Jessica Bennett

We are a culture of liars, with deceit so deeply ingrained in our psyches that we hardly notice we're engaging in it. Maybe we should embrace lying--and brush up on our skills.

It's a three-by-three inch image that shows an stunningmodel, blond and smiling, photographed for a story about feelingcomfortable in your skin. Except this time, I do a double-take.

Andrew Mahon needed to get famous—fast. So he set up a Web site—famousandrew.com—asked people to give him suggestions, and acted out their fancy on YouTube.

Polyamory—relationships with multiple, mutually consenting partners—has a coming-out party.

It wasn't so long ago that the idea of a college romance playing out online—for better or for worse—would have been deemed weird, nerdy, or just plain pathetic. How the digital world is changing the rules of modern courtship.

But can a pop princess really heal you?

Gloria Vanderbilt talks about her new erotic novel.

Being under the spotlight isn't all glamour. As Sara Ziff discovered, top models also fall prey to sexual predators.

It seems as if everyone is on Twitter—but not everyone is who they say they are. Famous tweeters fall into three categories: they're doing it themselves, a lackey's doing it for them or someone's pretending to be them.

When grisly images of their daughter's death went viral on the Internet, the Catsouras family decided to fight back.

I like lipstick as much as the next gal. But can we quit attributing my purchases to the 'Lipstick Index,' please?

While most of his buddies studied abroad last year, Kevin Roose, a 21-year-old English major at Brown University, tried a different kind of cultural immersion: he spent a semester undercover at Liberty University, the college founded by Jerry Falwell.

Lillie and Hawkins met four years ago atop a waterfall overlooking a lush green valley—the kind of magical tableau you find only in romance novels, or in sophisticated virtual universes. A journey into the ways new technology is changing the way we think about love and lust in the digital age.

A new documentary explores the history of Bloods-Crips gang violence.

Reared on reality TV and celebrity makeovers, young girls are using beauty products earlier, spending more and still feeling worse about themselves. If these trends continue, by the time your tween hits the Botox years, she'll have spent thousands on the beauty treatments once reserved for the "Beverly Hills, 90210" set.

The image of Compton as a defiantly violent ghetto was crystallized by the rap group N.W.A., whose 1988 album, "Straight Outta Compton," went multiplatinum. But today, Compton has a new lease on life.

Confession: When I interviewed the lead singer of a grunge band I once adored, I was as nervous as a schoolgirl.

At work on their ninth studio album, Pearl Jam is re-releasing "Ten" in four new and expanded editions. Lead singer Eddie Vedder talks bout the reissue, balancing music with activism, and life as a father of two.

Penmanship, like hieroglyphics and the IBM Selectric, has lost its purpose. Let's erase it for good.

Can a person survive consuming nothing but Barack-themed stuff?

How Bush should spin his legacy.

One woman's fight against the compulsion to injure herself, and why medical experts disagree about how to diagnose those who cut, or in extreme cases, embed objects under their skin.

In the aftermath of California's Proposition 8, outlawing gay marriage, young gays and lesbians have become grassroots, Web-based activists. But is this generation ready to lead?

Hospitals and patients alike are struggling with unpaid medical bills. A look at the drastic new measures both sides are taking to survive.

The craze for urban poultry farming.

Could euphoric Obama fans be sparking a baby boom?

UPenn College Republicans on what went wrong, and the future of the GOP.

What's on voters' minds in a battleground county in the swing state of Pennsylvania.

How do you create a bible that entices people who don't read the Bible? Swedish advertising guru Dag Soderberg decided recent versions lacked visual punch, so he made a new one with big, glossy photos, hoping design fans will display it proudly on their coffee tables.

A new reality series follows a British couple as they attempt to integrate themselves into a pack of wolves. It makes for good drama, but are they downright crazy?