Photo: IslandDefJam.com

-The Senate has voted to preserve the Bush-era tax cuts for people making less than $250,000 per year. This is great, in the sense that something actually made it through Congress without all the drama we’ve grown used to. But the argument is still being made that this is the worst Congress ever.

-Nas’ new album “Life Is Good” debuts at number one, selling 149,000 copies, according to Nielsen Soundscan. This is the artist’s sixth number one album. It’s his ninth number one on the R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart. Frank Ocean’s “Channel Orange” slips from number two to number four.

-The drought that’s currently plaguing about two-thirds of the country is going to cost at least $12 billion, the most since 1988. The figure is an estimate right now, but an August 10 report will put the damage to crops into clearer relief. Insurance payouts to farmers promises to be huge, and food prices are going to increase, perhaps as much as three or four percent.

-Hope your mailbox can handle the massive size of the fashion magazines heading your way. The September issues, typically one of the biggest of the year for a number of titles, is going to be a record-breaker for a number of mags, including Elle, Marie Claire, Vogue and People StyleWatch.

-The London Olympic Games kick off tomorrow and NBC says they’ve sold $1 billion worth of television and digital advertising for the event. Even with that huge figure (it’s $150 million more than what was sold for Beijing in 2008), the network doesn’t expect to turn a profit. ???!

-The backlash against Chick-Fil-A is coming at them fast and furious. First because the company’s president and CEO Dan Cathy gave interviews in which he condemned same-sex marriage (Chick-Fil-A is known to have donated nearly $2 million to anti-gay organizations). Now because it appears the chicken chain has created a fake Facebook page to defend itself.

I always tell my friends I’m in the studio working on Da Drought 4 (shout out to Lil Wayne) when I’m going through a dry spell.  It’s my light-hearted way of saying yes, it’s been a while since I had some and yes, I’m OK—at the moment.

Tim Gunn recently stated it’s been 29 years since he last had sex—literally half of his life—and that number caught a lot of people’s attention, considering how sex-obsessed Americans are. When Tim explained the reasons why he’s gone without, it’s understandable how he’s lasted so long and why he says he doesn’t even remotely feel like less of a person for it. Tim told “The Revolution” that his last relationship was very intense and damaging, and it led him to become celibate:

“My partner ended it, saying that, quite frankly, he was impatient with my sexual performance.”

Concerns about sexually transmitted diseases also played into his decision, he said. “I think a lot of people simply retreated because they were concerned about their health. I certainly was, and I’m happy to be healthy and alive, quite frankly.”

A lot of people like Tim who make a conscious decision not to have sex find more peace when they go without it. When you’re clear about why you’re not having sex, the urges are a little less powerful and the temptation to go back on your decision gets a little less weaker as time goes on. But if you’re in the category that just happens to not be having sex at the moment, well, that peace doesn’t come as easy.

If you haven’t gotten any in a while but you’re open to it, it usually means you’re waiting to get it on with someone you at least have some sort of connection to, because sex really isn’t that hard to find. In that case you’re always sort of on the lookout for who could be the next one and the physical urge for sexual contact is magnified by the fact that you want somebody there to provide that intimacy—and get rid of those cobwebs.

I’ve never really chosen to abstain, I’ve just fallen into droughts from time to time. Personally, after being in a monogamous relationship for a while, the thought of going back casual just didn’t appeal to me. The sex could be good physically, but the mental and emotional connection that would make it great would be missing. Sometimes when you get the urge you think, why not just put an end to all this pent up frustration and scratch the itch, but other times you figure, if I made it this far I might as well wait it out until I get what I really want. Hearing stats on STDs and other non-committed sexual relationship drama also helps. With every new fact or story that comes out, it feels good to know you don’t have to worry about that foolishness for now. But it sucks whenever you have a little temper tantrum and someone wants to hit you with the “that’s because no one’s cracking your back” shot.

A little brush with abstinence—chosen or placed upon you—can be good preparation for the next relationship though. Often sex can cloud your judgment when you get involved with someone new, and if you’ve been in a drought for a little while, you’ll likely spend more time getting to know who a person really is before you get to know their body, and that never hurts. When you can see the light at the end of the tunnel, the opening doesn’t seem so far away. You also learn more about your own body when you’re not so wrapped up in someone else’s—again, major plus.

Whether you’re holding out for the ultimate one to put a ring on your finger, or just the one you feel some sort of connection to, I think everyone feels like Tim when it comes down to it—you’re still a sexual being and you’re willing to sacrifice a little pleasure now for a greater reward later. As Tim put it, “I have feelings. It’s not as though I’m some barren forest. I don’t want to imply to anyone that I have a mandate that says no sex…. I don’t know what’s around the corner.”

What’s the longest you’ve ever gone without sex? Do you usually fall into droughts or make a conscious decision to hold off on sex until you’re in a relationship?

Brande Victorian is a blogger and culture writer in New York City. Follower her on Twitter at @be_vic.

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So many questions we have about why men act the way they do can be answered with “because they can.” When there are plenty other women around, men just go on to the next. But when there’s a drought, men have to pull out all the stops to impress a woman, and one way most men try to do that is by opening up their wallet.

“What we see in other animals is that when females are scarce, males become more competitive. They compete more for access to mates,” says Vladas Griskevicius, an assistant professor of marketing at the Carlson School and lead author of a study in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology which found men spend more when women are less accessible. “How do humans compete for access to mates? What you find across cultures is that men often do it through money, through status, and through products.”

To see how accurate their theory was, researchers conducted two tests. In the first, participants read news articles that described their local population as having more men or more women and then they were asked to indicate how much money they would save each month from a paycheck, as well as how much they would borrow with credit cards for immediate expenditures. When led to believe women were scarce, the savings rates for men decreased by 42% and men were willing to borrow 84% more money each month.

In the second study, participants saw photo arrays of men and women that had more men, more women, or were neutral. After looking at the images, participants were asked to choose between receiving some money tomorrow or a larger amount in a month. When women were scarce in the photos, men were much more likely to take an immediate $20 rather than wait for $30 in a month.

On the flip side, knowing there’s less competition doesn’t effect how women spend their own money, but it does raise their expectations for how much a man should spend on them. After reading a news article informing women that there were more men than women, women expected men to spend more on dinner dates, Valentine’s Day gifts, and engagement rings.

“When there’s a scarcity of women, women felt men should go out of their way to court them,” says Griskevicius.

Makes sense to me. When you think you have more options, you demand more from the person you’re with; and for men, knowing there are plenty of women they can get with for cheap or free, doesn’t exactly entice them to drop half of their paycheck on one woman.

What do you think about this study? Do you expect men to spend more on you when you know you can easily go find another?

Brande Victorian is a blogger and culture writer in New York City. Follower her on Twitter at @be_vic.

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