What happens when it’s not a human bringing on the heartache, but an AI-powered app? That’s a question a great many users of the Replika AI are crying about this month.
Of the 50 plus shades of online anger, one fascinates me more than the rest: the anger of the Incel. Beneath the euphemistic portmanteau of “involuntary” and “celibate” lurks a sinister mass of self-loathing men. They know they are unattractive,…
My second book is to be published by NewSouth Books (Australia and New Zealand) on 1 May 2021. Columbia University Press are publishing it in the remainder of the English-Speaking World.
Here are some snippets from blurbs and from independent reviews, together with information on places to preorder or buy the book.
The most common serious pregnancy complication arises due to an ancient conflict between mothers and fathers. Itcould have ended badly in so many ways. My friend, let’s call her Amy, in vibrant mid-twenties health, could not have been more ready…
Why are beards resurging in 2020? History teaches us that men cooperate best if they shave. They stop shaving when times get tough. Two weeks into work-from-home isolation and a trend has slid into my Zoom meetings. Men I have…
In light of Brexit, and the United States election campaign that gave us President-elect Donald J Trump, Oxford Dictionaries has declared “post-truth” its 2016 word of the year. In keeping with the disdain for veracity that it embodies, the word…
Today, millions of very nervous adults are furtively checking sites like “Have I been Pwned” to check if their account details at Ashley Madison have been leaked. Others are checking if their partners or acquaintances had accounts. The hacking and…
What gets you out of bed in the morning? Before morning has broken, and some time before blackbird has spoken, songbirds rise for sex. And a clever new experiment reveals just how important it is for male songbirds not to…
Marriage, according to those who habitually preface the word with “traditional”, is a collaboration. With complementary roles, filled as predictably by one woman and one man as peanut butter fills the gap between two slices of white bread. If you…
Workers of the world can have their International Labour Day, or Workers Day or whatever. But the month of May belongs to an equally fundamental dignity: masturbation. The fact that a whole month is devoted to self-pleasure raises two important…