Exactly—it's a super big deal! But that's the point: people often don't discuss major things that a couple needs to deal with in the long term. Pre-marital counseling brings up topics that we assume are no-brainers, but that many people gloss over.

It sounds plausible. I have no experience with this because I had two boys. I still felt like crap for a while with each. ;)

So sad. My heart is breaking for his family. Poor Avonte.

Oh, the wive's tale refers to the idea that women pregnant with girls are sick more often, etc. Not really what they turn out to look like in real life.

I don't think it should be a legal mandate, but I do wholeheartedly recommend some variety of premarital class for people who get married, if only because a lot of people getting married are perhaps a little preoccupied with the wedding aspect of it that they aren't thinking so much about the marriage part.

The good news is, with the advent of DVR and viewing things via "on demand" and thru services like Netflix, no more commercials! But you're not wrong about to be concerned about how gendered everything is...

There's also that old wive's tale about girls "stealing the mother's beauty." Fun!

The good news is, no matter how it's gendered, kids will play with what they feel like playing with. So while my toddler boy gravitates towards trucks and sharks, he also enjoys playing with dolls and Barbie stuff. And he likes the color pink. Personally, I dress my boys in a lot of navy blue. But if I had a girl, I…

People should be very excited to see Bruno Mars perform at halftime. Like his music or not, the guy is an excellent entertainer! I was wondering how/why the Red Hot Chili Peppers ended up on the bill at the 11th hour...this must be why?

I live in New York City. Dresses are quite common, as are skirts. It's been trendy to wear dresses for a while now—to work and casually. I am not so sure why this sounds so crazy...dresses are very easy to wear. I'm not talking about ball gowns, just an average dress: wrap dress, shirt dress, a-line dress, shift,…

I think it's about different experiences—many mass manufacturers make tops in sizes, from Banana Republic and Gap to Target. And where I live, the dress is a go-to wardrobe piece for most women (and has been a big fashion focus for a few years now). Different people, different perspectives.

Last time I checked, dresses and tops came in numbered sizes as well. Though, frankly, I don't think she's that small in bottoms either...unless she's quite short, or shopping at a store where vanity sizing is in effect.

A size 4? Not with those (lovely) boobs. No way.

Or maybe she's wearing a little bit of body makeup to even her overall tone? She looks fab! Let's be happy!

The retouching to Dunham herself here is so minor that I wonder if someone at Vogue directed to release the images themselves. It's almost a triumph for them: "See? We show women as they really are!" (The composite approach to the images is another issue entirely.)

TO be fair, I think what he meant was that the nudity on GOT is always in sex scenes. A lot the nudity on Girls is more incidental—not restricted to sex scenes. I think he was asking about the creative choice to have so much non-sexy sex scenes.

LOL. I think her body was so lovely. Heck, her body today is amazing! I love the body shapes that were trendy back in the day: the softer curves of Brinkley and Tiegs and the fit Amazons like Crawford and Porizkova. Models have always been slim, but the girls that are popular today are all too damned skinny!

Of course no one shows her (or anyone) in an ad like that, because it's possibly the most awkward angle, ever!

As noted in the opening sentence of my OP on this thread, I think I just have a different definition of "heavily" retouched. Heavily retouched to me means that it doesn't resemble the real person at all. I get what you're saying about the skin being overly smoothed, but the image is not materially different from what…

Agreed, that why I said she's minorly retouched. My main thing is disputing that she's "heavily" retouched. I don't see anyone on this thread saying that there was no retouching at all.