One of the great things about Internet dating has been to connect singles to the whole world of potential mates. While in many ways this makes cross-cultural and cross-ethnic pairings more likely and easier to create, the access to so many singles has also contributed to an extreme amount of pickiness. One aspect of the pickiness is racial preferences. Understandably, many people prefer a mate from their own racial background. But we are increasingly seeing cross-racial preferences that seem clearly connected to racial stereotypes. See this article below (bold my addition) for a beginning discussion about the role of race and stereotyping in dating.
Can Online Dating Include Racial Profiling?
By Camille Mendez on Feb. 22, 2010
With the innovation of new technologies, there has been a great emergence of online dating sites. But a strange aspect of these widely accepted, used and advertised sites is the racial factor.
According to studies conducted from September 2004 to May 2005 by Cynthia Feliciano, Associate Professor of Sociology and Chicano/Latino Studies, and Belinda Robnett, Associate Professor of Sociology, white men preferred Asian or Latino women instead of African-American women while white women did not prefer Asian men.
Feliciano said, “Internet dating offers a unique lens through which to understand the process of selecting a partner and how race plays into the selection. Studies point to increasingly tolerant attitudes about interracial relationships, but intermarriage rates remain relatively low.”
Most preferences are apparent in certain races more than others. While all races claim that they wouldn’t mind dating outside their race, informal factors exist that influence a person’s decision when it comes to dating, marriage, or just hooking up. The common biases include that Asian women are hypersexual, Black women are bossy, Asian men are not masculine enough, Black men are lazy, and that white women are status-oriented. What all races did seem to agree on was their preference to date a white man, a race seen superior to the others, most likely due to social status in the economy.
Recent studies by researchers at UCI’s own Yahoo! Personals dating service further points out racial preference statistics on apimovement.com: “In the UCI study, of women who expressed a racial preference (73 percent) on Yahoo!, less than 10 percent would bother to respond to overtures from men of Asian descent, particularly East Indians, somewhat behind Black and Latino men. White women in particular were particularly exclusive in racial preference. 64 percent of those with a racial preference checked whites only (93 percent excluded Asian men). In other words, nearly one out of two white women wanted to date only whites. About three out of five men expressed a racial preference. Nearly half selected Asian women, compared with 7 percent selecting Black women. Men of all races will avoid black women, and all races had a degree of racial bias in terms of dating.”
Yahoo! Personals cites the UCI case study conducted by Feliciano and Robnett and, in response, discusses some obstacles of interracial dating as well as the methods to overcome them.
1. The Traditionalists: Races who exclusively date the same races for a common cultural foundation. Resolution: Surround yourself with a diverse group of people. This opens your point of view to additional outlooks on life as well as establishing a connection with other races.
2. Stereotypes from Mass Media: The public easily absorbs over-generalized images of different ethnicities and how they interact.
Resolution: Try not to let the media influence stereotypes portrayed and instead focus on your personal opinions.
3. Offensive Family Member: Racial “jokes” add tension that makes you think twice about dating outside your own race.
Resolution: Prepare for confrontations and think of persuasive ways to respond to demand respect in your dating decision.
4. The Gazers: People who blatantly stare at interracial couples.
Resolution: Instead of assuming the attention is a bad thing, bask in it. Their opinions shouldn’t matter to you or your date.
Feliciano and Robnett have released other studies on similar subjects including “Gendered Race Exclusion among White Internet Daters” in 2009 with graduate student Golnaz Komaie.
Yahoo! announced yesterday that it is turning over its dating section Yahoo! Personals to Match.com to run. Yahoo members logging in to personals.yahoo.com got the news right off, with the home page giving out instructions and the final date: July 21. Here’s what the home page says:
Yahoo! personals is closing on July 21, 2010. But you can still find dates — get FREE personalized email matches from our trusted new partner, Match.com
It’s easy to see who’s on Match.com on Yahoo!
* Largest paid community of diverse singles in the country
* Matches are based on what’s important to you
* Matches are emailed up to three times a week for FREE
We’ll do the work for you
* We’ll move your information to Match.com on Yahoo! Details »
* You’ll start getting matches right away
I stopped recommending Yahoo a couple of years ago. The steam just seemed to go out of the site. Now Match.com really will be the place to go, the only significant competition being eHarmony and PlentyofFish.com. And for my money, I wouldn’t bother with either, even though POF is free. Match.com will be HUGE.
I’ve had clients who have asked me to write their emails to prospective dates for them. I do play a very active role in the development of each client’s profile, even writing a draft of the essay, but my clients play a part too, answering a long list of questions that I draw from when writing. I give suggestions when asked on how to write a first email, occasionally even writing a draft, but I have never taken on the entire correspondence like this guy below, Matt Prager. I could do it well, just like he does. Like him, I am a psychotherapist and a good writer, but I think it is really important for us all to have a direct hand in our own futures. And I agree with Sonali Fernand, quoted in the article: If you do not reveal right up front that someone else is writing for you, then it is deceptive. What do you think?
Online dating: Cyber Cyrano for hire
John Connolly
So, it’s your first date. You’ve been emailing for a couple of weeks, and now you’ve taken the plunge and decided to meet for a drink. He’s nicely turned out and even better looking than his pictures suggested. Perhaps he’s not quite as witty as he was over the internet, but then some people are just more fluent when they can put their thoughts down in writing. Mind you, he doesn’t seem to remember all of the conversations that you had, or not in any great detail, and was that a piece of paper he was consulting at the bar as you walked in? Hey, are those notes? What kind of person brings notes on a date?
Not as witty. Doesn’t remember conversations. Needs notes. Wait a minute…
If this situation were to play itself out in a bar in Manhattan or elsewhere this very weekend, then it’s possible that either Matt Prager or, more likely, his latest client would have only himself to blame. For Prager, a clever 42-year-old therapist and former screenwriter based in New York, has a curious sideline: he is regularly engaged by men to assume their identities and find possible dates for them on internet dating sites. In essence, he pretends to be his client in the early stages of courtship and then, when the woman agrees to a date, he hands over all of the information he has collated to the man in question and lets nature take its course. In our initial conversations, I referred to him as a “Cyber Cyrano”, after the large-nosed 17th-century French dramatist and duellist Cyrano de Bergerac, who was immortalised on stage by Edmond Rostand. In Rostand’s play, Cyrano seduces the beautiful Roxane on behalf of the doomed, but more conventionally handsome Christian. But Prager took issue with this comparison, and suggested instead that he was, in fact, closer to an avatar, a cyber version of the client’s own personality.
“I’ve heard the Cyrano thing before,” Prager says, “but I’m not even that classy. I’m doing a dirty job that nobody wants to do. I think the mercy for my clients is that they’re cut out of the process entirely. They’re generally people who get a lot of emails in the course of their jobs, and tend to answer them at a brisk rhythm. The prospect of trawling through more, even for dating purposes, doesn’t appeal. I feel like the only reason I even have this work is that people view it as such a pain in the ass, and the idea of outsourcing it is appealing to them.”
Prager views part of his role as “dating coaching”: he will talk to the client to find out what his expectations are, and the kind of woman that he is seeking. “Then, at a certain point, once I get where they’re coming from, there’s no discussion. I just tell them to look at their online account, email me details of the ones that they’re interested in and we’ll take it from there. This, to me, is where it slots into my writing background. I try to take on the character of my client, but the truth of the matter is – and this holds true of most people in the online world – that they want to get to the date quickly. It’s basic, generic chatter, and then some version of ‘Do you want to get together for coffee?’ My primary job is just laundering emotion. Imagine if you contacted 20 people, crafted these emails, and not one person contacted you back. It’s so frustrating. My clients don’t have to experience that stuff, because I experience it for them.”
Prior to the first date, Prager compiles a “cheat sheet”, consisting of a picture of the woman and a summary of their correspondence – her likes and dislikes, hopes and expectations – which the client will usually be seeing for the first time, and a few suggested conversation starters, although even such apparently simple civilities can be fraught with unanticipated difficulties. “On one cheat sheet, I mentioned to the client that his date had had a cold, and I’d asked her how it was. The client said, ‘I never would have asked her how her cold is’, which kind of explains how he’s in this situation to begin with. Another client screwed up by skimming the cheat sheet but not really reading it. The date brought something up, and he couldn’t remember it. I even had to get one client a stylist, because you can’t turn up in your work suit, or jeans and an old T-shirt. You’re playing a role: the guy they want to be with.”
Here, perhaps, we come to the heart of the issue. Quite clearly, on one level Prager and his clients are practising an act of deception. While Prager’s involvement is not entirely dissimilar to that of a traditional matchmaker, in this case one of those involved in the prospective courtship is not aware of the presence of a third party.
“Look, I’m not oblivious to what you’re saying, and perhaps I lack a moral compass, but the deception seems minimal,” Prager says. “To me, there’s really only one character deception at play in terms of my clients which is: ‘I’m someone who’s too busy to manage my online dating life.’ It’s just the email. It would be different if I showed up on dates for seven months, and then, suddenly, ‘Ted’ stepped in instead. That would be bad.”
Others might beg to differ. Step forward Sonali Fernando, author of Soulmates: True Stories From The World Of Online Dating. Her view of the activities of Prager and his clients is decidedly unforgiving.
“This makes me feel queasy,” she says. “Any man who is interested in a mature adult relationship with a woman would recoil at the idea of deceiving a possible life partner. There can be no great relationship without equality, and the fact that you have hoodwinked someone into coming on a date with you implies a fundamental inequality of knowledge.
“Quite apart from the deception, guys who want to avoid the ‘online’ part of online dating are missing out on one of the great pleasures of this new form of meeting people: cybercourtship. Many couples I interviewed actually began their relationship through a thrilling kind of email tennis in which they could really experience the other person’s mind, sense of humour and values before meeting; when they met, it was simply to confirm the rapport that had developed online.
Fernando is also uncomfortable with the concept of “emotional laundry”. “People gain emotional maturity only when they learn to deal with the messy bits themselves. Rejection, pain and the realisation that we’re not going to be God’s gift to everyone we meet are essential milestones on the road to self-knowledge.”
But in addition to taking on the task of dealing with being ignored or rejected, Prager is also winnowing the field, as it were, separating the wheat from the chaff. In our consumerist society, we have been conditioned to believe that choice is an advantage, and therefore the wider our range of choices, the better. Yet it’s easy to become overwhelmed, and this is as true of potential partners as it is of flights and hotels. Excluding cohabitees, there are about 18 million single people in the UK. In 2008, the research agency Jupiter suggested that, of the 24 million first dates in that year, nearly 70% were arranged online. If there was once a stigma attached to internet dating, a sense that this was, in some way, a last resort for those who couldn’t find a date by any other means, then it seems to be disappearing fast.
Not that one would necessarily guess that from Prager’s clients. Trying to get one of them to talk about his experiences involved establishing a temporary email address for the client in question, and the creation of a false name, so it was a little like dealing with someone in the witness protection programme. Eventually, “Joe”, a 45-year-old professional, divorced for four years and with two young children, agreed to talk.
“I had had some frustrating experiences with internet dating: endless emails, few meetings, dates with disappointing women. I just was not able to find desirable women. As an older guy, some sources, like bars, are harder to exploit. My main sources for dates have been friends and women I meet, so it was important to add a key additional productive source: dating sites. Matt and I met extensively beforehand, and he now knows me very well. He prepared my profiles based on what I told him. I’m confident in him. If there is something he doesn’t know how to answer, he asks me, but in the majority of situations he saves me the trouble of repeating myself by saying what I would tend to say. But we are not the same person. We aim to progress as fast as we can to meetings or phone conversations, at which point Matt leaves the process. The women can then come to their opinion of me based on meeting me.”
Matt has certainly proved successful for Joe, who told me he’d dated more than 50 women in the last six months, a number of whom he continued to see as he had not yet settled on “the one”. His energy is admirable for a man in his mid-40s: I’m 42, and the idea of dating two women a week for six months makes me want to lie down with a cold compress.
“Matt has generated an incredible flow of women,” Joe says. “Some days and weeks I can completely fill my free time with them, if I want. Many are high quality. Matt is the best. He knows how to present me in the best way, while adhering to who I am, and makes me more confident about the dating experience. He spends countless hours working on this, hours that I don’t have. As a result, I can spend my time on the actual dates, rather than on the process.”
One doesn’t have to be a trained psychologist to pick up on some interesting use of language and concepts in Joe’s response: flow generation, “process”, “key additional productive source”, “exploit”. This is the language of business, not of feelings. For Joe, Matt appears to serve something of the same function as a personal assistant at his firm: Matt drafts the emotional missives, and Joe signs on the dotted line. It’s not deceit: it’s just the way that busy people manage their affairs.
Yet some element of deception might be viewed as part of the dating process. When I went on the first date with my partner, Jennifer, I told her that I liked vacuuming and was practically a vegetarian, neither of which was even on nodding terms with the truth, but I wanted her to like me and I wasn’t about to let my tolerance of dust or my fondness for meat get in the way of that. We all tend to be on our best behaviour in the early stages of a relationship, and try to keep the more flawed elements of our natures to ourselves.
Such concealment is made easier by the internet, which is a virtual petri dish for the successful promulgation of deceit. In this, it is aided by the absence of visual cues, since we rely so much on non-verbal signals – the giveaway movements of faces, eyes and hands that poker players refer to as “tells” – in our day-to-day interactions with others. According to one poll by the US network MSNBC, a third of people who use online dating services are already married. A survey conducted by MIT and Boston University found that 20% of online daters admitted to deception, but when asked what percentage of others they believed to be lying (possibly a more accurate way of gauging deceit), the estimate jumped to 90%.
For the most part, though, when it comes to online dating, the lies we tell are generally minor: men tend to add inches to their height while women prefer to shave pounds from their weight. Photos will generally err on the side of youth. When one of Prager’s clients confessed to his date that he had not been her email correspondent, the woman shrugged and admitted that she had a 17-year-old son that she hadn’t mentioned in her profile. Could it be that the internet has conditioned us to expect, and accept, some element of deception when it comes to how we relate to others online, or is it instead a testing ground for our own emotional honesty? After all, simply because we can deceive others doesn’t mean that we should.
“Online dating, when used honestly, provides people with a huge amount of information,” says Sonia Fernando. “This enables a very active kind of filtering from a position of safety and anonymity, so that people can weigh up the pros and cons of meeting before agreeing to go on a date.
“So, if women are evaluating a person’s writing style and things like the frequency of their emails, yet the person in the photo is not actually the one who is writing the emails, they have arrived at a judgment based on false information: the proxy dating business has basically invalidated one of their most important filters.”
Perhaps, in the end, Prager’s undoubted skills appeal more to those who view the early stages of courtship as, at worst, a burden and, at best, a means to an end, whether that end is simply a drink and dinner, or a full-blown relationship. Yet it’s hard not to feel that if one’s personal boredom threshold is so low as to make unappealing the initial process of getting to know a prospective mate online, then one’s relationship problems are greater than even Prager can solve.
Or, as he himself puts it, “I’m not your dick. If you really need my help to get laid, then you’re in more trouble than you thought…”
Wow. I love it when I see figures about how well Internet dating is doing in helping couples find love. Stats can be all over the place, but the general direction is up, up, up. As far as I am concerned, meeting online is now THE favorite method for singles to find love, and the third most frequent way newly marrying couples meet. See this article below from the Washington Post, and also click through and see the study the results come from.
Marriage-minded do better online than at bars, survey claims
By Ellen McCarthy
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, April 25, 2010
More than twice as many couples who married last year met through online dating services than at a club or social event, according to a new survey commissioned by Match.com.
The survey found that 17 percent of those who married in the past three years met online, making it the third-most-frequent method of introduction, behind meeting through a mutual acquaintance or at work or school.
“Online dating is by now a preferred way for singles to find dates,” says Joe Tracy, publisher of Online Dating Magazine. “I think the stigma that has been attached to online dating—and there’s still some of that today—has greatly decreased. Everybody knows someone who has done online dating, so people are less fearful to talk about it.”
The study, conducted by the research firm Chadwick Martin Bailey, shows how quickly online dating—in existence for less than two decades—has revolutionized the way people find and pursue potential mates.
“It does seem to have displaced all other forms of dating,” says Susan Frohlick, a cultural anthropologist at the University of Manitoba who has studied online dating. “I would say that it’s been in the last five years that it’s become hyper-mainstream.”
The survey also found that one out of five singles has dated someone they met through an online dating site and that one out of every five new relationships owes its origins to the Internet. It also claims that among recently married couples who met online, 30 percent initially made contact through Match.com. The site has about 3 million active users at any given time, according to the company.
Online dating statistics have always been hazy and are frequently contradictory. The Match.com-sponsored survey, for instance, found that 17 percent of couples who married in 2007 met through online dating sites, but a Harris Interactive poll sponsored by eHarmony found that only 9 percent of couples married that year were introduced through such services. (The Harris study claims that 2 percent of recently married American couples met through eHarmony.)
Regardless of discrepancies, the findings point to the increasingly prominent role the Web is playing in helping singles find someone with whom they want to walk down the aisle. Online Dating Magazine estimates that 120,000 U.S. couples who marry each year met online.
“It’s pretty seismic, if you think about it,” says Greg Blatt, chief executive of Dallas-based Match.com. “You’ve got this new thing out of nowhere that has really jumped in and taken on a significant piece of this basic human interaction, which is meeting people.”
Blatt attributes the industry’s growth to the rise of technology and changes in society that have made it more difficult to meet people through traditional methods. People marry later, work longer hours and live farther from family members who might introduce them to a neighbor’s handsome, eligible nephew. Laptops and modems stepped in to fill the void.
“This is just meeting,” Blatt says. “It’s no different meeting on Match than it is meeting at a party, or at a restaurant or on a subway. . . . Once you’ve met, it’s real life; you either fall for each other or you don’t. You either have a great romance or you don’t.
“It’s not like computers are taking the place of romance,” he says. “It’s just another way to put yourself in a position to meet somebody that then gives you a chance for romance.”
Couples who meet online are becoming so common nowadays that you don’t see the stories about them like you used to. But here is a great story that also highlights another aspect of finding love online, which is how great it can be for older folks. This couple is 72. Read the story about how it almost didn’t happen, and an illustration of why it is important to bring a solid “Yes!” to a new relationship.
With a click, they found love
Single at 72, they fell for each other like teens.
By Elizabeth Leland
Chuck and Jane Ellen noticed each other on an online dating service and, at first glance, they seemed like a good match.
He worked as a chauffeur. She was looking for a companion to drive her at night, to the theater and out to dinner. He is 6 feet 4; she is 6 feet. Both love animals.
They also shared something else in common with each other and with an increasing number of people who are turning to the Internet to find companionship: Chuck and Jane Ellen are older adults, both 72.
A generation ago, it was unusual for a 72-year-old to venture out to seek another companion after losing a spouse to death or divorce. Times have changed. And, with the Internet, older adults have found a place to meet.
So at 72, Chuck and Jane Ellen arranged to get together for coffee.
The day of the appointment, he got a job and asked to reschedule. She graciously postponed. Then the second date came, and he got another job and asked to reschedule again.
In the world of love, two strikes are enough for an out.
“I don’t think you’re ready for dating,” she e-mailed. “But we can be friends. Nobody ever has too many friends.”
In other words, don’t bother calling me again.
“You’re right,” he e-mailed back. “Maybe we can meet someday.”
In other words, don’t bother calling me again.
Life on her own terms
She had enough of Internet dating with that first near-encounter, and didn’t renew her account.
Though experts on aging say more older men and women are finding companionship and often love, Jane Ellen adjusted to the idea that she wouldn’t be among them. She had been single for more than 30 years, since her divorce, and had carved out a good life, on her own terms.
She had only wanted to meet a man because she no longer felt comfortable driving at night. She would just quit going out at night. So be it.
Then several weeks later, in May 2009, she was at her dentist’s office and who should walk in? The man from the Internet, all 6 feet 4 handsome inches of him.
It took him a moment to recognize her, the elegant lady in the Internet photo, her gray hair pulled back in a gentle sweep, a slight smile on her lips.
It wasn’t love at first sight. But they enjoyed talking. When he got home, he e-mailed her for a lunch date - and that time, he showed up.
His kiss is just a ...
After soup and salad, he drove her home, unsure what to do next.
“Do I kiss her goodbye?” he wondered. “Or do I shake her hand? Or do I hug her? What do I do? I was only 72!”
He gave her what she describes as a “teaser kiss,” his lips barely brushing hers.
She felt as nervous as he did. Adults, she discovered, have the same fears as teenagers.
“Will he like me? Do I look OK? What are we going to talk about? You know it won’t be the end of the world because you’re not 16. But you have these jittery feelings.”
A week later, she invited him and Amy, his Cavalier King Charles spaniel, to dinner.
Beauregard, her cat, was not as happy to see them as she was.
At the end of the evening, his kiss lingered. “The kind of kiss,” she said, “that says he wants to come back again.”
... and butterflies
And so he did. He invited her for dinner. His son, Brian Doolittle, who is 46 and co-owner of Do A Little Floral in Charlotte, offered to cook ribs.
It had been more than a year since Brian’s mother died. Brian thought his father had resigned himself to being alone. He seemed happy enough putting his time and energy into chauffeuring.
But the night of the dinner, his father acted like a different person.
“You had to see it,” Brian said. “The holding of the hands. The constant looking at each other. It was this enamored where-have-you-been kind of thing.”
Finding love at 72 surprised both Chuck and Jane Ellen.
“It was like I was 16 again,” she said. “I had butterflies in my stomach.”
Falling in love is more accepted now for older people, said Jerrold Kemp of Mariposa, Calif., co-author with his wife, Edith Ankersmit, of “Older Couples, New Romances: Finding and Keeping Love in Later Life.” They married 15 years ago when he was 74 and she was 66.
“It used to be when you lost your mate, either by divorce or death, there wasn’t a great push for people to look into changing their lives and enjoying the future,” Kemp said. “People are different today.”
What have we done?
Jane Ellen is a deliberate woman. She’s been planning a kitchen renovation for two years. But a couple of months after they met, when Chuck asked her to marry him, she realized she could live without a new kitchen, but not without this man she barely knew.
“He makes me laugh every day,” she said. “He does something nice for me every day and he doesn’t even know it.”
She accepted his proposal. They looked at each other in disbelief. What have we done?
“I never considered I might marry again,” she said. “Been there. Done that. I liked the single life. I could do what I want to do, go to bed when I want.”
She stays up late; he gets up early.
“I just wanted somebody to go with to the show, to have dinner with, and conversation,” Chuck said. “That’s all.”
The percentage of older people who remarry is increasing, AARP says. Baby boomers are aging. They’re living longer. And the Internet gives them a place to find each other. Without the Internet, Chuck and Jane Ellen might never have met even though they lived six miles apart.
The number of older adults living together outside marriage also is increasing, AARP found, because marrying at an older age can often mean giving up pensions, Social Security benefits and health insurance.
Regardless of how they frame their relationship, studies show, desire for companionship is what draws most older adults together.
A wink and a smile
Seven months after their wedding, on Sept. 10, 2009, Chuck and Jane Ellen Doolittle are still getting to know each other.
They each have 72 years of experiences to talk about - including his job as a food broker, hers in finance, his life in Wisconsin before retiring to Charlotte, hers in California.
“We’re learning each other,” Chuck said.
He winked. She smiled. Like teenagers in love.
“We want it to stay that way,” Jane Ellen said. “... We realize what a rarity it is.”
And his dog and her cat?
It wasn’t love at first sight either. But, as Chuck and Jane Ellen tell their single friends, you never know what might happen.
A while back, I was taken on a tour of Second Life and walked through a choosing and purchasing of an avatar there, and was it a scary experience! Try as I might to tone down what my Second Life life would look like, all I could some up with was a body and image that looked like I had taken an extended vacation at a plastic surgery mall. I have been increasingly concerned about the pressure on women (and men too) to be perfect, young and hot. Clients I have from the Los Angeles area report how stiff the competition is with the surgically gorgeous. Now here is an article from the New York Times where is says Hollywood—yes, Hollywood—is now looking for “real” unaugmented actors for parts. Take a look below, and hope that it spreads to the rest of the country. Wrinkles and gray hair are beautiful!
A Little Too Ready for Her Close-Up?
By LAURA M. HOLSON
Published: April 23, 2010
In small but significant numbers, filmmakers and casting executives are beginning to re-examine Hollywood’s attitude toward breast implants, Botox, collagen-injected lips and all manner of plastic surgery.
Television executives at Fox Broadcasting, for example, say they have begun recruiting more natural looking actors from Australia and Britain because the amply endowed, freakishly young-looking crowd that shows up for auditions in Los Angeles suffers from too much sameness.
“I think everyone either looks like a drag queen or a stripper,” said Marcia Shulman, who oversees casting for Fox’s scripted shows.
Independent casting directors like Mindy Marin, who worked on the Jason Reitman film “Up in the Air,” are urging talent agents to discourage clients from having surgery, particularly older celebrities who, she contends, are losing jobs because their skin is either too taut or swollen with filler. Said Ms. Marin: “What I want to see is real.”
Even extras get the once-over. Sande Alessi, who helped cast the “Pirates of the Caribbean” movies, said she offers to photograph actresses in their bathing suits, telling them they can keep the photo for their audition books.
Professional courtesy? Not exactly. Moviemakers prefer actresses with natural breasts for costume dramas and period films. So much so that when the Walt Disney Company recently advertised for extras for the new “Pirates” film, the casting call specified that only women with real breasts need apply. By taking a photograph, Ms. Alessi said, “we don’t have to ask, we will know.”
The move toward “less is more” is being propelled by a series of colliding social and technological trends, more than a dozen film and television professionals said.
Cosmetic enhancements remain popular, with 10 million surgical and nonsurgical procedures performed in the United States in 2009, according to the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery. At the same time, the spread of high-definition television — as well as a curious public’s trained eye — has made it easier to spot a celebrity’s badly stitched hairline or botched eyelid lift.
Men, of course, are not immune to the youthful lure of a surgeon’s scalpel. But it is women, to the surprise of no one, who are being scrutinized most closely.
Botox is the enemy in a post-“Avatar,” 3-D infatuated Hollywood, where the ability to crumple a mouth into a frown is as vital as remembering one’s lines. More startling is how young plastic surgery devotees have become. In January, the actress Heidi Montag was on the cover of People magazine touting the 10 cosmetic procedures she received in one day. She is 23.
“The era of ‘I look great because I did this to myself’ has passed,” said Shawn Levy, the director and producer of “Date Night” and the “Night at the Museum” movies. “It is viewed as ridiculous. Ten years ago, actresses had the feeling that they had to get plastic surgery to get the part. Now I think it works against them. To walk into a casting session looking false hurts one’s chances.”
Few in Hollywood are willing to admit to a chin reduction or mini eyebrow lift. (Remember when Jennifer Grey admitted to a nose job, a move some say hurt her career?) Celebrities instead are more open to discussing a former drug problem or sex addiction, because there is less concern a confession of that sort will harm their careers. But with so many types of cosmetic rejiggering, results are often painfully obvious and difficult to correct.
Ms. Shulman of Fox met with an agent recently to discuss hiring an actress who clearly had work done. “What did she do to her face?” Ms. Shulman said she asked the agent. “He said, ‘Nothing.’ I shrugged. I’m just not going to argue. I said, ‘She’s not for me then.’ ”
Head shots, too, are no longer reliable. Ms. Marin said she sometimes checks AwfulPlasticSurgery.com, a celebrity Web site that chronicles the surgically enhanced, to confirm suspicions about who has done what. When Ms. Alessi was casting “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” in 2007, she received hundreds of head shots. Some of the actresses who arrived for auditions, though, looked nothing like their photographs.
“They would have these huge puffy lips and frozen foreheads,” she said. “You said to yourself, ‘Oh, I can’t use you.’ I don’t mind if they do a tiny bit of something, but it can’t be obvious.”
An actor can even lose a role if a director suspects surgery, whether it was performed or not. John Papsidera, a casting director for the “Batman” movies, said he and a director (he declined to say which one) recently debated whether to hire an actress in her early 20s to play a teenager falling in love. The actress was talented and naturally pretty. But what stopped the director was his suspicion that, at such a young age, she already had breast implants.
“We looked at film where she was topless and it was like, ‘Maybe,’ ” Mr. Papsidera said. It wasn’t a period film, so authenticity was not an issue. Instead, the possibility of implants became “a point of reference,” he said. “It was more of, ‘Where is that person coming from as an actor?’ ” She did not get the part.
To outsiders, such conversations can seem almost cruel. Youthful perfection is prized in Hollywood despite the seeming canonization of older actresses like Meryl Streep, Helen Mirren and Betty White. But a talented 35-plus actress who has had particularly good surgery can still find work. At that age the backlash is not against plastic surgery or Botox itself — everyone seems to be doing it, right? — but its poor execution.
“Behind the scenes, you have so many conversations,” said Mr. Levy, the director, referring to his discussions with studio executives about leading ladies. “Why did she do that to herself? She was beautiful. She was great. But now we can’t cast her.”
Rarely, though, do studio executives share their concerns with actors, he added, citing politeness as a reason.
Perhaps they should discuss it. After all, the executives and producers who criticize others for having too much plastic surgery often feel the same pressure to look young and attractive. Their judgments about others, then, are not only subjective, but deeply personal. (Several studio executives did not return calls or declined to comment on their views on cosmetic procedures.)
Carrie Audino, a casting director on “Mad Men,” said: “I do think there are times when you sit in a casting session and listen to what someone thinks is beautiful or handsome, and there is this very skewed outlook based on their own insecurities. Because they have issues, they have an issue with someone else.”
Still, there is something to suggest that the new attitude is beginning to take hold. Last week Sharon Osbourne told Matt Lauer on the “Today” show that she was going to have her breast implants removed this summer and give them to her husband as paperweights. Lisa Kudrow, in a recent interview with New York magazine, seemed happy to own up to the fact that the face viewers saw on an episode of “Cougar Town” was hers, age lines and all.
“Look, time marches on,” she said. “You still want to look good, but there’s a line between looking like yourself and looking like a character from a Batman movie.”
Of course, there are still times when having cosmetic surgery can pay off. The buzzworthiness of a reality television star seems to soar depending on her cup size or clipped waist. (Think of Jwoww from “Jersey Shore.”)
Last November Ms. Montag, who starred in “The Hills” on MTV, underwent 10 cosmetic procedures including liposuction, buttock and breast augmentation and Botox. Her reward? A torrent of media attention kicked off by a flattering January cover story in People magazine, including before and after photos.
Critics made fun of her, and her own mother was shocked. “She was looking at me almost like I was a zoo animal,” Ms. Montag told People of her first visit home.
But she said in an interview that she is convinced she made the right move. She wants to be a movie actress, and some parts have begun to come in. She recently starred in a video directed by Ron Howard, and she said she was hired for a cameo in an Adam Sandler movie.
Both parts poke fun at women who’ve had too much plastic surgery.
Figures in from the Aussies: Surveys are coming in from all over the world about the prevalence of online dating as the preferred way to look for love, and now here come the Aussies. There, one in four have used the Internet to look for love, and 37% are considering it.
One in four adults have used internet to find a mate
MARY-ANNE TOY
April 17, 2010
AUSTRALIANS are changing the way they date and mate, a survey shows. A Nielsen poll found one in four adults have used the internet to find a partner and another 38 per cent are considering using online dating.
The other 37 per cent – many presumably in relationships – said they would never go online to meet someone.
Of those who had used online dating, 33.6 per cent reported a short-term relationship, 16.2 per cent said they had a long-term relationship, 8.9 per cent said they had married or were in a defacto relationship, and 2.7 per cent had children.
RSVP.com (owned by Fairfax Media, the publisher of the Herald) commissioned Nielsen to conduct the first comprehensive survey of online dating habits. The initial results suggest that online dating is now part of the mainstream.
The survey shows that:
* Of those who had used online dating, 62 per cent had dated someone they met online;
* Men were slightly more likely than women to use online dating services; and
* Most of those polled (72 per cent) were seeking a serious relationship, but many were looking for friendship or just sex.
Nielsen polled 3057 people online in November and 3764 in January, with the data weighted to the general population.
The full results of the survey will be released later this year but NSW and Victorian data so far shows that while there were fewer NSW online daters (57.5per cent had tried online dating, compared with 64 per cent in Victoria), they appeared to be more successful.
Almost 20 per cent of NSW online daters had a serious long-term relationship, compared with 16.6 per cent in Victoria, and 8.5 per cent had married, compared with 5 per cent in Victoria. Almost a third of both Victorian and NSW online daters made a good friend whom they remained in contact with.
Asked what kind of relationship they were seeking (multiple responses were accepted), 72.7per cent nationwide said a serious, long-term relationship, 39 per cent friendship, 18.5 per cent marriage and 27 per cent casual relationships.
Of those who had used online dating, almost half had a profile and were monitoring it. Another 19 per cent had a profile but didn’t check it often and 31per cent had removed a profile.
The Fairfax Digital group marketing director, Lija Jarvis, said when she began working on RSVP four years ago, online dating was still something that was vaguely embarrassing.
“That stigma has definitely dropped because people are advocating for it, talking with their friends, sharing stories with families,” she said.
Since RSVP began tracking marriages in 2003 more than 8000 members have contacted them to report they had married someone they met online.
The poll shows that the biggest group dating online were those had been single for five or more years (38.4 per cent), followed by those who had been single for one to two years (26.7per cent), those who had been single for less than six months (17.6 per cent) and those who had been single for seven to 12 months (16.5 per cent).
The most popular dating websites among those polled were RSVP (54 per cent), Adult Match Maker (21 per cent), eHarmony (20 per cent) and Oasis Active (19per cent).
I don’t like to see other’s misfortune or say “I told you so,” but I did: In my May 2006 blog posting about sites with “executive” in the title, in this case, ExecutiveChristianDating. And here we’ve got evidence in the article below: the owner of the sites has been arrested for fraud. In general, it is a bad idea to go for any site whose title and premise is based on assumed affiliation, like all Christian or all millionaires. That simply draws false hope and unrealistic sense of security. No way that the sites can guarantee the presence of only Christians (and what does that mean if it could?) or only millionaires? Both Christians and millionaires can be lousy people. Beware.
Canadian owner of online dating site arrested for fraud
The Canadian owner of a site offering online dating services has been arrested for fraud.
Barrie Turner,65, from British Columbia, Canada is alleged to be in connection with the operation of more than 200 web sites offering “executive dating” services. The accused is the owner of Executive Dating LLC, a company which offered online dating services through various linked websites such as Executive Catholic Dating, Executive Gay Dating and Executive Seattle Dating.
Each of his sites demographically targets a particular group of customers, according to the complaint filed in U.S. District Court by officials with the U.S. Postal Inspection Services.
Turner was arrested Friday, after he crossed the border into the United States to pick up mail at a Point Roberts post-office box - the address where payments for his sites’ services were addressed to.
Customers said they paid as much as $997 for a six month membership and were told the fee would pay for “two to seven introductions or ‘matches’ per month.” Most of them received the same “match” profile and sometimes fictitious ones, and when they attempted to date this person, the system replayed that the person had chosen to date someone else.
Since 2005, more than 100 people filed consumer complaints accusing Turner of fraud for failing to provide any legitimate matchmaking services which they had paid for. Investigators estimate that Executive Dating received more than $1.2 million in mailed and wired payments.
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