Listen, if we all waited until we were fully healed, evolved, and spiritually polished, the planet would be a monastery. You don't have to be perfect to be in a relationship. You don't have to purge every childhood wound or meditate yourself into sainthood. You don't have to finish the book, the course, the cleanse, or the shadow-work workbook with all the gold stars.
Platforms like Reddit have become informal hubs for casual sex encounters. Users post specific requests, everything from hookup logistics to kink-driven invitations. In this story, that began with a muff dive request, slang for a woman seeking someone to go down on them. The dynamic that followed grew into elements of femdomconsensual female-led power exchangeand CFNM, or clothed female, nude male, a kink centered on exposure, contrast, and negotiated control.
Trying to conceptualize love - to understand it, define it, or finally get it right in your own life - can feel like a complicated game you never quite win. People often try to read or reflect on the promise to try to do things differently. Yet, somehow, the same patterns can seem to circle back. It's not that you don't want love or that you're not ready for it. Unconsciously, you may have built habits that keep you safe but also keep you stuck.
Match Group, the dating giant that owns apps like Hinge, Tinder, and OkCupid, is backing Overtone with pre-seed financing and plans to take a "substantial ownership position," according to a press release. With Match's support, Overtone was incubated as a project inside of Hinge. McLeod and a dedicated team spent the year developing the idea of Overtone, which is described as "an early-stage dating service focused on using AI and voice tools to help people connect in a more thoughtful and personal way."
My first thought, upon reading your letter, was a curious: What are the differences for your husband between penetrating your vagina with his penis and performing oral sex on you, in the context of the fact of your having given birth? My second thought was that, in your position, I would have a very difficult time calmly asking that question from a place of genuine inquisitiveness.
When I learn that an acquaintance supports stripping my rights away, I distance myself from them. Because of this, I've received some comments like, It's such a shame that you can't even be friends with me because we disagree on politics.
I met my now-husband at a local kink event. At first, we were having sex daily-mind-blowing, bed-soaking, thigh-shaking encounters. My husband is so good in bed; the first time we had sex was the first time I squirted in my life. Now that is just regular practice. However, we then had a baby, and life got difficult. After a year post-partum, we are rediscovering how to connect sexually.
"First of all, I know this guy. But I didn't know this guy in that capacity like with my kid or that you were even dating my kid," she explained in a clip from the podcast, per People. "I know this guy growing up myself. He's a restaurateur. I don't want to get into troubles legally, but I think his reputation probably precedes him. Is that OK to say legally? So I was learning some of these things as I went along, too."
"The rules are there ain't no rules." That's what the Scorpions leader told Danny Zucko right before their big drag race against each other in the 1978 movie Grease. That statement could apply as well to what's known as relationship anarchy. Relationship anarchy is a dating or mating approach that rejects traditional relationship rules, hierarchies, norms, and expectations. The emphasis instead is on flexibility, autonomy, and doing whatever you and your partner or partners feel like doing.
I had a learning disorder, and my sister would constantly correct people and say she wasn't the "stupid" one-I was. My sister started the college track in ninth grade while I went to a middling school. Our parents did their best to treat us equally and celebrate our accomplishments, but you really can't compare taking a beauty school test to getting a master's at 21.
She'd recently turned 11, and in my heart, I knew she no longer believed in Santa. "Mom! Don't forget, I want Monopoly," she casually called back. I scrunched my eyelids together, holding back hot tears. Santa, the only arbiter of Christmas gifts in our household, was also the magic link to my Italian Catholic childhood for me and for my Jewish children, whom I'm raising in my husband's faith.
Since we started dating, and way before we had kids, my husband has always been the one to bring the holiday spirit to our home. From getting me my first ugly sweater to buying a tiny tree to fit in our Brooklyn apartment, he loves the holidays and wants to lean in fully. I, on the other hand, kind of don't care.
One of my specialties is working with clients in individual therapy in combination with their experience in couples therapy. Oftentimes, when two people engage in couples therapy, the work starts out on communication and relationship dynamics, but eventually, we get to a point where we realize that the work that really needs to be done to improve the relationship is individual work.
There is a shy, young man who finds a woman he knows extremely attractive. For months he has endeavored to work up the courage to ask her out, and finally... he does! To his great amazement, she says YES! The days leading up to the date, his thoughts are only on her. What her smile will look like, the touch of her hand in his. He walks about in a happy cloud of thoughts for days. The big day arrives. She looks as beautiful as he had imagined.
At the end of every school year, many parents ask me to write a personal note to their student as an inscription in a certain children's book. They request this of all of their kids' teachers, then give the book as a graduation gift. It's a cute idea, but what it amounts to is a large stack of paperwork at a time of the school year when I'm already drowning in paperwork.
The punishment doesn't fit the crime. Banishment is too extreme. However, it's worth looking at what's happening outside of the frame. First, the word disrespectful was tossed around a lot. Is it possible that your daughter-in-law felt you were criticizing her parenting in an unwarranted way? This isn't to say that the kids should have been punching their uncle. It wouldn't have been my choice. But Uncle Rick also has bodily autonomy and may have chosen not to stop them because he didn't mind.
which he wrote after a friend told him that he'd been messaging a woman every day for months. But we didn't sleep together, no way I respect my girlfriend, the friend clarified. What other situations can involve cheating? When the avenues for contacting others be they acquaintances or strangers are endless, and when we have direct access to countless photos and videos of other people (whether they're normal, suggestive, or explicit) how is the concept of fidelity altered in 2025?
How your partner interprets silence is one easy way to tell how intelligent they are. Some might see a partner's silence as a personal attack and immediately default to panic, while others reserve judgment and are more inclined to give space. That small difference between taking things personally and seeing them in context is the essence of relational intelligence.
Q: I've decided to treat my partner to a sexy weekend away in the new year, and I'd like to buy some toys to bring along to really spice things up. I haven't used them before, so I'm not sure where to start. She has tried some of the bullet vibrators before but said she didn't really like it. I don't have a lot of experience in this area before my current partner so I'm a bit lost as to where to start,
