According to a survey in January by the Japan Institute of Life Insurance:

Japanese are postponing marriage or avoiding it altogether. Weddings dropped last year for the second straight year. Fifty-four percent of Japanese women in their late 20s are single, up from 30.6% in 1985. About half of single Japanese women ages 35 to 54 have no intention to marry, 

 So in digging around for the story he mentioned,  I came across this fascinating read No Sex Please— We're Japanese (USAToday, 2004) about the dire dating/marriage situation in Japan. Have a read:  

More and more Japanese men and women are finding relationships too messy, tiring and potentially humiliating to bother with anymore. "They don't want a complicated life," says [Junko] Sakai, who has written a controversial bestseller, Cry of the Losing Dogs, on the plight of unmarried Japanese thirtysomething women like herself.

And so, to an astonishing degree, men and women go their separate ways — the women to designer boutiques and chic restaurants with their girlfriends or moms, the men to karaoke clubs with their colleagues from work or the solitude of their computer screens to romance hassle-free virtual women.

—John Mayer on Jessica Simpson, Playboy

The profoundness (pause. Is that a word?) of this comment got lost in all the hysteria of John Mayer's Playboy interview in which he also claimed his penis was a white supremacist, used the N-word (which I didn't object to in context) and put Jessica Simpson's cho-cha on a pedestal. Point is, the quote above might be the realest words ever wrote (and when Mayer was done he shoulda slit his throat. Cue the Clipse.)

Anyway, I don’t feel like leaving my house, much less my borough, but I will had to. My favorite couple Gold Dresses Tai and Anthony M. Patterson are pregnant. And yesterday, rainy as it is, was their baby shower brunch for the soon to arrive Baby Brooke.

Anyway. I was tinkering around on Bloomberg News (via Gawker)  and came across this neat little tidbit about grandparents getting it in. Yes, Nana and Pop Pop get it on.

The average person’s sex life ends by the age of 70, according to a report published today in the British Medical Journal.

Men age 30 have an average of 35 years of sexually active life remaining, compared with 31 years for women, researchers at the University of Chicago’s department of obstetrics and gynecology estimated after reviewing a survey of 3,000 people. A separate survey of older people showed that by 55, men have an average sexual life expectancy of 15 years and women can expect 10 more years, the researchers found.

Happened to be watching Ali earlier tonight and choked up, as I always do, when he's killed. 

Just so happens that the 45th anniversary of his passing came and went recently. 

Hmm.. 

You think there will ever be another Malcolm X? And by "another" I mean someone with the impact.

For all of you who feel it the way I do.... 

Oh, and I found this obscure clip from 1981 with Morgan Freeman playing Malcolm X. Post- assassination has the Ossie Davis reading too. Who knew? Click Here 

Sorry. 

Anyway. 

Not to harp on yesterday's topic, but Michele over at blacknbougie.com nailed a post about being fed up with the conversation about Single and Lonely Black Women. 

She wrote:

I get it. I really do. Bashing or even borderline bruising black women is what hot in da streetz. By bashing I mean telling us why we ain't nothing, ain't gonna have nothing, ain't gonna have nobody to share nothing with. Sure, it gets you book deals and blog views and radio shows and talk shows and photo ops and movie deals and basically… paid. I get it. You found a hu$tle that works and you only have to kick a group of people that are already down to do it.

Oh, you think you're being helpful offering up your "self-help" and "how-to" and "best way" opinions to us? Even those of you that are not directly authoring the yada-yada, do you really think you're helping by adding in your "tsk-tsk" or "co-sign" two cents response to the media swirl about all the problems with the sisterhood? You're not. You are adding to the already cacophonous wall of noise. I respectfully request that right after commenting on this post… everyone just shut up. I am talking to celebs and so-called relationship gurus, writers, columnists, bloggers, regular folks talking in the coffee shop, women and men, young and old, black, white and everything in between… just STOP.

 

Even though I'm totally included in the "so-called relationship gurus, writers, columnists, bloggers," I don't knock good writing or a good point when one is made and even occasionally, I get sick of the topic. (Try standing on a red carpet answering the same question 10 diff ways while remembering to smile, keep your eye on the interviewer,  not say "uhh"  or curse, and dodge trick questions all while a mega watt light is in your face and a camera that you can't look at it is a foot from your nose.*) 

Without naming names, Michele goes off in about another 1000 words about what we can all do with our constant speculation about the Black woman's single status. 

It's borderline brilliant. (But I'll still be talking about relationships. Sorry.) 

Take a read HERE

— B. 

*I am beyond grateful for the love, but that ish is creepy and exhausting.

If you've been staying up on your Black Women Will Die Alone news, then you know that The Washington Post ran yet another story— front page this time— about how all Black women will.... well, die alone if they don't start dating White men. 

An excerpt from "Single Black women being urged to date outside their race" (yes, that is the real title):

Single black women with college degrees outnumber single black men with college degrees almost 3 to 1 in major urban areas such as Washington, according to a 2008 population survey by the U.S. Census Bureau. Given those numbers, any economist would advise them to start looking elsewhere.

It's Econ 101 for the single, educated black woman.

It’s a question I asked myself after hearing Zeta Tau Alpha won The Sprite Step Off last weekend. Seems a few people were up in arms that a white sorority took first place, and more importantly, the 100K grand prize.

I watched the footage of ZTA and a couple others that competed before I made a conclusion.

My thoughts? The white girls nailed it. I haven’t been to a step show since undergrad so I have no clue whether the Matrix routine, or hoisting a chick up on a board and having her step in the air is par for the course these days But as a former cheerleader, I can tell you that their routine was beyond precise and it was beyond solid. It wasn’t good because they were white chicks nailing a Black art form. It was good because it was… well, good.  And dare, I say better than the others.

I can’t help but notice that in near every rundown of what it is that Black men are looking for in a Black woman, weight inevitably sneaks on the list usually in the form of she “works out” or “stays fit” or “is concerned about her health or personal appearance” ie, she’s not fat. (Although “thick” in the right places doesn’t seem to be a concern.)

Some men, like an Essence.com commenter on a story I wrote last week, just made it plain:

There are very few successful fit black women available. People talk about this high ratio of single black men to women but it is a myth. If you exclude fat women it is 1 to 1.