Why America Love's Celebrity Couples
ALICE CHARLES
- Published Content: 115
- Total Views: 26,346
- Favorited By: 2 CPs
Will Brad and Angelina get married? Will Guy and Madonna split? Yes, there's no doubt about it - celebrity couple watching is the new porn. We just can't get enough of Posh 'n' Becks, Britney and Adnan 
or Jen and Marc.
We can't wait for our next fix in magazines, dozens of new celebrity-based websites appear daily and all the newspapers devote ever more column inches to the minutiae of celebrity lives. Now we are all voyeurs. The success of Big Brother and the legions of fly-on-the wall documentaries before it confirms our insatiable interest in other people's lives. But we reserve a special interest in the lives of celebrity couples. Coupledom is where it's at. Though, on the surface it doesn't seem to be the cherished notion it was ten years ago. Fewer people are marrying or even cohabiting. For the first time in recorded history the number of households with married couples will fall below 50 per cent. And the number of people living on their own has risen. One in three households is now a single adult. And the number is set to rise over the next two decades to nearly 40 per cent. And the phenomenon is nationwide. The soaring divorce rate has made young people cynical about marrying - at least in their teens or early twenties. But it's what most people aspire to even if they won't admit it.
Added to this is the fact that almost 40 per cent of single women between the age of consent and 49 aren't getting any and you can see why we are so keen on watching the marriages and couplings of celebrities played out infront of us; it's virtual marriage, if you like - much cheaper and far less painful than doing it yourself. Now sex has become a spectator sport - why else do millions of viewers tune in to Big Brother other than in the hope of seeing two housemates cop off with each other?.
Every moment has its It Couple and Posh Spice and David Beckham have become the pair to watch. The Beckhams are young, good-looking and rich. They've scored the jackpot in life's lottery. And yet we soak up every word written about them. It's like watching a road accident - you know you shouldn't but somehow you just can't help yourself.
We can't wait for our next fix in magazines, dozens of new celebrity-based websites appear daily and all the newspapers devote ever more column inches to the minutiae of celebrity lives. Now we are all voyeurs. The success of Big Brother and the legions of fly-on-the wall documentaries before it confirms our insatiable interest in other people's lives. But we reserve a special interest in the lives of celebrity couples. Coupledom is where it's at. Though, on the surface it doesn't seem to be the cherished notion it was ten years ago. Fewer people are marrying or even cohabiting. For the first time in recorded history the number of households with married couples will fall below 50 per cent. And the number of people living on their own has risen. One in three households is now a single adult. And the number is set to rise over the next two decades to nearly 40 per cent. And the phenomenon is nationwide. The soaring divorce rate has made young people cynical about marrying - at least in their teens or early twenties. But it's what most people aspire to even if they won't admit it.
Added to this is the fact that almost 40 per cent of single women between the age of consent and 49 aren't getting any and you can see why we are so keen on watching the marriages and couplings of celebrities played out infront of us; it's virtual marriage, if you like - much cheaper and far less painful than doing it yourself. Now sex has become a spectator sport - why else do millions of viewers tune in to Big Brother other than in the hope of seeing two housemates cop off with each other?.
Every moment has its It Couple and Posh Spice and David Beckham have become the pair to watch. The Beckhams are young, good-looking and rich. They've scored the jackpot in life's lottery. And yet we soak up every word written about them. It's like watching a road accident - you know you shouldn't but somehow you just can't help yourself.