How Blogs Ruined One Woman's Date Life
By Removing Some of the Mystery of It All

'There used to be few moments in the sexual universe better than those early, butterfly days of love . . . or lust . . . or like. Whether it was the did-I-imagine-it look over beers, the gaze held across a party, or suddenly saucy email banter, the pleasure leaping from belly down the legs was all about the lurching joy of early-stage discovery. The first acknowledgements of chemistry made way for the slow reveal, the hopefully languorous unfurling of personal intimacies: who are you, where are you from, what do you read, who do you do and how do you like to do it, where do you live, who do you love? These are the questions that determined how many ways I would be pulled toward a man or repelled by him as he began his transformation from stranger to fling, dud, or lead character in my romantic narrative. Alas, no more. Gone are my days of lazily unwrapping new prospects like birthday presents, asking intrusive questions as seductively as possible over brunches and lengthy drinks. Nope. These days, you can't swing a cat in this town without hitting a boy with a blog.'
--from a lively essay in Nerve.com by Salon.com's gender beat reporter Rebecca Traister. You can read an article about her here. And here's a piece she wrote about feminism and blogging for an online publication produced by the Barnard (College) Center for Research on Women.