An art gallery in Vienna has done something very unusual: It has attached a swingers' club to one of its exhibits. Not surprisingly, this has proved to be quite controversial (which was clearly the intention!).

Gallery visitors have to walk through the dimly lit makeshift club to see the featured painting. Somehow, I think a lot of people aren't going to complete the journey!
 
 
The whole point of social networking sites is that they help people connect with others. Which is why it's ironic that they are often being used to end relationships.
 
 
The new comedy Cougar Town recently opened in Australia, winning the night's ratings. It was very heavily promoted. Obviously that had a bit to do with its success.

Still, it was up against some stiff competition, including shows that had already become established. So I think the high number of viewers watching the Courtney Cox comedy (1.3 million) was significant. It revealed that there is a widespread fascination with the whole phenomenon of "cougars". It will be interesting to see how long this lasts.
 
 
In another example of rise of predatory older women in western societies, there's now a contest to find "Miss Cougar Australia 2010". It's pretty much nationwide, with heats being held this month, and finals slated for June.

Cubs (younger men) will be among the judges. Which begs the question: will there be a competition for them in the future?

Somehow I don't think this will happen. Cougars are generating way too much buzz nowadays, and will be for quite some time.
 
 
There's a lot of conflicting advice out there about dating, relationships and marriage. The latest book on this subject to cause a bit of a buzz is by American author Lori Gottlieb. She advises women that putting all their hopes into finding The One is a bad strategy. They should settle for someone merely adequate instead.

This seems like sensible advice. However, even if women take it, there's still not a big pool of men out there who are interested in marriage. Huge social changes over the last few decades have made the benefits that accrue to married men comparatively small. And there are all those horror stories about them being heavily ripped off in divorces. Men - wary of being hitched at the best of times - are even more so today. It's quite an unfortunate situation, really.
 
 
There's been a lot of buzz about cougars in America for a while. And Australia is now following suit. Some have written it off as a passing fad but it seems to be a genuine social phenomenon resulting from demographic changes.

As this article states, "figures show the trend has increased in Australia due to an oversupply of single women aged 40 to 54 compared with men in the same age bracket".

Interesting that these independent older women are still called "cougars" Down Under. The term sounds so American, and I'd imagine that some people are not happy with yet another example of US style "cultural imperialism". Maybe one day we'll use the name of a local marsupial instead!
 
 
The recent sex scandal involving Irish politician Iris Robinson and her much younger lover would have received publicity at any time. But I think it's getting a huge amount now because there's a current media obsession with older women and younger men.

In any case, there are a lot of older women who fantasize about doing what Mrs Robinson did. But they don't act on their desires - probably the wisest course of action in most cases.
 
 
There is a well known Latin phrase, in vino veritas, which means "in wine there is truth". I don't think there's any doubt about its validity. That's why it's hardly surprising that people are much likely to call or text people they've broken up with when they've had a few too many. In fact, in a recent poll more than half of the Sydneysiders surveyed admitted to being guilty of this embarrassing behaviour.
 
 
Dating site RSVP has been taking advantage of its large membership base to conduct online polls and surveys that might be of interest to media outlets for a while now. Another major Aussie dating site, Red Hot Pie, is well and truly in on the act as well. Their latest survey has been picked up by a publication in the Northern Territory.
 
 
Research by the University of NSW suggest that British backpakers are having a lot of unprotected sex on their travels in Australia, thereby fueling an increase in sexually transmitted diseases.

This is interesting, because the United Kingdom doesn't have a reputation for being the most decadent country. Places like France and Sweden are reputed to be far more sexually liberal.

But then it makes sense in a way: It's as if all the constraints that are in place when the backpackers are at home are shrugged off in a big way when they are on holiday, so they really go overboard.