Amy Alkon

Last updated
Amy Alkon
Amy Alkon in hat.jpg
Amy Alkon at DeepGlamour fashion celebration, 2009
BornAmy Alkon
(1964-03-08) March 8, 1964 (age 60)
Farmington Hills, Michigan, United States
Pen nameThe Advice Goddess
Occupation Advice columnist
Notable worksI See Rude People
Good Manners for Nice People Who Sometimes Say F*ck

Amy Alkon (born March 8, 1964[ citation needed ]), also known as the Advice Goddess, is an American advice columnist. Alkon wrote a weekly advice column, Ask the Advice Goddess, which was published in over 100 newspapers within North America. While Alkon addressed a wide range of topics, she primarily focused on issues in intimate relationships. Her columns were based largely on evolutionary psychology. Her last column was published on March 31, 2022. [1]

Contents

Life and career

Amy Alkon grew up in Farmington Hills, a suburb of Detroit, Michigan. She identifies as a weak atheist. [2] Alkon credits her isolation as the catalyst that cultivated her early fondness for reading. [3]

Alkon moved to New York City, where she dispensed advice on a street corner in SoHo as one of three women who called themselves "The Advice Ladies." This was not an occupation, merely a hobby, and their setup was minimal, using only folding chairs and a handmade sign advertising "Free Advice from a Panel of Experts". She co-authored a book, Free Advice - The Advice Ladies on Love, Dating, Sex, and Relationships with her fellow "Advice Ladies," Caroline Johnson and Marlowe Minnick. Her next book, a solo project entitled I See Rude People: One Woman’s Battle to Beat Some Manners Into Impolite Society, was published by McGraw Hill in November 2009.[ citation needed ]

Before billing herself as the "advice goddess," Alkon wrote Ask Amy Alkon, an advice column published solely in the New York Daily News .

In 2004, the Biography Channel featured Alkon in a series of one-minute shorts called "The Advice Minute With Amy Alkon." There were 11 in total and during these segments, which ran between the Biography Channel's regular programs, Alkon dispensed advice on the streets of New York, just as she had done with her cohorts years earlier.

In 2011, Alkon was threatened with a defamation suit with damages of half a million US dollars by a TSA agent who Alkon alleges forced the side of her gloved hand into Alkon's vagina four times through her underwear. [4] The agent, Thedala Magee, claimed that describing such an act as 'rape' constituted defamation, and that Alkon had described her as a 'bad person' for behaving in such a manner. [5] She was defended by First Amendment attorney Marc Randazza. [6]

In a second incident, in November 2012, Alkon complained that a TSA agent "ran her hands, most disgustingly, all over my body, grazing my labia and touching my breasts and inside my turtleneck on my bare skin." [7]

Campaigns

Issues she has written and spoken of are unruly children, the behavior of which she attributes to bad parenting, inconsiderate cellphone users, and copyright violators. [8] [9]

Further reading

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Etiquette</span> Customary code of polite behaviour

Etiquette is the set of norms of personal behaviour in polite society, usually occurring in the form of an ethical code of the expected and accepted social behaviours that accord with the conventions and norms observed and practised by a society, a social class, or a social group. In modern English usage, the French word étiquette dates from the year 1750.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pauline Phillips</span> 20th and 21st-century American advice columnist

Pauline Esther Phillips, also known as Abigail Van Buren, was an American advice columnist and radio show host who began the well-known "Dear Abby" newspaper column in 1956. It became the most widely syndicated newspaper column in the world, syndicated in 1,400 newspapers with 110 million readers.

A gossip columnist is someone who writes a gossip column in a newspaper or magazine, especially in a gossip magazine. Gossip columns are written in a light, informal style, and relate opinions about the personal lives or conduct of celebrities from show business, politicians, professional sports stars, and other wealthy people or public figures. Some gossip columnists broadcast segments on radio and television.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Judith Martin</span> American etiquette authority

Judith Martin, better known by the pen name Miss Manners, is an American columnist, author, and etiquette authority.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Phil McGraw</span> American television host and psychologist (born 1950)

Phillip Calvin McGraw, known professionally as Dr. Phil, is an American television personality and author, best known for hosting the talk show Dr. Phil. He holds a doctorate in clinical psychology, though he ceased renewing his license to practice psychology in 2006.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Advice column</span> Journalism genre

An advice column is a column in a question and answer format. Typically, a reader writes to the media outlet with a problem in the form of a question, and the media outlet provides an answer or response.

<i>The Little Sister</i> Novel by Raymond Chandler

The Little Sister is a 1949 novel by Raymond Chandler, his fifth featuring the private investigator Philip Marlowe. The story is set in Los Angeles in the late 1940s and follows Marlowe's investigation of a missing persons case and blackmail scheme centered around a Hollywood starlet. With several scenes involving the film industry, the novel was partly inspired by Chandler's experience working as a screenwriter in Hollywood and his low opinion of the industry and most of the people in it. The book was first published in the UK in June 1949 and was released in the United States three months later.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Catherine Seipp</span> American journalist

Catherine Seipp was a Los Angeles freelance writer and media critic. She is best known for writing the weekly "From the Left Coast" column for National Review Online and a monthly column for the Independent Women's Forum and for her early recognition of the potential significance of the blogosphere.

Vanessa Walters, is an English novelist and playwright. She is also a commentator and critic. She is best known as the teenage novelist discovered to be writing a novel as a hobby to share with her school friends while she was being educated at Queen's College, London. When discovered by teachers, the text was passed over to a literary agent, who quickly had Walters signed to a publishing company with a five-figure book deal even before she had left school.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Table manners</span> Rules of etiquette used while eating

Table manners are the rules of etiquette used while eating, which may also include the use of utensils. Different cultures observe different rules for table manners. Each family or group sets its own standards for how strictly these rules are to be followed.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Amy Dickinson</span> American newspaper columnist

Amy Dickinson is a former American newspaper columnist who wrote the syndicated advice column Ask Amy. Dickinson has appeared as a social commentator on ABC's Good Morning America and NBC's The Today Show.

Regina Lynn is an American columnist, blogger, author, and self-described sex-tech expert. Her work discusses the convergence of sex and technology, touching on subjects ranging from teledildonics and online dating to social media, video games, and cybersex.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">E. Jean Carroll</span> American journalist (born 1943)

Elizabeth Jean Carroll is an American journalist, author, and advice columnist. Her "Ask E. Jean" column appeared in Elle magazine from 1993 through 2019, becoming one of the longest-running advice columns in American publishing. In her 2019 book, What Do We Need Men For?: A Modest Proposal, Carroll accused CBS CEO Les Moonves and Donald Trump of sexually assaulting her in the mid-1990s. Both Moonves and Trump denied the allegations.

Sam de Brito was a Sydney-born author and writer for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age who wrote the blog All Men Are Liars.

Melissa Kirsch is an American author who writes predominantly about media, politics, and women's issues. Her most recent book, The Girl’s Guide, provides advice to women on topics ranging from financial issues to dating. Currently, Kirsch lives in New York City, blogs for the Huffington Post, and writes the "My Secret Library" column for the KGB Bar Lit.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eppie Lederer</span> American journalist

Esther Pauline "Eppie" Lederer, better known by the pen name Ann Landers, was an American advice columnist and eventually a nationwide media celebrity. She began writing the "Ask Ann Landers" column in 1955 and continued for 47 years, by which time its readership was 90 million people. A 1978 World Almanac survey named her the most influential woman in the United States. She was the identical twin sister of Pauline Phillips, who wrote the similarly popular "Dear Abby" advice column as Abigail Van Buren.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Don't touch my junk</span> Phrase

"Don't touch my junk" is a phrase that became popular in the United States in 2010 as a criticism of Transportation Security Administration (TSA) patdowns. The word "junk" is American English slang for a man's genitals. The phrase refers to the offense many people took to the November 2010 decision by TSA to begin full body patdowns of airline passengers in the U.S. who refused to go through a full body scanner.

Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? is an original stage comedy in three acts and four scenes by George Axelrod. After a try-out run at the Plymouth Theatre in Boston from 26 September 1955, it opened at the Belasco Theatre on Broadway on 13 October, starring Jayne Mansfield, Walter Matthau and Orson Bean. Directed by the author and produced by Jule Styne, it closed on 3 November 1956 after 444 performances.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Donald Trump sexual misconduct allegations</span>

Donald Trump, the president of the United States from 2017 to 2021, has a history of insulting and belittling women when speaking to the media and on social media. He has made lewd comments, disparaged women's physical appearances, and referred to them using derogatory epithets. Since the 1970s, at least 26 women have publicly accused Trump of rape, kissing, and groping without consent; looking under women's skirts; and walking in on naked teenage pageant contestants. Trump has denied all of the allegations.

Keiko Ochiai is a Japanese author, bookstore owner, radio personality and feminist.

References