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The horrifying side to the 'mail-order bride' industry — some men aren't exactly looking for love.

These marriages aren't always a bad thing, but when they are, they really are.

Oksana thought she'd met a kind man when Carl came to see her in the Ukraine.

But by her third month with him in America on a fiancee visa, Oksana Makarova was starting to suspect she'd made a big mistake. He'd begun tracking her ovulation during those first months she'd moved to be with him. He was hell-bent on impregnating her as soon as possible. He dyed her toddler son's blond hair black without her consent. He wouldn't give her a key to the house, reminding her when she asked for one that she had no one to visit and no reason to leave the house.

"Oksana, I thought you'd be obedient. This is the impression you gave me in Ukraine."


Image via iStock.

That's the line he would break out whenever he needed to put her back into her place. And as you can guess, he soon turned violent. Luckily, Oksana's story (told originally and in its entirety in Marie Claire) ended fairly well. She and her children safely moved out on their own, citizenships attained, and with primary custody given to Oksana. But it's not always the case for women who suffer the worst outcomes as "mail-order brides," as they're commonly (if somewhat insultingly) referred to.

The international marriage industry may inadvertently produce circumstances that can position a person as an ideal victim.

As mentioned in the first installment in this look at the international marriage industry, there are some very legitimate, understandable, and downright sweet love stories that can emerge from the practice. But what happens when a disturbed kind of man, put off by what he perceives as independent or hard-to-get women in America, turns to services where he thinks he can procure and isolate a "subservient" woman to yield to his more harmful tendencies?

Before heading to mixers where men assemble with the bride-finding company, hopeful women spend time beautifying. GIF from "Love Translated."

First, let's consider the motivations involved in how men and women meet in these kinds of matchmaking services. In some cases, the women, like Ekaterina from the first installment, can be already in a good place in life and generally happy; they're just seeking love, travel, and adventure. But sometimes, like in Oksana Makarova's case, there are women drawn to the matchmaking services because of a desperate need to provide for themselves and their children or to escape a dire situation in their home country.

That's the first indicator that major power imbalances between the two people are afoot.

That uneven distribution of power comes into focus again when the men and women meet at mixers planned by the matchmaking agencies. The agency Oksana used had the women line up to be evaluated and maybe chosen for an interview by a man.

The courtship, if it proceeds, may continue for awhile with the "bride" communicating long distance from her home country, or she and her suitor may apply for a fiancee visa so that she can go to America. Often, once she is in America, she is quite dependent on a guy she may not know very well and who may very well have been spurred to seek her out in the first place because of misogynistic tendencies.

This is the second obvious marker of that aforementioned power imbalance. There are language barriers, deportation worries, and financial concerns that all serve to place an international bride-to-be in a pretty precarious position.

Furthermore, in a place far away from home, if she's been successfully isolated by her new fiance or husband, it's very difficult for her family and friends abroad to verify her well-being or to report her missing in a worst-case scenario.

These situations have all the precursors to produce the perfect victims for the kind of person who looks to victimize — and like all of us, it's really just a roll of the dice if you will find yourself matched and then entangled with such a person.

There is the story of Gary Swierski, a California man who repeatedly reeled in foreign women through pen pal services and dated immigrants already living in America, serially and savagely abusing one after the other. He was finally turned in by his daughter, whom he'd forced to help dispose of the body of his second wife, Reina Swierski, after he killed her. It caused investigators to reopen the case of a former girlfriend of his who suspiciously drowned during a night out with him more than a decade earlier.

L: Gary Swierski. R: Reina Swierski, Gary's second wife and murder victim. Image from Sunnyvale Police Department/public domain.

After a string of disturbingly similar murder cases involving marriages started through international marriage brokers, the United States passed the International Marriage Broker Regulation Act (IMBRA) in 2005. It stipulates that background checks must be run on U.S. citizens before they communicate through the services to potential women. But the law is easy to circumvent — all the company has to do is base itself outside the United States to not have to comply.

The gray area between international marriages and human trafficking gets murky sometimes.

National Organization for Women's Sonia Ossorio told Bloomberg in 2011, "The mail-order bride industry is a softer version of human trafficking."

"You take a beautiful woman from the Czech Republic and you bring her into your home, she does all your cooking and cleaning and ironing. At the end of the day, the [wife's] service is free."

And national experts agreed. In 2004, before Congress passed IMBRA, John R. Miller (then-director of the State Department's Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons) clearly connected the dots between human trafficking and international marriage practices:

"I want to focus, if I can, on the worldwide perspective here. When you look at the slavery issue, we now have reason to believe that 80 percent of the millions that are in slavery, internal or external traffic victims, 80 percent are women and 50 percent are children. The two biggest categories are sex slavery and probably domestic servitude. I think these are two of the categories of slavery that you frequently have... What do we know about trafficked victims in general? Well, there are two or three characteristics. There is the vulnerability of the victims. ... There is the deception, the key tool of the traffickers, and often there is government complicity and corruption. Well, if you look at marriage brokering, you have these features, particularly the first two features, the vulnerability of the women and the deception involved. These are features that we have to deal with."

Pair that testimony with this excerpt and quote from an international marriage agency founder featured in Bloomberg, and the connection really begins to emerge:

"For some companies, such submissiveness is a selling point. Hand-In-Hand's website trumpets the fact that its females are 'unspoiled by feminism.' Company founder Weiner argues this form of chauvinism — like the mail-order bride business itself — is economically motivated. 'You take a beautiful woman from the Czech Republic and you bring her into your home, she does all your cooking and cleaning and ironing,' he says. 'At the end of the day, the service is free.' Hand-In-Hand estimates the potential savings of a homemaking wife at $150 per week."

And then there are the times would-be brides (and potentially their children) are duped into sex slavery. John R. Miller told of one such case in his 2004 deposition to Congress regarding IMBRA.

"Pou was 17 when a man came to her village and arranged through her sister to marry her. Shortly after the marriage, the man took Pou to a fishing village and sold her to a brothel. After years of abuse and torment, Pou was released by the brothel. Today her body is ravaged by disease, and this woman in her 20s looks decades older than her real age. Yet she wants her story told."

Clearly, there is a very real concern about the welfare of women who participate in international marriage arrangements.

And to be fair, there are also cases reported of the seemingly perfect, caring woman bilking lonely bachelors out of significant money and property and then disappearing. But since that's money, and not physical safety, again the risk-to-reward ratios are highly skewed between them.

Even in the less egregious, non-abusive situations, there is a lot to explore in the dynamics of modern society that cause some men to look to a more transactional, surefire method of selecting a life partner. Some bride-seekers are decent guys with extenuating circumstances that necessitate going outside of traditional dating. But...

Some men really just don't like how feminism is changing their world and all it entails for them.

As noted previously, some men are seriously averse to feminism and the shifting paradigm (or at least the effort to shift paradigms) to more equitable relationships.

To men who may struggle with that shift, the cultural dissonance manifests itself in various ways. There are countless OKCupid and Tinder horror stories from women who "swiped right" on a guy's profile only to have him go from seemingly nice to combative and bitter in minutes, all because she didn't display the desired level of enthusiasm at his advances.

Photo by Paul Zinken/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images.

There are also "pickup artist" (PUA) forums, where men who don't hold with that "feminism crap" convene and share tips for getting women to respond to them.


The prevailing attitude in such virtual meeting places is that women are all similar enough, and universal reactions can be provoked from them if only you employ the right tactics, as if you're entering code into a computer. They even organize in-person events, where they hire marketers to recruit young women to attend, often under the guise that it's a free networking event. All the while, it's really a training ground for men who've paid good money to try out their newly acquired "skills" in manipulating women, with an experienced "guru" to encourage them in the wings. You just have to learn the right combination of psychological buttons to push on a woman to get them to comply with your wishes! It's a sadly reductionist coping outlet for the subsection of men who seem to struggle with one concept: Women are human beings who are complex and don't come with a guarantee — they're not vending machines and love isn't transactional.

None of this even touches yet on the way that toxic and twisted misconception of masculinity manifests when the Elliot Rodgers of the world shoot innocent people because girls reject them, and jilted high schoolers stab girls for saying no to being their prom date.

It's easy to see how a man who hasn't been taught that interacting with women is like interacting with any other human could progress through the various stages of frustration at his ever-calcifying ineptitude. And he might be attracted to a transactional kind of arrangement with a woman he perceives as powerless — his path of least resistance.

A few thousand dollars is easier to pull together than untangling decades of one's societal misogynistic programming, after all.

There's no easy answer to whether the international marriage industry is a net positive or a net negative.


In the end, an online tool or agency of any kind is only as good as the people using it and the safeguards it implements to protect regular users from the worst. In a world where hatred toward women isn't always actively discouraged, and companies don't always play by the rules, it can be a high-risk gamble to look for a love connection across the world in a place where one has no support system.

For some, like Ekaterina and Josh, it pays off and produces a beautiful new life together. But when enough people get unlucky matches with the worst outcomes, we have to evaluate where things went so devastatingly wrong and how it can be changed for the better.


@callmebelly/TikTok

An excellent reminder to show kindness and patience.

Listening to a baby cry during a flight might be aggravating, but it’s nothing compared to the moans, groans, and eyerolls that the baby's parents must endure from other passengers when it happens. No matter what tips and tricks are used to try to soothe a little one’s temperament while 30,000 miles in the air, crying is almost inevitable. So, while having to ease their own child’s anxiety, moms and dads also must suffer being the pariah of the trip. What a nightmare.

Recently, one mom was apparently trying so hard to avoid upsetting her fellow flight members that she went above and beyond to essentially apologize ahead of time if her baby began to cry on its first flight. It was a gesture that, while thoughtful, had folks really feeling for how stressed that poor mom must be.

In a clip posted to his TikTok, one of the passengers—Elliot—explained that the mom handed out small care packages to those nearby.

“She’s already so busy and took the time to make these bags for everyone,” Elliot said, before panning the camera to reveal a Ziplock bag full of candy, along with a note that made him “want to cry.”

The note read: “It’s my first flight. I made a deal to be on my best behaviour—but I can’t make any guarantees. I might cry if I get scared or if my ears start to hurt. Here are some treats to make your flight enjoyable. Thank you for being patient with us. Have a great flight.”

Like Elliot, those who watched the video felt some ambivalence at the well intentioned act. Many felt remorse that she would feel the need to appease people in this way.

“This is so sweet but also … kind of breaks my heart that we live in a world in which parents feel the need to do that.”

“Because jerk people have shamed parents into believing that they need to apologize for their kids' absolutely normal behavior. What a gem of a mom.”

“You know that sweet mom worried about this trip so much.”

“That poor mom probably spent nights awake … nervous about that flight, thinking of ways to keep strangers happy.”

"That's a mom trying so hard."

Many rallied behind the mom, arguing that making others feel more comfortable with her child being on board was in no way her responsibility.

“No mom should be apologizing. Adults can control their emotions … babies not …. Hugging this mom from a distance.”

“Dear new parents: no you don’t have to do this. Your babies have the right to exist. We all know babies cry. We know you try your best.”

Luckily, there are just as many stories of fellow passengers being completely compassionate towards parents with small children—from simply choosing to throw on their headphones during a tantrum (instead of throwing one themselves) to going out of their way to comfort a baby (and taking the load of a parent in the process). These little acts of kindness make more of an impact than we probably realize. Perhaps if we incorporated more of this “it takes a village” mindset, flying could be a little bit more pleasant for everyone involved.

All GIFs and images via Exposure Labs.

Photographer James Balog and his crew were hanging out near a glacier when their camera captured something extraordinary. They were in Greenland, gathering footage from the time-lapse they'd positioned all around the Arctic Circle for the last several years.

They were also there to shoot scenes for a documentary. And while they were hoping to capture some cool moments on camera, no one expected a huge chunk of a glacier to snap clean off and slide into the ocean right in front of their eyes.


science, calving, glaciers

A glacier falls into the sea.

assets.rebelmouse.io

ocean swells, sea level, erosion, going green

Massive swells created by large chunks of glacier falling away.

assets.rebelmouse.io

It was the largest such event ever filmed.

For nearly an hour and 15 minutes, Balog and his crew stood by and watched as a piece of ice the size of lower Manhattan — but with ice-equivalent buildings that were two to three times taller than that — simply melted away.

geological catastrophe, earth, glacier melt

A representation demonstrating the massive size of ice that broke off into the sea.

assets.rebelmouse.io

As far as anyone knows, this was an unprecedented geological catastrophe and they caught the entire thing on tape. It won't be the last time something like this happens either.

But once upon a time, Balog was openly skeptical about that "global warming" thing.

Balog had a reputation since the early 1980s as a conservationist and environmental photographer. And for nearly 20 years, he'd scoffed at the climate change heralds shouting, "The sky is falling! The sky is falling!"

"I didn't think that humans were capable of changing the basic physics and chemistry of this entire, huge planet. It didn't seem probable, it didn't seem possible," he explained in the 2012 documentary film "Chasing Ice."

There was too much margin of error in the computer simulations, too many other pressing problems to address about our beautiful planet. As far as he was concerned, these melodramatic doomsayers were distracting from the real issues.

That was then.

Greenland, Antarctica, glacier calving

The glacier ice continues to erode away.

assets.rebelmouse.io

In fact, it wasn't until 2005 that Balog became a believer.

He was sent on a photo expedition of the Arctic by National Geographic, and that first northern trip was more than enough to see the damage for himself.

"It was about actual tangible physical evidence that was preserved in the ice cores of Greenland and Antarctica," he said in a 2012 interview with ThinkProgress. "That was really the smoking gun showing how far outside normal, natural variation the world has become. And that's when I started to really get the message that this was something consequential and serious and needed to be dealt with."

Some of that evidence may have been the fact that more Arctic landmass has melted away in the last 20 years than the previous 10,000 years.

Watch the video of the event of the glacier calving below:

This article originally appeared 10 years ago.

@amberandjoshofficial/TikTok, Photo credit: Canva

Other parents had no idea this was a "universal experience."

Parenting looks astronomically different than it did when we were kids, and we know one of the major culprits of that is technology. Back in the day, there was no such thing as a “tablet kid,” there wasn’t an app that tracked a kid’s every move, you couldn’t get answers to your burning parenting questions from endless online forms and parent groups. Twas a different time, indeed.

Of course, these modern day conveniences have all kinds of pros and cons attached to them, as one dad, Josh (@amberandjoshofficial) demonstrated in a now-viral video posted to his TikTok. In the video, we see him try—and fail—to use the age-old parenting saying that’s always bought them juuuuust a little more time from demanding kiddos, otherwise known as “just a minute.”

That is, until now. Turns out, in the age of Alexa, “just a minute” doesn’t cut it. Because kids can and will be using that robot against you, just like his own daughter did. Poor Josh was just trying to finish washing the dishes before getting the glass of milk she requested. But unfortunately for him, as soon as he replied with “just a minute,” she immediately asked Alexa to “set the timer.” Ruthless.

“Accountability has never been higher," Josh wrote in his caption. And other parents who watched the video couldn’t help but agree.

“I had no idea this was a universal experience 😂”

“No this is literally verbatim my life 😂😂😂”

"Oh so it’s not just our house. It’s relieving and also scary to know we’re not alone 😂”

“Haha this is so accurate. I’ve had the conversation with my kids that it’s a figure of speech – they still do it 😂”

“NOT MY ALEXA RESPONDING WHILE I WATCHED THIS VIDEO”

A few fellow parents chimed in with some lighthearted “tips,” such as explaining that “one minute is more of a vibe than a unit of time,” or swapping it for “one more moment” instead.

Another suggested that he “keep that same energy when they want more time on their game.”

And hey, maybe higher accountability isn’t totally a bad thing. It didn’t exactly instill trust when our parents stretched “just a minute” into eternity, especially when it turned into not actually doing what they said they would.

That's apparently not the only way Alexa has potentially helped parents, either. A study conducted by Kantar for Amazon found that 95% of parents agreed that having Alexa at home has helped reduce screen time, while another 90% felt Alexa helped their kids stay mentally active, learn new things, and become more independent. As with all technology, it can be easy to develop too much of a reliance on this gadget, but (when used responsibly) there are some definitive perks, it seems.

So there you have it, folks. Let’s just chalk it up to being more thing that’s a relic of a bygone era. But hey, change is the only constant, right?

By the way, Josh and his wife Amber have even more wholesome and fun family content where that came from on their TikTok. Check it out here.

Fowl Language by Brian Gordon

Brian Gordon is a cartoonist. He's also a dad, which means he's got plenty of inspiration for the parenting comics he creates for his website, Fowl Language (not all of which actually feature profanity). He covers many topics, but it's his hilarious parenting comics that are resonating with parents everywhere.

"My comics are largely autobiographical," Gordon tells me. "I've got two kids who are 4 and 7, and often, what I'm writing happened as recently as that very same day."

Gordon shared 15 of his oh-so-real comics with us. They're all funny 'cause they're true.

Let's get started with his favorite, "Welcome to Parenting," which Gordon says sums up his comics pretty well. "Parenting can be such tedious drudgery," he says, "but if it wasn't also so incredibly rewarding there wouldn't be nearly so many people on the planet."

Truth.

I hope you enjoy these as much as I did.

1.

parenting, comics, humor

“Welcome to parenting."

via Fowl Language

All comics are shared here with Gordon's express permission. These comics are all posted on his website, in addition to his Facebook page. You can also find a "bonus" comic that goes with each one by clicking the "bonus" link. Original. Bonus.

2.

food allergies, fussy, picky eaters

Eating is never fundamental.

via Fowl Language

Original. Bonus.

3.

sleep deprivation, children, isolation

Adjusting the coping mechanism.

via Fowl Language

Original. Bonus.

4.

ducks, birds, fowl

I used to be cool.

via Fowl Language

Original. Bonus.

5.

naps, popcorn, movies

Naps happen.

via Fowl Language

Original. Bonus.

6.

politics, advice, education

Rolling with the punches.

via Fowl Language

Original. Bonus.

7.

emotions, therapy, emotional maturity

Tears happen.

via Fowl Language

Original. Bonus.

8.

insomnia, sleep deprivation, kids

It’s time to get up.

via Fowl Language

Original. Bonus.

9.

psychology, toddlers, family

The benefits of experience.

via Fowl Language

Original. Bonus.

10.

babies, diapers, responsibility

Is it gas?

via Fowl Language

Original. Bonus.

11.

sociology, grief counseling, dads

Everyone gets therapy, yea.

via Fowl Language

Original. Bonus.

12.

moms, dress up, costumes

Everyone has a role to play.

via Fowl Language

Original. Bonus.

13.

doctor, medicine, pediatrics

What’s up doc?

via Fowl Language

Original. Bonus.

14.

sports, competition, aggression

Everyone gets a participation ribbon.

via Fowl Language

Original. Bonus.

15.

theatrics, advice, Dan Gordon

Perception shifts.

via Fowl Language

Original. Bonus.

I love Gordon's comics so much because they're just about the reality of parenting — and they capture it perfectly.

There's no parenting advice, no judgment, just some humor about the common day-to-day realities that we all share.

When I ask him about the worst parenting advice he's ever received, Gordon relays this anecdote:

"I remember being an absolute sleep-deprived wreck, sitting outside a sandwich shop, wolfing down my lunch quickly beside my 1-month-old son, who was briefly resting his lungs between screaming fits.

A rather nosy woman walked up to me and said, all smugly, 'You should enjoy this time while they're easy.' It was the exact worst thing anyone could have said to me in that moment and I just wanted to curl up on the sidewalk and cry."

Who hasn't been on the receiving end of totally unneeded and unwanted advice? That's why Gordon's comics are so welcome: They offer up a space for us to all laugh about the common experiences we parents share.

Here's to Gordon for helping us chuckle (through the tears).


This article originally appeared nine years ago.

www.youtube.com

Quantum immortality?

Might we never really pass on into nothingness? Has the world ended many times before? Are we in fact doomed to spend eternity unknowingly jumping from one dimension to the next? According to one TikTok theory, the answer is yes. And it's blowing millions of minds worldwide.

Joli Moli (@joli.artist) is quite used to spooking and perplexing viewers with conspiracy theories and alternative hot takes. In her video titled "Apocalypse...again," Joli introduced the concept of Hugh Everett's quantum immortality. Fans of the Marvel "multiverse," are quite familiar with this concept, where instead of experiencing death, "your consciousness just gets transferred to a parallel universe where you survived," the TikTokker explained.




Joli admits that this might burst the bubbles of those seeking the "sweet relief" of a widespread apocalypse. "If the quantum immortality theory is correct," she deduced, "you're just going to wake up in a parallel universe with no memory of the fact that you just survived an apocalyptic event."

According to Joli, the only sort of clue or hint you'd get that you might have woken up in a parallel world would be "new Mandela effects." You know, the strange phenomenon where all of a sudden there are two completely opposing memories of historical events? Yeah, quantum theory says that if you remember Curious George having a tail, you probably died in another universe.

Driving her point home, Joli added: "What I'm basically implying here is that in our reality, apocalypses happen every day … after the inevitable apocalypse occurs, you're going to wake up the next day in a new reality, and the next thing you know, you're going to find yourself on Reddit talking about 'since when did Pizza Hut have two Ts?!' Arguing with people who are native of this new reality, talking about 'it's always had two Ts'."

I for one would never want to live in a Pizza Hutt universe. Blech.

Still not sold on the theory? Joli has further arguments: "You don't believe me? Okay, it's been about 65 million years since the asteroids allegedly took out the dinosaurs. ... So you mean to tell me that in the last 65 million years, no other asteroids have come through the neighborhood, taken us out? You think we're just that lucky, huh? No other super volcanic events in 65 million years? We're just out there in space just dodging asteroids by luck, right? Earth doesn't have a steering wheel."

Hmmm. That's a good point.

Joli concluded with the upbeat sentiment that "Earth is probably always being taken out, and our consciousness just keeps getting transferred to another parallel universe, and another one, and another one. For all you know, the apocalypse maybe already happened last night…"

So far, in this reality anyway, the video has 4.9 million views. And—as to be expected—the video left many feeling uneasy.

One user commented, "Ok, I'm actually kind of freaking out right now coz I'm not the conspiracy typa guy, but you're like eerily making sense."

A few resorted to sarcasm as a defense mechanism (understandably), like this Twitterer: "Thanks I was overdue for another existential crisis."

The discourse got so intense, people were reporting physical side effects from the stress. One person wrote: "The thought of never being able to actually die is extremely depressing, and it's giving me a headache."

Another added, "Bruh, I'm just done with this anxiety. My body [is] emotionally [and] physically TIREDDD."

One commenter, who clearly had their priorities straight, wrote: "You're over here talking about extinction level events and I'm having to check on the two Ts in Pizza Hut."

It wasn't all gloom and doom though. According to indy100, some saw the potential of eternal life as a comfort against the loss of loved ones, while others finally got to make sense of their "world-ending" dreams.

If you have watched the original TikTok and are filled with burning questions, Joli posted a follow up Q&A video. A small disclaimer: You might be left with even more questions.

Though we may never really know what awaits us on the other side, it is interesting to think that we might live in a multiverse with infinite second chances. And whether or not this theory floats your metaphysical boat, it's fun to contemplate on one of life's biggest mysteries.


This article originally appeared four years ago.