Rachel Kramer Bussel

Is it possible that Tsing Loh upset so many people with this essay not because she’s wrong, but because she’s right? As much as it pains the Protestant work ethic inside of us to admit it, maybe we should be allowed to have parts of our life that aren’t about work all the time. We allow a small amount of time for people to really enjoy their love lives, to not work at love at all, before they’re expected to settle down and start developing stress lines. The difference between liberal and conservative communities is how much time we’ll give you—obviously, conservatives would like to minimize the happy fun time by restricting birth control and abortion so that you have to settle down into your soul-sucking marriage as soon as possible, and liberals extend the freedom to grow up a little and find someone that’s a better fit.

But in both cases, actually asking whether or not we should call the whole thing off is completely out of the question. But that’s the question we should be asking. Marriage is failing people as an institution, and it’s time to stop trying minor modifications on the side, such as expanding the right to all people or making it easier to divorce, and consider broader changes. We could start by untying all the benefits that lure people into marriage and expanding them to all people—health insurance, hospital visitation rights, tax breaks—so that married people don’t get special status over the unmarried. If the married and unmarried are equal, more people will feel free to experiment with lifestyle choices that allow them to meet responsibilities without forsaking their own right to pursue happiness. And maybe, as an added bonus, we can get away from demanding that politicians present idealized marriages to get our votes, and then punish them when they’re not better at living up to the ideal than the rest of us.

Seven years ago, Michael agreed to do a rare cover interview for Vibe. At the time, he was in avoid-the-press mode; with the exception of Oprah Winfrey and Diane Sawyer, he wasn’t talking to anybody. But for some reason, he said yes to Vibe—on one condition: Regina Jones had to do the interview. So Jones headed up to Neverland, which was, as she remembers it, one big fun house. Michael was very sweet and childlike, she says, joking about their shared past. Until, that is, she asked a question that bothered him. She asked him about his plastic surgery.

“His immediate, hostile response was, ‘That’s a stupid question,’” Jones remembers. “And then he kept talking. ‘We’re family, why would you ask that? Aren’t you ashamed of yourself?’ I’ll never forget that. And I felt ashamed of myself, and I told him that. But I told him that I was there to do an interview.”