Quirkyalone

The Long-Awaited YouTube: State of Sex and Dating in San Francisco

Apr 22, 2011 - Written by Sasha Cagen  |  Filed under: Events, Sex, Single Life, technology

At long last, here’s the Commonwealth Club’s panel discussion on “The State of Sex and Dating in San Francisco.” I took part and so did three other insightful San Francisco thinkers Ethan Watters (Author, Urban Tribes); Nicole Daedone (Founder, OneTaste; Author, Slow Sex: The Art and Craft of the Female Orgasm) and N.W. Smith (Contributor, The Bold Italic).

One big theme was the sense of disconnection that people often feel in a big city now that we are all staring into our iPhones on public transportation. The moderator Violet Blue joked that’s how geeks flirt. I miss good old-fashioned eye contact.

After the panel a woman came up to me and told me she wanted to start a movement where people identify themselves as available for human contact and chatting in some way on BART trains (BART is the Bay Area’s subway system). As in wearing a feather, a handkerchief, a button. Something like that.

I’m open to all kinds of ideas because I think random contact with strangers is the most effervescent part of living in a dense area.

The State of Sex and Dating in San Francisco

Mar 09, 2011 - Written by Sasha Cagen  |  Filed under: Events

I will be speaking on a Commonwealth Club panel called “The State of Sex and Dating in San Francisco” on Thursday, 3/31. The topic of online dating is sure to come up in this online-dating-drenched, tech-obsessed city. So will the “slow sex movement” as I will be sharing the panel with Nicole Daedone, creator of “the fifteen minute orgasm” (which *I think* has something to do what what she calls “orgasmic meditation”) and the founder of One Taste, a center focused on female sexuality. Ethan Watters author of Urban Tribes will also be part of the conversation. Come on down! The program will also be broadcast on KALW, one of our NPR affiliates, and posted on YouTube.

Do Single Mothers Have to Be Nuns?

Feb 08, 2009 - Written by Sasha Cagen  |  Filed under: Parenting

I always thought it was possible for a single mother to date, and even, hey, get laid, but after reading the recent New York Times Magazine story “2 Kids + 0 Husband = Family,” I started to get scared. (Not that I’m a single mother, but hey, it could happen.)

The article documents a “trend” of college-educated single mothers by choice having a “second child as the path to normalcy” rather than looking for a husband. Of course, one always wonders how deep these trends go. But the article does cite research that second births to unmarried college-educated women have increased sevenfold since 1980.

The author describes very mainstream women in high-waisted jeans in places like suburban New Jersey and Pennsylvania forming all-female communities of single mothers and children. Their communities all sound wonderfully Kate and Allie, except, how do I say this? It sounds so self-sacrificial. The (presumably heterosexual) women interviewed sound like nuns, only raising children is their religion. They’ve either lost interest in men, don’t have time or energy, or don’t want the stability of their lives to be upset by breakups.

This piece made me and another single woman friend in her thirties feel like if we have a child on our own, that’s it. Game over. Single mom quirkyalones, do single mothers really have to be nuns until their children are 18? Please share.