I’ll never get back the few minutes it took to read the Jean Braithwaite piece today in the NYTimes.

“Our Bodies, Our Imaginations” is 1,700 words in “the paper of record” today about a woman who, we are told, gets fat post-wedding. Her husband, having married an “anorexic,” is turned off by the weight gain. So, said woman (the author of the piece) tries satisfying her urges by answering a “Women Seeking Women”ad in a local paper. Her husband encourages the porn pen pal, and the wife additionally obsesses about sex at her job at a bookstore, looking at every female customer (and then some) as if she was possibly her anonymous pen pal.

Eventually she meets the porn pal and “Raven” is turned off too.

Which is pretty much the end of the story–except we’re promised a book on the topic to come from the author of the piece. (Second book this weekend I can’t wait for.)

As I said, time I will never get back.

What makes you sad about the whole thing most especially is that the NYTimes has the essay under the category “Modern Love.” Huh? Missing from the piece–and the lives of these poor people–seems to be just that–love. It’s a sad commentary on what the NYTimes must think constitutes marriage in America–and “love.”