Men who define themselves as breadwinners are going to have to leave the traditional iconography of masculinity behind if they want to be breadwinners.

Whenever I read a book about a marriage, I always feel I'm being lied to.

Only idiots or snobs ever really thought less of 'genre books' of course. There are stupid books and there are smart books. There are well-written books and badly written books. There are fun books and boring books. All of these distinctions are vastly more important than the distinction between the literary and the non-literary.

When you look at how men and women are living together, there are two processes at work. One, women are rising in the middle class; their earning potential is rising compared to men. It has been underway for 100 years, and nothing is going to stop it. On the other hand, women are denied iconic positions of power - equity partnerships law firms, Hollywood salaries.

One [paradox] is that pornography follows in that wake of women's liberation. The first instances of hard-core pornography were in late 18th-century in France, "the Golden Age of Women." The next wave in the 20th century comes from Sweden, one of the first countries where women voted. Then Germany, again, at the forefront of progress. Then America in the '80s, when women were closing the pay gap. And Japan, same thing.

As you get closer to equality, you get more pornography. True patriarchal societies like Saudi Arabia do not allow pornography because women are not allowed to turn their bodies into a commodity; women are chattel.

When you look at the biggest study of the American dream, the number-one correlate for upward mobility is having two parents in a home. It doesn't matter if they're male or female.