Blame affairs on evolution of sex roles

Tolerance for male adultery is certainly at a new low. In letters and diaries written during the Colonial and Revolutionary eras, men routinely bragged about their extramarital conquests -- even to the brothers and fathers of their own wives! In the 1850s, it is estimated that New York City had one prostitute for every 64 men, while the mayors of Savannah, Georgia, and Norfolk, Virginia, put the numbers of prostitutes in their cities at one for every 39 and 26 men, respectively.

Part of it is probably a sense of entitlement. Powerful men have "people" to take care of the mundane details of life. They are briefed on the names and backgrounds of whomever they meet, told when it's time to leave, and extricated from awkward encounters. Someone else keeps track of appointments, money and time, fetches whatever they have forgotten at home, makes excuses when they change plans, and picks up after them when they leave a room. No wonder they get careless about picking up after their indiscretions as well.

-CNN

Learning from Psychopaths: Q&A With Psychologist Kevin Dutton

It’s too simplistic to think of psychopaths as being murderers or law-breakers, says Oxford psychologist Kevin Dutton.

In his new book, The Wisdom of Psychopaths, Dutton examines what we can learn from those who lack conscience but are also bold and highly resilient to stress.

What exactly is a psychopath?

No sooner is the word out of someone’s mouth  than images of [serial killers] like Ted Bundy and Jeffrey Dahmer come to mind. It doesn’t automatically mean that you’re a criminal or serial killer.  When psychologists talk about psychopaths, what we refer to are people with a distinct set of personality characteristics including ruthlessness,  fearlessness, mental toughness, a charismatic personality and lack of conscience and empathy.

-Readability/Time

Philip Roth Retires: 10 Lessons from the Professor of Desire

Like many people, I was saddened when it was publicized that Philip Roth had quietly announced his retirement in an interview with a French magazine. By chance, the news came near the end of a year during which my attitude toward Roth changed from appreciation to obsession. Before 2012, I had read perhaps 10 of Roth’s books in a decade. This year, I read 15 Roth novels in a row, the literary equivalent of binge-watching multiple seasons of a serial television drama. The more I read, the more I appreciated how Roth writes not only with technical virtuosity and aesthetic mastery, but also with profound spiritual intent.

-Readabiliy/The Millions 

You Missed It: Most Unfairly Overlooked Movies Of The Decade

When people look back on the early years of the new millennium they'll remember it for movies like The Dark Knight and Lord of the Rings. Or they'll geek out with their friends about the cult classics they discovered together, rewatching copies of the original version of Donnie Darko or spreading around copies of Idiocracy and laughing at its accuracy. Or we'll remember the prestige movies, the big Oscar winners like No Country For Old Men and Chicago.

But in a better world, maybe we'd remember these movies. These are the other guys, the great films you missed through circumstance or stupidity, through studio stumbling or simply bad timing.

-Cinema Blend

Tokyo: The World’s Most Uncomfortable Commute

Tokyo is world-famous for its urban density, so it’s no surprise that the legendarily packed city subways would capture photographer Michael Wolf’s imagination.

-Slate

The sex issue: Is monogamy dead?

There are about 4,000 mammal species on Earth, but only a few dozen form lifelong monogamous pair bonds. The bonobo chimpanzees of Congo, for instance, eschew monogamy because they use sex as a social activity to develop and maintain bonds with male and female chimps. And monogamy is hardly the norm for humans.

-The Long Good Read

Secrets, Schemes, and Lots of Guns: Inside John McAfee’s Heart of Darkness

As dawn broke over the interior of Belize on April 30, an elite team of 42 police and soldiers, including members of the country's SWAT team and Special Forces, converged on a compound on the banks of a jungle river. Within, all was quiet. The police called out through a bullhorn that they were there looking for illegal firearms and narcotics, then stormed in, breaking open doors with sledgehammers, handcuffing four security guards, and shooting a guard dog dead. The compound's owner, a 67-year-old white American man, emerged bleary-eyed from his bedroom with a 17-year-old Belizean girl.

-Gizmodo

Corn Maze Craze: Get Lost in Halloween Horror Fields Before Harvest

Happy October! Before harvest, and popular in autumn around Halloween, fall festivals kick off a corn maze craze. Called maize mazes in the United Kingdom and labyrinths in Europe, corn mazes are a great way for farms to create income from tourism. This competition factor among Halloween fields of horror are also why these puzzles carved into the corn grow increasingly complex each year.

-Love These Pics

Times Square like you’ve never seen it before: Amazing images capture the Crossroads of the World from 1904 to modern days

Whenever someone mentions New York City in passing, Times Square is almost always the first thing that comes to mind.The bustling Crossroads of the World, the pulsating core of the Big Apple lit in myriads of neon lights has been drawing tourists from around the world like a magnet for nearly a century.

-Daily Mail

The models for American Gothic, Nan Wood Graham and Byron McKeeby, 1930.