• Relationships

10 Reasons Why A Regular Ladies’ Night Is Essential

Vacays For Women
Have you taken all these awesome trips yet? Read More »
Friends We Need
Six types of friends every woman needs. Read More »

If we were to take anything important from the Christmas classic “It’s A Wonderful Life” (besides the fact that every time a bell rings, an angel gets its wings), it’s that no man, or rather, woman, for our purposes, “is a failure who has friends.” This is completely true. Have you ever imagined your life without your friends? It’s all tea parties with stuffed animals and lengthy chats with the walls in your bedroom – none of which talk back, or tell you how amazing you look in those jeans. It’s, for lack of a better word, sad.

Whether you’re single, in a relationship, engaged or married, it’s essential to make sure you have a regular standing “ladies’ night” with the women in your life. Why? Well, because, as we just covered, you’re a failure if you don’t have friends. No! But friends do add the necessary color to our lives that we all need to flourish, grow and be deliriously happy. Keep reading »

Who’s Your Favorite Person To Travel With, And Why?

Wanderlust 2013
Time for a vacay! The Frisky will help you plan your trip! Read More »

Traveling with the right person or group can turn even a weekend at the beach into an unforgettable experience. On the other hand, traveling with the wrong person can turn the trip of your dreams into a total nightmare. We’ve made an extensive list of the pros and cons of different travel partners before, but in the spirit of Wanderlust 2013, we thought it would be fun to give a shoutout to our favorite traveling companions–and we’d love to hear about yours. Do you like mother-daughter adventures? Sexy getaways with your lover? Big group trips? Do you and your BFF plan all your vacays together? After the jump, find out about The Frisky staff’s favorite travel buddies, and then tell us about yours! Keep reading »

Hitched: Who’s Next?

How about this: unless you’re speaking to a person who is literally about to walk down an aisle to an altar at which they will proceed to exchange vows of lifelong love to another human being, don’t tell them they’re “next” to get married.

That’s what a friend of mine’s sister told her recently, and … well, I’ll just tell you what my friend — a single lady — expressed in response: “RUH RUH!?!?!” Because seriously. Nobody’s “next.” There’s not a wedding pecking order. Nobody is the first person to get married, and matrimony isn’t a race wherein some people come in second, third or fourth place. Keep reading »

Mommie Dearest: Four Months Maternity Leave? We Wish!

Megyn Kelly On Maternity Leave
megyn kelly photo
Fox News' Megyn Kelly defends maternity leave in feminist moment. Read More »
Aussie's Parental Leave
koala baby
Australia enacts paid parental leave for dads, gay couples. Read More »
Frisky Parenting!
twins
All the posts The Frisky has ever done about parenting! Read More »
mommie dearest shakira

Pop star Shakira gave birth to her son, Milan, back in January. Since then, she’s been hard at work promoting her new gig as a judge on the NBC show, “The Voice.” As part of that promotion, Shakira spoke with US Weekly and weighed in with some thoughts on motherhood:

On getting her pre-baby body back: ”I mean, I guess our mothers and grandmothers weren’t under the pressure that women of today are after delivering a baby. My dad says that there’s nothing better than a little meat on the bone! He likes my mom a little chubby. So she was never under the pressure to get back to her old weight, and she never did, actually! But it’s different, I have a career, and that’s the only part that’s been a bit stressful because I knew that I’d have to come back here to do ‘The Voice’ two months after I delivered a baby. I didn’t have my four months maternity like every woman on Earth has. So I’m not trying to complain, but it’s been a process full of challenges in my life. I’m still a few pounds over! Zumba has been pretty great for me even during pregnancy. I did it almost until the end.”

Sigh. That’s a whole lot to unpack. First, I have to admit to busting out a cackling laugh at Shakira’s seemingly naive lament over not having her “four months maternity like every woman on earth has.” But then I remembered Shakira is Colombian and — oh yeah — it’s pretty much just the United States that is completely screwed up when it comes to mandated paid maternity leave. I’ve ranted about this before, but honestly, it never gets old. The U.S. is one of only four (FOUR!) other countries in the world that does not provide any sort of mandated paid maternity (or family) leave. Keep reading »

Dating Don’ts: The Case For Doing Nothing

Dating Don'ts: Travel
The DOs and DONT's of travel hookups. Read More »
Dating Don'ts: Functions
How open should you be about poop and stuff? Read More »
Dating Don'ts: Cleaning
Simple ways to spring clean your love life. Read More »

I have something I need to get off my chest. I’m experiencing pangs of guilt about writing about dating when I’m no longer doing it. I wake up some mornings and feel like I’m the Benedict Arnold of the single population. During my time at The Frisky, I have gone through pockets of non-singleness, but for the most part I have been single and proud to be so, with moments of not-proud-to be so. I’ve written about the ups and downs of that, but mostly, I accepted and embraced singlehood. I cultivated an identity around it.

As much as I griped about having to sleep on the pull-out couch every Christmas (that did genuinely suck), as much as I blamed myself for being single, as much as I kicked and screamed my way through online dating, as many times as I gave up and went on dating hiatuses, the truth is that I liked being single. I liked being free to hang out with friends, or go to hot yoga, or wake up as early as I felt like on a Sunday morning (I never sleep past 8 a.m). I liked reading my books on the subway and always being in charge of what to watch on Netflix live streaming. Season 3 of “RuPaul’s Drag Race” at 7 a.m. on Saturday?  WERK!  I liked making unilateral decisions about everything in my life because, seriously, it’s the height of personal freedom. It’s something that everyone should experience. It’s a state of being to be savored for as long as it lasts. Keep reading »

On The Matter Of Mattering In The Aftermath Of A Parent’s Death

My Father's Death
Amelia lost her dad this year. Read More »

It has been five-and-a-half months since my dad died and yet it sometimes feels like it hasn’t hit me yet. Even though his ashes are sitting in a box in my apartment. He had been absent from my day-to-day life for years, our interactions limited, at their most intimate, to Skype. Then we stopped talking. And then eight months later, he died. After the initial shock, my day-to-day life didn’t seem to be that different. I was used to not speaking to him, and had long ago resigned myself to not seeing him again. I couldn’t figure out how to grieve. Keep reading »

7 Simple Conversations With My French Lover Made Possible With Google Translation

Wanderlust 2013
It's time for a vacay! The Frisky can help you find the perfect destination. Read More »
Dating Don'ts: Travel
The DOs and DONT's of travel hookups. Read More »
Traveling Alone Perks
Twelve reasons why traveling solo rules (in GIFs). Read More »

A month and a half ago, I went to France for a week and while I was there, I took a French lover. He was a 24-year-old waiter that I met at the first restaurant I had dinner at and he didn’t speak any English. Don’t judge me (unless it’s for being awesome). I took two years of French in high school; he and I were basically equally as fluent in each other’s native tongue, which is to say, not fucking at all. As a result, we could only communicate in two ways: through the language of love, wink, and with the aid of Google Translate. In honor of Wanderlust 2013, and to encourage you to have your own foreign affair  someday, here are seven extremely simple topics my French lover and I were able to discuss thanks to Google Translate.  Keep reading »

The Soapbox: Just Because I’m Gay Doesn’t Mean That I’m Attracted To You

What Queerness Means
Amanda's queerness includes attraction to men and that's OK. Read More »
First Time: With A Woman
bisexual
Jessica hooked up with a woman for the first time. Read More »
Lesbian For Channing
Channing Tatum
Erika is a lesbian who loves Channing Tatum. Read More »
women at the gym

Moving through the world as someone who identifies as bisexual or queer, I’m always navigating difficult experiences that compartmentalize my sexuality. I’ve been labeled “indecisive” for not being more assertive in which sex I prefer to date. I’ve been called “disgusting” because my desire to date women makes some people uncomfortable or possibly more accurately, question their own sexuality. And, of course, I’ve been told that my experience is a phase that will soon become a distant memory as I evolve into heterosexuality, find the perfect man, marry and become a Quiverfull woman who embraces domesticity and leans away from my career.

But none of these experiences trouble me as much as a recent experience I had in which I, and women like me, were named sexually perverse. The U.S. Supreme Court hearing regarding California’s ban on same-sex marriage has surfaced some polemic debates on the rights of the LGBT communities. In my experience, when opponents to marriage equality aren’t being downright nasty they’re crafting negligently harmful stories that characterize same-sex loving people as menacing. We’ve all heard some of the narratives: “Gay people will convert our children,” “Giving gays the right to marry will compromise the institution of marriage,” “Gay people lack a moral compass which is why they’re okay with being gay,” and “What’s next, sex with animals?” Keep reading »

Your Friskyscopes For The Week Of April 29-May 5, 2013

Astro 101: At The Airport
How to spot each sign at the airport! Read More »

Taurus (April 20-May 20): Life will adjust to a speed that’ll make you roasty-n-toasty in your own skin. Even if shit goes down, it’ll be water off a duck’s back. As you know, there are times you do all you can to get ahead to go nowhere; then there are times when you reap rewards from laziness. Cycles turn to your favor, at least this once. After all, it’s not wishful thinking, it’s physics.

Gemini (May 21-June 20): Over-intellectualizing emotions is not a winning game and you know it. You also know that if you have to think about it (at this early stage), it’s not looking too good … but you can’t stop. Maybe life is trying to catch you off-guard and there is more to your attractions than what would otherwise be so basic. Did you make it up? Were you blinded? No. Stop it before you start. Keep reading »

5 Widely Believed Dating Myths (Science Says Aren’t True)

There are some universally acknowledged truths when it comes to dating. These themes are repeated on sitcoms, in romantic comedies and in your buddy Paul’s hookup stories that he totally swears are true, bro.

And, according to science, most of it is wrong. That’s right; somehow, you know even less about romance than you thought you did. Read more on Cracked…