by Peachy Keenan, Spectator (Image: Wikimedia Creative Commons)
American women’s most listened-to podcast is Call Her Daddy. It is hosted by the glamorous Alex Cooper, whose shtick is grilling female celebrities on their sex lives. For example, she made Gwyneth Paltrow rank all her boyfriends according to their sexual skills. I hope her husband and kids didn’t bother listening to that episode.
She recently hosted an actress named Sophia Bush. They discussed Sophia’s multiple divorces while Alex declared breathlessly that if a woman is questioning whether she can do better than her current husband, “the answer is always yes.” Sophia agreed. “The answer is always yes, and this idea that it’s too late or you’re too old, or who are you to want more – that’s patriarchy. That is crazy!” Something around here is crazy, yes, Ms. Bush.
Bush, in case you are not up-to-date on C-list television stars in their forties, is on her third marriage. It took place last year, and this time she wed a woman. She is now stepmother to her wife’s two adopted black children from the wife’s former marriage (to a different woman).
One wonders who Ms. Bush will be marrying next year – and which gender her wheel-of-fortune spin will land on. Hint: if you ask Bush to marry you, the answer will always be yes. (Spare a thought for her stepkids, who now have at least four mothers of various sorts and durations.)
A few days after the podcast came out, a Telegraph article appeared with this headline: “I thought motherhood had killed my sex drive, but I just needed a divorce.” The subheading went on: “Áine Rock spent years battling exhaustion, migraines and a lack of desire. Becoming single at 46 transformed her relationship with intimacy.”