Category: The Conversation

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Richard Wall, Emeritus Professor, School of Biological Sciences, University of Bristol

A flesh eating parasitic fly has spread north through Mexico to within a few hundred miles of the US southern border.

The New World screwworm (Cochliomyia hominivorax) lays its eggs in open wounds and in the orifices of live, warm-blooded animals – including, occasionally, humans. The maggots then devour the animal’s flesh, causing devastating lesions that can quickly kill the infested host.

Before the 1950s, it was found in the southern states of the US, where cattle infestations caused heavy financial losses for beef producers. But, during the second half of the 20th century, eradication efforts pushed it out of North and Central America.

In the past few years, however, screwworm control has unravelled, with cases spiking across Central America. The fly has now spread north through Mexico, reaching two Mexican states – Tamaulipas and Nuevo Leon – that share a border with Texas.

The method that was used to eradicate the fly is known as the sterile insect technique (SIT). This involves breeding vast numbers of a target species, sterilising them, usually with radiation, and then releasing the males.

The sterile males mate with wild females, which then produce no offspring. By continuously swamping the wild population with sterile males, the wild groups go extinct.

To be effective, SIT has a number of critical requirements. One of the most important is that the immigration of fertile females into areas where outbreaks are already under control must be very limited (and ideally zero). If fertile females are allowed to reinvade, the population will reestablish.

The technique therefore works best on isolated or island populations. In other circumstances, barriers and continuous surveillance need to be maintained to prevent immigration and immediately stamp out any incursions.

SIT has been used many times on a vast number of pests over the past 80 years –
with mixed results. The eradication of screwworm from the US, Mexico and central America was its greatest success.

The natural range of the New World screwworm fly extends from the southern states
of the USA through Central America and the Caribbean Islands to northern Chile,
Argentina and Uruguay. In North America, the fly used to spread north and west each summer from its overwintering areas near the US-Mexican border.

Historically, its effects were devastating. In 1935, during a screwworm epidemic, there were approximately 230,000 cases in livestock and 55 in humans in the state of Texas. Female screwworm lay batches of 200-300 eggs in open wounds and orifices. The catastrophic lesions caused as the maggots feed are known as myiasis.

Large-scale SIT for New World screwworm started in Florida in 1957-59 and was
gradually rolled out to the west. Effective control by the US was achieved in 1966.

Subsequently, using rearing facilities in Mexico, the fly was pushed back through Central America and was held at a barrier at the Darien Gap in Panama using continuous release and surveillance.

Occasional incursions in the US have still occurred. In the summer of 2016, screwworm infestation was identified in deer in the Florida Keys. Such incursions clearly demonstrated that any relaxation of the control and surveillance effort could allow the return of this devastating parasite.

The recent breakdown of screwworm control has seen thousands of cases confirmed in animals and humans across Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras and Mexico.

The insect’s continuing northward spread now raises the risk of a costly US reinvasion. The US Department of Agriculture estimates that an outbreak in Texas could cost livestock producers more than US$700 million (£526 million) per year.

There are several probable reasons for the breakdown of screwworm control. Maintaining barriers, rearing facilities and surveillance operations are expensive. US federal budget cuts, along with reduced foreign aid, hit screwworm control programmes in Central America and weakened surveillance.

The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) global health security programme, with responsibility for transboundary animal disease management, reduced its screwworm surveillance as US funding was withdrawn in March 2025.

Loss of control over the illegal movement of cattle, lacking veterinary inspections, may also have been a contributing factor. Alongside this, in many countries there has been an ongoing loss of expertise as experienced veterinary entomologists have retired and not been replaced.

Traditional applied entomology has been viewed as dated in the face of, for example, modern molecular and genetic approaches to the identification of species. The retired entomologists have taken with them a generation of experience of screwworm control and insect pest management in general – the essential underlying knowledge on which other approaches often depend.

As a result, considerable efforts are now required to resume control of this pest and prepare for future outbreaks. Significant new US federal funding for screwworm control has just been announced. But given that the pest is now re-entrenched in Central America, it may be too late to quickly reestablish regional control using SIT. As such, a fall back on insecticides seems like the only fix for immediate problems.

The rearing facilities for sterile insects in Mexico were shut down after screwworm was pushed out of North and Central America in the latter half of the 20th century. However, refurbishment is currently underway to allow them to restart producing sterile flies by summer 2026.

A new facility at Moore Airbase in Edinburg, Texas, close to the southern border, is being built. However, the suggestion that it is Mexico’s responsibility to prevent flies entering the US seems fanciful.

There are several important lessons that emerge from this history. The first is that insects don’t respect borders. International cooperation is required for management at a geographically relevant scale. Unwillingness to support the efforts of less economically robust neighbours, or international organisations such as the FAO, may well come back to bite.

The cost of maintaining the barrier in Panama was almost certainly significantly less than the costs of what will now be needed to achieve preparedness, or what will be incurred by US livestock producers if there is a persistent outbreak.

Finally, new pests and parasites (even some of the ones that seem to be under control) are an ever-present threat, particularly given greater global travel and the effects of climate change. Ignoring them, deprioritising research and control, failing to train the next generation of veterinary entomologists and hoping for the best, is not a viable strategy.

I am grateful to Nancy Hinkle, University of Georgia, for reading an earlier version of this article.

– ref. A flesh-eating fly is advancing towards the US border – can it be stopped? – https://theconversation.com/a-flesh-eating-fly-is-advancing-towards-the-us-border-can-it-be-stopped-279200

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Loizos Heracleous, Professor of Strategy, Warwick Business School, University of Warwick

The war in the Middle East swiftly led to the cancellation of thousands of flights across the Persian Gulf. The crisis in the industry is severe, but aviation is no stranger to existential shocks. Over the last four decades it has faced the COVID pandemic, the 2008 recession, the September 11 attacks, the Gulf war and Sars.

This time around, the conflict wiped US$53 billion (£40 billion) from the market value of the world’s 20 largest airlines in just its first three weeks.

Despite facing recurrent shocks, the industry provides a necessary service and often has state-level support – and so has survived. But it has not thrived. Aviation has been plagued by thin margins, frequent losses and a heavy and inflexible asset base in its fleets of aircraft (including long-term leasing arrangements). It also faces a long list of risks.

This war will be remembered as one of aviation’s greatest tests, delivering a pincer attack on the industry. On one side, fuel prices have doubled, with jet fuel surging from around US$87 to between US$150 and US$200 per barrel. On the other, revenue is in freefall due to closed hubs and suspended flights.

Fuel is typically the largest single component of airline operating costs, at around a quarter to a third of expenditure. It is also the most volatile. This is then followed by labour at around 25% and aircraft ownership costs at around 10–15%.

When fuel prices swing upwards they can wipe out an entire year’s profits, depending on the percentage that is unhedged (not acquired at a fixed price in advance). If at the same time revenue is collapsing, it is a perfect storm. At the end of 2025, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) forecast a profit of US$41 billion for the industry in 2026. But this now seems unattainable.

The race to survive

Only about one in seven airlines that have ever existed are still operating today. And while around 5,000 airlines have held international aviation codes over the years, only around 700 are now active. Bankruptcy is endemic in the industry, and the markets are already pricing in a higher risk of failure from the war.

The airlines most likely to fail are those with weak balance sheets, low operational efficiency, no state backing, and little or no fuel hedging (which leaves them fully exposed to sharp rises in costs).

Yet within this brutal landscape, a handful of airlines have not merely survived successive crises but have consistently outperformed. This includes budget carriers, such as Ryanair, and flag carriers, such as Singapore Airlines.

What these airlines have in common, regardless of market segment, is cost discipline, high levels of agility and close alignment between their operations and their strategy (that is, ensuring that what they offer is in line with what flyers expect from them). This drives higher customer satisfaction. These are the capabilities that produce resilience in a crisis – and a faster bounce-back when it ends.

Ryanair is not directly exposed to Gulf routes. In fact, the crisis is boosting its demand, with a surge in European short-haul bookings reported as travellers avoid the Middle East.

But beyond this boost, Ryanair is one of the most efficient and profitable airlines in the world, with around 80% of its fuel hedged at around US$67 per barrel for the next year. Ryanair systematically locks in fuel prices 12 to 18 months ahead through forward contracts – a strategy that sacrifices potential savings if prices fall in exchange for certainty.

But this hedged figure is now a fraction of current spot prices. The airline is on track to become debt-free by May this year, with net cash exceeding €1.5 billion (£1.3 billion), a position that can only be dreamt about by most airlines.

And Ryanair is a textbook example of cost leadership – its efficiency delivers low fares for adequate quality, with 90% of its seats consistently occupied. Its cost base is so low that it can attract customers with fares that competitors cannot match.

Singapore Airlines, on the other hand, does have routes that transit the Gulf corridor. Yet on other measures, it has similar strengths. A majority of its fuel is hedged, it has a strong balance sheet and its operations are highly efficient.

Singapore Airlines is what strategists call an “ambidextrous” organisation; one that pursues seemingly contradictory objectives that most companies find impossible to reconcile, such as exceptional quality at low operational cost.

It positions itself on being consistently ranked among the world’s best airlines. On the one hand it accomplishes this through continuous innovation – things like its ultra-exclusive “suites” class or Starlink connectivity in-flight.

But this level of service is coupled with intense cost discipline. Singapore Airlines has for decades had one of the lowest cost figures in its segment. The focus on efficiency is constant. In 2025 the airline initiated a partnership with OpenAI to find more ways to streamline operations.

It’s also a dual-brand model, pairing the premium Singapore Airlines with the low-cost carrier Scoot. This allows the company to compete across segments without diluting either brand.

The lessons here are strategic and timeless, and they remain true to what aviation experts and strategists know about competitive advantage. Strive for operational efficiency. Build a strong balance sheet. Align your business model to your competitive positioning so that your customers keep returning (and will rush to return after a crisis).

But these principles are simple to state and difficult to execute. This is precisely why so few airlines manage it.

Loizos Heracleous does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Airlines are facing yet more turbulence. An expert assesses what it will take to survive – https://theconversation.com/airlines-are-facing-yet-more-turbulence-an-expert-assesses-what-it-will-take-to-survive-279362

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Adam Behr, Reader in Music, Politics and Society, Newcastle University

“Ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?” John Lydon’s closing words before stalking off stage at San Francisco’s Winterland Ballroom in January 1978, concluding the Sex Pistols’ US tour, have echoed ever since. They’re a bitter bookend to a fractious spell in the limelight. Barely three years had passed since the band’s first gig and less than two since they exploded into the national consciousness.

Lydon’s words marked an ending, but the start was almost as combustible. Fifty years ago, on March 30 1976, the Sex Pistols played a pivotal gig at London’s 100 Club. Photographer P.T. Madden recalled the small, but select, crowd and the sense of momentum:

My main memory is thinking, this is extremely important. It is not like any other gig I have ever been to. It has an atmosphere of expectation which is totally exciting. This means something and there is no one here.

A venue and a moment

The 100 Club, a basement venue on Oxford Street with a history stretching back to the 1940s, had already hosted generations of musical growth in jazz and rhythm and blues. In 1976 it became a focal point for a new, abrasive sensibility. Alongside key gigs at Manchester’s Lesser Free Trade Hall and Kensington’s Nashville Rooms, it helped crystallise what punk looked, sounded and felt like.

In September, the two-day 100 Club Punk Special brought together emerging acts like Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Clash and The Damned, consolidating a scene that was coalescing around an aesthetic of nihilistic confrontation and musical minimalism. The Pistols were not alone in this but became its most visible face.

Their rise was swift. The band was signed to EMI by October 1976, only to be dropped within months amid controversy stoked by the band and their manager Malcom McLaren. A key flash-point was the furore surrounding an expletive-laden chat show interview with Bill Grundy.

Their debut single, Anarchy in the UK, released the following month, was a blunt declaration of intent. A rapid sequence of label changes followed, culminating in the 1977 album Never Mind the Bollocks, anchored by the incendiary single God Save the Queen. It was banned by the BBC and independent radio stations during the Silver Jubilee.

The Pistols’ opening salvo flared brightly and briefly, its intensity bound up with the conditions that produced it.

A soundtrack for disaffection

The optimism of the 1960s had curdled. Economic decline, an oil price shock, rising inflation and industrial unrest led to the three-day week of 1974 (in which commercial electricity use was restricted to three consecutive days per week), presaging 1978-79’s “winter of discontent”.

The 1976 sterling crisis saw chancellor Denis Healey turn cap-in-hand to the International Monetary Fund for a loan to stabilise the UK economy. This underscored a sense of the post-war economic consensus running aground. Rising youth unemployment deepened a pervasive feeling of stagnation and exclusion.

The Sex Pistols became the most recognisable expression of this broader cultural mood: caustic, disillusioned and sceptical of authority. Their salience was amplified by media outrage, oscillating between fascination and moral panic. Contemporary reports of local authority venues banning punk acts reinforced the perception of a movement defined by exclusion and resistance.

The roots of this approach were not exclusively British. Across the Atlantic, bands like the Ramones had begun stripping rock music back to its raw essentials in the early 1970s. Clubs like New York’s CBGB saw a defiant, unpolished aesthetic take shape. The Pistols and their peers translated and intensified this within a distinctly British landscape.

Cultural theorist Dick Hebdige framed punk as “homology”: the different elements of a sub-culture – clothing, art, and music – resonating with one another. Torn clothing, safety pins and aggressive performance articulated a confrontational, knowingly chaotic stance. The Pistols did not just express disaffection, they gave it visible and audible form.

From rupture to routine

Revolutions often reproduce what they set out to overthrow. Pete Townshend – once a critic of the old order, later a “rock dinosaur” target of punk – described apparent change leaving underlying power structures intact: “meet the new boss, same as the old boss”. The Pistols’ implosion seemed to confirm this pattern of established practices reasserting themselves. But what followed was less disappearance than transformation into a different kind of cultural object – not a unified movement, but a musical style absorbed into mainstream culture.

After Winterland, the band’s remnants were repurposed through a mixture of opportunism and myth-making. Sid Vicious’s notoriety was a factor. The Virgin-produced, McLaren-narrated film The Great Rock’n’Roll Swindle also offered a fictionalised, satirical account of their rise and fall, blurring the line between history and performance.

Thereafter, the Sex Pistols’ trajectory resembled that of many rock acts they had ostensibly sought to disrupt. Lawsuits, reunions and reissues followed. Lydon’s legal battles with McLaren, and later with bandmates underscored the tensions between artistic expression and commercial control. Reunion tours, documentaries such as The Filth and the Fury, and ongoing commemorations (like this) have all contributed to their canonisation.

What began as a rupture in popular music culture became incorporated into its institutional frameworks. The Pistols’ career has been endlessly revisited and repackaged.

Even institutions that once recoiled from punk have, over time, folded it into their own symbolic repertoire. In 2016, the BBC’s flagship current affairs programme Newsnight closed with the God Save the Queen in deadpan response to a Conservative MP’s call for the national anthem to mark Britain’s departure from the EU. What was once treated as cultural contagion became pressed into service as establishment punctuation.

But this should not obscure the force of the original moment. In 1976, the Sex Pistols did more than generate headlines. They captured a particular moment of social disaffection and cultural experimentation that remains emblematic of how music, style and social context aligned to produce something both fleeting and enduring.

If their later career followed familiar patterns, that raw, disruptive and unresolved moment continues to resonate – long after Lydon’s final, sardonic question at Winterland.

Adam Behr has received funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the British Academy.

– ref. Sex Pistols at 50: how punk’s most notorious band became part of the mainstream – https://theconversation.com/sex-pistols-at-50-how-punks-most-notorious-band-became-part-of-the-mainstream-279421

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Andrea Hollomotz, Associate Professor in Sociology and Social Policy, University of Leeds

MP Charlotte Nichols recently took the brave step to speak publicly about her rape trial experiences in parliament. Nichols endured a 1,088-day wait for her case to reach court. This experience led her to speak out, in a debate over the government’s plan to cut jury trials in England and Wales. Arguing that the proposals would only minimally reduce wait times, she called instead for the creation of special courts to hear rape cases.

Later, in an in-depth Guardian interview, Nichols disclosed that it took her 48 hours to mentally accept that what had happened to her was rape. This delay was used against her in court to undermine her credibility as a witness. Her case ended with a jury unanimously acquitting the man she accused of raping her. But this line of enquiry was based on outdated stereotypes of what “real” rape looks like.

Delayed realisation, when someone does not immediately name that what happened to them was rape, is extremely common. Most people imagine rape as an obvious crime: a stranger attack, force, threats or immediate fear. But the reality looks very different for many victims.

Back in 1988, Liz Kelly, a professor of sexualised violence, reported that around 60% of women she spoke to could not name assaults when they happened. More recent studies, including research led by criminologist Jennifer Brown, and my own research with disabled victims of sexual violence, continue to show this pattern.

Nichols disclosed that she had consensual “vanilla sex” during a one-night stand with a man: “We did have a really fun night actually where I was fully up for it.” This made what happened later that night harder to comprehend. She woke up to find him having sex with her again, biting her back, breasts and thighs.

Being betrayed in this way by someone you trusted and had positive feelings for can cause disassociation and shock. Nichols described feeling “outside my own body” and on “autopilot” in the hours after being raped. Many victims cope by rationalising or minimising what has happened. One of my respondents told herself: “No, it wasn’t that bad, it was all okay.”

Victims may use humour or detachment as coping strategies. Nichols did this when she sent her friend a joking text message the morning after the rape. Although the correspondence with this friend included later messages where she gradually began to acknowledge that what happened wasn’t right, this initial text message was used against her in the trial.

Many victims have internalised rape myths: widely-held attitudes about how rape happens that are generally false. These beliefs may hinder them from naming their experiences.

Although delayed realisation can happen to anyone, it is important to acknowledge that disabled women in our research faced additional barriers. Some had limited access to sex education. Some grew up being treated as childlike or passive, and others had been repeatedly disbelieved by professionals when they tried to report more mundane instances of maltreatment. These conditions make it even harder to understand or dare to name sexual violence.

How delayed realisation is used against victims

The criminal justice system often treats delayed realisation as suspicious. Nichols’ delayed realisation and outwardly calm behaviour in the immediate aftermath were presented as proof that the sex must have been consensual.

The emotional scars caused by rape led Nichols to developed post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Emily Hunt, a former government rape adviser, claimed that 50% of sexual violence victims develop PTSD. On this ground alone, a large proportion of rape victims could be considered disabled and entitled to additional protections under the Equality Act.

Instead, rape victims’ trauma survival strategies, such as the “fawn response” – disassociation and masking one’s distress, as Nichols described – are exposed in court as evidence to undermine their credibility.

In my research this was especially common among neurodivergent women, who are generally well-versed at masking (mimicking neurotypical traits to fit into social situations).

Some respondents felt discriminated against because they expressed trauma differently from how they were expected to, for example by laughing when recalling uncomfortable events. Others were told they were “over-emotional” or “not emotional enough”. Several women said that their criminal justice experience made them feel that they were not the “right kind of victim”.

The current legal definition of rape requires that the perpetrator did “not reasonably believe” that the victim consented. Consequently, when Nichols’ case went to court, she was made to feel that she was on trial. The focus was on dissecting her behaviour in the aftermath of the rape to establish whether she had consented.

For most victims I spoke to, their cases were discontinued before they even reached court. Delayed realisation was routinely used to argue that it was not possible to “reasonably believe” that the victim had not consented.

The UK government’s ambition to increase rape convictions as part of the violence against women and girls strategy is commendable. However, low conviction rates will continue unless the law and how it is implemented are changed to reflect the reality that delayed realisation is a common trauma response for many rape victims.

Nichols’ courage in speaking publicly could open a national conversation about normalising delayed realisation. Her frank account is powerful, because it directly challenges many common rape myths, while highlighting how the presence of these views in the courtroom led to her feeling – and ultimately being – disbelieved.

Andrea Hollomotz has previously received funding from the Ministry of Justice for research about the formal support needs of disabled adult victim-survivors of sexual violence. The views expressed are those of the author and are not necessarily shared by the Ministry of Justice.

– ref. Why so many victims don’t realise they have been raped until later – https://theconversation.com/why-so-many-victims-dont-realise-they-have-been-raped-until-later-279057

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Sarah Louise Smyth, Lecturer in Department of Literature Film and Theatre Studies, University of Essex

Is it by accident or design that Dakota Johnson has become the star for zeitgeisty sex and romance films? Johnson’s breakthrough role was as Anastasia Steele in the enormously popular Fifty Shades of Grey (2015). Adapted from the book series by E.L. James, it spawned a franchise that, for better or worse, has come to define BDSM in the mainstream cultural imagination.

In Celine Song’s recent film, The Materialists (2025), Johnson plays Lucy, a high-end matchmaker who enables wealthy individuals to bypass the random scrolling and swiping of dating apps and experience a hand-picked romantic match. Although in my review for The Conversation I suggest that the film is muddled in its message, The Materialists makes an effort to address the cynical business of marriage in our modern age – and the dangerous outcomes that can befall women when blind dating goes wrong.

Enter Splitsville, a new comedy film written by and starring Kyle Marvin and Michael Angelo Covino, with Covino also directing. This latest film is about open marriages.

While polyamory, ethical non-monogamy and private arrangements have existed for many years, these practises have recently come to the attention of the mainstream. This has happened alongside other identities, sexual orientations and practices that do not fit squarely into the rigid heterosexual monogamous norm.

Open relationships frequently attract everything from morbid curiosity to disbelief and ridicule in the media. Rarely, however, are they taken seriously. The time is ripe, then, for a film that explores open relationships as a legitimate lifestyle and practice.

How to be polyamorous (and flawed)

In Splitsville, Carey (Marvin) is married to Ashley (Adria Arjona). Ashley is unhappy in their marriage and is especially dissatisfied by their sex life. After Ashley announces that she wants a divorce, heartbroken Carey consoles himself in the company of his friends Julie (Johnson) and Paul (Covino).

Julie and Paul reveal to Carey that they are in an open marriage. Carey, while shocked, is also curious and asks about the rules of their arrangements: can they sleep with anybody, even someone they both know? “Yes,” Julie says, “there are no rules.”

Carey takes this proposition back to Ashley. Why go through the complications of a divorce when they could open up their relationship instead? The rest of the film follows the comedic fall-out of their sexual dalliances. But opening up their relationship doesn’t provide an easy solution to their problems.

Let’s return to our question. Does Splitsville take open relationships seriously? Well, no. The answer is easily found in Julie’s response to Carey’s question: there are no rules. Look at any guidance on open relationships and the best practice is clear: there must be agreed upon rules (or at least expectations), boundaries and communication between all parties.

The couples in Splitsville adhere to none of these things. Yes, this is not a didactic manual for how to be an ethnically non-monogamous couple. This is a fictionalised work about flawed couples whose bad practising of open relationships leads to trouble. But this is also another example of a film using a non-normative sexual practice as a metaphor for something else.

The aforementioned Fifty Shades of Grey isn’t really interested in BDSM. It uses BDSM (bondage, discipline, sadism, masochism) to symbolise Christian Grey’s childhood abuse and his warped sense of power – something practitioners of BDSM take issue with as it reinforces the idea that BDSM is a form of abuse. Similarly, Splitsville isn’t really about open marriages as it uses this as a plot device to allow the couples simply to get messy.

So what is the film interested in? Men getting into scrapes, maybe? After Carey sleeps with Julie (yes, of course this happens), Paul rages (even though technically this hasn’t broken any of his and Julie’s non-rules). Carey and Paul start fighting, which turns into an extended set piece.

Although this got laughs in my screening, I found it indulgent. The men destroy Paul and Julie’s house, kill the pet goldfish and singe off Carey’s eyebrows. Later, Paul becomes involved in some dodgy dealings, including taking out loans in the name of his son, Russ (Simon Webster). This ends badly for Paul and his family. Even Russ gets in on the bad behaviour, stealing a jet ski and breaking another kid’s arm.

And what about the beleaguered wives? They have some fun. Ashley has a string of partners who provide some laughs. But the women certainly don’t behave as badly as the men. I doubt they’d get away with a destroying a home, stripping their marriage of assets, or committing fraud. Although perhaps the real loser in all this is ethical non-monogamy.

Sarah Louise Smyth does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Ethical non-monogamy? New comedy Splitsville is more about two flawed couples getting messy – https://theconversation.com/ethical-non-monogamy-new-comedy-splitsville-is-more-about-two-flawed-couples-getting-messy-279414