Marriage

Meghan Markle is Engaged to Prince Harry

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle (E! Online)

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle (E! Online)

It’s finally happening! Former “Suits” actress Meghan Markle got engaged to her boyfriend Price Harry (heard of him?), and they announced their engagement a week ago. The two attended a photocall in the morning at Kensington Palance’s Sunken Garden, and sat down for an televised interview revealing more details with the BBC later that day.

This engagement is big for a lot of reasons, but mainly because it’s breaking barriers: Markle will be the first biracial person (and first biracial woman) to join the royal family. (Markle’s mother is Doria Ragland, an African-American woman, and her father is Thomas Markle, who is Caucasian. Markle self-identifies as a “strong, confident mixed-race woman.”) Many are excited because Markle will be the first “Black Princess” (though technically she’s more likely to end up with a Duchess title), but there are more nuances to the situation. “Elle” has a a great piece where 16 Black women aired their reactions to the engagement news; it’s well worth reading in full, so go check it out!

The engagement is also a powerful step towards revolutionizing the British monarchy and the public’s perception thereof. Princes Harry and William have spoken out about their mental health and its importance, and seem to want to make the monarchy more progressive. Along with the fact that Prince Harry will be marrying a biracial woman, he’ll also be marrying a divorcee: Markle was previously married to film producer Trevor Engelson from 2011 to 2013. The last time a British royal married a divorced woman, he had to abdicate the throne. This happened in 1937 when the Duke of Windsor married Wallis Simpson, which caused quite a scandal.

One thing is for sure: this engagement is hurtling the British royal family into the 21st century. As “The New York Times” puts it:

With one heady announcement, it seems, Harry and Ms. Markle have thrown out generations’ worth of quietly repressed tradition and presented a new royal model to a country that will have to adjust to it, whether it wants to or not.

 

By The Numbers: Interracial Marriage Data

Kim Kardashian and Kanye West arrive at the 2016 MTV Video Music Awards in New York (The Huffington Post)

FILE PHOTO – Kim Kardashian and Kanye West arrive at the 2016 MTV Video Music Awards in New York, U.S., August 28, 2016. REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz/File Photo

The 50th anniversary of the Loving v. Virginia case is soon approaching. The case struck down bans on interracial marriage, and continues to resonate today. With that in mind, I was curious to see any data on interracial marriages: Has the number gone up? Has societal disapproval gone down?

Let’s take a look:

Who’s Marrying Out?

  • In 1970, less than 1% of all married couples were interracial.
  • In 1980, 6%+ of newlyweds were interracial, and only 3% of all marriages were interracial.
  • In 2013, 12% of newlyweds (a record high) married someone of a different race, and 6.3% of all marriages were interracial.
The Absolute Rise of Intermarriage (Priceonomics)

The Absolute Rise of Intermarriage (Priceonomics)

Who’s Down with Marrying Out?

  • In 1986, only 30% of survey respondents felt interracial marriage is acceptable for everyone. But that same percentage of respondents did not feel interracial marriage was acceptable for anyone.
  • In 2009, 83% of survey respondents were accepting of interracial marriage.
  • In 2012, 93% of people approve of interracial marriage.

And let’s end on one more noteworthy statistic that warms my heart and gives me hope for the future:

“More than four-in-ten Americans (43%) say that more people of different races marrying each other has been a change for the better in our society.”

 

 

How Many Couples Wait Until Marriage to Have Sex?

Russell Wilson and Ciara (Wenner Media)

Russell Wilson and Ciara (Wenner Media)

Last month, Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson proposed to singer Ciara. While this narrative isn’t uncommon (professional athlete gets with professional singer), one thing about their courtship has stuck out: Wilson and Ciara (I’d use her last name here if she used it herself) abstained from sex during their courtship. And they were loud and clear about it.

You may think this example is an outlier. So how many couples wait until marriage to have sex?

A 2006 study by the Guttmacher Institute took data from the National Survey of Family Growth from 1982, 1988, 1995 and 2002. Around 40K+ subjects ages 15-44 were asked about their sex lives. In 2002, around 95% reported having premarital sex (shocker <– sarcasm right here.) So that’d be around 5% who reported staying virgins til marriage. But this is all self-reported data, so I can’t tell if answers were blinded or not. (Respondents might lie if their answers aren’t blinded.)

This is a upswing from back in the day, but not a total shock. Dr. Alfred Kinsey tackled this same question in his seminal works, 1948’s “Sexual Behavior in the Human Male” and 1953’s “Sexual Behavior in the Human Female.” He found that 67-98% of men had had premarital sex, “depending on socioeconomic level” (I would love to know what that means!), with 68% losing it before turning 18. Women fell into a 50-50 split of whether they’d had premarital sex or not. (This kind of turns the prudish ’50s narrative on its ass, doesn’t it?)

Even thought we have some data, it’s difficult to predict the numbers of virgins-til-marriage completely accurately if the numbers are all self-reported. Some might not self-report accurately due to shame or any number of factors. That being said, nothing wrong with their decision to wait.

 

How Many Media Company Employees Had Ashley Madison Accounts?

Ashley Madison homepage (Ashley Madison)

Ashley Madison homepage (Ashley Madison)

Happy Friday! Ashley Madison: It’s the hack that keeps on giving. Every day brings a new joy. And here’s this one: The good people at “Gawker” (who’ve been doing a great job covering this whole thing) took a deep-dive into the data, all 9.7 GBs of it. Why? Well, to see how was dumb enough to use a work email as their AM registration email. (Personally, I’m surprised that nobody got called on the carpet after their network got wind of that verification email in their inbox.)

Now, you’d think that most people would know to use a throwaway email for this kind of thing, right? You’d think that, and you’d be wrong. At the time of the data dump, “Wired” reported that 15K+ domains belonging to the government and military were found, comprising .04% of the total emails found.

Here’s what Sam Biddle at “Gawker” found. (Incidentally, no emails registered to the Gawker domain were found).

'Gawker' Ashley Madison Email Data Analysis (Gawker)

‘Gawker’ Ashley Madison Email Data Analysis (Gawker)

So yeah, have some common sense as to when to use your work email. Have a great holiday weekend!

 

How Many Active Female Users did Ashley Madison Have?

Ashley Madison homepage (Ashley Madison)

Ashley Madison homepage (Ashley Madison)

I’m loving this Ashley Madison hack for the sheer volume of data it’s bringing to light! It makes a numbers nerd like me very happy.

This may not come as a shock (well, hopefully it doesn’t), but Ashley Madison didn’t have a whole lot of active female users. The site claimed to have around 31M+ male users and 5M+ female users. So already, the women on the site are outnumbered by the men at a 6:1 ratio. This wouldn’t be a promising sign for any man who was a registered user. (Side note: Do you think any of the men knew to what degree they were competing with the other men? I’m really curious about this.)

But wait, there’s more: Annalee Newitz at “Gizmodo” crunched some numbers on on-site interaction between members (and made some fun bar graphs), and the results trumpeted the sex ratios loud and clear. Some examples: For every woman that checked her messages, 20 men did. For every two women that used the online chat system, 11 men did.

With those numbers in mind, how many of these men interacted with a bot? My guess is quite a few.

Two Suicides Linked to Ashley Madison Hack

Ashley Madison homepage (Ashley Madison)

Ashley Madison homepage (Ashley Madison)

We’re beginning to see some fallout from the Ashley Madison hack from earlier this month: Police in Toronto, Canada, have reported two suicides related to the hack, and are undertaking further investigation of the cases.

Reports of the number of Ashley Madison’s users range from 30M+ to 37M+. With those numbers in mind, these two suicides constitute between .00000006% and .000000054% of the site’s total registered users whose data was leaked in the security breach.

I’m curious to see how the hack continues to affect its outed users and those close to them.

 

Ashley Madison Hacked: Is Your Data Safe?

Ashley Madison homepage (Ashley Madison)

Ashley Madison homepage (Ashley Madison)

Earlier this month, online dating/cheating site Ashley Madison had its data breached by a group called The Impact Team. The group is lobbying for completely shutting down the site, and has been threatening to release users’ sensitive information if their demands aren’t met. Their demands are aimed at Avid Life Media (ALM), Ashley Madison’s parent company head-quartered in Toronto.

The hackers have leaked personal information from only two people so far. Considering that the site has around 37M-40M registered users, this is miniscule. The group is specifically targeting Ashley Madison’s “full delete” feature, where a user must pay to get his information scrubbed from the site. According to The Impact Team, the feature “netted ALM $1.7M in revenue in 2014.”

This is significant because it’s the second online dating site that’s encountered a massive data breach within a few months: Adult Friend Finder went through a similar situation back in May. But this case is unique in that it’s the only one that’s fallen prey to what ‘Time” calls “data kidnapping:” the hackers won’t leak the data unless they get what they want.

Ashley Madison is ranked #18 in adult sites, and received 124K+ visits on desktop since January 2015.

The Supreme Court Rules in Favor of Same-Sex Marriage

The White House (Mashable)

The White House (Mashable)

(Yes, I know this is old news by now, but I couldn’t start blogging again without acknowledging it. If only  could’ve seen into the future!)

Friday, June 26th was a historic day that was a long time coming: The Supreme Court ruled to legalize same-sex marriages nationwide in a 5-4 decision. The decision overrules states that had previously decided not to allow same-sex marriage, and prompted many previously-against states to begin issuing marriage licenses and performing ceremonies.

Naturally, this is a wonderful decision, not just for the LGBT(QQIA+) community, but also for humanity as a whole. I think people have finally recognized that it’s time. And that it’s been time. Interestingly, there hasn’t been much resistance from state governments: Though Louisiana initially said it’d wait for federal intervention to comply, towns within the state eventually began offering marriage licenses.

As an ally, I’m glad I got to see the day, and hope this is the start of many beneficial changes.

 

How Many Husbands Take Their Wives’ Last Names?

Zoe and Marco Saldana (KCCI)

Zoe and Marco Saldana (KCCI)

Happy Friday! Earlier this week, actress Zoe Saldana told “InStyle” that her husband Marco Perego wanted to take her last name, instead of having her take his. Saldana was initially hesitant:

I tried to talk him out of it. I told him, ‘If you use my name, you’re going to be emasculated by your community of artists, by your Latin community of men, by the world.’ But Marco looks up at me and says [in his Italian accent], ‘Ah, Zoe, I don’t give a sheet.’

Now, that’s a true man right there. Husbands taking their wife’s last name isn’t too common, at least anecdotally. But what about the data? Has it been tracked?

No, it hasn’t, at least not yet. I found several articles profiling couples who did it, but each article mentioned in some way that statistics weren’t tracked. Oh well. On the other hand, it’s a topic ripe for picking for a Ph.D. thesis. Any takers?

But Mr. Saldana (né Perego) made a huge impact. Meghan Blalock of “Who What Wear” puts his decision in context:

The storied history of women taking men’s last names in marriage is not just a trend or a matter of practicality—it’s a long-existing symptom of the patriarchal society in which we live, in which a marriage means that a woman is little more than a man’s property.

So his decision shows that he’s not just a traditionally masculine man, but that he has a sensitive side towards women and feminism, and isn’t afraid to show it. Pretty badass, right? Maybe we’ll see more men follow suit!

#ThrowbackThursday: Violet Gordon-Woodhouse

Violet Gordon-Woodhouse (The Clarion Review)

Violet Gordon-Woodhouse (The Clarion Review)

Here’s someone you might not have learned about in history class: British musician Violet Gordon-Woodhouse was born on this day in 1872. She’s known for bringing the harpsichord back into popularity, and used it to make some records. Gordon-Woodhouse was the first person to make a harpsichord recording, and the first musician to broadcast a performance with the instrument.

But her story is also infused with sexuality. She married Gordon Woodhouse in 1895, taking both his names for her professional one, and finagled a marriage very beneficial to her needs: She insisted on time to pursue her career, and to open the marriage. At one point, Gordon-Woodhouse’s menagerie of men swelled to three others besides her main husband. (Sadly, I couldn’t find any photographic evidence of this ménage a cinq.)

I first read about Gordon-Woodhouse in Betsy Prioleau’s 2004 book, “Seductress: Women Who Ravished the World and Their Lost Art of Love.” (It’s a great book, if you’re interested in learning about women taking a no-holds-barred approach to their life and loves.) We should all aspire to lead our lives as open as Gordon-Woodhouse did.