Yesterday, a tipster told us Jason Wu, who has been enjoying a publicity bump following Michelle Obama's appearance in one of his gowns at the inauguration, had been effectively outed to some of his extended family by his profile in the Times Sunday Styles section. Writer Eric Wilson's mention of Wu's boyfriend, Gustavo Rangel, was, we heard, the first some of his family members had heard about his sexual orientation.

Whether that's true or not, says Mr. Gabriel, his section did not "out" the designer.

During his reporting, Eric Wilson asked both Wu and his partner, Gustavo Rangel, if it was okay to mention in print that they were a couple. They both consented. (...) [I]t is wrong to leave readers with the implication made by your headline that The New York Times someone [sic] outed Jason Wu. We take this issue seriously here. We did no such thing.

It's also worth noting that Wu spoke about Michelle Obama's style and his experience designing for her to The Advocate for their issue of January 20; the piece was headlined "Michelle Goes Gay." Although Wu was not quoted discussing his sexuality with the magazine, both the text and the sub-headline referred to him as a gay designer.

There are clearly levels of in-ness and out-ness within almost any gay individual's life — especially so for anyone whose family comes from a more conservative culture, but who lives and works far away in the relatively tolerant bubble of New York City. Negotiating these levels of identity must be fraught at the best of times. Wu may even have thought it was 'safe' to speak to The Advocate, since his Taiwanese relatives wouldn't read it. But if he did give the Times positive permission to identify his and Rangel's relationship as a romantic one, then he wasn't outed — even if it's true that the news entailed some difficult family discussions. He outed himself. And good for him, because he has plenty to be proud of right now.

The Spotlight Finds Jason Wu [NY Times]
Michelle Goes Gay [Advocate]

Earlier: Did Jason Wu Inadvertently Out Himself In The New York Times?

[Image via Tricia Romano]

Kallir and Cosimini had their second marriage profiled in the New York Times vows section on Sunday, and even though back then Cosimini had taken a job without consulting his wife, and "her complaints made him angry and uncommunicative," the couple managed to patch things up.

I bring this up specifically because the comments to a recent post about cheating that Sadie wrote were so unilaterally harsh. Almost all of the commenters thought cheating, even once, is an unforgivable, Bobbit-worthy offense. I've never dealt with this personally, but the reaction seemed to ignore the fact that in any longterm relationship, there are vast swaths of gray.

Kallir says that the relationship's initial demise wasn't entirely her husband's fault. She admits to being guilty of “poor communication and negligence,” and though she was "scared of getting back in a relationship with someone who had hurt me that deeply," eventually she could not deny that she still felt that he was her emotional spouse. Is she deluded? Or has their relationship evolved?

For what it's worth, Kallir says the second wedding was infinitely better than the first:

Maybe we didn’t altogether know why we were getting married. It just seemed like the thing to do. But this time it’s really a meaningful expression of something. It’s really a kind of triumphant celebration of all that we’ve been through and what we mean to one another.

Jane Kallir And Gary Cosimini [NY Times]

Earlier: Telling You He's Cheated: Reasons Pro And Con

First of all, there's sheer logistics. Since Vessel sees each of his girlfriends several times a week, he has to keep an overnight bag packed and is often away from home for four or five nights at a stretch. And he had difficulty explaining to his parents why he brought one girlfriend home to visit them but kept talking about another. The hardest work, though, is emotional. One of Vessel's girlfriends, Diana Adams, was jealous of another girlfriend's toothbrush — not because Vessel had purchased it, she claims, but because it was nicer than the one he'd purchased her. After they talked about it, Adams says, "I just decided that this was an example of a jealousy that is not warranted."

When you're in a monogamous relationship, jealousy is your prerogative. Excessive jealousy is, of course, a problem, and it can sometimes be hard to know where the line between reason and excess lies. But if your boyfriend buys another woman a toothbrush for her to use when she stays over at his house, you're allowed to be angry, and it's understood that you're angry because of something he did. But with polyamory, jealousy becomes something you just have to deal with. Even if you're open and honest with your partners, you still have to change your feelings — they don't have to change their actions.

Much like nations, relationships have to balance freedom and security. If you're polyamorous, you have the freedom to choose multiple partners — but not the security that your partner won't hurt you by loving someone else. Of course, you don't necessarily have that security in a monogamous relationship either — but you do get to ask for it. As Moe quoted in a post earlier this year, some polyamorists share "a cynical belief that the monogamous are stuck in a myth, one that leads to cheating, unhappiness or divorce court." And the monogamous, for their part, often take a dim view of polyamory. Sex researcher Edward O. Laumann callously told the Times that polyamorists are "just talking like that because they haven’t found somebody special." But like in so many aspects of sex and love, people probably fall along a spectrum, from those who crave security above all else, to those who are willing to put up with some heartache in order to love as many people as they want.

Hopelessly Devoted to You, You and You [NY Times]

Earlier: Is Polyamory Not Such A Retarded Idea After All?

Single mothers by choice are often second-guessed by people who think they can't handle the job. Turns out men come in for such second-guessing too. Adam Pertman of the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute says that men run into the stereotype that “Women are better nurturers. Why would a man want to raise a child?” So while single mothers get pegged as lonely or selfish, single fathers are chromosomally unprepared or possibly unmanly.

Single dad Gene Flanders says strangers are likely to assume he doesn't know how to raise his son. When he let his baby boy taste some butter from his finger at a restaurant, “one woman almost reached up to stop me — little slights like that.” Of course, women get plenty of criticism for how they raise their kids. But it's worth noting that the same annoying stereotypes that make men out to be Neanderthals who can't make their own dinner may also damage their ability to be fathers.

And we should be supporting this ability! Why? Well, because experts say that single parents "can still raise children successfully, if they enlist the support of family and friends to help provide a nurturing environment and structure." And because supporting single fatherhood means affirming men's capacity to raise kids without a woman in the house, which is good for gay couples.

But this is Jezebel, and since we are feminazis who only care about women, let's get to the point! Take a look at that picture above. It's lawyer Steve Harris wearing a business suit, sitting in a posh office — with his baby. If that were a woman, the article would probably be about how impossible it is to juggle personal and professional responsibilities, and how she's worried her child will grow up damaged because of their high-powered career. But the NYT offers the following description of Harris's lifestyle: "His office now looks different. He’s brought in a playpen; there are toys and books, all there in case the nanny calls in sick." So, uh, he adapted to his situation and somehow manages to balance family and career (albeit with a nanny)? Shocking!

Single parenthood is still associated with a disempowered group in society — women, and often poor women at that. But if a powerful group — professional men, often the only ones who can afford six-figure surrogacy fees — joins in, perhaps raising a child on one's own will receive much-needed legitimacy. If besuited dudes in Manhattan juggle story hour and billable hours, perhaps society will wake up to the fact that women have been doing this for years, and doing it without raising a generation of axe murderers. And more importantly, perhaps when more men become single parents, less fortunate single parents will get more of the resources they badly need — like child care, health care, and other services that can be difficult to afford when you're raising a kid on your own. So kudos to the Steve Harrises of the world, not only for doing a tough job all by themselves, but for potentially making that job a little easier for others.

The Bachelor Life Includes A Family [NY Times]

I still remember overhearing the tearful phone calls. One girl in particular stood out because her parents said they would buy her a Beamer if she lost 20 pounds by Christmas. I'm pretty sure she didn't end up losing the weight, but her mother did succeed in fomenting her daughter's self-loathing and bulimia. Great job, mom! My own mother, who is extremely slender and pushing 60, is still getting over the fact that in second grade she had the biggest waist in class and had to buy her clothes in the "husky" section of the department store. Consider this a public service announcement for the current and future mothers of America: being a teenager is hard enough as it is without your mom implying that you're fat and lame. Unless you're willing to foot the bill for the decades of therapy you're going to inspire, perhaps you should lay off your kids, mkay?

As Cool as They Want to Be [New York Times]

• America's best-monikered First Lady, Lady Bird Johnson, died this afternoon at the age of 94. She was one of the first people (sorry, Al!) to bring environmentalism center-stage. [CBS News]
  
• Queen Elizabeth got huffy with photographer Annie Leibowitz. [USAToday]
  
• UN Secretary General offers up the following deep thought: "New thinking" is needed to deal with our current climate change problems. What, is the UN now the NY Times 'Sunday Styles' section of world events? Picking up on "trends" a good three seasons after their debut?! [BBC]
  
• Shy guys: Not only are the less likely to make the first move, but they're more likely to die of a heart attack. Which leads us to the natural, however seemingly absurd, conclusion that the chances of a guy having a heart attack when you put the moves on him pretty damn high. [Daily News UK]

• The latest in Spice Girls Mania: Redux: A BBC documentary on the group is planned for the fall. Meaning that Victoria Beckham now feels a little better about the downsizing of her NBC special on herself? [BBC]
• When will J.Lo learn? Movies featuring herself and her lover du jour = really bad idea. [TMZ]
• The photographer who grabbed at Heather Mills to snap a pic of her in July of last year was found guilty of assault. Mills offered some statement about blah blah blah justice being served. But we want to know what Paul McCartney has to say! [BBC]
• Uh oh Moz! Compaing Madonna's adopted (African) son to a wild animal is no way to make a point about why you shouldn't wear fur! Suddenly, we wonder if PETA is somehow behind Morrissey's recent slew of concert cancelings. Well, PETA or the NAACP. [Best Week Ever]
• Growing up, whenever we would start complaining about something, our aunt would ask us if we were in SIberia (like our relatives had been, in work camps, during WWII). The answer was always no. But we wish we had been! Then we could have been the ones to discover the baby mammoth!!! [CNN]
• We hope to see something on TheKnot.com tomorrow on what the etiquette is when one of your guests arrives a year early for your wedding. [CNN]
• It appears that someone other than us is bitter that kids are off for the summer while we have to work. [Slate]
• Memo to our high school stoner friends: New information about Jim Morrison's death! (Spoiler: Heroin, not a hot bath) [USA Today]
• Evil Knievel and Kanye West are going to try to hug it out. [USA Today]
• A dog named Max, saved by a little backdoor entry! [CBS]
• 2 U.S. casualties identified. [DoD]