"Sex is the leading cause of divorce," says the headline of a new survey released in small town England.

Considering the cultural stereotype attached to the English and their sex lives, this will probably bring relief to millions of British women who, as popular opinion would have it, would gladly never have sex again. Don't have sex, don't get divorced, and live happily ever after in a G-rated utopia.

Tragically, though, it's not the sex itself that's leading to all the divorce say the people behind the study. It's sex-related causes. You know, porn surfing, infidelity, cross-dressing. Yup, cross-dressing.

According to the study done by Bedfordshire lawyers, cross-dressing by married people in the area happens often enough that it made the list of causes for divorce.

Bedfordshire, as it happens, is 10 minutes from where my mother lives. She tells me she's surrounded only by horses, but it would appear that she left out the hundreds of men in sequined palazzo pants and size 12 patent leather pumps.

The details of the study indicated that 43 percent of divorces in the area cited sex as the primary cause, although "lifestyle" issues came in at number two with 37 percent. (And secret cross-dressing isn't a lifestyle issue?)

Money came in at 11 percent, but lawyers are predicting this number is on the increase since people are losing money hand over fist and that's bound to cause some strain. Again, cross-dressing can be implicated here, as a good Coach bag for each spouse certainly makes a dent in the Disney World fund, and the wife is likely to get tetchy.

We mentioned earlier this month that former James Bond George Lazenby and his most recent wife, Pam Shriver, were getting divorced.

As we all know, it's part of the United States Constitution that all celebrity divorces need drama, intrigue, and gross accusations in order to be granted in a court of law. This one, however, is particularly interesting.

Lazenby's ex-wife is making accusations as well.

The Bond star and his first wife, Christina Mather, have been divorced for years. Now she's claiming that he broke her nose when she was five months pregnant, more than 30 years ago. Their daughter, now 34, claims he shoved her head into a toilet and held a gun to her head when she arrived home after her curfew. On this front, Lazenby admits to nothing more than totally ignoring his daughter from the time she was 12 because his younger son was dying of cancer.

Shriver, meanwhile, is claiming that he's drunk around their preschool children and tries to force-feed them alcohol. Lazenby, on the other hand, claims that Shriver is constantly high and drunk and drives the kids around while in a total stupor. Naturally, she says he's lying.

Some day I'd like to write about a celebrity divorce trial where one party completely and fully admits to the wrong-doing. "Yes, Your Honor, I did in fact sleep with the labor and delivery nurse while my wife was giving birth to the twins."

Imagine being a refugee from a war-torn country and being told that in order to stay in safety, you had to get divorced. I’m pretty sure we can all say that would be tragic and a travesty of justice.

Now imagine you had two spouses, and the country you were living in said you had to obey the law and pick one. Not such a travesty of justice anymore, is it?

An unidentified Iraqi man has recently decided that he would rather go back to Iraq than stay in Denmark and give up one of his wives. Man, even writing the words “one of his wives” freaks me out. It seems like many of the men I know have a hard enough time being married to one woman, let alone two.

The lawyer handling his case explains the situation like this: “Most of all his wives are saddened by this affair; they don't feel welcome in Denmark.” When I read that the first time, it sounded like they were saying most of his wives were saddened. As in, most of them are saddened, but the rest are handling it like troopers. How many wives does this guy have? But no, he’s only got two — and they’re both bummed.

The crazy thing about this whole situation is that if he did divorce one of his wives, no one in the family would face deportation. They’d all get to stay. The wife who got the axe could still stay in the same house. Let’s face it, they’re in Denmark — nobody’s going to stone him for having two baby mamas. But he likes his family the way it is, so he’s packing up the wives and kids and heading back home. “Now they have left to see how things are in Basra,” says his lawyer.

Well, I think we all know how things are in Basra, but the best of luck to him. I hope to God nothing happens to his children when he gets there or he will be regretting his decision for the rest of his days.

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I would like to tell you that I was once married to Che Guevara, but that would be a lie. (Your first clue is that Che died in 1967, one week after my mother turned 11.)

Since the revolutionary with a modern-day cult following couldn't have me, he had to settle for Hilda Gadea, who has written "My Life With Che", a book chronicling her tumultuous marriage to — and subsequent divorce from — the rebel with a very real cause.

The book is being billed as the history that starts where “The Motorcycle Diaries” left off.

Gadea, who met Guevara in 1953 at the tail end of his motorcycle tour across Latin America, was not initially impressed. "He seemed superficial, egotistical and conceited." As they swooned over poetry and a mutual love of the Guatemalan government, though, she changed her tune and they got married in 1956, six months before their daughter Hildita was born.

It seems Gadea wasn’t the only one with doubts about the romance. A few days before their marriage, Che wrote in his diary, "For someone else it might be one of the great moments in their life, but for me the whole business is rather painful. I'm going to be a father, and in a few days I'm going to marry Hilda. For her, this decision was a dramatic one; for me it was hard. She's finally getting what she wants, though only for the time being as far as I'm concerned, even if she hopes it'll be for good."

Che was right, and when mother and baby Hildita joined him after an extended absence in January 1959, he greeted her with the news that he had met someone else and wanted a divorce. He married his second wife a few days after the ink was dry and was still married to her when he died eight years later.

You'll be happy to note that he still found the time to father another child out of wedlock a few years before his death.

Your mother was right. If he does it with you, he'll do it to you.

Like everywhere else in the world, divorce rates are rising in Egypt. It's not too surprising, really — we've written before about the rising statistics of divorce in basically every country where it's legal. According to an article I recently read, though, the rate of divorce in Egypt isn't just up. It's way up.

It seems that almost 50 percent of couples are getting divorced. That's comparable to most of the Western world, but rare for an Islamic country. Here's the interesting part, though — these couples are getting divorced within the first four years of marriage, and one of the two leading causes is sexual frustration.

Islamic and sociological scholars are blaming the harsh rules on sexuality outside of marriage. Apparently, even kissing outside of marriage is condemned. While I'm sure that keeps their teen pregnancy rates down, it doesn't take a genius to figure out why the Egyptian people are frustrated.

In the Western world, we experienced similar troubles until the advent of birth control and the womens' lib movement. The difference was that in our society prior to that, divorce was still largely stigmatized and woman couldn't really work. Apply the same sexual rules to economically free couples who are able to get divorced whenever they want to, and you've got yourself a one-way ticket to splitsville.

Let's face it, if you tell a bunch of adolescents and young adults that they can't get past first base without getting married, you're going to see a lot of ill-advised weddings. What did they think was going to happen?

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It seems like every week we report on a new country experiencing an upswing in divorce, and India is no different. I read an eye-opening piece the other day about the rise of Indian divorce, and some of the possible causes.

The article basically said that three things are at the root of the Indian divorce boom. One, couples have more money, making them less dependent on their families for support. Two, women are becoming more economically self-sufficient than ever before, making them less dependent on their husbands. Three, and probably most notably, Western influence has become more ingrained in Indian culture, making the traditional Indian marriage not good enough anymore.

Couples want love, instead of just family-sanctioned baby-making. It seems Indian couples are in a real catch-22. The only way they can break free from traditional cultural norms is to distance themselves from their parents and extended families. If they do that, however, they lose the support structure that is inherent within that way of life. While it's easy to look at a rise in divorce as a bad thing, I think it rarely means that more marriages are failing. It means that just as many marriages are failing, but now the parties involved are empowered enough to do something about it.

The piece referenced one woman, Christina, who ran home to her family because her new husband was beating her and kicking her out of the house in the middle of the night. Her parents' first reaction was the old-style one -- they sent her home and told her to make it work. Later, Christina found out that her husband was gay, and went back to her parents. This time, they welcomed her back, understanding that the marriage wasn't going to work.

Britney Spears is one busy chick. She's getting divorced, she's getting hospitalized, she's losing her kids. Now she's thinking about converting to Islam in order to marry her bodyguard, Adnan Ghalib. This would be her third marriage, and she just turned 26.

Where does she find the time?

Britney has apparently discussed running away Ghalib, getting herself a good plastic surgeon to drastically change her appearance, and even faking her own death. This is the same woman who went out to the mall with her new beau wearing her wedding dress from her previous wedding. Also the woman who briefly converted to Kabbalah because she wanted to be like Madonna.

According to Muslim tradition, Ghalib can marry whomever he wants — Muslim or otherwise — as long as he determines the religion in which the children are raised, but social pressure to marry within the faith is strong. I'm sure K-Fed's going to have a ball with this one.

Britney says what she has with Ghalib is the real deal. "He's the only one who understands me," she says.

Of that, my dearest Britney, we have no doubt.

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I was reading a really charming news bite today — note my tongue planted firmly in my cheek — saying that the rapper Snoop Dogg has decided that he's not going to divorce his wife after all. He filed for divorce in 2004 and has decided it's time to come home.

Isn't that nice? He's coming home to play Daddy again. Why is he doing this? I know you're dying to know. He started off well, indicating that he'd gotten caught up in Hollywood and women and the whole associated lifestyle. He said he realized what he had at home was irreplaceable. Sweet, huh?

Um, no. He went on to say, "I just don't want another man raising my kids. That was the main goal." For the benefit of the folks at home, I'll repeat that. "The main goal". What? Maybe he thinks that sounds responsible, like he wants to be the one to raise them and groom them and teach them how to be respectable tax-paying members of society. What it says to me is that he doesn't want anyone else to get the credit for raising the Snooplets.

Let's be honest. I have a Google News Alert on my name, and I'm guessing Mrs. Snoop has the same thing, both for herself and for her adoring husband. Google lasts forever, people. Watch what you say in print.

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Gay marriage is in the news a lot lately. Where I live — in Ontario, Canada — gay marriage has been legal for a few years now. Even the most homophobic of Ontario citizens have simply gotten used to the fact that we consider all love equal.

In Scotland, though, the same can't be said. Bryan Morgan and Richard Brown of Saltcoats, Scotland, have filed for divorce just 18 months after their marriage. Apparently, they have been the victims of numerous verbal and physical attacks.

While it is tragic that gay men and women are the victims of verbal abuse, many have come to expect it. In no way do I condone verbal abuse, but gay people all over the world understand that people just aren't very tolerant. But physical abuse? Attacks and violence and vandalism? Where are the police?

"Gangs of up to 15 youths were outside shouting abuse, throwing bricks and trying to break my door down," says Bryan. Gangs now? Bricks?

Like pioneers for women's rights, religious rights, and ethnic rights, pioneers for gay rights are being persecuted just like others were in the most abominable times in human history. It shocks me that this behavior continues in a first world country with an apparent democracy. Whether these perpetrators like it or not, the Scottish government has made gay marriage legal.

I am disgusted.

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Because I’ve been known to have a one-track mind, I’m still thinking about what I wrote about last week: Should some people just stay single?

My partner and I have been talking about this a lot lately. We are two of the most compatible people I’ve ever known. We live together. We run a business together. We work in our home office together.

And we are completely and utterly sick of each other. Actually, that’s not entirely true. We’re not sick of each other, we’re sick of not being alone.

Here’s the thing: We’re both very independent people. We’re both people pleasers. We both go out of our way to make the other person desperately, completely, ragingly happy. It’s exhausting, and I don’t think we want to do it any more.

We want to eat what we want for dinner. We want to stop discussing the color of paint on the walls. We want to stop planning and talking and communicating. We both just want to be left alone.

I was reading one of my favorite columnists, Lisa Kogan from Oprah’s O Magazine. She and her — what? Husband? Fiance? Boyfriend? Non-domestic partner? — live in two different countries and have no plans to change that situation. They’re in love. They’re monogamous. They’re happy. They see each other once a month.

I wonder if that would work for us. I mean, separate continents might be a bit much. I’m not in love with the idea of schlepping the baby across the ocean on a monthly basis. But maybe separate places in the same city might work.