Let’s turn to the pages of Slate, where left-leaning sophisticates mull the issues of the day. Among which, an obvious question for the woke and well-adjusted:

I (35, male) started dating someone (33, female) recently that I’ve really enjoyed connecting with and have found a higher level of chemistry with than anyone else I’ve dated. It’s exciting and has given me a chance to imagine a stable future with someone, something I’ve struggled to imagine in the past.

Ah, bless. And just in time for the holidays. Brings a tear to the eye.

But there’s something else that’s new for me this year that complicates things: I’ve started seeing sex workers.

At risk of seeming drearily conventional, the words stable future have suddenly taken on an ironic tinge. Still, the headline is memorable:

Do I Have to Tell My New Girlfriend I’m Going to Keep Seeing Sex Workers?

And hey, give the guy credit. He does a pretty good rhetorical dance:

To be clear, I’ve attempted to pursue it in the most ethical manner possible, being careful to consider everyone’s safety and consent. The moral issue of sex buying is a serious one for me, but one that I’ve ultimately come to believe can be ethical in the right context.

How immensely surprising.

I believe seeing a sex worker can make me a better partner. Not unlike seeing a therapist.

Because,

seeing a sex worker allows me to focus on myself.

Which, to date, has apparently been a struggle.

Because retroactive lesbianism is apparently a thing:

Readers are invited to share their own dating dramas, from minor complications to outright catastrophes, in the comments. 

For newcomers, more items from the archives:

Her Loveliness Revealed.

Slate’s Christina Cauterucci has discovered a “brilliant new weapon of progressivism.”

You see, those “right wing, centrist, or politically complacent parents” – the parents you love, presumably – must be purged of their “ill-informed allegiances” and made to conform politically, with the threat of never seeing grandchildren. Which is how well-adjusted adult offspring behave, of course… Ms Cauterucci’s parents are no doubt proud of their daughter and her charming, terribly enlightened fantasies of coercion, in which children are imagined primarily as a form of political leverage, a tool of rather sadistic emotional punishment. And all in the name of progressive piety.

Your Failure To Enthuse Is Violence, Apparently.

Roy G Guzmán is oppressed by the “violence” of people not liking his poetry.

After dismissing the recent, rather negative appraisals of his work as driven by “toxic masculinity” and “(white) male fragility” – no other possibilities being conceivable, of course – Mr Guzmán has apparently retired from Twitter. We are, it seems, a terrible disappointment to him.

Hear The Lamentations Of Unstable Leftist Women.

Their marriages failed, they have psychiatrists on speed-dial, and it’s all Trump’s fault. Oh, and white men, obviously.

Via Neontaster comes news of an intriguing technological development. Apparently, the device “makes the patient feel comfortable,” while “the strong currents impact and rub.” Hey, I’m just reading what it says here.  

Oh, and yes, there is a more intimate video. 

Also, open thread.

Speaking of the Guardian, one from the problem pages:

I met my girlfriend’s parents – and realised I once slept with her father.

The subsequent comments are suitably agonised. Via Orwell & Goode.

Also, open thread.