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Welcome to Fair Play, a column exploring the shifting dynamics of sex, dating and culture by Playboy Senior Editor Magdalene Taylor.
Dolly Parton died last week, and as fans continue to memorialize her by combing through the details of her life, many are realizing there’s at least one part of Dolly that they knew little about: her husband of 59 years, Carl Dean. While there are at least photographs to confirm his existence, there are surprisingly few for the life partner of one of the country’s most beloved celebrities. In the last several decades, there were almost none. Dolly described their relationship as “sacred,” a separate and private part of her life away from her role as an entertainer. No one doubts the deep love and devotion she had for her husband, who died last year. Rather, they recognize that Dolly’s career and personal life could exist independently. And in fact, there is something commendable about that separation.
Obviously, we’re not all internationally famous country divas. Even so, people seem to increasingly be asking themselves what the value is of being so public with their romantic lives—especially on social media.
There once was a time when a relationship wasn’t real until it became “Facebook official.” Two people would change their relationship status on the platform to tell the world that they were together. When they broke up, too, it would appear as a news item on the feeds of everyone they were friends with. Today, relationship optics on social media are centered more on Instagram, and just like in the Facebook era, the relationship isn’t real until it’s posted. For some, posting a picture of your new girlfriend on Instagram is a natural progression, a way of sharing your day-to-day life just as you would single. For others, it can carry an air of insecurity: there’s a sense that someone who doesn’t post their partner is “hiding” them so they can cheat, or that never sharing the relationship with an audience makes it far easier to end it without any public questioning.
“It’s a very natural and intuitive way for me to express my love,” Emma, 30, who’s pro-posting, says. “I understand logically that not everyone is wired that way but on a visceral level I’m always creeped out when people don’t post their partner because for me that’d be a major red flag!”
Some, meanwhile, have made posting their partner a major feature of their online personality. Robbie Tripp, the infamous “I love my curvy wife” guy and rapper of “Chubby Sexy,” was crowned “the pioneer of the Wife Guy movement online” by The New York Times in 2019. Highlighting his wife, he says, was foundational to building his career. “We’ve definitely figured out our own lanes after each having our own online careers the past 12 years,” he tells me. “Our content doesn’t center around one another nearly as much as it used to in the viral ‘curvy wife’ days but [it’s] still a central part of our story and journey.”
As another guy told me, he thinks men should be posting their girlfriends way more often. “Stop hiding,” he says. He likes to repost her thirst traps, too, which he says are a “blessing, not a threat.”
But for a growing pool of people today, cutesy date night pictures or “hard launches” on the grid just aren’t their priority. Others, too, are actively opposed to making their relationship visible for public consumption.
“I resisted posting my girlfriend for so long, not because I don’t feel so proud to be with her but because years of singlehood has given me such an ick for couples content online,” says Sarah, 32. “I really hate the idea of launching your partner like this ‘prize’ you got — it’s very, ‘look what I did.’” Her girlfriend now isn’t on social media, so her resistance isn’t much of an issue.
“I look back now at photos with my ex, who I posted a ton, and I’m like ‘wow I really loved showing off that I had this hot boyfriend.’ Meanwhile I was unhappy,” she says. “Social media is a prison—it’s so hard for it not to feel performative.”
Many young women aren’t just resistant, but are patently against it: two told me they won’t be posting their boyfriends until marriage, and even then, they might not.
“I just dated a dude who posted me 10 minutes into our first date,” one such woman, Chloe, 33, says. “When I asked him not to, he would still post that he was at my house. It turns out he’s seeing someone else anyway.”
As for myself, no one would know I’m married if they looked at my Instagram. I do occasionally post him to my stories, and when we get our wedding photos back, he might even get a grid post. Is that shady of me? I’m fine with people thinking so. But the thing is, he hasn’t posted on Instagram in over five years. And as someone who writes about and criticizes much of the state of contemporary relationships, I don’t feel too eager to open him or our relationship up to public scrutiny. Maybe that’s a classic case of being able to dish it but unable to take it. Again, that’s fine by me. At the end of the day, we’re married.
In an era of increasing suspicion of the digital panopticon and our constant surveillance, it feels only natural to want to keep the intimate portions of our lives at arms length from the gaze of Instagram. It’s also natural, especially for those whose Instagram use is primarily focused on connecting with friends and family, to want to share that part of your life, too. Neither is necessarily a testament to the strength of the relationship—Dolly and Carl were proof of that.
