Tinder in the trenches
Post Reports
The Washington Post
4.4 • 5.1K Ratings
🗓️ 4 January 2023
⏱️ 13 minutes
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Summary
Marriages, breakups and dates are still happening in Ukraine, even during the war against Russian forces.
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Reporter Jeff Stein recently reported on what love and intimacy look like during the war with Russian forces. What he found was that Tinder and sex shops still persist as cities in Ukraine continue to see airstrikes and hear sirens. Sometimes, when it doesn’t seem like either side is winning, love just might be.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | There is a little bit of cachet from women who are eager and excited by the possibility |
| 0:07.6 | of dating someone who's potentially sacrificing their life to defend the country. |
| 0:11.6 | And so there is a little bit of status, romantic and otherwise, that comes with being a soldier, |
| 0:16.7 | which makes sense. |
| 0:18.3 | Jeff Stein is a reporter for the post and just got back from Ukraine. |
| 0:22.3 | While he was there, he talked with more than a dozen soldiers about what their love |
| 0:25.7 | lives are like during the war. |
| 0:31.7 | The idea of falling in love against the backdrop of war has been romanticized in countless |
| 0:36.5 | books and movies. |
| 0:38.3 | But Jeff says Ukrainian soldiers told him the reality can be a nightmare. |
| 0:43.2 | What they really say is that it's extremely hard to be intimate. |
| 0:47.4 | It's extremely hard to have the conversation that pre-requisites for intimacy in the context |
| 0:53.1 | of shelling and your friends dying and even the lower level stresses on the home front |
| 0:59.7 | of losing electricity and air raids, blaring every night. |
| 1:04.8 | And what they say to me is that forming the kind of connections that are romantic and |
| 1:11.2 | full of love are actually much more difficult when you're in survival mode. |
| 1:18.0 | From the newsroom of the Washington Post, this is Post Reports. |
| 1:21.0 | I'm Christina Quinn. |
| 1:22.5 | This Wednesday, January 4th. |
| 1:24.5 | Today, how love and intimacy can be an act of protest against Vladimir Putin's invasion |
| 1:29.7 | of Ukraine. |
| 1:37.1 | Okay, so you just got back from Kiev. |
... |
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