on the line, that seems like a compromise the pro-choice side can live with.

At the same time, pro-choice groups have to protest, because Nelson's opt-out enshrines in law the geographic reality that has eaten away at the national right created by Roe v. Wade, namely that abortions are somewhere between difficult and impossible to get in swathes of the South and West. Formally speaking, this has nothing to do with constitutional law. But as my colleague Will Saletan points out, it sends a signal that the national reach of Roe isn't sacrosanct.

Tags: abortion rights, healthcare bill, healthcare reform, roe v. wade

In response to a reality TV show about sex addiction starring Dr. Drew (whose first instinct when he hears a woman talk about her sexual desires is to ask what broke her), Tracy Clark-Flory of Salon investigates the question of whether or not there is such a thing as sex addiction. She comes to no definite conclusions, but I'm going to side with skeptics like Susie Bright and Dan Savage and say that I highly doubt that people are "addicted" to sex. The entire enterprise has more than a whiff of woo to it, starting with the fact that the definition of "addiction" is entirely subjective.

Proponents define sex addiction as any kind of sexual behavior that causes stress to you, your family, or your work life. In theory, this sounds like a fair way to define it, but in practice, this means that if your coworkers or family members are serious prudes, homophobes, or have massive hang-ups, then you are fair game for being called a sex addict. People who masturbate with any regularity often find themselves being eyeballed as sex addicts, particularly if they're married to someone who has decided that masturbation is somehow a betrayal of their monogamous arrangement. As Dan Savage says in the article, it doesn't take much time paying attention to proponents of the sex addiction model—people like Dr. Drew—to pick up on the strong puritanical streak underlying their diagnoses.

But what about people who really do exhibit compulsive sexual behavior, who claim that the addiction model of therapy was the best way to address their problems? Clark-Flory treats those folks with sympathy, but I remain skeptical. Claims that they aren't swept up in puritanical judgments of diverse sexual experiences fall flat. Believer Benoit Denizet-Lewis claims he's not against anonymous sex in one breath and then suggests in the next that people who participate in it have a "limited life." Former porn star and believer Jennie Ketcham swears up and down that she's all for kinkiness, but then also suggests that every encounter with every partner be "meaningful" and an "ultimate display of intimacy." People who are able to do both and to switch off depending on the partner and what day it is don't exist in this model. But they do in real life.

Reality TV shows pick their participants through the tokenism strategy—got to get some women, throw in a gay guy, etc. Therefore, Sex Rehab doesn't give the audience a clear picture of who gets labeled a "sex addict" in our culture. And frankly, in the real world it mostly seems to be straight men who have created an entire sex life away from their wives, creating tension in the relationship. Sometimes it's probably unfair, and the wives are way too judgmental of a perfectly normal masturbation rate. But much of the time, it's men like Tiger Woods, who cheat a lot, or men who retreat completely from the marital bed in order to masturbate to pornography as their main sexual outlet. Tracy suggests this is an easy out for the Oprah crowd that wants to condemn and be angry without analysis. I agree.

We want to call these men "addicts," because to admit what's really going on would be to open a can of worms about marriage, sex, and gender roles that we'd prefer to leave sealed. It's really hard to play the mothering, doting, responsible, take-care-of-everything wife and also be an object of erotic fascination to a man, particularly if he's got a touch of the sexism and separates women into Madonnas and whores. It's not even remotely surprising to me that men who expect their wives to play the role of good wife find that they can't get sexually excited by it and end up looking elsewhere. And it's not just men like Tiger Woods, who have the wife at home taking care of business and sexual excitement on the road. The world of evangelical Christianity has a big time sex "addiction" problem of men who sexually neglect their wives and express themselves mainly through pornography. Of course they do! All the qualities of a good Christian wife—namely, subsuming your identity into husband and children—are the antithesis of the erotic for most people. When a woman slips out of the role of individual and into the role of extension of her man, then having sex with her probably does feel like masturbation, but more work. So of course men get desperate to have real sexual excitement. But that's not the sort of thing that a puritanical addiction model could ever address.

Photograph of lips in mantle by Christopher Robbins/Stockbyte/Getty Images.

Tags: dr. drew, sex addiction