The Marriage Market

This image demonstrates the disproportionality in the marriage market across the United States. Basically, if you're a single, heterosexual woman on the west coast or a single, heterosexual man in the New York area, you're in luck!



Image borrowed from http://www.whosyourcity.com/.

Steak and a Blow Job Day

Krystle, a junior sociology major at Colorado College, sent us this link to the Facebook page for men's answer to Valentine's Day, Steak and a Blowjob Day.


There are at least a couple interesting things about this:

First, it nicely illustrates the feminization of love and the masculinization of sex. Since Valentine's Day is about love, it's gendered feminine, and the things thought to be appropriate gifts for Valentine's Day are both for her and feminine (candy, candles, flowers, romance, etc). The solution? Why a day for men, of course! (Since they get absolutely nothing out of Valentine's Day.) And what would a day for men include? Steak and blow jobs.

Second, the Day might be used as an example of social networks and how new technologies facilitate a completely different kind of communication. Click here for an analysis of how Steak and a Blow Job Day, with more than 38,000 confirmed guests for this year as of this post, is an example of successful "viral marketing."

Oh yeah... and the misogyny, always the misogyny:


Thanks Krystle!

Differential Use Of E-Networks Across The Globe

Apparently we don't live in a global e-village, so much as some regional ones (click the image to enlarge, fake your French to figure it out).



Is there a social networks person out there who could speculate on implications?

Thanks to John L. for this one, via Le Monde!

Clicking And Browsing Your Way Down The Aisle

This is a fun image from today's New York Times article about online dating sites that might be a nice background to a discussion of online dating or social networks more generally (or an illustration of the normalization of heterosexual marriage):