Hello and welcome back to The Overthinker’s Guide To Sex, a sex and relationships newsletter by journalist Franki Cookney.
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Welcome to Links and Overthinks! This is your monthly round-up of things I’ve seen, heard, read, or talked about in the last few weeks. Got a suggestion for something you think I should check out? Let me know!
What I’m Overthinking in November…
Dolly Parton’s marriage
Dolly Parton has been sharing her secrets for a successful marriage again. I say “again” because she does this approximately once every few years. Not unprompted, obviously, she’s far too classy for that, but reporters just KEEP asking her. Her answer hasn’t really changed all that much, it boils down to honesty, sharing a sense of humour and… wait for it… liking each other. The whole thing is honestly so boring but it makes me wonder, why do we mythologise longevity so much? Why is the idea of having “ a reasonably nice time” with one person so much more inspiring to us than the idea of having lots of different sorts of times with lots of different people, including platonic, creative, collaborative as well as romantic and sexual.