The XX Factor: What women really think.

Rule Britannia

According to an article published in the London Times today, we Brits are now the most promiscuous nation in the world (of the western industrial nations, that is). In terms of one-night stands, total number of partners, and our "relaxed" attitude to casual sex, we beat Australia, the United States, Italy, and France. France! Where having extra-marital affairs is a favorite national pastime! If nothing else, at least now we might lose our reputation for being frigid and repressed.

In all seriousness though, Britain has the highest teen pregnancy rate in Europe as well as the highest teen STD infection rate in Europe (although both are significantly lower than here in the United States, where abstinence-only sex education doesn't seem to be helping much). Premature sex education in British schools (it can be taught to children as young as 4) has long been blamed for the epidemic, along with the inappropriate sexualization of children by toy manufacturers and the media. But here's a thought. In Britain, we also drink more than any other country in Europe (apart from Ireland and Finland, bizarrely), and our alcohol-related death rate has doubled since 1991. We've also, according to this reasonably insulting story in the New York Times, been causing havoc on summer vacations with our abhorrent, booze-soaked behavior. Could there be a correlation somewhere between the beer goggles and the newfound sluttiness?

Rubbernecking at Jezebel

While we're in Jezebel land, who can resist a little rubbernecking? Tracie and Moe of the site recently made a spectacle of themselves onstage in Manhattan at the Thinking and Drinking series put together by Lizz Winstead of The Daily Show, all captured on video, alas for them. Winstead is furious (clips there and everywhere), and the whole thing already has been raked over the blogosphere coals.(Best and raunchiest post title: Jezebels Gone Wild: In Which Feminism Finally Bends Over and Eats Itself From the Ass Up.) On Jezebel itself, damage control includes calling the whole thing a "fucking shame." But on her own blog, Tracie prefers blurry denial:

Anyway, I thought this thing was supposed to be a comedy show, but to be honest, I didn't really do my research on how the interview was really gonna go. I tried to make some jokes, but they fell super flat. ("I don't get raped because I live in Williamsburg, and all the guys there are pussies.") It all seemed really horrible at the time, but now, looking back, I sort of have to laugh. I mean, to our friends, it was just Moe and Tracie being Moe and Tracie—drunk, irreverent, drunk.

Wow, yes, a shame. And another lesson, if we needed one, in the perils of overexposure, oversharing, over-the-top Internet/video self-indulgence. But isn't that the whole story, really, as opposed to a broader of indictment of feminism and a prediction of its ever-impending doom, as some of the commentary seems to have it? What I wish for these women are the days when a bad small stage appearance or college newspaper column was quickly mothballed, never to be viewed again. Maybe the Web is creating a scary new boundary-free generation, and for sure talking smack about sex has gone way beyond what I remember from my decade—ago 20s (see Emily Gould). But maybe also it's just gotten way too easy to rubberneck, and so youthful errors become train wrecks. Thoughts?