It comes right on the heels of Obama’s hospital visitation memorandum yesterday that banned hospitals that receive federal funding from denying visitation privileges to gay and lesbian partners.  Today marked the annual national Day of Silence, organized by The Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network.   Students across the nation were encouraged to remain mute during class to protest the bullying of gay students.   The day is wildly popular and, according to Yahoo News, “has become the largest student-led action addressing school safety for all students, regardless of gender, sexual orientation or race.” Obviously, opponents of gay rights have found something to fear in this fight for civil rights and equality.  Socially conservative family values organizations are convinced that Obama’s memorandum and the growing support for events like the Day of Silence are shaping up to cause societal damage of Icelandic volcanic magnitude

“I think that we shouldn’t be exploiting public education for this,” says Illinois Family Institute’s Laurie Higgins about the Day of Silence, “There are better ways to use taxpayer money. We send our kids there to learn the subject matter, not … to be unwillingly exposed to political protest during instructional time.”  For dinosaurs like this, America’s defenses against the gay hordes are disappearing faster than Horatio Sanz’s waistline.  Rhetoric critiquing an anti-bullying protest as political protest in schools is particularly ironic coming from an organization that deliberately works to influence curricula and, on its Web site, warns that “there is no scientific evidence that anyone is born gay or transgendered. Therefore, the (American College of Pediatricians (ACP)) College further advises that schools should not teach or imply to students that homosexual attraction is innate, always life-long and unchangeable. Research has shown that therapy to restore heterosexual attraction can be effective for many people.”

Some conservative groups are encouraging boycotting schools on the Day of Silence.  “Most schools get reimbursed on the basis of average daily attendance. In other words, they don’t get taxpayer dollars for teaching students anything — they get taxpayer dollars for having fannies in the seats,” said Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association. “So if you have fewer fannies in the seats that’s less dollars for school administrators and that’s an incentive for them to do the right thing here.”

As strong as opinions are on the right regarding gay rights and how best to restrict them, the left is both irate and fragmented about the perceived lack of progress on this civil rights issue. Obama’s tax day memorandum is seen as long-overdue to the LGBT community that supported him in the 2008 election.  Yes, he insisted that he would repeal “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” and yes, “our gay brothers and sisters” got frequent mentions in his campaign speeches, but not much of substance had happened before yesterday’s memorandum.  And the gay community is divided on how significant the memorandum really was.

Leading gay news site, The Advocate, has comments across the board in reaction to the memorandum news.  Mike from Chicago says, “So we can die together but we cannot live together? This is not equality. It’s crap-and Obama’s full of it.”  CJ from LA says, “This is BIG. So, before we inevitably start complaining that this isn’t marriage equality or a repeal of DADT, let’s take a moment to appreciate the fact that this will have a very real, very large, and very personal positive impact on the lives of many members of our community.”

In today’s society, discrimination against the LGBT community as though it were composed of registered sex offenders, is ridiculous and simply offensive to basic common sense.  Conservative jabbering about homosexuality being forced on the young is bankrupt.  If anything the reverse is opposite and homophobic tendencies in society force denial and deceit on upcoming generations in their sexual journeys.  This is the generation and this is the president that is enlightened enough to make society more compassionate and honest.  Good policy, as it pertains to issues of sexual orientation, does not have to be so straight and so narrow.

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Here’s a fact to chew on: 45 % of men ‘fess up to wearing a condom that did not fit them in the last three months. Before you get all riled up about how irresponsible this is, understand the pressure that is on both males and the condom industry.  Just like the “no idea is a bad idea” mantra in conventional brainstorming, “no penis is a small penis” seems to be the enduring anthem of the condom industry.

Think about it: What condom manufacturer in their right mind is going to call one of their sizes “small”?  As Menachem Kaiser in “The Challenge of Marketing Small Condoms” (The Atlantic) puts it, “There are products where smallness is a marketing virtue, like cellphones or thong underwear. But small condoms are a marketing nightmare.” The article points out that the closest a condom manufacturer comes to indicating size is the carefully-worded “Snugger Fit” marketed by LifeStyles.

The confusion around condom sizing and the cultural pressure to avoid admitting to anything less than a crankshaft of a penis has obvious sexual health repercussions. Kaiser says of those men who admitted to wearing badly-fitting sheaths: “The misfits were significantly more likely to report breakage and slippage, along with difficulty reaching orgasm, both for their partners and for themselves, and a host of other sexual mishaps. Not surprisingly, men with ill-fitting condoms were more likely to take them off before sex was even over — all of which adds up to a massive failure for the one job a condom exists to fulfill.”

So how do you market minus-sized condoms to a “size matters”, “bigger is better” culture? You lie. Kaiser points out that Dr. Bill Yarber, of the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction in Indiana, recommends re-labeling small condoms as “large”, regular as “extra-large” and so on.  Of course, as Kaiser points out, this invites ridiculous confusion and, “Yarber’s plan would have the true-to-life Magnum man in a pinch: his previously large-enough condoms would suddenly be a tight fit.”

Other options include spray-on condoms that are too much drama/time.  Also, vendors like TheyFit offer 70 different sizes that virtually guarantee a match for each man, but this craves some time-sensitive measuring and, Kaiser notes, “The site thoughtfully warns, ‘Watch out for paper cuts!’ ”

In a follow-up article to Kaiser’s, Judy Berman in Salon wrote, “Shocker: Small Condoms Don’t Sell”. Berman’s conclusion: “…perhaps what needs to change, if we really want our protection to protect us, isn’t whether we call a condom ‘small’ or ‘large’ so much as our own harsh judgments about guys’ penis size.”  But let’s be real, we’ve gone for untold millennia pontificating on penises and that is as likely to change as is the size of the male ego.

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Equally a source of bellyache laughter, fascination, and sincere belief, the brand of premarital sexual purity hawked by evangelicals has made headlines for decades.  Everyone from Justin Timberlake-era Britney Spears with her purported virginity to right-wing Christian writers like “I Kissed Dating Goodbye” Joshua Harris, cashed in on pooh-poohing pre-knot-tying nookie.  But what were you supposed to do if you weren’t married but had already gotten laid?  Just how screwed were you?

Enter Bristol Palin.  About a year ago, the young Alaskan claimed that sexual abstinence was not at all realistic for teens. Last month she announced an about-face.  The former vice-presidential hopeful’s daughter said in a January 2010 interview with “In Touch” that she has now decided to be sexually abstinent before marriage:  ”I can guarantee it.”  Challenged later on her statement by Oprah Winfrey who asked her if she was setting herself up to fail, Bristol was adamant, “It’s a realistic goal for myself.”

Danielle Bean in the National Catholic Register reacted angrily to Oprah’s questioning: “I’ll bet Bristol had big plans and dreams for her life that did not include becoming a mother at the age of 19. Seeing premarital sex as risky behavior with potentially devastating consequences shows maturity, not naïveté. Every one of us should applaud and encourage a young woman like Bristol Palin who dares to put chastity and life-long goals ahead of her hormones.”

Lashing out at cultural liberals, Bean commented: “Apparently… the advice anti-abstinence types would offer young women like her is: Dream big! As long as those dreams don’t include anything unrealistic like waiting until you are married to have sex.”

That isn’t so much the point though.  Bristol has had sex and what she is attempting is what evangelical “purity culture” calls “born-again virginity” and what researchers call “secondary virginity”.  To qualify, you renounce your sexual past and swear off additional intercourse until marriage.  ”Secondary virgins” consider themselves absolved of their sexual history in a lump deal, closely linked to the Christian concept of absolute forgiveness/salvation that renders the forgiven spotless in the grander cosmic sense.

The concept of born-again virginity has taken a lot of heat, even for basic sexual health reasons.  A study by the American Journal of Public Health, titled Reborn a Virgin: Adolescents’ Retracting of Virginity Pledges and Sexual Histories, found that adolescents that (often out of religious conviction) take virginity pledges until marriage “recant” their sexual pasts, basically seeing themselves as having never had sex. The past is gone and forgiven and they are now pure.  The study notes that this is a dangerous tendency as adolescents that take this approach “may incorrectly assess the sexually transmitted disease risks associated with their prepledge sexual behavior.”

On the other side of the debate are people like Donna Freitas, author of “Sex and the Soul” and a religion professor at Boston University. She is all for born-again virginity.  In a Christianity Today interview, Freitas says of college students that claim the term: “They’re not denying that they were sexually active, but they’re owning it….I think it is a way out of hookup culture.”

Revirginization is not powered solely by evangelical thought, it can be seen as consistent with American culture.  Laura M. Carter wrote the book “Virginity Lost: An Intimate Portrait of First Sexual Experiences”.  She claims that  the idea of “revirginization” is consistent with elements of the American psyche: “In America there is the idea of the remade person… We are all in an endless state of becoming.  You can remake yourself.  That has been deeply ingrained in the culture for a long time.  So why not virginity? Why not sexuality?”

And so we return to the Bristol makeover.  There may be more than just purity points in store for Bristol if she can successfully revirginize.  Double X’s Jessica Grose points out that Bristol may be cashing in on brand recognition as a spokesperson for pro-abstinence organizations. She is already teen ambassador of the conservative Candie’s Foundation (although she apparently does not receive a paycheck from them).  Grose points out that Bristol has also formed her own company, BSMP LLC, a handy arrangement that Rachel Maddow says can allow her to be paid from multiple directions as a freelancer.  Grose also makes the point that a rehabilitated Bristol would be a great asset in a possible 2012 run for president for her mom.

But let’s not get too cynical.  If there is one thing America loves more than seeing famous people fall, it’s seeing them reinvent themselves.  It’s Bristol’s turn.

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Not one to want to stay out of the news cycle for too long, John Edwards made headlines again this week: he has separated from his wife and he made a sex tape during his affair.  Gawker cited two anonymous sources that say the former North Carolina Senator, 2004 vice presidential candidate and 2008 presidential candidate, made the tape with former lover Rielle Hunter. The flick contains many a sex act and was apparently discovered by former aide Andrew Young who stumbled across the unmarked DVD and felt compelled to pen The Politician, a ruthless exposé of his old boss.  Gawker dutifully records that, although they have not seen the tape, their trusted sources say Edwards “is physically very striking, in a certain area. Everyone who sees it says ‘whoa’.”

America already knows that Edwards is capable of shocking things (who in their right mind deems it necessary to add insult to injury by explaining that at least his wife’s cancer was in remission when he had his “pants down”?).  So the tape should not be seen as something scandalous but rather as a sincere attempt to be added to Wikipedia’s Celebrity Sex Tape list.  After all, Edwards would be in fairly hallowed company and should be seen as a noble pioneer in blurring the lines between politician and sleazy celeb.  The over 30 stars on the Wikipedia list have made their passion public intentionally or through clumsy fumble after setting up the trusty camcorder.  From humble beginnings in the ’90s with Pamela Anderson’s indiscriminate romps with one musician or another, celebrity sex tapes have almost become a professional credential for Hollywood hopefuls.  Everyone from Kim Kardashian to Jamie Foxx to Verne “Mini Me” Troyer has been steaming up the web with their bedroom flics.

Let’s remember that the PR boost to be gained from a sex tape does not even require any actual on-screen intercourse.  As PopEater so aptly puts it, “These days, it seems that anyone with a modicum of name recognition can film themselves kissing someone in their underwear and before you know it, it becomes hyped across the internet as a ‘sex tape.’”

PopEater quotes adult website AVN.com’s Dan Miller saying that “With all the cable and reality shows out there, everyone has their 15 minutes of fame and they have some name recognition so there could be a potential market for seeing them naked.”

And why should the market for on-screen nudity be limited only to Hollywood stars? With mid-term elections coming up later this year Edwards has done the politicos a favor with his innovative trail blazing.  Sex scandals are nothing new to politics but sex tapes could come in useful for candidates that feel their campaign could use an extra boost. Those needing proof of this theory have but to turn to the spectacular Massachusetts upset that Scott Brown pulled off, robbing complacent Democrats of the Senate seat they had held for decades.  He didn’t even need a sex tape.  All he had to his name was this dignified centerfold that inspired Cosmo to come up with the slogan: Who Needs Joe Plumber When You Can Have Scott Six-Pack?

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“Let’s be blunt: You’ll have to start showing your gonads when you go to the airport,” says Slate.com in Show Some Balls / Want to Get on An Airplane, Let’s See Some Scrotum. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab’s failed Christmas Day attempt to blow up the Detroit-bound Delta #253 has ensured that your crotch is going to get unprecedented attention in future air travel.  For some fun images from scanners already in use by America’s TSA (Transportation Security Administration) click here, for impressively clear close-ups of crotches, click here.  Modern terror has ensured that we are now breathing huge sighs of relief that airport security can tell which way a guy is leaning.

What’s worse?  The fact that technology will disrobe us whenever we fly or the good news that pat-downs are likely to include the groin with the advent of Abdulmutallab-style underwear bombing?  Pat-downs are not only of the officially sanctioned variety.  In Japan, more than 4000 men a year are arrested for groping on public transport.  A survey cited by ABC news claimed that almost 64% of women in their 20s and 30s Tokyo had been groped on various forms of rail transportation in the city.

What is is about mass transit that guarantees smuttiness of one form or another?  So far we’ve looked at involuntary forms.  But what of the mile high club?  Sex on board an airplane just never gets old.  The allure of the act has been blamed on reasons ranging from lower-than-usual atmospheric pressure in-cabin, to the abundance of uniformed and attractive airlines crew members, to constant vibration enhancing the likelihood of arousal and the temptation to engage in something taboo while everyone else is sitting in cramped seats consuming stale peanuts.

The problem seems to grow in gravity directly proportional to available leg room.  Singapore Airlines felt the need to publicly request its first class passenger not to have sex in its new Airbus A380 planes. Although they offer double beds in their private suites, they are not soundproof and, in the airline’s own words, “All we ask of customers, wherever they are on our aircraft, is to observe standards that don’t cause offence to other customers and crew…”

Happy New Year.

Bjorn Karlman

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When New Yorker staff writer Michael Specter dubbed Tina Fey “the sex symbol for every man who reads without moving his lips”, he not only described the Sarah Palin-killing 39-year-old comic genius behind 30 Rock, but an entire feminine ideal for some men.  You know what I mean:  hotness defined by both brains and beauty, the late-blooming nerd wearing a “The Show’s Upstairs” T-shirt.  The antithesis of the FHM pinup.  The witty girl with the quirky smile and cute butt.

“…conventional pin-ups have it easy,” says Rohan Joshi on mid-day.com, “the more your neckline plunges, the higher your stock and search results rise, fueled by the fevered keystrokes of a million hormonal teenagers…. Every single beautiful woman I’ve ever seen interviewed in a magazine says they like guys who can make them laugh. The thinking man’s pin-up goes one step further. She makes him laugh. Which explains why my closest friends would take a bullet for me on a normal day, but would gladly put six in me if doing so earned them a date with Tina Fey. She’s gorgeous, she writes for (and presents) Saturday Night Live, she’s got her own uber-funny sitcom (30 Rock), and she found time in the middle of all that to go off and have a baby, and take on Sarah Palin.”

So, is the intellectual’s pinup an even more impossible ideal than a Playboy centerfold?  As Tina Fey is very much taken, what lies on the horizon for men that like their women both cute and brainy?  There is a really fine balance here, because the answer certainly isn’t for women to take on a Clintonesque gravity about them or to adopt what the thedailybeast calls “a castrating nature.”

Touré of the Daily Beast elaborates: “Can a woman be independent, creative, sharp, witty, strong, and self-empowering without making me feel like she wants to be a man? Ann Coulter and Judith Regan could never make the list—they’re sexy, brainy, powerful, but I feel like they secretly want to steal my manhood.”

It would seem that a lot of the qualities that women find sexy in men, are equally on target for what men find sexy in women.  Take Salon’s Sexiest Man Living 2008 for example.  “There’s more to life than pretty boys… Salon picks the men who really drive us mad,” reads the tag.  Included in those that make the listing are Obama – “Calm is sexy… Command is sexy…” and Indian-American Kal Penn of Harold & Kumar go to White Castle – “it’s not just Penn’s soulful good looks that make our knees go weak, it’s his erudition and political awareness.”

These traits, complementing an already attractive man or woman, are a definite turn on and are likely to be around far longer than perfect legs and a healthy bust.  Take it from Joshi:  “The fact that she’s gorgeous is just a lucky roll of the genetic dice. And that right there is the biggest epiphany of them all when it comes to the thinking man’s pin-up. When time cruelly, and inevitably, takes those pin-up-looks away, you’ll realise that it was really never about them at all.”

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Bjorn Karlman

Is professional success in a female emasculating?  This and more in Part II….

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It’s a gaping hole of an opportunity for the entrepreneurially-minded.  While there is a highly developed mail order bride industry that has spread for years through catalogs and on the Internet, there is nothing for women who might like to swipe their Visa card for an exotic hubby.  If you do your homework online you will probably come across mailorderhusbands.net.  The bummer here is that this is a spoof site.  Here are some of the husbands featured:

Faud from San Benardino, Calif.: “HALF PRICE” is printed over his face and his ad says: “Ladies, I’m still available. I’ve been here for about 2 years. what gives? Don’t ya wanna party with me? woohoo… They lowered my price twice already. I’m a red-hot special, come and get me.”

Bertram from Manitoba, Canada: Clyde seeks Bonnie to be partners in crime… I am a trouble maker! Techno-hedonist prone to psychobabble and taking stupid risks. Fun craving, riot inciting, thrill seeking geek girls preferred. Choir girls need not apply, because I plan on committing a few sins and misdemeanors in my time. I got booted off Match.com for cyber stalking but I’m better now.

Akim from Lebanon: It’s actually quite ridiculous that I’m here. I do extremely well for myself – meeting ladies everywhere I go. Since I don’t really need this, you might not hear back from me, but I do appreciate all your notes.

If you want the real deal though, it’s not looking good.  There’s virtually nothing to compete with the plethora of options available to men looking for foreign-bought brides.  The closest you could get was featured in an April 24, 2006 article in Associatedcontent.com.  Featured was the Golden Boys marriage agency based in Ukraine that featured gay Ukrainians looking for marriage.  The link to the English version of the Golden Boys website no longer works, so no luck there.  More to the point, if you are a woman looking for straight men, you have not even moved from square one.

No wonder then that askville posts a particularly exasperated WHERE DO I FIND “MAIL-ORDER HUSBANDS???” inquiry.  The ads and replies say it all.  The ads are for online dating sites, How2DetectAffair.com and other unsatisfactory solutions.  Then all the actual answers turn to mail order bride catalogs and sites on the one hand and warnings to shun mail-order approaches on the other.

Looks like mundane reality may still offer the best options.  Shmitten Kitten, in an article titled Oh F*** It: We’re Gonna Get a Mailorder Husband, responds to the options on mailorderhusbands.net: Is this site sponsored by the Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corporation or something because this is making Philly guys look like an entire city of Brad Pitts.  After skimming this site for two minutes, I’d take a flaky artist with a working knowledge of the Belle & Sebastian back catalog over these wackjobs any day of the week.

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Bjorn Karlman

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Here’s a paraphrase of a wikiHow entry on how to skinny-dip without causing a ripple:

1)  Scan the area – Do not be an idiot.  Auntie Elma will not be amused at your spontaneous stripping.  Pick secluded beaches or obliging groups before you bare it all.

2)  Watch your timing – Slip away at a slow point of the party if you opt for a clandestine approach.  If you are an exhibitionist, wait for everyone to settle down then head for the high dive.

3)  Do not wimp out and disrobe in the water.  Stand tall and give it your all… be dramatic.

4)  If you feel uncomfortable, ignore step three and dive in the second you’ve stripped.

Even more amusing than steps 1-4 are the warnings, one of which is “You’ll look like a pervert if you are the one to suggest skinny-dipping, be careful!”  Helpful.

How-to instructions such as these seem to suggest that you can make any practice culturally-acceptable with the appropriate finessing.  Who knows?  Maybe these steps really do result in culturally appropriate skinny dipping. But it is not as though we can just apply legitimizing steps to any practice and expect everyone’s applauds.  Some practices simply will not fly in certain cultures.

Knowing this in theory doesn’t stop us from acting completely oblivious to it in practice.  Examples abound of flagrant abuses.  An enthusiastic romp between randy tourists in the back of a Malay bus can result in some time in a cell. Latin-style parties in Zurich suburbs will likely result in phone calls to the police.  We rationalize what we want to do but often forget the context of culture and how unforgiving it can be.

It is as if, subconsciously, we expect what is normal and acceptable to us to be the same for others. This kind of thinking lies at the very heart of culture clash – an unwillingness to really look at life through the lenses of another culture.  A useful definition of culture clash is: “When one or more cultures are integrated into one environment, causing disruption and challenging contemporary traditions. Often occurs in multicultural societies.” (urbandictionary.com)  This “integrated” state is never seamless and clashes are to be expected.

The key lies in basic savviness and the ability to look past one’s own rationalizations to think deeply about the other’s culture. Make an effort. Concretely this can mean watching movies set in the target culture to get a feel for how things work.  Asking good questions of friends from that culture helps too.  What can help most is to show some interest in getting on the particular culture’s social calendar of birthdays, holidays, holy days and other celebrations. If you show this kind of interest, people will take notice of you.  You may even get on the pool party guest list.

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Bjorn Karlman

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My dad and I were catching up with an old family friend and he was telling the story of how his then-future son-in-law asked for his daughter’s hand in marriage.  “He took me golfing and didn’t say a word about my daughter.  It was the biggest white elephant in the room ever.  We went the whole day without him saying anything at all relevant to the whole reason we were golfing.  Then as we pulled into my driveway at the end of the whole day,” our friend breaks into a huge smile, “he shows me he’s a good Southern boy and he says, “Jill and I were thinking about getting married.  Do you, uh… do you… I mean… do you think that would be a good idea?”

The awkward suitor was given the go ahead after his stumbling efforts and the incident got a permanent page in family history.  A success story.  But things obviously don’t always go that smoothly.  Most of my American friends probably know someone that dodged family expectations, lavish custom and the accompanying bills and eloped in Vegas.  Some enjoy the notoriety of having done it “my way” regardless of offended relatives and fat Elvis impersonators that will forever mar the $19.99 picture album of their union.

But most people who decide to tie the knot want to do it well.  This is no easy thing, especially if you and your second half are from different cultures.  I am not married so the following are not my tips but rather an assortment of the cross-cultural knot-tying advice I’ve picked up while on the trail:

1) Examine motives: Sorry to start off with something so boring.  It is vital though.  I will never forget the time I was in line for check-in at the Dominican Republic’s Santo Domingo airport.  In front of me was a very boring looking, potbellied, middle-aged white guy with a stunning local girl. I was about to roll my eyes when the woman reached into the old guy’s back pocket and pulled out a passport.  She proceeded to wave it to her friends who all started jumping in delight at the other end of the security barrier.  Joe may have bagged a beauty, but Juanita snagged a passport.  Avoid the marriage of convenience.  Enough said.

2)  If you are going local, don’t go “loco”. There’s nothing more pathetic than a wannabe.  Cultural sensitivity is great and is absolutely advised, but everyone can spot a desperate bluffer.  There is absolutely no reason that you should walk around in your future spouse’s national costume for days on end just so you can be accepted as “one of them”.  You are different, you are from somewhere else.  Own it.  It’s OK.

3)  Realize that you may never be “good enough”. As much as your future in-laws may like you, there is likely a little part of them that just wishes their son had married one of his own.  This is nothing personal.  Your attempts at Scandinavian midsummer frog dancing are commendable but you will never be mistaken for a Greta.  You will find that everyone, including yourself, harbors some kind of prejudice. Christine Benlafquih, in an article for suite101.com titled “Cross-Cultural Marriage”, makes the point that it helps to find out what some of the commonly held prejudices are in your significant other’s culture. This can prevent nasty surprises farther down the line. Innermost preferences and prejudices aside, your future family will most likely appreciate you and will eventually see you as a person before your nationality.

4)  Talk to others that have done it – Intercultural marriage is never problem free.  It is challenging.  Tamula Drumm, writing for TransitionsAbroad.com, states that although statistically intercultural and interracial marriages have a high rate of failure, many couples make them work. It helps to learn from the success stories of older couples that have had to deal with more cultural disapproval and discrimination but still were able to live happily together.  Ask questions, listen to their stories and learn from their mistakes.

In the end a cross-cultural marriage boils down to the same thing as any other marriage.  Where there is love and a will there is a way.  So relax, enjoy this special time of life and, if all hell breaks lose, there’s always Vegas.

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Bjorn Karlman

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It was hands-down one of the funniest things I had ever seen on a beach.  I was with a friend in Nice, on the French Riviera, surrounded by locals and tourists in various stages of undress.  Not far from me were a couple of topless girls and local etiquette stipulated that everyone had to act like everything was normal.  And, for a French beach in the summer, everything basically was.  Well, at least it was until a group of American teenagers, in predictable khaki shorts and baseball caps, came over and struck up conversation with the topless ones.

The guys’ intent was clear: they wanted a picture with the women.  Amused at the ballsy request, the women obliged the horn dogs and posed with their newfound American friends.  The guys were delighted but conversation quickly dried up because of the language barrier and they took off.  The best part was when one of the guys hollered, “Y’all keep it up now!” over his shoulder.  Beautiful.

The young guys’ break with etiquette was amusing.  If they had been locals or at least somewhat accustomed to Mediterranean protocol, they would have been considerably less eager with their photo requests.  Everyone came out of this one well – the nervous kids, the nonchalant boob models and the amused onlookers.  Observing the whole incident made me think about the huge role of cultural rules in the day-to-day – right down to beach attire and how to acknowledge topless strangers.  It also made me think of what allows us to bend the rules of culture (in this case, approaching topless women) and test the boundaries society decides are appropriate.

Malcolm Gladwell in his book “The Tipping Point” identifies the drivers of societal change as Connectors (social magnets that are master networkers and love nothing more than working a crowd), Mavens (information specialists, people that have the information society needs) and Salesmen (Charismatic, persuasive people that can get people to agree with them).  When all three kinds of personalities come together and benefit from a strong message and favorable circumstances, you get enough traction to affect major societal shifts.

Watching the kids I saw each of the personality-based change agents.  There was the Connector – the kid in the group that probably was the reason they were all on the beach, skipping the assigned lecture on Franco-Spanish relations. Then there was the Maven – the pervy nerd who’d worked out what stretch of beach would yield the best topless odds. And finally, there was the Salesman who talked both his friends and the busty French into posing for the camera.

So there you have it:  a little example of how cultural change, however insignificant, can be achieved. Whenever cultural rules feel rigid and overbearing, remember that with some clever planning, some key leadership and a little luck, rules can bend and boundaries can shift.  And there’s nothing that some teenage spunk and some multicultural levity can’t fix.

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Bjorn Karlman

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