She writes:

I suppose I could Internet date, but the very idea exhausts me. It feels like applying for a job I'm not sure I want. And it's so unfair, so hopelessly based on superficial things that I could weep. Cruise the online personals  just scan the 40- and 50-something entries  and you'll see that even men built like Danny DeVito demand youth and beauty. They say they're seeking "slender" or "slim" women at least 10 years their junior. Do I really need to pay a monthly fee for this sort of rejection?

And of her last love, she says:

[H]e eventually married a woman some 15 years his junior. I went to their wedding. She is lovely, but they divorced within a couple of years. "She has no sense of humor," he complained. "She's so earnest about her career, and she's not all that enthusiastic in the sack."

"Well, what did you expect?" I asked him when he called to tell me they were through.

"I expected somebody like you, only younger," he admitted. We haven't spoken since.

Has Internet dating further calcified male demands, creating a marketplace where only young, thin women need apply? Naylor acknowledges that's not the whole story: "plenty of zaftig women have husbands and lovers who adore them." So does Naylor's penchant for unavailable men predispose her to the kind of douches who find what they want, then look for a younger model, then act shocked when she's not what they were shopping for? Sure, that guy's divorced now, but he's not writing articles about his "sell-by date" and his cats.

Of course it's possible to have mixed feelings about being alone, to relish your independence while sometimes craving for companionship. But I still wish Naylor came off as less of a sad sack and more of a proud spinster. Or more accurately, I wish a woman could live alone with her cats and her TV remote and her "discreet" vibrator without feeling like a reject. Is that too much to ask?

15 Years Without Knocking Boots [Salon]

Earlier: Old Maids And Spinsters: The Best Female Role Models A Teen Girl Can Have

When you get stressed out or freaked out, your blood pressure generally goes up, which, for people with high blood pressure, can be a very bad thing. A 2006 study in Scotland shows that (heterosexual) people who've had recent vaginal intercourse react better to stress than people who had a two week dry spell (including masturbation). Masturbation, oral sex and anal sex improved the body's response to stress, but not by as much as good old vaginal penetrative sex. So, really, having sex is just protecting your heart from damage  not, as some chastity advocates might say, setting yourself up for some damage to it.

In slightly more obvious news, a 2001 study of 10 Germany guys who abstained from sex for three weeks had really intense orgasms when jerking off to porn in a laboratory. Supposedly, it didn't make them come any quicker, but I've broken a couple of guys' dry spells in my time, so I ain't buying that last part in the slightest. But in a bit of news I'm happy to help someone use, scientists are reporting that men that have consistent sex tend to have fewer ED problems as they age than men that don't, as long as they don't orgasm too quickly. Scientists hypothesize that having sustained erections (which tends to happen with intercourse but not masturbation) increase the uptake of oxygen to penile tissue, keeping the peen and all its blood vessels healthier in men that keep getting it on as they get older. So, regular sex: good for everyone! Now if only I could work it out for me in particular.

Sexual Dry Spells Hurt Blood Pressure, Intensify Orgasms [LA Times]
Use It Or Lose It: Yes It's True [LA Times]
Photo via Ehsan Khakbaz