Thanks to the 163,364 of you who stopped by this week to read about Sarah Palin’s lip hair. I guess.

1. Sarah Palin, Lip Hairs and All, in which Newsweek focuses on Sarah Palin’s face.

2. The Final Hours of the Washington Blade, in which the Blade falls, but the DC Agenda rises.

3. Sarah Palin’s Entire Existence is Sexist, in which Newsweek focuses on Sarah Palin’s bod.

4. Rapists Who Don’t Think They’re Rapists, featuring trolls.

5. Chris Brown: I Love Women, in which Chris Brown joins the ranks of Mel Gibson, Tom Cruise, and the skeevy guy from The Continental.

Photo via Library of Virginia

The Department of Insurance, Securities and Banking (DISB) has not made any changes in its position regarding contraceptive coverage in individual health insurance under Commissioner Gennet Purcell or prior to Commissioner Purcell’s appointment.

In fact, mandated coverages for insurance are not at the discretion of the insurance commissioner, but rather mandated coverages are those that are required by D.C. law. Contraceptive coverage is not now, nor has it ever been, a mandated coverage in D.C. DISB has researched its recent consumer complaint history and found no complaints about individual health insurance not covering contraception. It is surveying insurance companies writing individual health insurance in the District of Columbia and, while responses are still coming in, has found that there are individual plans available in D.C. that provide contraceptive coverage.

I called the DISB earlier today, and never heard back. But Commissioner Gennet Purcell weighed in on the comments: “District Residents/Sexist Bloggers: Please check your facts. I have not made any policy decisions or other DISB determinations regarding mandated contraception coverage in the District of Columbia. This is simply untrue.”

D.C. ladies on the pill: You may not know the name of Gennet Purcell, the woman that Mayor Adrian Fenty appointed to head up the D.C. Department of Insurance, Securities and Banking last August. You should. Purcell may be responsible for sending your birth control costs through the roof. Yesterday, Amie Newman of R.H. Reality Check reported that Purcell recently gave insurance companies the go-ahead to opt out of contraception coverage. [UPDATE: Purcell's office roundly denies Newman's story. Statement after the jump].

Under Purcell’s watch, private insurance companies operating in Washington DC are now allowed to opt out of covering contraception in individual plans. This coverage is considered “non-mandatory” by the insurance commissioner and some women are finding their birth control coverage suddenly dropped.

UPDATE: A call I made to DISB this afternoon was not returned, but a DISB rep issued the following statement to DCist:

The Department of Insurance, Securities and Banking (DISB) has not made any changes in its position regarding contraceptive coverage in individual health insurance under Commissioner Gennet Purcell or prior to Commissioner Purcell’s appointment.

In fact, mandated coverages for insurance are not at the discretion of the insurance commissioner, but rather mandated coverages are those that are required by D.C. law. Contraceptive coverage is not now, nor has it ever been, a mandated coverage in D.C. DISB has researched its recent consumer complaint history and found no complaints about individual health insurance not covering contraception. It is surveying insurance companies writing individual health insurance in the District of Columbia and, while responses are still coming in, has found that there are individual plans available in D.C. that provide contraceptive coverage.

Photo by nateOne, Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

That first point makes sense—feminist women were thrown under the bus in order to pass the health care bill, and they’re right to be pissed about it. But what’s this business about forcing us to vote for lady politicians? “A major element in our battle for equality is getting women into positions of power,” Siskind explains. “The hope is that these leaders, once in place, would promote women’s issues and encourage the next generation of women leaders. Speaker Pelosi reveals a flaw in feminist thinking: There are exceptions. A powerful woman can in fact be an enemy to women.”

Speaker Pelosi has taught Siskind a very important lesson: Supporting female politicians is not the same as supporting women. If only Siskind had figured that out sooner, before she wrote a big ‘ol article entitled “Should Women Back Palin in 2012?”

The obvious answer to that piece’s titular question, of course, is “fuck no.” Sarah Palin is, officially, the worst. But Siskind defies feminist conventional wisdom by throwing out this compelling argument: “Here’s the difference: Sarah Palin played women’s basketball.”

Barring the possibility Siskind believes that sinking sweet jump shots is now a requirement for President of the United States (at this point, I wouldn’t put anything past her)—I’m going to guess that Siskind supports Palin for President because she is a lady. Siskind is willing to support a woman who definitely opposes abortion rights, is totally a firm believer in teen abstinence, and is most certainly opposed to sensible rape policy—but is a lady. Why, again? Oh yeah: Because “the hope is that these leaders, once in place, would promote women’s issues and encourage the next generation of women leaders.”

That is a really dumb thing to hope, Amy Siskind. And that false hope becomes—forgive me for borrowing the terminology here—a nightmare when you learn of the wide variety of women Siskind is willing to support as her leader, just because they are women:

We should embrace what the current Newsmax cover describes as The Newer Feminism, which has a home for leaders regardless of political affiliation: Hillary Clinton, Sarah Palin, Suzy Welch, and Kathy Ireland, among others.

So, in the next presidential election, I’m going to vote for Sarah Palin and hope she suddenly starts caring about women’s issues. I’m going to vote for Kathy Ireland and hope she suddenly turns into someone qualified to lead the nation in more than just underwear sales. And I’m going to vote for Hillary Clinton and hope she turns into a hippopotamus.

I kid. But just in case you weren’t convinced that Siskind doesn’t base her faith in female politicians on blind hope, consider this argument: “I know I’ll hear from critics who claim that Palin would not share my policy views,” Siskind writes. “But what makes them so sure?”

We aren’t stuck with Stupak because we have lifted an anti-woman woman to the Speaker of the House. We’re stuck with Stupak because we have elected plenty of representatives—male and female—who are really, actually anti-women in their policies. I’ll take a pro-woman man over Siskind’s theory of spontaneous feminist conversion any day. Besides, women are not the only group who need more representation in the U.S. government. It’s worth noting that Siskind converted from a lifelong Democrat to a McCain supporter because he chose a woman as his running-mate. On the one hand, that says a lot about Siskind’s eagerness to support women in government. On the other hand, I guess that means she doesn’t think it’s important for African-Americans to gain representation.

The most troubling thing about Siskind’s aggressive campaign to put more women in office—even if their policy positions directly oppose women—is its one caveat. Why support Palin and not Pelosi? To Siskind, we must always support female politicians, no matter what—unless that female politician does not aggressively campaign to put more women in office. Keep in mind—we don’t even know if Sarah Palin would support more women in government—that’s just another of Siskind’s “hopes.” If representation is going to be our one-and-only issue, we should all be supporting Amy Siskind for president. And that’s a very scary thought indeed.

Hello, world. The illustrious Sady Doyle of Tiger Beatdown and I were all ready to administer another of our weekly smackdowns on a very important topic like pulling out, bitchy musicians, or Megan Fox’s fake boobies. But theeeeen, we both got the vapors in anticipation of the New Moon premiere!!!!! busy. So rest easy, people likely to piss us off—we’re calling a truce today. The cat-fighting will resume next week.

Photo by ansik, Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

It’s been over a month since a man died inside an underground sex club at 1618 14th Street NW. The club, operated by David J. Butler and the D.C. Wrestling Club, had been throwing near-nightly “Men’s Parties” in Logan Circle for years. The party came to a halt on the morning of Oct. 4, when one reveler died of “blunt impact injury to the head” on the club’s stairs.

Forty-five days later, the D.C. Office of the Chief Medical Examiner says that the “manner of death” in the case—which determines whether a death came as a result of a homicide, suicide, accident, or some other cause—is still pending.

Today, D.C. police released a 911 call made from outside the sex club on the morning of Oct. 4. The call, which originated from one of the club’s patrons, points to one possible contributing factor in the man’s death—that party organizers allegedly hesitated to call an ambulance:

The full transcript of the call is after the jump.

Operator: D.C. Emergency 911 Dispatcher 6741. Police, Fire or Ambulance?

Caller: Ambulance.

Operator: To come where?

Caller: It’s um 14^th street, 1618 A. This guy fell down the steps at this after-hours club, and the guy’s, um, he doesn’t look like he’s breathing, and they won’t call the police, I mean, call the ambulance.

Operator: OK, repeat the address?

Caller: It’s 1618 A 14^th street.

Operator: 1618 14^th Street Building A?

Caller: Yeah it’s A. It’s um, it’s right on the corner of Corcoran and 14^th

Operator: Oh, it looks like someone already called the ambulance.

Caller: Okay, because he—he fell down—

Operator: They’re en route there, somebody already called.

Caller: Okay, because he fell down a while ago. How long ago did they call? Because he was laying there—

Operator: They called at 5:06.

Caller: Oh, okay. What time is it now?

Operator: It’s 5:10 now.

Caller: Okay, yeah. Because he fell before that, and I saw him. And I told them. I don’t know, I’m just upset about it, because it’s actually—it’s like an after-hours sex club—and they didn’t want to call the police, because he didn’t have any clothes on.

Operator: Okay. Look out for the police for him. I mean the ambulance.

Caller: I see them, I see them now, thank you.

Photo by Darrow Montgomery.

At ChurchOuting.org, you’re invited to scroll through a list of every Achbishop, Bishop, and Reverend in the Archdiocese of Washington, zero in on one you know is gay, and then submit your “detailed account of how you know the priest in question is being hypocritical through his silence.” (Alternately, get at them via Twitter or Facebook).

ChurchOuting.Org is the brainchild of self-described “netroots organizing pioneer” Phil Attey. To Attey, publicly detailing your homosexual tryst with a priest is practically a charitable contribution: “Thank you for helping to liberate a closeted gay or romantically involved heterosexual priest from the oppressive anti-marriage equality agenda,” the Web site reads. Wait a minute: Since when was a homosexual witchhunt meant to free people from their political agendas?

The intention of the Web site is not to bust gay priests out of the closet (and their jobs)—it’s to coerce them into changing their official positions on gay marriage from inside the priesthood. ChurchOuting.org, then, will not technically involve any outings:

Disclaimer:  The goal of this site is not to force Catholic priests out of the closet against their will.  The goal of this campaign is to aggregate reports of the every gay priest in the Archdiocese, so that we can work with them, one on one, and help them stand up to the the church hierarchy’s stand on this important issue.

So: Attey is going to approach priests he thinks are gay, and warn them that they better stop lobbying against gay people, seeing how gay they are . . . or . . . else? As Queerty notes, it sounds like it’s not gonna work:

What’s the fun in that? There is none! Sure, we get the noble mission: Find the gay priests and then engage in dialogue with them. But no single (gay) priest is going to convince the Archdiocese’s leadership, including topper Don Wuerl—who is threatening to abandon the Church’s social services program if marriage equality legislation passes—to give up on its anti-gay crusade just because a website has the name of an allegedly gay priest.

The Washington Blade served as D.C.’s gay newspaper of record from 1969 until Monday morning. This Friday, the paper intends to return as the D.C. Agenda. Editor Kevin Naff confirmed the re-Christening this evening at an event at the Hard Rock Hotel supporting the paper’s rebirth.
Naff, who was accompanied by about 100 supporters at the Hard Rock Hotel event, says he believes that all of the Washington Blade’s former staffers are in on the new project. Their first task, he says, was to agree on a new name for the paper. D.C. Advocate Agenda, Naff says, was “a group decision of about 25 of us.” Earlier today, the paper sealed the deal by securing its new Twitter account, @DCAgenda.

Now, the staff just needs to decide which aspects of the Blade to carry on in its new Agenda. “This is still very new,” Naff says. “We’re still looking at everything. Our core strength has always been news coverage, and that’s going to remain our core strength. But we’re not going to ignore the other areas, as well.”

The new outfit will need to get its editorial priorities straight quickly. The first issue of the paper, due to hit newsstands this Friday, Nov. 20, has already sold “six pages of ads without even trying,” Naff reports. “We were initially thinking of releasing it just as a newsletter, a leaflet, just to say, ‘hey, we’re still around,’” Naff says. “Now, we have plenty of space to fill.”

The authors of the D.C. gay marriage bill are sensitive folks. While they’re eager to grant gays and lesbians the right to get hitched in the District, they don’t want to upset conservative churches in town. So they threw an exemption into the pending gay-marriage bill [PDF]: No church will be obligated to wed same-sexers. It’s a ceremonial loophole that’s not nearly wide enough for the D.C. arm of the Catholic Church. “The language of the bill only protects us on the day of,” says Susan Gibbs, communications director for the Archdiocese of Washington. “But for us, that day is the launching point for the rest of your life. It’s not a day-long event. It’s a life-long journey.”

Translation: The Archdiocese wants to discriminate against gays and lesbians for much longer than just 24 hours. And that’s their problem with the legislation—same-sex spouses must be treated equally over the course of that life-long journey, for purposes of hiring practices, employment benefits, and adoption.

Yet for that one glorious day, when those bells chime, discrimination rules! The legislation says any “religious society, or a nonprofit organization which is operated, supervised, or controlled by or in conjunction with a religious society” may deny same-sex couples any “services, accommodations, facilities, or goods for a purpose related to the solemnization or celebration of a same-sex marriage.”

So just what sort of “services, accommodations, facilities, or goods” can be safely withheld here? The following is your guide to Legal Same-Sex Wedding Day Discrimination.

• PIANISTS. The “facility” exemption prevents a church opposing same-sex marriage from providing its religious sanctuary for the wedding. But what goods and services are we talking about? The goods and services provision prevents a crafty same-sex couple from walking into a house of God and demanding everything but the church hall for the purpose of their ceremony: From the in-house organist playing “Here Comes the Bride” to the Bibles used to recite Colossians 3:18: “Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord.”

Russell J. Weismann, Georgetown University’s director of music and liturgy, serves as the organist for all weddings performed on campus. The Yale-, Duquesne-, and Carnegie Mellon–educated pianist doesn’t play for just anyone: Besides not being gay, couples who march down the aisle to Weismann’s tune must also be Georgetown students, alumni, faculty, or staff. The religious exemption, then, ensures that Weismann’s services won’t need to be legally extended to a couple of Catholic, Georgetown-educated gays who are either serious Weismann fans, or are just trying to make a point.

Councilmember Phil Mendelson, who chairs the committee that finalized the bill’s language, says that goods and services are included in the religious exemption in order to prepare for just such unlikely scenarios. “If a same-sex couple went to a Catholic church, the bill says the church does not have to perform their wedding,” says Mendelson. “But what if the same-sex couple says, ‘We won’t hold our wedding in your sanctuary, but we want to use your Bibles and candles’? If ‘goods and services’ were omitted from the language, the church could be sued over the Bibles and the candles.” And the pianist.

• SOUL FOOD. Saint’s Paradise, a divine cafeteria-style restaurant located at 601A M St. NW, is the perfect spot for a rehearsal dinner in the heart of overpriced, overcrowded downtown D.C.: It’s got family-sized tables, free cornbread, and a very pleasant view of the baptism fountain of the United House of Prayer for All People. The church, true to its name, doles out its extra-sweet candied yams to churchgoers and the general public alike.

That “all people” invitation doesn’t extend to weddings. Pastor Herbert Whitner clarifies the church’s position on gay marriage: “We don’t agree with that,” Whitner says. Same-sex celebrations aren’t exactly welcome on United House of Prayer property.

Rehearsal dinners, however, aren’t strictly a day-of event—they’re more of a night-before kind of thing. Mendelson says the cafeteria’s physical proximity to the church—the restaurant is at 601A, the house of God is at 601—allows the United House of Prayer to deny all wedding-related celebrations, regardless of their timestamp. “I think they could turn away the rehearsal dinner,” Mendelson says. “That’s because it is in the church. It’s a part of the church facility. And since the rehearsal dinner is part of the celebration of marriage, they would be able to say no.”

• “SOMETHING OLD.” The Salvation Army’s sole District shop, located in Northeast’s H Street corridor, wouldn’t be high on the list of any couple’s wedding destinations. Its aisles are a bit cluttered for a procession, seating is limited, and the place smells kind of weird.

What some engaged couples may not know: Beyond its work recycling consumers’ castaways, the Salvation Army is a real functioning Christian church with a penchant for military jargon. Their ministers—“officers” in the Army’s ranks—can be ordained to perform marriages for both Salvationist and non-Salvationist couples. Salvationist marriages are less than traditional. Ranking Salvationist officers are allowed to marry only other officers. Cake is allowed, so long as the couple says grace before the meal, but alcohol is forbidden. Some Salvationists choose to marry in full Army regalia, but the traditional white wedding dress is acceptable, as well. And since the Salvationist moral code is all about giving back, it’s not unlikely that one of these Salvationist ceremonies will lead to one slightly worn, dirt-cheap white dress gracing the racks at 1375 H St. NE.

Since a wedding dress is a good that’s used in the celebration of a same-sex marriage, and the Salvation Army’s religious beliefs clarify that “sexual intimacy is understood as a gift of God to be enjoyed within the context of heterosexual marriage,” would the Army’s thrift store be forced to sell a wedding dress for a gay wedding?

Mendelson says that a religious-owned thrift shop is too removed from the actual church, and a wedding dress purchase too removed from the ceremony, for the exemption to apply to wedding-related retail: “The bill is intended to establish equality for same-sex marriage. If we have exemptions in the sale of wedding dresses, in the baking of wedding cakes, in catering, in photography, then we have a separate and not equal situation.”

Besides, how would the Salvation Army know that the wedding dress is to be used for a same-sex ceremony? “For wedding dresses to be covered, we’d have to allow the checker at the store to say, ‘I’m offended that you’re homosexual so therefore I will not sell you the wedding dress,’” says Mendelson. “A wedding dress could be a part of a Halloween costume. You can’t just stop anyone who is a part of a same-sex couple and say, ‘No, you can’t buy that.’”

Since the Salvation Army hasn’t adopted “don’t ask, don’t tell” as a part of its military shtick, it’s possible that the organization’s thrift shops will not hold their peace in the face of a same-sex marriage dress-fitting. This situation—the Salvation Army making policy out of denying white dresses to same-sex couples—is about as likely as a couple of gay men suing Georgetown over its pianist. Then again, in 2001, the Salvation Army privately called upon the Bush administration to help the organization discriminate against gays and lesbians in hiring. Who’s to say the Army won’t take this opportunity to deny an affordable wedding dress to a lesbian?

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

As hip-hop booty model memoirist Karrine Steffans can surely tell you, life ain’t easy for a video vixen. She’s oversexed, underpaid, and generally under-appreciated for her services: basically, “sprawling undressed over a luxury car while a rapper is saying lewd things about her.” That goes doubly true for the dozens of ladies featured in “Gangsta Love,” the latest video from Snoop Dogg and Dream. Video girls have always been tasked with fulfilling a rapper’s every command—but these women are subjected to a particularly absurd laundry list of Snoop Dogg fantasies, from pretending he’s on True Blood to falling victim to a ladies’ shower hit-and-run. And when one woman can’t fulfill Snoop’s needs, he disposes of her—sometimes, over the side of a speed boat. The trials and tribulations of Snoop Dogg’s fantasy women, after the jump.

Rollerskating in a Cadillac.

Being a vampire.

Drowning.

Getting run over by a car while showering.

Pretending to like the Steelers.

Spanking.

Feeding Snoop noodles.

Feeding Snoop more noodles.

Watching Snoop finish eating the noodles.

Keeping hold of your drink while on roller-coaster (no seat belt).

Hanging out with this guy.

More traditional video girl activities.

How condescending is this photo? It’s not the fabled (and fake) American-flag-wearin’, gun-totin’  bikini photo that surfaced on the Internet shortly after Palin reached national fame, but it’s about as close as Newsweek could get to the real thing.

I am generally in agreement with Palin supporters when they accuse the media of hurling sexism toward the former Governor. David Letterman’s joke about Palin’s underage daughter fucking Alex Rodriguez? Inappropriate. Ridiculing Bristol Palin for getting knocked up, while laughing it up with Levi? Sexist.

And I tend to agree with Palin’s response here, too: Yesterday, Palin took to Facebook to denounce the cover’s sexism. “The out-of-context Newsweek approach is sexist and oh-so-expected by now,” she wrote. “If anyone can learn anything from it: it shows why you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, gender, or color of skin. The media will do anything to draw attention—even if out of context.”

Is the Newsweek cover sexist? Yes. But let’s put the photo back into context for a minute: Sarah Palin’s entire existence is sexist.

Let’s try to imagine, for a moment, the thought process that went into creating this Newsweek cover image : “We need to convey that Palin sucks really bad! Let’s take some photo of Palin lookin’ sexy, slap it on the cover of Newsweek, and then use her sexuality in attempt to draw attention to all the terrible things this woman has brought upon us.”

Hey! That sounds kind of like what John McCain did when he chose Palin as his VP: Found an attractive lady, slapped her on to his campaign, and used her image as a sexy lady in order to distract people from her scant qualifications, her total lack of concern for women’s issues, and her complete suckiness as a candidate.

Sarah Palin’s very existence as a national figure depends upon people being sexist. It’s not just the bad things that have happened to her that are a result of sexism—the mud-slinging about her daughters, the circulated upskirt photos, the intense scrutiny over her appearance and her clothes. But sexism tends to help individual women, too, and it has certainly helped Palin. Sexism allows women to earn insane amounts of money for simply taking their clothes off, and it allows women to earn an insane amount of political power for simply being a hot conservative lady with no particular skill at public speaking, reading comprehension, telling the truth, or articulating a single political view that makes any sense, ever.

At that point, can we really get bent out of shape every time we see the media reflecting the reality that Palin is a product of sexism in their coverage of her? We have crossed the Rubicon, people. Everything about Palin is sexist. When it comes to sexism, I’m a big advocate of hating the game, and not the player. But the game works both ways. And I am sick and tired of only having to care about it when that sexism means something bad for Sarah Palin.

Many thanks to Elisa Kreisinger for pointing me to this fascinating collection of anonymous testimonies detailing sexism and racism in Hollywood (also via The Hathor Legacy).

The whole project is really interesting. It’s got all the intrigue of a gossip-page blind item, with the added bonus of real social import! But I wanted to single out one story in particular, from a female producer who remains nameless. This producer can’t get people to listen to her great ideas . . . until they’re voiced by a man.

She explains:

I remember when I produced my very first movie. I was sitting in a room with a very famous director and his development staff. I was the only female in the room, and I kept making suggestions to cut different scenes, [like] one too many funerals. And I was completely ignored. Cut to this very famous director. He would say the same exact thing that I had said, not even a minute after I said it. And everyone at the meeting would be like, ‘Oh, yes. Good idea. That’s what we should do!’ It was like I never said it. I was invisible. I don’t know if that was sexism, but it sure felt like it. My opinion didn’t matter. Why was I talking?

The strange phenomenon of men stealing our ideas right in front of our faces has been discussed on the Sexist before. It’s difficult to believe, because the practice is so blatant, so bold, so offensive, but trust me—and Jennifer Kesler will back me up here—this happens all the time. A woman says something. And then a man says the exact same thing. And then that thing is hailed as the most prescient! Hilarious! Insightful! Idea! Of all time!

This is not a privilege limited to the super-famous, well-respected Hollywood directors among us. Believe me when I tell you that far less illustrious specimens have stolen my ideas. My points, punchlines, and opinions have been lifted—directly after I publicly voiced them at a reasonable volume—by college boys my own age who held no particular institutional power beyond knowing a dude who had weed.

What I want to know is this: Does the crowd going wild over this Great Man’s Great Idea even realize that the idea was just stolen from a woman? Does the idea-stealer even realize it? Do they even hear her talk? Or do they willfully ignore that she ever said it in the first place?

I know that in plenty of instances, this silencing is deliberate—one of the piece’s anonymous stories came from a black film writer whose entire screenplay was deliberately lifted by a white man—but this silencing is so public, so obvious, that I wonder if everyone who does it has some sort of permanent mind meld that allows them to process and appropriate the ideas of women (or whatever other group of humans they happen to devalue) without fully realizing their theft. Thoughts?

Photo by Sorn, Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

The battle for ideological dominance in our nation’s capital’s collegiate sex columns continues. Are our local campus columnists on the forefront of radical sex writing, or are they bringing back the good old days of blaming girls for getting unexpected boners rubbed on their butts?

This week: How to get laid without anyone knowing you got laid; sympathy for Rihanna is running out; butt boners!

GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY

Sex Tips: Georgetown Hoya sex columnist Colleen Leahey is officially the only person willing to admit that she appreciates the work of Chris Surette, the infamous Fairfield Mirror sex columnist who conceives of casual sex in these terms: “Not only is it a story for you and your boys, but others will soon realize what happened when they see your victim walking back to the dorms in her dress from last night, with a disgraceful look on her face as if she was robbed of her dignity.”

Well, those words were such an influence on Leahey that they inspired her new column: “How to Survive the Dreaded Walk of Shame.” (A servicey take on the matter!) “I’m sure [Surette] received countless emails ripping him apart for his chauvinistic comments,” writes Leahey. “But the article was also a hoot because it is true.”

Life Lesson: Remember: It’s not the sex that’s  shameful, it’s people knowing that you had the sex. “If you truly desire to avoid the walk of shame, make him come home with you,” writes Leahey. “Hooking up on your turf, rather than his, is optimal. You can avoid his teasing and snickering friends the next morning. You know your sheets have been cleaned in the past week; Lord knows the last time he threw his into the washing machine. And (sound the trumpet here), you avoid the walk of shame.”

Progressive Meter: Hey, at least it’s okay to hook up. But it’s not a college dating column without some traditional gender roles thrown in for good measure. Boys are dirty! Four.

—

HOWARD UNIVERSITY

Sex Tips: The Howard University Hilltop doesn’t publish a regular sex column, but its editorial staff regularly weighs in on “issues.” This time around: “Yeah, He Was Wrong-–-But is Rihanna Trying to Play Us?,” in which the Hilltop staff declares that Rihanna’s recent 20/20 interview was “calculated and inauthentic.” “Maybe it would have been different if she had used the situation and the publicity it received to do what she claimed she was doing with her ‘20/20′ interview all along,” they write—”before her album was set for release.”

Life Lesson: Keep your private and professional lives separate, so that your history with domestic abuse is never misconstrued as an attempt to gain popularity points.

Progressive Meter: The story’s lone commenter dismisses the opinion as “another femi-nazi editorial.” Hmm. Really?

I, too, have expressed discomfort with the idea that Rihanna’s “recovery” from her abusive relationship must arrive right on schedule—just as her new album drops. But I’m more interested in the public pressure that has required Rihanna’s life as a pop star life and abuse victim to be perfectly in sync.

Rihanna’s public image has been appropriated by so many fans, feminist commentators, and music executives since Chris Brown beat her up last February, I feel it’s short-sighted to pin this awkward timing on Rihanna’s own misstep. Instead, let’s focus on the music industry’s insistence upon exploiting her history of domestic violence to amp up her stardom—and the media’s insistence upon exploiting Rihanna’s stardom in order to discuss domestic violence. True feminazis know this is all about the structure. Good discussion, though! Seven.

—

UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND

Sex Tips: Esti Frischling of the UMD Diamondback advises girls how to avoid getting unexpectedly rubbed by a man’s genitals in College Park bar The Thirsty Turtle. This is what “The Turtle” feels like for a girl: “At real-people bars, it’s not socially acceptable to just go up to strange girls and start humping them from behind. At the Turtle there seems to be an unwritten rule that makes uninvited dry sex the new ‘can I buy you a drink?’ You don’t even get to see the guy’s face, but he gets to feel you up in public, and you get to feel his boner.”

Life Lesson: “Boner-to-butt” is an emergency indeed, and should be treated as such. “Your friends can also be a valuable asset in the repelling process. You guys should each agree beforehand to be in charge of rescuing the others in the event of a boner-to-butt emergency.” But in the end, it’s your fault for whoring it up at the Thirsty Turtle. “You and your friends can also act as a team by collectively dressing less like sluts. If you guys are the only girls in the Turtle who aren’t wearing hankies as shirts and belts as skirts, you’re likely to get a lot less unwanted attention.”

Progressive Meter: I love that Frischling is tackling the modern problem of butt boners! I don’t love the assumption that butt boners are only a problem for the sluttiest of hos, however—or that the problem should be solved by girls buttoning up. Three.

Photo by Claire L. Evans, Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

I’m grateful to commenter DJ Ri-Mix, who offers up another date rape jam for our collection: “Shots” by LMFAO and featuring Lil Jon. This one is a doozy, ladies!

Date Rape Anthem: LMFAO’s “Shots,” an ode to repeatedly ingesting one-ounce doses of liquor. And cock-sucking!

Relevant Lyrics:

Shots shots shots shots shots shots
Shots shots shots shots shots
Shots shots shots shots shots

Everybody
The ladies love us / When we pour shots
They need an excuse / To suck our cocks
We came to get crunk / How ‘bout you?
Bottles up / Let’s go round two

Why It’s So Rapey: Hold up—that was round one? We’re only at round one, and all the ladies who previously had no intention of sucking LMFAO’s cocks have already found an excuse to do so? WTF happens in round two?

The women come around everytime I’m pourin’ shots
Their panties hit the ground everytime I give em shots
So cups in the air, everybody lets take shots.

In-da-club vaginal penetration, I’m guessing.

I kind of get LMFAO: They’re a couple of hipster hip-hop boys, so when they do shit like name themselves “LMFAO,” and appear on the Kardashian sisters’ reality television show, and go to Canada, and rap about receiving oral sex from drunk chicks, their tongues are at least a little bit in-cheek. Still: Proudly proclaiming that women “need an excuse to suck our cocks” and trade their panties for liquor isn’t exactly LMFAO-out-loud funny—it’s actually been done before, guys, and peppering your babe-a-licious video with some hipster sensibilities doesn’t magically transform a Lil Jon song into satire.

It’s 12:30 p.m. outside of the downtown offices of the former Washington Blade, which served as Washington D.C.’s gay newspaper of record from 1969 until this morning. Just hours ago, the staff of the Blade learned that its parent company, Window Media, had filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, that the Blade was closed effective immediately, and that the paper’s two dozen employees were all out of work.

Now, two guys in purple shirts are methodically removing stacks of boxes out of the office, located on the fifth floor of the National Press Club building. What’s inside? “Just personal belongings,” one says, as he heads to the elevator. Everybody has until 3:30 p.m. to clear out.

Reporters have been calling the office all morning in search of a comment, having only heard confirmation of the paper’s closure via Tweet. Finally, Editor-In-Chief Kevin Naff comes outside to make a statement. Hold on—he has to pee. When he returns from the bathroom, he addresses reporters in front of the Blade’s glass-enclosed offices. Inside, a couple of Window Media staffers can be seen shuffling around a glass conference room, hard at work dismantling the newspaper. One of them wears an eye-patch. “I can’t speak on behalf of the company, and I can’t speak here,” Naff says. So the group heads around the corner, where Naff stands in front of another large window looking in on Window brass. “You can refer to me as the former editor of the Blade,” Naff says.

He rolls out the details: Naff heard this morning that the paper was kaput. The staff began forming plans to start a new publication within “about five minutes,” Naff says. More information will be announced tomorrow. It won’t be called the Blade. “We’re going to take a day off to pack, and then dust ourselves off and get back to work,” Naff says. The staff’s focus is on the future, he says—Naff can’t even immediately remember what stories the Blade had in the works for its next issue.

Other former employees are focused on the past two weeks. A woman steps off the elevator, a cell phone clutched to her ear. “And the worst thing is that we were supposed to get paid today,” she says, before running into one of her former co-workers and enveloping him in a hug. She doesn’t have a public comment. Lou Chibbaro Jr., the Blade’s longest-running employee, is there to see what he can salvage from the past thirty years. Chibbaro arrived back at the office with a pack full of folding cardboard boxes in order to cart away some “personal papers and things like that . . . mementos, some award plaques.” Chibbaro won’t say if he’ll be involved in Naff’s new paper. “We’re interested in keeping the best of what we had going. But I can’t comment on what’s going on right now,” he says.

Robbie Barnett, one of the guys in the purple shirts, is back from unloading another dolly full of Blade leftovers. Barnett worked as the Blade’s distribution coordinator until this morning, when he walked into the office in the middle of the closure announcement. Barnett says the news came directly from COO Steve Myers and CFO Mike Kitchens. Myers is the one in the eye-patch, Barnett says: “I think he might be ill or something.” Myers and Kitchens did most of the talking, Barnett says. “None of us really said anything.” The atmosphere, he says, was just “grim.”

Barnett says that he has not been asked to finish up his distribution duties by removing Blade newspaper boxes from the streets. For now, Barnett is just helping to unload the paper from the National Press Club, box by box. Steve Cheverton, a close friend of the paper, is also on hand. When Cheverton heard of the paper’s closing, he showed up with his Ford F-350 to help employees with the liquidation. “I know a lot of the employees, and I’ve supported them throughout, in all the gay pride marches and stuff like that,” Cheverton says. “I just think it’s really without integrity the way they did this . . . The least we can do is help these people take their stuff home.”

Photos of former Blade employees by Darrow Montgomery

Last week, MomLogic.com contributor Allison Henry bravely detailed her battle with vaginal prolapse—or gradually experiencing her vagina falling out of her body. At the end of Henry’s tale—after a year of gushing blood, gangrene, and all the insides on the outside—Henry lets us in on her consolation prize. “The experience has been a total nightmare, but I’m happy to say I’m on the mend,” Henry wrote. “We just had a cocktail party to celebrate me feeling healthy. And I do have the vagina of a 13-year-old virgin, with a perfect labia, as a bonus.”

Henry’s prepubescent vaginal joy left some commenters . . . confused. (You didn’t think I was going to give up my newfound perfect vagina audience just yet, did you?)

recursiveparadox wonders:

Does that make her 1/4 jailbait now?

jules is getting self-conscious:

jeezus that vag story made me so nauseaus. and why are women so hung up on what their labia look like anyway? is that a thing? should i be thinking about it too??? i thought my vag was just fine but now i can’t stop thinking about the fact that my labia might be a little droopy or something!

nick wants to know what the point of a pretty vagina is if you’re not going to show it off to all your girlfriends:

+1 on the befuddlement re:labia “beauty.”

Knowing that other external beauty efforts (fashion, makeup, hair, etc.), in practice, is really about how other women see you rather than men, where does all this private-parts-vanity come from?

Smashy Smashy turns to WikiAnswers for some clues:

So you weren’t willing to google “the vagina of a 13-year-old virgin” but i was. This is one of the first things to pop up:

Q: How deep is a 15 year old girl vagina if she’s not a virgin?

A: The vagina doesn’t look like a balloon. It has no far side wall. It can accomodate a very large penis. If a guy had a 12 inch (or longer) penis the vagina would expand to accept his size. There’s no way to measure a vagina.

So yeah, you were better off not googling. I’m going to scrub my mind now. I don’t even understand how we got to “THE VAGINA DOESN’T LOOK LIKE A BALLOON.

Nikki never knew that 13 was the best year for vaginas:

The husband bought her a cheerleading outfit? That is super creepy, he wants to dress his wife up so her looks match the teen vag, gag! I hope that couple will be able to leave the bedroom eventually, I mean who knew 13 year old vag’s were so fuckable.

ssickn, on the other hand, sounds convinced:

i think i’de nail a milf with a 13y/o vag, sounds interesting and it’s like nailing a milf and her teen daughter at the same time and thats always a plus hahahaha

G introduces us to “vaginecro”:

And where exactly do these teenage vagina’s come from? does this mean her husband has to be a vaginecro now?

Emanon is thinking of the children:

I truly hope that the 13-year-old’s parents don’t read this. Some lady dressing up in a cheerleading outfit to take the virginity of her new vagina isn’t something they would ever want to know about their dead daughter’s genetalia.

Photo by SLPTWRK, Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

Chris Brown appeared on the Wendy Williams Show on Friday, where he talked about his anger management classes, explained that his posture has been misconstrued by the media, and basked in the excessive fawning of Williams’ female audience.

The whole interview was weird. Williams opens the segment by describing Brown in strangely passive language: “Our first guest has faced a firestorm of criticism for the past several months after a widely-publicized domestic violence incident which occurred with his former girlfriend, Rihanna.” But the low point of the interview comes at segment’s end, when William asks Brown if he’s dating anyone. Brown responds, “Of course. I love women.” And the crowd goes wild.

I hate “I love women.”

Let’s see what other illustrious male stars also “love women”:

Tucker Max loves women:

I hate a lot of things, (stupid people and Duke basketball, for instance) but nowhere on that list is women. I LOVE women. Now, do I treat some women like shit? Yes, sometimes, but I treat EVERYONE like shit, not just women. Sexism is treating one sex differently from the other(s). I treat people as individuals.

Mel Gibson loves women:

I love women. They’re the best thing ever created. If they want to be like men and come down to our level, that’s fine.

Tom Cruise loves women:

Interviewer: You seem to have a real respect for women. What is it that you like so much about them?

Cruise: They smell good. [Laughs]. They look pretty. I love women. I do.

Silvio Berlusconi loves women:

“I think Italians recognise themselves in me. I am one of them. I was poor, I am interested in the things that interest them, I love football, I smile, I love others and, above all else, beautiful women,” he said to loud applause.

Christopher Walken, as the eternally skeevy dude in the SNL sketch “The Continental,” loves women:

You look so lovely. It is as though Michelangelo sculpted you by hand . . . then kept you for himself.. in a closet . . . to visit on lonely nights. Would you care for a glass of champagna? I knew you would. I knew you enjoy champagna. How do I know this? Because I love women. I can read their mail . . . I mean, mind!

Why is “I love women” the worst thing you could possibly say?

(a) It assumes that all women are the same. I’m a heterosexual woman with plenty of men in my life. I love my father, my brother, and my boyfriend. I do not love Tucker Max, Tom Cruise, or the skeevy guy in The Continental. How could this possibly be? Because I understand that even though my boyfriend and Tucker Max share a couple of pronouns, they have little else in common. Men who announce that they “love women” fail to recognize us as individuals.

(b) When you say “I love women,” you really mean, “I love having sex with women.”

(c) The phrase is almost always evoked defensively. Accused of calling a female police officer “sugartits”? Just say, “I love women.” Convicted of beating up your girlfriend? “I love women.” Accused of frequenting underage prostitutes? “I love women.” Rumored to have brainwashed a beloved female star in order to make her into your Scientology baby factory? “I love women.” This statement is the misogynist’s answer to the racist’s “I’m not racist but,” and the homophobe’s “some of my best friends are gay.”

(d) Note the context. “I love women” is almost always prefaced or followed by some seriously sexist shit. You love women because they smell good? Great. What about women who don’t smell good? Possibly the most annoying “I love women”-related commentary is the sentiment that “women are better than men” (See: Gibson). When Gloria Steinem said that “A pedestal is as much a prison as any small, confined space,” she was talking to all these skeezes, who hold women up to a high standard of fuckability, then degrade all the females who fail to live up to that standard.

Welcome, everyone looking for perfect vaginas! You will not find them here! Instead,we’re mostly going to be discussing rapists and Avril Lavigne. Are you excited or what?

1. Woman’s Vagina Falls Out, Replaces It With “Perfect 13-Year-Old Vagina”, in which a series of medical accidents results in one big on-purpose horror: A virginal pre-teen’s vagina on a middle-aged woman’s body!

2. What Maketh a Bro? In which, to some, Phish is the ultimate chay, while to others, only LAX is truly flow.

3. Legal Consent, Morning-After Regret, and “Accidental” Rape, in which I break a personal rule and make an analogy to sexual assault.

4. Rapists Who Don’t Think They’re Rapists, in which

5. Sexist Beatdown: Taylor Swift, Avril Lavigne, Jolene, and Music’s Other “Other Women”, in which everything Taylor Swift says bounces off that bitch who is dating the boy she likes, and sticks to her.

Sometimes, Craigslist Missed Connections have the power to renew your faith in love-at-first sight. Other times, they will destroy your faith in humanity. This is one of those times.

I don’t know what possibly could have happened this week to inspire some of the saddest missed connections that I have ever seen, but it’s not my place to speculate—Internet stalking works in mysterious ways.

First up: can two “sell outs” make it work?

BRUCE CONCERT AT VERIZON (Verizon Center)

You: Older Gentleman Jeans and Jacket in Section 429 at Springsteen concert Monday.

Me: 5 feet aisle seat. Dark skin brown hair Jeans, black T-shirt. I danced and sang along all night at show.

I questioned if show would be a sell out. You suggested it was a sell out. Sensed a connection.
Would love to chat over coffee.

She wore a vest. He wore a lip sweater:

great mustache, no shirt – w4m – 24 (Columbia Heights)

You were riding your bike without a shirt. You have an amazing mustache and a sly smile. I was wearing a vest sitting at the wonderland. I hope we can connect.

He was having lunch at a Hooters in Manassas. OF COURSE he’s checking this to see if any of the girls at Hooters secretly wanted to fuck him!

lunch at Hooters – w4m – 27 (Manassas, VA)

hoping there’s a chance you check this . . . saw you having lunch with 2 other men at Hooters in Manassas today. Started to slip you my number, but missed the opportunity. The guy I was with is not my boyfriend. It would be nice to see you again

So, you’re cheating on your wife, and you’re cheap. Perfect.

ashley madison profile – m4w – 37 (Reston)

You winked at me on Ashley Madison web site , ID- “I_might_surprise_you”. I have a free account so I cannot reply.

And you met your astrologer at a strip club. In 1985. You know what? I think we’ve finally found a match that makes sense.

Brian Sullivan- ASTROLOGER- I am looking for him (Washington, DC) (CAMELOT – 1823 M ST — (Washington, DC ))

I am looking for — Brain Sullivan —— Professional ASTROLOGER — ( & English Teacher)

He lives in Washington, DC

He is 40+ — slim white male — with pale skin — & white hair.

He is a — PROFESSIONAL ASTROLOGER

( & he also teaches English on the side)

I have lost contact with him and wish to see him.

He is my astrologer. i have known him since 1985

he knows me well

I wish to find him so I can set up a NEW astrology reading from him .

Photo by ::PinkDiamonds::, Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

The situation: “Eva,” a married woman, is raped by her boss on a business trip. She becomes pregnant. She decides to get an abortion. Her husband is supportive of the abortion, but not of Eva—”He drove me to a clinic for a consultation and waited outside in the car because he ‘didn’t want to hear me talk about conception dates,’” she writes. Eva later decides not to go through with the abortion. Her husband leaves her. She raises a beautiful baby boy on her own. Now, seven years later, she wants to reconnect with her ex. But there is a complication: “What happened on that trip wasn’t quite rape but I wasn’t exactly willing either. The man was my boss and he was very drunk and forceful. I tried to push him away without upsetting him, but he was too strong and I didn’t fight him.”

Now, if I were the advice columnist here, I know what I’d say: “your ex-husband is a dickwad.” But I’m not an advice columnist. Lesley Garner is. Her advice is of the “stop lying about getting raped and admit that it was selfish to not get an abortion” variety.

That’s right: Garner tells Eva that (a) she wasn’t actually raped; and that (b) any woman who refuses to abort her (made-up) rape baby is selfish for denying her husband’s feelings. Let’s start with the rape part:

Let’s look at the bit about telling the truth first. Your letter is full of confusion and chaos, and then I reached the end and saw that the story with which you began—the story that you told your husband—wasn’t even true. This was a shock to me, so you can bet it would be a very big shock to your husband.

The thing that strikes me most about your whole story is that you seem to have very little understanding of how your husband might feel. It is all about you and your needs. I think it is highly unlikely that your husband will welcome you back but I guarantee that, should you get to sit down and talk together, the further revelation that your rape wasn’t exactly a rape but a situation between you and your boss that got out of hand would be the final blow.

. . . Something isn’t right here, which makes me wonder whether you are telling the truth to yourself, never mind your husband.

Ah. It wasn’t a “rape.” It was a “situation.” Situations! Anything goes in them, really! Remember this next time the man responsible for your paycheck gets drunk and forces you to have sex with him, but you decide not to physically fight him, because he is a strong, drunk, forceful man responsible for your paycheck: What were you doing turning up in that “situation” to begin with? Add that to the list of things to avoid if you don’t want to get raped, ladies: Short skirts, beer, and “situations.”

Again, I’m not an advice columnist, but isn’t the more troublesome detail here that Eva would describe her “situation” as “not quite rape”? Shouldn’t we address the fact that Eva appears to be in such denial about that “situation” that almost a decade later, she can’t come to terms with what actually happened to her? No time: We still have to deal with Eva’s horrible decision not to get an abortion!

Garner writes:

I see a complete mismatch between what has actually happened and the fantasies that you are weaving around the relationship. So I feel I should spell a few things out.

. . . You made a unilateral decision. You decided to continue with the pregnancy in the absolutely unrealistic expectation that your husband would be happy to bring up the child of another man, his wife’s rapist. This is a no-brainer, Eva. No man could contemplate this. He would have found your decision inexplicable.

. . . On the whole, men’s hearts are not melted by children who are not their own. Even a tender-hearted man is going to find it hard to be charmed by the child of a man he believes raped his wife. There is no bond between your former husband and this child, and I doubt there ever could be.

Oh, that “unilateral decision” to have an abortion! Whenever women make that decision all on their own, without even thinking of the “feelings” of their husband, government, or Telegraph advice columnist, some bad shit is bound to go down that will ruin their lives forever, right?

One last time—I’m not an advice columnist—but if I were, I would focus on reminding Eva about what a total dickwad her husband was after she had to endure being raped and impregnated by her boss. Perhaps we just gently tell Eva that, really, the problem is not in her decision to carry a pregnancy to term, but rather the decision to continue to allow this fucking guy to have any sway over her child, her happiness, or her life.

It’s clear that both Lesley Garner and I aren’t really down with the idea of Eva and her ex getting back together. We just happen to disagree on a few of the minor details—like what rape means, and whose feelings should be most valued in the case of abortion. Nevertheless, Garner’s conclusion is a good one: “As for your lovely son, yes, it would be good if he had a father but he will also thrive if he has a happy, stable mother who has the support of a network of friends and family . . . become a happier and more fulfilled person in yourself and you have a much better chance of a strong relationship in the future.” A good place to start? Ignoring every piece of advice that preceded Garner’s final thought.

So imagine my surprise when I click over to the CockBib online store, only to find the Web site abandoned! What the fuck happened to the CockBibs?!

I have an e-mail out to CockBib guy to see whether the CockBib is dead for good, or whether some Christmas miracle will bring our favorite novelty penis accessory back just in time for the holidays. In the meantime, you can pay your respects by joining the CockBib Facebook group. And while we’re waiting for the inevitable CockBib resurrection, let’s share the best CockBibs of Christmas past. CockBibs may be dead, but making fun of CockBibs lasts forever. So without further ado:

“Who Am I Kidding: You’re Hired,” perfect for your office Secret Santa pool:

North Pole Ahead: Actually more Christmas-themed than it is cock-themed, in my opinion!

Heads, You Suck It, Tails, You Fuck It: There’s nothing like a good old fashioned game night to bring couples closer over the holiday season.

The Happy Birthday! CockBib. For Jesus.

Megan Fox, everyone’s least-favorite super-hot chick, gets the New York Times Magazine treatment this week. We all know Megan Fox as that hot sassy vixen who claims to be female-empowered (“I would eat Robert Pattinson”) as she poses in wet bikinis for men’s magazines. And we know that that combination, uh, usually doesn’t go over so well among feminists. But here’s where things get trippy, you guys: Like, is it all an act? And what does it all mean?

Take one of Fox’s most well-publicized stunts: Publicly comparing Transformers director (and noted wet bikini enthusiast) Michael Bay to Hitler. Could there by a lesson hidden beneath the headline? I’ll bite: Why do feminists spend our time hating on the Megan Foxes of this world instead of focusing their efforts on the Michael Bays? Is dancing in a bikini under a waterfall for Bad Boys II empowering? It was pretty empowering for 15-year-old Megan Fox ($), and it was really empowering for Michael Bay ($$$$$). But it’s probably not so empowering to women. Is projecting all of our hatred of entertainment-industry sexism onto one 23-year-old starlet empowering to other women? Nope, but it is empowering to snarky celebrity bloggers, who squeeze out their own ($) in mean-spirited Fox-based blog posts. Me? I like to empower myself by putting the word “boobies” in the titles of all of my snarky Megan Fox posts ($$$)!

So! On that note, join Sady Doyle of Tiger Beatdown and myself as we embark upon another Sexist Beatdown. This time: What the fuck do we do with Megan Fox, then? Pray that she crashes, burns, and ends up managing a Hooters in Tennessee, even if she’ll never bring Michael Bay down with her? Hope she has the strength to uglify herself just long enough to win an Oscar? Start a campaign to get that girl into some dry bikinis for once? We decide, after the jump!

SADY: megan fox has ARRIVED! PRAISE THE LORD!

AMANDA: and she has fake “boobies”!

SADY: I feel that I am not meant to like Megan Fox, based on this NYTM piece, which is all about how she is clearly (and candidly!) a market-tested persona product in the midst of rebranding. But (a) how many celebrities are not, and (b) how many public PEOPLE are not, and (c) the fact that she talks about the fact that she IS makes her weirdly seem to be less of one than, let’s say, Zac Efron, and (d) BOOBIES! SHE TALKS ABOUT HER FAKE BOOBIES IN FRONT OF THE INTERVIEWER! SHE DEBATES WHETHER OR NOT TO INSERT THEM IN HER BRA! CAPSLOCK! I like this!

AMANDA: i like this, too. but i’m left wondering what the point of this piece is. half of it seems like a disingenuous way to get around the low-brow celebrity scoop on megan fox while still cashing in on that scoop. NYT isn’t going all Us weekly and making the headline “MEGAN FOX USES FAKE BOOBIES,” [Editor's note: But hey, I'm not above it!] but i’m not sure this form of pseudo-intellectual celebrity gawking is really that different from the tabloid version.

SADY: fair enough: the article does seem to hold her at a weird distance. like, it is supposedly about The Spectacle Of Megan Fox, and how she’s got all this weird projection-based hate and love and whatever around her, but also invites us to take part in that and deplore her for her fake booby usage or frequent anti-”middle-america” statementing.

AMANDA: and her affinity for Hitler jokes.

SADY: she is fond of a hitler joke every now and again! it’s true! but i also thought, after reading stuff like the Rolling Stone cover piece a while back, that it was kind of refreshing to read an interview that was not just asking her whether she drinks human blood during sex or which celebrity penis she’d prefer to keep company with.

AMANDA: yes. i agree, and i don’t think this piece is bad. i just think it’s barely there in terms of transcending the tabloid thing. but one thing i found really interesting in this piece was the idea of Fox manufacturing a persona of “female empowerment” for men’s magazines. it’s an old trick to give an interview to a men’s magazine next to photos in your undies that talks about how you want to eat Robert Pattison, and how you’re an empowered woman, and how using your body in Hollywood and being frank about it is better than the alternative, but it’s interesting to see her quote at the end that, actually, she doesn’t like men looking at her body.

SADY: well, i am kind of unclear on megan fox’s personal philosophy of female empowerment. like, it seems to be not that well-defined! projecting myself into the head of megan fox, which i know only through interviews, and in which (as you note) she is always only saying what she has chosen to convey to the world at large, i THINK she thinks that being all sexy boy-eatery is not in and of itself the empowerment? that using that image to your own benefit and being a canny manipulator of that image is the empowerment? BUT, as you say, she does seem pretty sick of it and is maybe kind of trapped by that image to a greater extent than she once expected to be. in the Golden Years! when she put her underage self in a bikini and did a waterfall dance for Michael Bay’s cinematic vision and got a whole FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS in extra pay for so doing!

AMANDA: yeah, and more than that, she fucking loved it! she felt that she belonged dancing in the waterfall.

SADY: like a bikini-clad nymph dancing in the fountain of Underage Youth.

AMANDA: but, since you are perhaps a more studied Fox scholar: is Fox’s version of female empowerment any different from Joanna Krupa’s statement that posing for Playboy is feminist? That, because this activity makes one super hot woman super rich, that means it’s empowering?

SADY: well, that’s the thing, right? that’s the reason we get all pissy about this? because this is actually the divide that I most frequently fall into and die a thousand intrablogular deaths. there’s one school of thought that is like, “no, it is not actually empowering,” and another school of thought that is like, “no, it is not empowering, and also any woman who participates in it is BRINGING FEMINISM DOWN and must immediately run straight to the consoling zombie arms of andrea dworkin and claim that she was brainwashed into doing it whether or not this was actually the case.” and i am of the “no, it is not empowering” school myself. i think the only people who think it is empowering are people who don’t get structure, and are kind of libertariany and weird.

AMANDA: yeah. “i do something, and i am a woman, so that thing is empowering for women” doesn’t really make sense

SADY: but i also don’t think yelling at the actual women who participate in it is kind of weird, because: as a person without a steady paycheck, I get that you do what you have to do in order to get by. and one of the options open, if you look even vaguely Fox-like, is to do the Hot Girl thing.

AMANDA: and on the other hand, “i wear bikinis and hang out around cars” is not empowering to women, but “i wear bikinis and hang out around cars and point out what a skeevy hack michael bay is, and how weird it is that this is my job” is better, i think. and that’s something Joanna Krup totally fails to recognize.

SADY: yeah, exactly. i mean, fuck the michael bays of the world. who come in many forms and at many pay levels. i’ve known girls whose main source of employment was dressing up in kind of sexy outfits and going to bars and convincing dudes there that this one specific kind of beer was superior to all others. the michael bays of marketing! but, yeah, obviously, part of our fantasy around those women is that they’re totally thrilled and turned on by jobs that are about selling their sexuality – compliance is the biggest part of the fantasy, like that policy at hooters that you have to engage in “friendly banter” that is most likely about your titular Hooters – and so when girls complain, you know, they’re subversive. and subject to the typical blowback. even if they’re only doing what everyone else in the world does, which is bitching about the uncomfortable aspects of their jobs. sorry, SPEECHIFYING.

AMANDA: THATS OK. so, moving on to the virgin-whore aspect to all of this … i think it’s really interesting that Fox has been able to be in more control of her tabloid stories because of the fact that she dates boring Brian Austin Green and they’ve been boringly dating for five years. all the tabloid stories are like, “megan fox SAID THIS,” not “megan fox fucked some dude.”

SADY: yeah. BRIAN AUSTIN GREEN. a compellingly boring choice! because if she were out actually having actual sex, she’d be portrayed as a train-wreck.

AMANDA: it’s really sad.

SADY: yeah, but it’s another part of the narrative about Hot Girls: that they’re out behaving like trollops and possibly crazy and messed-up and lost and blah blah whatever. like, female sexuality can’t exist without us feeling the need to punish it, or see it punished. and i don’t think women feel that need to the same extent that a lot of men do, or in the same ways, but i think it’s disingenuous to say that a lot of us don’t feel it. basically, I am using the word “lot” a lot, in an attempt to parse this. but Fox can always fall back on the old, “I have a BOYFRIEND! My sexy sexiness is merely an ACT” thing. which brings us to this whole Meta Fox level where admitting that something is an act may in fact be part of another, overarching act.

AMANDA: METAFOX. well, it’s interesting, because we all know that the Jennifer Aniston Act about her being a hopeless spinster who can’t find love is created by the tabloids. and we know that the Jessica Simpson Is A Stupid Bitch act is created by the tabloids. But whether or not those narratives are based in truth, those celebrities will not be able to escape it, no matter what, so it doesn’t matter. with Megan Fox setting herself up from the get-go as being entirely fake, it may give her some more power to control that fakeness later on.

SADY: yeah. i mean, i think that coming from someone who was basically hired as a cinematic boner dispenser before she was even old enough to vote, and who really hasn’t been hired for jobs outside of that context, she seems remarkably in-control.

AMANDA: well-said

SADY: but i do question how in-control anyone hired to be a cinematic boner dispenser actually is, in the long run. i mean, the weight of The Patriarchy and all of its various Deep-Rooted And Contradictory Sex Issues does not rest lightly on one’s shoulders.

AMANDA: that’s certainly true, but at the same time—and i really don’t mean to insult megan fox here, because i don’t know what she’s capable of—what is she going to do, become a senator? be a mid-level manager? write? she has always wanted to be an actress, she says, and she’s noted that the only reason she can do that is because she’s hot. Fox isn’t going to be getting many Oscar-bait roles (although Jennifer’s Body was an improvement), but does she have to do that kind of acting in order for her to be acceptable?

SADY: uh, probably? i mean, i’m trying to think of someone else who’s made this kind of transition. and, weirdly, the only people i can think of who have made the transition from Object of Desire to Serious Actor are men. like: johnny depp! he was once a mere hot dude! or brad pitt! he was that also! or george clooney! those dudes all started out being valued primarily for their hotness, and then later we were like, “oh, ACTING!” marilyn monroe tried it, but it didn’t really happen. angelina jolie, maybe? oh, hey, here’s an option for megan fox: retire at the age of thirty-four, and spend your entire life rolling around on a bed of cash money.

AMANDA: right. marry someone more successful than brian austin green. is it mean that i keep making fun of brian austin green?

SADY: uh, NO. fox needs someone with an eye for investments, and fewer anecdotes about that time he was on “Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.” it got CANCELLED! it was AWESOME!

AMANDA: it sounds awesome. but some women do do that. Halle Berry did that, and then she just kind of receded back into the boobie rolls. there’s a short window of opportunity for Hot Girls to be Oscar-Worthy Hot Girls, and then they must retreat to the Elder Hot Girl Processing Area. I know what it is! Megan Fox hasn’t gotten to her “purposefully ugly” stage yet. then she can really be an Actress

SADY: right? she needs to talk to Mariah Carey’s people! they can de-Glitter her! i just used the phrase “talk to [X]’s people.” without shame. that is a sad thing i did. i think i must leave now, and contemplate my sins.

AMANDA: haha. well i need to go put on my knee-pad leggings myself. dont tell the blogs about that one

Do you wish that Rihanna and Chris Brown would put aside their differences and resume their abusive relationship already? No? Then you’ll hate WPGC’s newest concert promotion!

WPGC 99.5, a D.C. hip-hop and R&B station, is currently airing a concert promotion that uses the theme of “bringing Chris and Rihanna back together” in order to get people to listen to the radio.

In truth, the concert is offering up tickets to see Chris Brown in D.C. and Rihanna in London, so WPGC is only bringing Chris Brown and Rihanna within 3600 miles miles of each other, but look! They creepily Photoshopped a picture of them together, so it’s almost like the real thing. “95.5 is brining Rihanna and Chris Brown together again… sort of!!” the promotion announces. “win tickets to see Chris Brown in DC and qualify to see Rihanna in concert in London! Everytime you win Chris Brown tickets you qualify!”

And just in case you didn’t get that it was a joke about how Chris Brown beat up Rihanna and wouldn’t it be great if that was still happening: “Bringing Chris and Rihanna back together—-within legal restraining order limitations of course—-From 955 PGC!!”

I understand that the only thing that might make someone excited to win Chris Brown tickets anymore is the possibility of also winning Rihanna tickets. And hey, I would love to win a couple of free tickets to see Rihanna in London! But this promotion is so offensive, I’m not sure I could really muster the strength to pick up the phone to be the 9th caller here. Who is the target audience for this? People who truly want to watch Chris Brown in concert, travel a few thousand miles to watch Rihanna in concert, and in the meantime think about how awesome it would be if those lovebirds could make it work? Or people who think domestic violence is so totally hilarious, this strange virtual double-billing is worth the joke? Who knows: Maybe Chris Brown’s team just wanted people to know that he was back on tour again, since it’s not like he can make much news on his own without invoking the shining stardom of the girlfriend he beat up nine times.

http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/sexist/feed/

Thanks!

Thomas looks at a study of 1882 college students who were asked four questions to determine if they had ever raped (or attempted to rape) anyone:

1) Have you ever attempted unsuccessfully to have intercourse with an adult by force or threat of force?

2) Have you ever had sexual intercourse with someone who did not want you to because they were too intoxicated to resist?

3) Have you ever had intercourse with someone by force or threat of force?

4) Have you ever had oral intercourse with someone by force or threat of force?

Questions like these are bound to lead to underreporting—what guy is going to admit to forcing a girl to give him head? As it turns out, a lot of guys will admit to this, 120 to be exact: That’s six percent of the survey’s respondents who copped to either rape or attempted rape. Importantly, Thomas notes, the survey does not actually ask these guys if they’ve ever exactly “raped” anyone:

If a survey asks men, for example, if they ever “had sexual intercourse with someone, even though they did not want to, because they were too intoxicated (on alcohol or drugs) to resist your sexual advances,” some of them will say yes, as long as the questions don’t use the “R” word.

And they didn’t just admit to raping—they admitted to raping repeatedly (as long as it’s not really “rape,” of course!) According to the study, a small percentage of men are responsible for committing a large portion of sexual assaults—that’s a whole lot of “accidents,” “misreadings,” and “gray areas”:

Of the 120 rapists in the sample, 44 reported only one assault. The remaining 76 were repeat offenders. These 76 men, 63% of the rapists, committed 439 rapes or attempted rapes, an average of 5.8 each (median of 3, so there were some super-repeat offenders in this group). Just 4% of the men surveyed committed over 400 attempted or completed rapes.

What does this mean about our “accidental” rapists?

a) The vast majority of acquaintance rapes are committed by the same people;

b) These people don’t see themselves as “rapists”;

c) They are, however, able recognize that they regularly threat, force, and intoxicate women in order to have sex with them.

Oops! There’s no “accident” here—these guys just deny, evade punishment, and repeat.

So, what do we do to stop these guys? Well, here’s a start: Let’s call them rapists. It’s not just rapists who fail to recognize these behaviors—threatening, forcing, incapacitating—as “real” rape. We all have to stop making excuses for calling a rapist a rapist—and doubting, minimizing, or lashing out against the people who do use that word. Women need to know that they can call their experiences “rape” and report them as crimes. They need to know that they can call their rapists “rapists,” even if the rapist is also someone’s “friend,” “acquaintance,” “co-worker,” “fraternity brother,” or “respected member of our community.” As Thomas says:

The men in your lives will tell you what they do. As long as the R word doesn’t get attached, rapists do self-report. The guy who says he sees a woman too drunk to know where she is as an opportunity is not joking. He’s telling you how he sees it. The guy who says, “bros before hos”, is asking you to make a pact.

The Pact. The social structure that allows the predators to hide in plain sight, to sit at the bar at the same table with everyone, take a target home, rape her, and stay in the same social circle because she can’t or won’t tell anyone, or because nobody does anything if she does. The pact to make excuses, to look for mitigation, to patch things over—to believe that what happens to our friends—what our friends do to our friends—is not (using Whoopi Goldberg’s pathetic apologetics) “rape-rape.”

. . . The rapists can’t be your friends, and if you are loyal to them even when faced with the evidence of what they do, you are complicit.

That last point is an important one. People who excuse rapists usually see that equation from the other end: “He’s my friend, so he can’t be a rapist.” We need to reverse that equation—”He’s a rapist, so he can’t be my friend.” Perhaps them we could begin addressing why the dictionary definition of rape is overlooked—threatening, forcing, and incapacitating for sex—in our to avoid applying the word—”rapist”—to anyone we know.

“What do the ‘N’ word, the ‘W’ word and the ‘F’ word have in common?” asks Tim Bloedow of NoApologies.ca, a Web site dedicated to “punching a hole in political correctness.” According to Bloedow, refusing to use these racial, sexist, and homophobic slurs (the ‘F’ word isn’t fuck here) displays a “complete disregard for using God’s name in vain.”

Bloedow explains why refusing to invoke the “N” word, the “W” word, and the “F” word is insulting to the almighty. (Note: I won’t use those words here, because I’m an atheist, but be warned: Bloedow is a man of God, so he gleefully invokes the three slurs throughout the video):

“The Third Commandment says don’t take the name of a larger God in vain,” he says. “As Christians, we see the Lord’s name taken in vain everywhere—on the TV, in movies, in the news, in just about every area of life, as we walk down the street, among our colleagues. Constantly God’s name—’God,’ ‘Jesus Christ,’ are used as cuss words and nobody seems to blink an eye. Yet I’ve been very frustrated in the last couple of weeks as I’ve observed the self-censorship in our media over other areas of sensibility.”

To recap: White dude in a sweater and a mustache who records himself announcing racial slurs over the Internet? The work of God. Saying “Oh my God, that Tim Bloedow dude appears to be a huge racist”? Sacrilege.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals may have a monopoly on sexualizing cuts of meat, but it takes a Czech surrealist artist to really romanticize steak. Because I am who I am, I can’t help but analyze the traditional mating rituals (and the tragic ending) on display between two cuts of beef in Jan Švankmajer’s 1988 short, Zamilované Maso, or Meat Love (via Pukeimmediately).

A run-down of their brief (and ill-fated) courtship, after the jump.

Meat 1 awakens underneath the body of Meat 2. After swiftly removing itself from the immodest position, Meat 1 rushes to the mirror to make sure it looks okay.

Meat 2 awakens with a masculine grunt. Meat 2 approaches Meat 1 from behind and slaps it in the butt. Meat 1 expresses shock, covers its naked meat body with a towel, and hangs its meat head in shame. Meat 1 is not that kind of beef. Or perhaps it is simply playing hard to get.

Meat 2 realizes it will have to invest in some more traditional courtship activities in order to woo Meat 1. Meat 2 puts on some music. It beckons Meat 1. They dance.

In a reversal of roles, Meat 1 breaks their embrace and rushes to a private plate covered in flour. Meat 1 playfully splashes Meat 2 with the white powder. They make love.

Unfortunately, this playful, flour-covered tryst has set up the two cuts perfectly for consumption. They are spiked by a large fork and sacrificed to the frying pan.

But what does it all mean? Is this meaty courtship a morality tale warning against the dangers of submitting to sexual advances? Or an uplifting testament to seizing the day before it’s too late? Which one is Juliette? Are you hungry? I am!

Allison Henry had a rough year. A lot of  bad shit went down, but long story short, her vagina fell out. Today, Ami Angelowicz at The Frisky detailed Henry’s story. “I am going to spare you the details because I am squeamish and feel too pukey to write about them,” explains Angelowicz. She does pass along this little tidbit about Henry’s lady-bits, however: “As a consolation prize for all of her suffering (and it was a lot of suffering), she now has the vagina of a 13-year-old with perfect-looking labia.”

Allow me to list all the horrific medical details of Henry’s vagina-falling-out that are far, far less puke-tastic than the phrase “the vagina of a 13-year-old with perfect-looking labia.” From Henry’s testimony on MomLogic.com (emphasis mine):

• “About ten weeks into my pregnancy, I was doing prenatal yoga and it felt like someone had rammed a pitchfork up my butt.”

• “when I ran to the bathroom, I saw I was gushing blood everywhere.”

• “I kept bleeding for 15 weeks straight.”
• “One day in the bathroom, I felt something kind of strange when I was wiping. There wasn’t really a hole there—it felt kind of flat.”
• “I had a massive emergency appendectomy, I got gangrene, and I was hospitalized.”
• “One night, I took a look down there, and it was like my insides were on the outside and they were coming out.”
• “I went to my doctor and said, ‘My vagina is falling out of my body!‘”
• “It was literally falling out of my body.”
• “It turned out I had complete uterine prolapse, where the uterus is falling out of the body. I also had rectocele, where the walls of the vagina are weakened, and your rectum is pushing into the back wall of your vagina. That explained why I had been constipated for months.“
• “I had to have surgery, and they took my uterus out. All the ligaments that hold the uterus in place were completely shredded by all the blood I’d lost in my second pregnancy.”
• “My doctor . . . had to untwist my bladder and place it right-side-up. It had twisted and turned upside down.”
• “seven days after my surgery, I was watching ‘Snow White’ with my daughter when my son came into the room. He didn’t like the seating arrangement and sort of lunged on top of my daughter. I had to push him off her, and when I did, I heard a loud ripping sound. Oh, no. I looked under the comforter, and my entire bed was covered with blood. It was like a horror movie—you could see the blood filling the entire white bed.”
• “In 15 minutes, I had passed 10 huge palm-sized blood clots.”
• “the ER doctor was trying to figure out where the blood was coming from, but couldn’t see because there was too much blood gushing out. . . He called my doctor and said: ‘I can’t see where it’s coming from. She’s bleeding so fast and so much, I can’t see. I’m killing her!’”
• “They put me on an antibiotic that I was allergic to — I got a full body rash and was covered in red bumps from my head to my ankles.”
• “Six months later, I started having this weird discharge that had a funky odor. I was still in pain. It turned out my body was now rejecting the second set of sutures.”

Yep! I would rather hear about gangrene, hand-sized blood clots, full-body rashes, twisted bladders, loud internal ripping, weird discharge, anal pitchforks, month-long genital bleeding, and vagina loss than the happy ending that comes at the conclusion of this medical horror:

• “The experience has been a total nightmare, but I’m happy to say I’m on the mend. We just had a cocktail party to celebrate me feeling healthy. And I do have the vagina of a 13-year-old virgin, with a perfect labia, as a bonus.”

Listen, Henry. I’m happy for you. I am. You went through some bad shit, and now your vagina is back inside your body, and I think that’s wonderful. But I never, ever, ever, ever again want to have to think about a grown woman having a “the vagina of a 13-year-old virgin.” That’s some messed up heebie-jeebies shit. I don’t even want to Google that phrase, ever, for fear of what I might find.

Apparently, virginal pre-teen is kind of the gold standard for new vaginas on MomLogic.com. Hear the testimony of “Sara,” a 37-year-old woman who recently became “a virtual born-again virgin” with her brand-spanking-new genitalia:

So now I’m on the mend, with a teenage-sized vagina. My husband has been such a doll since I’ve been home; cooking, vacuuming, cleaning and dressing the kids, taking them to and from school, buying me chocolates and cheerleader costumes . . . how sweet. My sister replied to this, “Well, how many husbands get two vaginas out of the same old wife?” As far as how this new organ is going to work in six weeks, when all restrictions are lifted, who knows? The way things are at present, no man’s apparatus, even of the Fisher Price variety, could ever fit down there. Still, I’ll try to write a follow up report when it happens. That is, if my husband and I ever leave the bedroom again!

Eww! Earmuffs! I know you’re all excited about your new vaginas or whatever, but could you please refrain from referring to them as “teenage-sized,” admiring your newly “virginal” look, and especially–-I’m begging you—invoking Fisher Price?

Photo by clango, Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

In committee, the bill’s religious exemptions were finalized to ensure that no religious organizations—including churches, schools, and nonprofits—would have to “provide services, accommodations, facilities, or goods” to aid in the solemnization, celebration, or promotion of same-sex marriage. Boo.

I can’t imagine that you folks are as interested in the implications of the religious exemption than Mike Riggs and I are, but the full language [PDF] of that portion of the bill is after the jump.

No priest, imam, rabbi, minister, or other official of any religious society who is authorized to solemnize or celebrate marriages shall be required to solemnize or celebrate any marriage.

Each religious society has exclusive control over its own theological doctrine, teachings, and beliefs regarding who may marry within that particular religious society’s faith.

Notwithstanding any other provision of law, a religious society, or a nonprofit organization that is operated, supervised, or controlled by or in conjunction with a religious society, shall not be required to provide services, accommodations, facilities, or goods for a purpose related to the solemnization or celebration of a same-sex marriage, or the promotion of same-sex marriage through religious programs, counseling, courses, or retreats, that is in violation of the religious society’s beliefs. A refusal to provide services, accommodations, facilities, or goods in accordance with this subsection shall not create any civil claim or cause of action, or result in a District action to penalize or withhold benefits from the religious society or nonprofit organization that is operated, supervised, or controlled by or in conjunction with a religious society.

The Weight Loss Doll, 1991

Perfect for: The girl who’s just entering the “I’m fat” phase, but hasn’t yet abandoned the “plays with dolls” phase.

How it works: This doll provides dieters “a friend, a companion in the weight-loss process” who gains and loses weight along with you. Or, more accurately, loses its skin. “Layers of ’skin’ made of stretchable synthetic material, such as vinyl, are added or removed from the doll each time the doll’s owner gains or loses one weight increment, respectively. Each layer represents a particular predetermined weight increment, which may be determined by the doll’s owner. The doll may be male or female, preferably includes jointed body parts, and may be dressed, such as in a running suit which fits over the layers of skin.”

The Magical Boob Growth Doll, 1976.

Perfect for: The prepubescent girl who wishes she could lose her baby-fat belly and magically grow a rack, all in one upward motion!

How it works: You crank the weight from your stomach to your boobs. “Lower torso member includes a waist member having a lower portion of a first girth and an upper portion of a second, lesser girth so that pliable, rubber-like upper torso waist member may be slid from lower portion of lower torso waist member where it simulates waist of pudgy pre-teenager to upper portion of lower torso waist member where it simulates trim waist of a teenager while simulated breasts are simultaneously pressed outwardly against upper torso member causing bulging of the rubber-like material to form a simulated bustline.”

The Pregnant Doll, 1989

Perfect For: Little girls who yearn to play act an “attractively svelte” baby-maker, without all the icky scientific accuracy.

How it works: “When the baby is in the pocket of the mother, it bulges the pocket and the mother appears pregnant; when the baby is removed the mother appears attractively svelte . . . The baby is preferably placed upside down in the pouch; but the pouch may be sized to receive the baby doll in other positions since young children are not likely to be biologically precise about this.”

The Breastfeeding Doll, 1981.

Perfect for: The little girl who is into all that icky scientific accuracy.

How it works: “the mouth of the baby doll can be fastened to the breast pf the mother doll to simulate breastfeeding.” But why? “It is old and well known in the art to produce dolls resembling a mature woman as well as to produce baby dolls. It is also old and well known to provide humanoid dolls which are capable of simulating certin human functions such as crying, taking nourishment from a bottle, wetting and the like. [But] with respect to a simulated nursing operation between a mother and her young, the only known representations involve animals.”

The Diet Aid Doll, 1990.

Perfect For: Any kid who eats food. This human-pig hybrid doll is not made specifically for the children. But the fat-shaming figure sticks right on the family refrigerator, so your growing girl will get the hint every time she descends to the kitchen for a midnight snack.

How it works: “When a person presses the nose of the pig doll, a portion of the doll is inflated to a greater size. This expansion of the pig doll is to visually remind people that their own bodys will expand in size when they continually over-eat. . . . When the person sees that the body of the doll has expanded, this reminds the person that his or her , own body can expand by over eating and look unappealing.”

Freddie Fackelmayer, a 2005 graduate of the George Washington University, wants everyone to know that he’s not a “womanizing jerk.” Fackelmayer just finished up a stint as fake boyfriend to reality television star Whitney Port on MTV’s “The City,” a fake show about Port’s real life working in the fashion industry, a career she secured by virtue of being a reality television star. Anyway, Fackelmayer recently granted an interview with the G.W. Hatchet about how his fake relationship with a reality television star was totally misrepresented on the T.V.!

“They can still make you look however they want,” Fackelmayer told the Hatchet. “They made me be this sort of womanizing jerk, which is not really who I am,” he said. How does that work? According to  Fackelmayer, MTV “never asked the cast to say or do anything, but the editing that followed skewed what actually happens.” He adds: “You know they cut it up [into] little bits and they pick what they want to make it as interesting as possible and it’s tough not to look like a jerk, I think.”

I want to believe Fackelmayer that he’s not the kind of jerk with a fake tan who summers in the Hamptons and cheats on his girlfriend for the purposes of a reality TV show, but how can we know for sure? Let’s check out the other facts about Fackelmayer revealed in the story:

- He was on a reality television show

- He majored in finance

- He still acts like a GW kid [Full disclosure: I went there]. “When I first saw him I thought he was a bit of an Adonis, tan, beautiful, he’s a real switch-up,” one GW student told the Hatchet. “At first I was shocked to hear he was a GW student, but after I heard him talk and watched him for a while, it made a lot of sense. I feel he fits into what a GW student would be.”

- He works for a commercial real estate company

- He was in a frat

- He recruited one of his frat friends to corroborate his story: “It’s just that you can’t really find out who someone is through like 17 minutes, or however long it is.”

- This: “Fackelmayer, who said he arrived to GW in his khakis and flip-flops from Connecticut, soon became accustomed to jeans, Georgetown and the lifestyle D.C. has to offer.”

- He’s writing a novel. “I’m speaking with agents, and that’s actually something that actually has been helpful, because agents, if you’re a first-time writer, its really difficult to get your foot in the door, but I sort of skipped those really difficult first steps because most of them had heard of me.”

Hmm. I don’t know. Womanizing jerk, or victim of the media? You be the judge.

For those of you who would rather do away with this whole marriage business instead of incorporating new groups into the institution, Canadian group Hidden Cameras have got your anthem: “Ban Marriage.” Recently, eight of them squeezed into the Rock and Roll Hotel to perform the song for The New Gay. The traditional-marriage-averse lyrics include references to fingering, “fag hags,” and drunk ministers. What, no shout-out to the patriarchy? Full lyrics are after the jump.

I was late getting to church on the morning of my ceremony

Ban marriage
Ban marriage
Ban marriage
Ban marriage
Ban marriage
Ban it all

J. Matt Barber, board member of Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays, has no problem with being gay. Being “gay,” on the other hand, is a serious cause for concern.

In a media alert released yesterday, Barber warned Christians about the impending threat of homosexual terrorism. As he described the activists at the heart of the anti-Christian movement, Barber repeatedly couched the term “gay” in scare quotes. Why go “gay”?

Parents of Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays (PFOX) is in the business of downplaying the immutability of sexual orientation—their whole shtick is that gays can turn themselves straight, and so placing “gay” in quotes helps to devalue the identity as real.

But Barber says that’s not the effect he was going for. “Gay used to mean happy, carefree—the original definition of gay,” explains Barber. “Now, homosexuals are trying to put a more positive face on their lifestyle. In an interesting and clever twist of semantics, homosexuals have co-opted the term. Gay is supposed to be something happy, something good.”

One section of the AP Stylebook seems to back up Barber’s usage. According to the Stylebook, it is acceptable to place real, actual words—like gay—in quotation marks in order to signify that the words are being “used in an ironical sense.” According to Barber, being “gay” is ironic indeed, as the homosexual lifestyle is far from gay. “Based on CDC statistics, there’s nothing gay about being ‘gay,’” Barber says.

Good news: Yesterday, a revised draft of the marriage bill was released that will retain domestic partnerships (for now, at least). Bad news: the revised bill also allows churches to refuse to make their facilities available for those same-sex couples who actually are into that whole “marriage” business.

The Washington Blade reports on the DP “tweaks”:

During the committee’s two days of hearings, Catania said he was open to removing language he placed in the bill that called for ending the city’s registration of new domestic partnerships after January 2010. Catania noted that he put the provision in the bill because most states that have legalized same-sex marriage have ended existing domestic partnership or civil unions programs on grounds that most same-sex couples prefer marriage.

But a number of witnesses, including officials with the Gay & Lesbian Activists Alliance and lesbian rights attorney and American University law professor Nancy Polikoff, urged the Council to remove the “sunset” clause for domestic partnerships from the marriage bill. These witnesses suggested that the Council take up the domestic partnerships issue at a later date and through separate legislation.

Right now, we’re focused on securing marriage equality, and that’s an extremely important step. But hopefully, by the time the council gets around to considering domestic partnerships, we’ll be able to look beyond marriage and consider our other options on their own merits. Even when same-sex marriages are recognized, we will still need to address how some marriage rights discriminate against those couples and singles who opt out of the institution. Right now, it may be true that “most same-sex couples prefer marriage,” but I believe that may begin to change as the institution evolves and more options are made socially acceptable. A lot of people just don’t want to get married, period, and they shouldn’t have to do so to get their rights.

On to the religious side:

On the religious exemption provision, Catania’s original bill noted that “a religious organization, association or society, or a nonprofit organization which is operated, supervised, or controlled by” a church or religious group “shall not be required to provide services, accommodations, facilities or goods” for the purpose of performing any marriage “unless the entity makes such services, accommodations, or goods available … to members of the general public.”

The revised bill removes the “unless the entity makes such services, accommodations, or goods available … to members of the general public” language.

Seeing as I would never be interested in getting married in one of these God-forsaken places anyway, this language is less important to me personally. But it’s extremely unsettling that the council’s bill includes an allowance for religious institutions to discriminate against people on the basis of sexual orientation. The provision, at the very least, serves as a reminder that even when same-sex marriage is legal, marriage will still be fucked up in a lot of ways. Why not just opt out and go for a domestic partnership?

Debunked, after the jump:

- “Yes means yes” is dangerous in a world where “no means no”
- Women exploit rape laws to criminalize consensual sex they later regret
- Some rapes just happen on accident

By the by—if you’re in need of a primer, here’s the relevant reading material:

Verbal assault: The abuse and debasement of “rape”
Drunk girls deserve to get raped
Writer to rape victims: sometimes it’s too late to say no
On the difficulty of saying no

Now, on to the theories:

Not everybody accepts the “yes means yes” standard of consent, so we have to stick to “no means no” [Source].

I’ve heard this argument time and again: Telling people that consent ought to be based on “yes” instead of “no” is dangerous, because the nation’s sex partners (and courtrooms) just don’t agree with that standard. According to this theory, if a woman expects a man to respect her bodily autonomy implicitly, she’s gonna get raped and there’s nothing she can do about it.

Well: Of course not everyone agrees with it. That’s why feminists devote books and blogs and documentaries to critiquing current models of consent—necause we believe by changing attitudes and changing laws, we can make lives (not to mention sex!) better. That being said: “yes means yes” is actually consistent with the legal standard in many jurisdictions, and if rapists go around assuming that “no means no,” they may be in for an unpleasant surprise.

I’m most familiar with rape laws in Washington, D.C., so I’m going to stick to D.C. code here. In D.C., there is no crime called “rape”—instead, sexual assaults are categorized as various degrees of “sexual abuse.”

In D.C., you could be charged with first degree sexual abuse if you cause a person to submit to a sex act using any of the following tactics: by physically forcing them; by threatening them; by rendering them unconscious; or by drugging them. This crime can be punished with up to life in prison. You could be charged with second degree sexual abuse if you have sex with someone when you have reason to know that they are incapable of knowing what’s going on, incapable of saying no, or incapable of “communicating unwillingness” to have sex. This crime can be punished with up to 20 years in prison. In these crimes, the rapist is aware that their victim does not want to participate in the sex act, and does it anyway (”no means no”), or is aware that their victim cannot consent, and does it anyway (”passed out means no”).

Misdemeanor sexual abuse requires a less stringent standard of consent. Under D.C. law, the misdemeanor charge applies to “whoever engages in a sexual act or sexual contact with another person and who should have knowledge or reason to know that the act was committed without that other person’s permission.” This crime can be punished with up to six months in prison.

Here, the standard does not require force, threat, or incapacitation. It doesn’t even require penetration—it covers all “sexual contact.” The misdemeanor charge only requires the absence of consent. In this crime, the rapist is not aware that the victim is powerless to say no—he is only aware that the victim has not offered a “yes.” In D.C., you can go to prison for six months for having sex with someone without gaining their permission—even if the victim did not explicitly say “no.”

“Yes means yes” is more than just pie-in-the-sky wishful thinking of bloggers living in a feminist dreamworld. For everyone who engages in sex, not abiding by “yes means yes” can also mean very real jail time.

—

Rape laws are invalid because they’re based on how the victim “feels” the next morning. [Source].

Again, in D.C., the severity of a sex abuse charge depends entirely upon the actions of the perpetrator, and not at all on the feelings of the victim. The legal system does not care how traumatized the victim is, whether the victim has changed her mind about how she feels about her sexual assault since it happened, or whether the victim wants to press charges. Let’s recap: According to the law, the only things that matter are: (a) whether the perpetrator had reason to know that the victim did not consent, (b) whether the perpetrator had reason to know that the victim could not consent, and (c) whether the rapist used force. D.C. law is only concerned with the severity of the rapist’s actions—not whether the victim “secretly liked it,” “totally wanted it,” or “only regretted it later.”

If the story of Polanski’s victim has taught us anything, it’s that rape laws are not about the victim. They’re about the perpetrator. The American justice system has been continually criticized for failing to serve sexual assault victims. Rape trials don’t exist to make victims feel better—they exist to help prevent future rapes. And so, even though reporting rape, pressing charges, and enduring a trial is a notoriously difficult process for victims of sexual assault, victims are still encouraged to step forward in the hopes that others will not become victims.

From a legal perspective, it makes perfect sense that rape laws would be centered exclusively on the perpetrator’s actions and not at all on the victim’s feelings. If a person routinely has sex with people without their consent, he may catch a few victims who “secretly liked it.” That’s not the point. The point is that that behavior is reckless, dangerous to the public, and unacceptable.

That being said, locking someone up for a few months doesn’t strike me as a very effective rape avoidance tactic. It would be much more productive if we focused our efforts on prevent rapists from believing that behavior was acceptable in the first place.

—

Some rapes happen on accident [Source].

As Thomas notes on the Yes Means Yes! blog, the dominant analogy used to address rape likens it to a terrible and unpreventable disaster. Under this model, rape is like a hurricane. Everyone agrees that hurricanes are devastating. Hurricanes cannot be prevented—they can only be predicted, planned for, and vigilantly avoided. Because no one can be blamed for causing a hurricane, the onus is on the victims to make sure they stay out of the disaster’s path.

Similarly, because many people are convinced that nothing can stop a rapist from raping, women are encouraged to conform to a series of disaster-avoidance behaviors: stay indoors, wear longer skirts, quit drinking, travel in packs, and avoid trusting men.

Of course, rapes have a pretty obvious culprit: rapists. Still, some people continue to cast date rape scenarios in particular as unavoidable accidents. Since acquaintance rapes are absent of any obvious malicious intent, they are considered a product of an unfortunate miscommunication. These rapists did not intend to rape anyone. In a way, they too are victims—victims of the problematic gray area of sexual consent.

This focus on some rapes as “accidents” suffers from a misapplication of the term “accident.” I often find analogies misleading in discussion of sexual assault (see: that hurricane bullshit), but I’m going to use an analogy in this instance because I think it may be helpful. What if we thought about rape in terms of another type of accident—a car accident?

In the United States, driving a car is a privilege. In order to be cleared to drive, you must pass tests, register your information with the government, have enough money to buy a vehicle, and secure insurance in case you get into a wreck. For some people, the privilege of stepping behind the wheel inspires a certain amount of hubris. These people believe that because they are driving a car, they can take certain liberties on the road—including cutting others off in order to save time, running red lights, shirking stop signs, and generally being a gigantic asshole. Their concern lies only in getting where they want to go as fast as they can, and not at all with all the other humans on the road they have an obligation to protect.

A few weeks ago, my boyfriend was hit by a car when he was in a crosswalk (he’s fine, thanks for asking). In D.C., of course, pedestrians legally hold the right of way in a crosswalk. But my boyfriend did not share the privilege of the driver—he was a pedestrian, and so he was forced to wait patiently at the very wide, very well-marked, very busy crosswalk until one of the big privileged cars deigned to stop for him. If a pedestrian decides to step out into the street as oncoming traffic approaches, he has to hope that his legal right to cross—not to mention his human life—outweighs the driver’s sense of privilege to keep on trucking. Asserting your rights, of course, comes with a certain amount of danger. But pedestrians have no choice but to cross busy streets. And sometimes, they get hit.

Now, the driver who hit him did not set out with the intention of running into a human with her car. She didn’t mean to hurt anybody. But she also knew full well that cars are required to stop for pedestrians in crosswalks. She was simply so accustomed to her driving privilege that she never dreamed that this could actually happen—and that she would ever be held responsible for her habitual disregard for the law. After all, a lot of motorists act this way, and most pedestrians just stay out of their way. When a pedestrian is hit in a crosswalk, it’s not an accident. It’s the result of the motorist who has normalized her dangerous actions.

When rapists engage in sex acts without bothering to gain their sex partner’s consent, they are not “accidentally” raping someone. Rapes don’t come from miscommunication. They are not isolated, unpreventable incidents. They are a product of institutionalized, reinforced, life-long privilege. They are the symptoms of a flaw in the rapist’s entire worldview. They are the product of the way the rapist has habitually devalued women, laid claim to the bodies of others, pursued what he wants no matter what—and never thought anything of it because he has never been called on it. That’s not an accident. That’s a system.

Last week, Double X contributor Lauren Bans took a hard line on the term “douchebag.” According to Bans’ definition, “a douchebag is a very specific sub-segment of the asshole population . . . the douchebag label necessitates a middle-class or higher wealth level, a gross adherence to fratty mainstream tastes (think popped collars and bars in midtown Manhattan), and a rather pretentious pride in that specific way of life.”

One of the problems with crafting a reliable definition of “douchebag” is that the term is built from the outside. Nobody wants to identify as a douchebag. And so, each individual’s interpretation of the term will necessarily exclude characteristics which they share.

Not so with the term “bro.”

I happen to personally agree with Bans’ definition of “douchebag.” After all, Tucker Max, douchebag du jour, meets all of Bans’ criteria. But perhaps our agreement on “douchbag” is more than mere coincidence. After all, the Max standard of douchebaggery conveniently excludes snarky, frat-averse bloggers like Bans and myself from being thrown in with the douches. (For one: Under this definition, douches are all male).

As Bans notes, there are plenty of other words available to insult close relatives of douchebags: dumbshit, prick, tool, masturbatory elitist, hippie. (Me? I’d probably fall somewhere between the “dumbshit” and “masturbatory elitist” categories). But none of these terms is as fun to hurl as “douchebag” is. That word is satisfying. In practice, then, “douchebag” may actually be defined by the category of person the speaker reviles the most.

How might we come to a more objective definition of “douchebag”? Perhaps the key lies in studying the term’s closest relatives. Take “bro.” On UrbanDictionary.com, bro has been externally defined by the same characteristics as Bans’ douche: bros join fraternities, wear baseball caps, spike their hair, pop their collars, clutch red plastic cups, and are proud of it. But unlike “douchebag,” people actually call themselves “bros.” Is it possible that the term “bro” functions as a way for douchebags to reveal their “pretentious pride” in their fratty lifestyles without admitting how douchey it all is?

In one corner of the blogosphere, a community of self-identified bros has arisen to build an internal definition of “bro”—and distance themselves from “douchebag”. What maketh a bro? Even at “brocial networking” Web site BroBible.com, the line between “bro” and “douche” is a very fine one indeed. Some of the most hotly-contested bro criteria, below.

—

* Is hunting bro?

Point: “back before certain bro activities like sports were invented, alcohol being discovered (can u imagine?), and women shaving their legs was thought of (yes, our ancestral brethren had to put up with this for generations) you could argue that hunting was one of the only bro activities around at the time, and remains one of its purest forms.”

Counterpoint: “Hunting is not bro. Maybe it would be bro if the animals had a gun to defend themselves.”

—

* Is listening to Phish bro?

Point: “Phish shows=the ultimate chay. Drinking beers and puffing all day with other assorted party favors, grilling, in the sunshine is about as bro as it gets. The music is laid-back and chill, also bro, and incorporates elements of folk, funk, reggae, classic rock, and bluegrass, all bro in their own right. Phish dominates colleges, where every true bro learns the skills necessary for the rest of his life.”

Counterpoint: “Phish is only chill for a bro-raper. And bro-rape is definitely not chay.”

—

* Is ultimate frisbee bro?

Point: “Ultimate Frisbee totally is a bro sport. . . . those who hate oughtta see some real ultimate before they judge, not that bullshit the kid with the tyedie t-shirt trys to pull on your quad every spring. although, if you can huck a disk cross quad while whering a pastels, a lax pinni, turf dogs, mids and croakies with a sweet pair of shades, you’ll find its a wonderful way to meet women.”

Counterpoint: “ultimate frisbee is hobby for people who werent any good at regular sports, as well as pussys who are afraid of contact, not a bro sport.”

—

* Which lacrosse helmets are bro?

Point: “CPX with steel forever. Always tilted, never with a gay visor.”

Counterpoint: “I don’t know, an all black Pro7 with a gold face mask is pretty sick.”

—

* Can Mexicans be bros?

Point: “bros can originate from any culture. what makes us bros is our unquestionable love for brew (cerveza), babes (chicas), sports (deportes), and our dedication to these three pillars of strength.”

Counterpoint: “bros must fit the wasp mold.”

Photo by Unhindered by Talent, Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

(a) stilettos
(b) pantyhose
(c) cleavage
(d) eyeliner

According to one lawyer, two will ruin a female attoyney’s career, while two will send her on the partner track. Are career women held to a higher standard of dress than are men? Is business attire absurd all around? Or is the corporate uniform a valuable tool to help boys and girls get ahead? Reader theories—and the answers to your quiz—are after the jump:

whet moser says that the focus on low-cut blouses and too-high heels obscures the fact that in lawyerin’, class issues cut both ways:

This week on the Sexist, we heard about a bunch of bumbling frat boys who didn’t want their student newspaper to talk about date rape. We made up for it by talking about date rape a bunch!

1. Fraternity Accused of Stealing 10,000 Newspapers to Cover Up Date Rape Story, in which the enormous pile of drugging victim testimony ate their homework.

2. Writer to Rape Victims: Sometimes, It’s “Too Late to Say No”, in which it’s not! Ever!

3. On the Difficulty of “Saying No”, in which, all the same: “yes” ought to be the standard, really.

4. Drunk Girls Deserve to Get Raped, in which Internet trolls respond to a gang-rape by blaming the victim.

5. Ashley Madison’s Conservative Values, in which a cheating Web site denounced by moral conservatives profits off their traditional values.

Photo via the Library of Congress

The AARP has finally figured out a way to deter all those crazy tweens from sexting their chastity away: Inform them that a bunch of totally old people are doing it, too. In the November issue Online at AARP.org, reporter Jessica Leshnoff interviews a handful of first-name-only seniors who admit to sending photos of their boobs to other old people through text messages.

There’s Roger, the 59-year-old divorcé who need only tell a date that she has “amazing breasts” to be rewarded with an unsolicited photo of them. There’s Jill, 50, who suggests sexting dirty thoughts while “sitting in a restaurant waiting for your food . . . and no one knows what you’re doing.” And then there’s sexting-skeptical Richard, 66, who received a sext while “with a group of colleagues after hours at a restaurant,” and “surprised himself by being less than thrilled.”

These aging sexters have got a good half-century on the subjects of most sexting paranoia pieces, but their story is the same. The “old people are sexting” trend story operates under the same premise as the teenage sexting story. Find a group the public doesn’t enjoy considering being sexually active (minors, the elderly). Reveal that they are sexually active. Then, add technology—the second-scariest topic next to sex— and voilà—something else for David Brooks devotees to clutch their pearls over.

The AARP isn’t slut-shaming the elderly here, but it does insert a good deal of skepticism into the piece. After all, it wouldn’t be a “sexting” article without a degree of alarm. Elder sexting can’t be policed through the traditional avenues—you can’t ground them, and you can’t threaten to slap them with absurd child pornography charges. But surely, there must be some way to convince old people that sending dick photos may not be the way to spend their lunch hour? “But beware, the experts warn,” Leshnoff writes. “Sexting has its dangers, too, especially when it comes to people in the dating world.”

Those dangers? “False advertising.” “Too much, too soon.” “Not everyone likes receiving a sexually charged text.” Someone could steal them and put them on the Internet. And in a sick twist of fate: “the possibility of your teenage kids innocently flipping through your texts.” The article ends on a downer, via Richard: After actually receiving the money shot, “It was like the fun kind of went out of it,” he says.

But despite the pitfalls, the AARP has recognized that old people will probably send photos of their genitals anyway, so we may as well help them sext safely. Their tips: Slowly transition from “I still want to go to the prom with you” to “Forget chocolate, I am craving the taste of you!” Take care to periodically delete nude texts every once in a while. And always remember to “keep expectations based on sexting in check.”

I really like that. Our culture has a tendency to infantilize men and women “of a certain age,” and that includes treating their sex lives as either an unspoken taboo or an inflated cause for concern. I get it: My parents get AARP magazine, and I don’t want to think about them giving these sexting tips a text ride, either (except for the part where they delete the evidence). And the idea of my grandmother sending a perfectly chaste text message is hilarious to me. That being said, aging can present some pretty specific challenges to a person’s sex life—and, like with teens, the worst we can do is refuse to talk about it.

Photo via Ethan Prater, Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

Hey, ladies. It’s time for another edition of Sexist Beatdown. Up for discussion this morning are girls who hate on other girls when a man gets in the way, and then write pop songs about it. As always, your hosts are that bitchy, popular ho Sady Doyle of Tiger Beatdown, and the adorably geeky woman of your dreams—me! Join us: We promise to pretend to be your friends while we try to fuck your boyfriend and ridicule your skanky dye job.

Sady has already done the groundwork on the “girl-on-girl sexism” phenomenon. In this special genre of pop music, the protagonist ridicules another woman who is either a) involved with “her man,” or b) involved with a man the singer wishes were “her man.” The protagonist typically cites purely aesthetic arguments—But she’s a cheerleader! But she has bleached hair! But she just sucks!—for hating that other bitch and attempting to convince the “man” that he belongs with her. Sady notes that this trend most recently surfaced in Taylor Swift’s beloved hit single, “You Belong With Me”:

It put my hair thoroughly on end, with Taylor pleading over and over again for a boy to just go ahead and dump a girl (who apparently has goals in life outside of obsessively working to please this one dude), in favor of Taylor (who doesn’t). I mean, I know we’re supposed to be rooting for Taylor, because GLASSES, but this whole thing whereby girls who do not conceive of themselves as traditionally attractive deal with this by hating on girls who they think are prettier is just really repulsive to me, and I can’t stand it, especially when it’s framed as “empowering” rather than just insecure and gross. You have a problem with how limiting the mainstream beauty standard is? Fine. TALK ABOUT THAT. I will agree with you. But slamming “ugly” girls and slamming “pretty” girls both amount to slamming girls. So, you know. Less of that, please.

Meanwhile, Notes on Popular Culture has already provided the counterpoint for Team Taylor: “Sady calls the comparison between the two girls ‘girl-on-girl sexism.’ What Sady forgets is that this is what people do. That is what girls do, that is what teenage girls do, this is what girls do when another girl has they guy they like. It’s tame, and pretty damn fair.”

Or is it?

SADY:: let’s talk about ladies who don’t like other ladies! through the universal language of SONG! (the ladies who hate other ladies. not me, or, i would imagine you. let us conduct this discussion instead through the universal language of Gchat.)

AMANDA: agreed!

SADY: first of all, i think we need to separate the lady-disliking-lady song from the you-cheated-on-me-song (as sung by a lady). because both are venerable pop conventions. but one is pretty specifically about disliking a lady, and the other is more about being upset with somebody who cheated on you and referring to the co-cheater as a “tramp” or whatever.

AMANDA: so, you’re saying there is a difference between your unnecessary “I Hate That Bitch” song and your Jolene rip-off?

SADY: i would argue, yes! although… maybe not? (BEHOLD, as i introduce and then disagree with my own points!) because, like, in “before he cheats,” by carrie underwood, she mentions that there is “probably” a “bleached-blond tramp” in this dude’s life before introducing some truly epic automotive destruction on the possible-tramp-liker.

AMANDA: oh … “probably.” see, this is where it gets interesting. because doesn’t carrie underwood appear to have bleached blond hair?

SADY: haha, and the hypothetical tramp sings “fake Shania karaoke” at one point. PROJECTION!

Carrie Underwood’s “Before He Cheats”
Woman: bleach-blond, wavy-haired Carrie Underwood
Other Woman: bleach-blond, straight-haired Carrie Underwood look-alike

AMANDA: and isn’t it innocent-glasses TAYLOR SWIFT HERSELF, ladies and gentleman of the jury, and not bitchy-brunette Taylor Swift, that is the “other woman” in “You Belong With Me”?

SADY: RIGHT! or in “girlfriend,” by avril lavigne, which is basically the same song: “hey hey you you i don’t like your girlfriend hey hey you you i could be your girlfriend why can’t you see you belong with me?” they sort of blur together into an identical message point in my head. also that “don’t you wish your girlfriend were the pussycat dolls” song. there are a LOT of these songs!

Avril Lavigne’s “Girlfriend”
Woman: Redhead glasses-wearing Avril Lavigne, who is “like, so whatever.”
Other Woman: Brunette punk-rocker Avril Lavigne, who is a “mother-fuckin’ princess”

AMANDA: practically the same song, except avril subs in “punky arm-warmers” for glasses. But let’s go back to Jolene for a moment, shall we?

SADY: let’s!

AMANDA: so, instead of trashy bleached-blond hair (or trashy brunette-died hair, depending on the version), jolene has got a smile like a breath of spring, or whatever.

SADY: right. there’s a lot of lavishly detailed jolene-sexiness, which makes the song weirdly kind of ladyrotic, all about the power of another woman’s sexuality.
AMANDA: right … and it raises an interesting point about how these “other women” are romanticized and demonized in song. the “other woman” song is an interesting thing to talk about from a feminist perspective I think. for example, when Dolly Parton is begging Jolene not to take “her man,” she exerts ownership over another human being and even attempts to control another human (jolene) in order to keep that ownership. instead of being like, “fuck it,” which maybe would not have made for a very compelling song, i guess. and so, perhaps you could give a feminist reading to “Girlfriend” and “You Belong With Me” in that these are women reminding other humans that they aren’t property.

Dolly Parton’s “Jolene”
Woman: Can’t compete.
Other Woman: Flaming locks of auburn hair, ivory skin, eyes of emerald green, smile like breath of spring, voice soft like summer rain.

SADY: welllllll… possibly? i think both are actually ABOUT competition over territory (territory = actual human dude). in one case you are trying to lure a dude away, and in another, you are trying to keep hold of him. but, weirdly, i don’t think that is so feminist? because what a lot of these songs do is sort of make the dudes not responsible for who they cheat on you with / who they date, in order to transfer all of the animus onto another woman. women are always sort of the villains, even if it’s a dude who is making the choices you disagree with. compare this to one of my favorite dude-finds-out-his-lady-cheated songs, “take a letter, maria,” in which a dude rolls into the office, tells his secretary his wife’s been sleeping with another dude. then, asks her to draft a divorce letter. then, tells her she’s his girlfriend now. like, the dude just kind of keeps rolling on. the lady is STILL the villain, even in songs about cheating ladies sung from dudes’ perspectives. not the guy his wife slept with.

AMANDA: so … does any dude actually choose his girlfriend based on who writes the best song about why he should be their girlfriend?

SADY: i kind of wish they did!

AMANDA: i dont! i such at that shit!

SADY: well, i think the vast majority of dudes would get a case of The Creeps if we were all under their windows performing dance-offs about them. which DOES kind of make the whole “you belong to me” genre weirdly feminist: it’s women being suitors, not desired objects. granted, it’s in some kind of wacky “i could totally fulfill all your needs better than she can” way, but WHATEVS.

AMANDA: right, and weirdly enough, the guys are hardly humanized.

SADY: exactly. like, it’s not about how dreamy they are or whatever. they’re not singing the dude’s praises. they’re just like, “WANT DUDE! DUDE MINE!”

AMANDA: it’s possible that these “empowering” other-woman songs are just co-opting the worst aspects of traditional male courting behavior. one of the things that irks me about both You Belong with Me and Girlfriend is the assumption that, well, the guy belongs with them.

SADY: yeah! exactly! like, Dude can’t choose who he wants to date? MAYBE THE FACT THAT YOU ARE ALWAYS IN THE WINDOW MAKING MOONEYES AT HIM HAS CREEPED HIM OUT, Taylor Glasses!

AMANDA: it’s the same old shit where a dude feels entitled to harass a woman because that’s what is supposed to happen when you like a girl, no matter what she says about you—like, “no thanks,” or “just friends”

Pussycat Dolls, “Dontcha”
Woman: Not hot like her.
Other Woman: Hot.

SADY: yeah, exactly. like, the whole “Nice Guy (TM)” bit of jargon we’ve coined to describe dudes who whine about how they’re so awesome and girls STILL won’t go out with them and the fact is that they’re just kind of chasing the wrong girls around? that seems, weirdly, to be present in some gender-flipped form in “You Belong With Me.” Taylor Swift is a Nice Girl (TM) and it is freaking me out a little.

AMANDA: or pretending to be friends when they’re really trying to get a boner. full disclosure, I find that song catchy and I listen to it whenever it’s on the radio, which is all the time, which is why I know enough about this song to have this weird reservation about one of the lyrics. you pointed this out, as well, but when Swift says that evil bitchy girlfriend “doesn’t get his humor” and freaks out when he says certain things, it always seems obvious to me that the guy is saying something so monumentally douchey, and Taylor Swift is just lining up to be like, “I won’t call you out on being a douche.”

SADY: yeah, exactly. like, i have seen girls do this. the whole “i get boys” thing, that in practice always seems to be about siding with boys when girls call them out on being sexist and/or douches. and i don’t know what it is – being known as a “guy’s girl” can give you some power, or an illusion of power, in certain circles – but to me I always get post-traumatic Tucker Max flashbacks to when he’s like, “but some of my FRIENDS are women! some of my FANS!” and, yeah, but maybe those girls are just biting the bullet and/or deluded enough to think that your douchiness will never affect them unless they laugh along. basically, i think “You Belong With Me” is a song about how Taylor Swift wants to date Seth McFarlane. that is what i think it is. i will never apologize.

AMANDA: maybe they would be cute!

SADY: he could talk to her in the voice of a mean-spirited british baby and/or laconic dog.

AMANDA: that other bitch just doesn’t GET that like she does.

SADY: EXACTLY. you know, though, i have been forced to come to the conclusion that everyone in the whole entire world likes taylor swift a little bit more than i do. like, my over-the-top dislike of taylor swift may in fact be wrongheaded and the result of being hit in the head with a skipper doll as a small child or something. people in general don’t dislike taylor swift as much as i do, so there is maybe something wrong with me. and i would like to apologize to taylor swift, for whatever i have written about her in the past, using a girl-hating-(i think?)-another-girl-song lyric. from destiny’s child. it reads: “you know i’m not gonna diss you on the internet / cause my mama told me better than that.”

AMANDA: i heard that song on the radio the other day. taylor swift has, essentially, said the opposite about her career: she’s said that all her songs are about dissing people who have wronged her in some way.

SADY: OH GOD. SHOULD I BE WORRIED?

AMANDA: (Yes). But i can’t help but thinking that—with all her deliberate high-school-band-geek-goofy-glasses image—taylor swift maybe has underestimated how much people were going to Totally Fall In Love With Her. she’s the most successful artist right now, and smoking hot, and she’s writing a bunch of diss songs, which probably won’t play for very long. just a bit of career advice. because i know a lot about the music business. so … you’re doing her a favor, is what i’m saying, and i can’t wait to see what wig taylor swift wears in order to play you in her upcoming single, “I Didn’t Know He Had A Nazi Shirt On, You Bitch.”

The battle for ideological dominance in our nation’s capital’s collegiate sex columns continues. Are our local campus columnists on the forefront of radical sex writing, or are they bringing back the good old days of romance born out of  aggressive homophobia?

This week: pro-life gay man worries that if he could have children, his pro-choice boyfriend might kill them; how to talk to a girl without being a creep; your boyfriend is cheating on you to avoid rumors he’s on the down low.

AMERICAN UNIVERSITY

Sex Tips: In this edition of the AU Eagle’s triple-threat sex column, Buster Darkhole, Maxwell Hillcrest, and Amber Sparkles take on the issue of  . . . ideological rifts in on-campus relationships. How apropos!

The inspiration: A pro-life man writes in to ask if his crush on a pro-choice man is too immoral to pursue. “While he and I can’t have children, it’s more the idea that if we had children he would be OK with killing them,” he writes. “Is this enough to kill a relationship?” I bet you weren’t expecting Buster Darkhole’s response: “let me just say that it is a relief to find another pro-life gay on this campus.”

Life Lesson: The American University community contains at least two pro-life gay men.

Progressive Meter: Sorry, my brain just exploded attempting to accurately gauge the progressiveness of this situation. I think we’ll split the odds and go for a 5.

—

UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND

Sex Tips: The Diamondback’s latest advice column schools undergrads on how to “start up a conversation without seeming creepy.” Columnist Esti Frischling’s suggestion: ” The rule is this: Any guy can get any girl. . . .  If you approach this situation knowing without a doubt that you are going to get some serious ass, your actual chances improve drastically,” she writes. “Seeing as you already know you’re going to get with this girl in the near future, you can certainly start to relax around her. Suddenly, imagining her naked in class changes from awkward and creepy to fun and clairvoyant. . . . Keep in mind: You are the man.”

Life Lesson: She wants to fuck you.

Progressive Meter: Assuming that a strange woman wants to have sex with you whenever you like will inevitably lead to complications. As one commenter notes, it ain’t the first time she’s doled out this advice. So much for the “without seeming creepy” part. Zero.

—

HOWARD UNIVERSITY

Sex Tips: In this Howard University Hilltop opinion piece, Morgan Winbush attempts to get to the bottom of Howard’s “dating double standard.” She writes: “in a man’s world; you have to be on top of everything including your woman and your relationships. . . . Messing around with other women feed into the need for a man to feel as if he is needed. The more women who ‘need’ him the more he is solidified as a man possessing the qualities that are ‘manly’ and thusly proving himself to be the leader of the pack when it comes to female dependency. ‘Is he gay?’ ‘Is he on the DL?’ — the more female partners a man has the less likely these labels will be placed on him.” But aggressively proving one’s heterosexuality ain’t just for men any more: “times have progressed and women want just as much ego rubbing as their counterparts.”

Life Lesson: Your boyfriend is cheating on you so that nobody thinks he’s gay. At least now you can get in on the homophobic fun, too.

Progressive Meter: Winbush makes a good-faith effort to encourage fellow students to embrace female promiscuity alongside the traditional male version. In the meantime, she raises the specter of the guy on the “down low” without even giving a positive shout-out to the campus LGBT contingent. Three.

Photo by Ollie Crafoord, Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

Yesterday, Feminist Law Professors drew my attention to the Miami Daily Business Review’s “Rodent” column, a weekly anonymous rant written by various members of the legal community. The latest missive, “Lady Lawyers Should Dress the Part,” warns female attorneys that they may be sabotaging their careers with overly sexy business attire. Actually, I think it’s more likely that the conveniently anonymous Rodent, who spouts off platitudes like “women who dress like Barbie dolls get treated like Barbie dolls,” is the force that’s keeping women down in the workplace.

According to the Rodent, otherwise capable female lawyers are ruining their chances at being taken seriously by forgoing pantyhose, wearing heels, and revealing their cleavage:

Women who dress like Barbie dolls get treated like Barbie dolls. I know a lawyer who is in her mid-30s. She is stunning—tall, long blonde Lady Godiva hair and a body that would make a porn star jealous. This woman also happens to be a crackerjack lawyer. But she dresses to emphasize her looks, not her mind; as a result, her career seems to have stalled. Though she is an extremely bright woman, no one sees past the stilettos and low-cut blouses.

The vermin continues:

Clients tend not to hire women who look like hookers unless they hire them as hookers. Don’t show your “girls” at work unless you are looking for a one-night stand.

All right, let’s hear one more:

I knew an associate who wore shoes that looked like she was a bridesmaid. She was a good lawyer, but there was a real disconnect between those gold sandals and the notion that she wanted to go the distance as a lawyer. She didn’t, and the shoes were a tip-off.

The Rodent’s theories are convenient: The lawyer who looks like a porn star stumbled because her shoes are too high. The lawyer who looks like a bridesmaid is not serious about her job because her shoes are too strappy. The lawyer who looks like a hooker is not successful because her breasts are too prominent. Beyond the offensiveness of grouping female professionals into categories like Barbie, porn star, hooker, and bridesmaid, the Rodent appears to be going to great lengths to deny the obvious. Perhaps the lawyer who looks like a “porn star” is devalued because people think she’s too attractive to be smart, not because she dresses like a Barbie. The lawyer who wears anything other than a turtleneck is devalued because she’s got boobs, not because she dresses like a hooker. And the lawyer who looks like a bridesmaid, whose strappy shoes are a “tip-off” that she’s not a serious lawyer? That sounds like a pretty insane explanation for a career misstep to me.

The Rodent, of course, is attempting to explain away a more offensive aspect of the legal profession: women are consistently partnered and paid less than men are. A commenter on Feminist Law Professors draws the obvious comparison between devaluing a woman’s work based on her attire to outright sexual harassment. She writes that men have informed her of the harassment rule: “If she’s going to dress like trash, then she’s going to get treated like trash.”

Blaming a woman’s clothing choices for her professional failure is simply a strategy for selectively discounting women without being called on your sexism. All you have to do is project your biases on to “her choices,” and you can discriminate away.

This becomes clear when the Rodent gets specific about what aspects of a woman’s appearance are unacceptable. Interestingly, several of the Rodent’s tips are not specific to female lawyers. “A tattoo that shows is NEVER appropriate when you are a female attorney,” the Rodent writes—as if face tattoos are generally accepted among lady litigators’ male co-workers. The Rodent then offers up a weak defense for focusing on lady ink—women sag. “I promise you that once you are a woman of a certain age, your skin will lose elasticity, and that cute Asian saying . . . simply won’t look good when it’s sagging.”

Many of the Rodent’s recommendations are inconsistent. According to the Rodent, “Frumpy is the opposite end of the spectrum, and I see a lot of that these days, too. Looking like an unmade bed—wrinkled clothes, no makeup, dirty hair—doesn’t inspire much confidence either.” Apparently, femininity-enhancing attire like heels are unacceptable, but makeup is required. The anonymous ranter also points to Condoleezza Rice as an acceptable style icon, even though Rice hardly shied away from figure-hugging, sexy-heeled outfits in her tenure as Secretary of State.

The lesson we can learn from this is that the standards regulating female appearance are largely arbitrary, and are designed that way to keep the door open for criticism. Men may either be labeled “sloppy” or “professional,” but women must also navigate between being “frumpy,” “professional,” and “overly attractive.” And since the “too sexy” meter can often be set off by simply looking like a woman, not dressing like one—having breasts, hips, legs, and a waist—hitting the right note can be a lot more difficult than learning to knot a neck-tie.

Feminist Law Professors’ Bridget Crawford concurs with the Rodent on some points:

I myself am on record against visible toes in the office, so I am inclined to agree with the Rodent on this topic. . . . Displays of exaggerated female sexuality (cleavage, heels, etc.) are tools that some women attempt to use to their benefit. Kathleen Bergin explains this in her article Sexualized Advocacy and the Ascendant Feminist Backlash Against Female Lawyers . . . the Rodent reminds us that the same tools can be used against women, too.

I agree that this double standard—be attractive, but not too sexy—is used against women in the workplace. But I disagree with the Rodent’s conclusion that the solution to workplace sexism is for women to modify their behavior by buttoning up and trashing the sandals. Apparently, no matter what a lady lawyer wears, there will be some vermin waiting on the sidelines to tell her it’s not appropriate.

Photo by markusram, Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

As it turns out, I’m not the only one hoping that the widespread media coverage of date rape drugging will die down a bit. A fraternity on the University of Arizona campus has been accused of sabotaging 10,000 campus newspapers in order to cover up a small item in which a woman alleged having been drugged and possibly sexually assaulted at one of the frat’s parties.

The copies of the Arizona Daily Wildcat containing the offending “Police Beat” item were apparently removed from their racks and strewn on the outskirts of campus shortly after publication on Oct. 8. The Daily Wildcat pinned the sabotage on the fraternity named in the piece, Phi Kappa Psi, after the Spanish homework of members Alex Cornell and Nick Kovaleski surfaced at the site of the discarded newspapers—a revelation the Phoenix New Times astutely notes mirrors a plot point from the 1998 film The Big Lebowski. The New Times phoned Phi Kappa Psi President Keith Peters “to find out if two ‘pledges’ were really dumb enough to steal 10,000 free newspapers and then leave their homework with the stolen stash.” Peters declined to comment.

The student paper later received less hilarious evidence linking Phi Kappa Psi to the crime—e-mails from friends and relatives of fraternity members confirming that the theft was engineered “under the orders of fraternity leadership.” Despite the paper’s leads, the University of Arizona Police Department closed the case “without questioning any Phi Psi members.”

Nevertheless, the prank has directed significant campus attention to the original item, a modest 250-word crime brief. It’s clear that Phi Kappa Psi severely miscalculated their damage control over the drugging accusations. Even on a college campus, a straight item on an attempted date rape will hardly cause a stir. An item on a fraternity’s elaborate—and absurdly botched—plan to keep that attempted date rape item hush-hush, on the other hand? People actually care about that.

But let’s get back to the reason this 10,000 paper cover-up is so offensive in the first place: Apparently, the fraternity really, really, really didn’t want people to know that its parties may feature date rape drugs. Below is the original crime report that Phi Kappa Psi was so afraid of getting out there. (Heads up for the future, boys: Newspapers are on the Internet these days). According to the alleged victim’s testimony, she experienced symptoms of GHB after attending a Phi Kappa Psi party in September:

The woman claimed that on arrival, a fraternity member she knew gave her a drink. Later, an unidentified man gave her another drink. The woman told police she had assumed both drinks contained vodka, as they were both colorless. The woman reported that at approximately 11:30 p.m., she had begun feeling “overly flirtatious.” The woman also claimed to have experienced a loss of both hearing and bladder control. The woman told officers that her friend had walked her back to her residence at the Arizona-Sonora Residence Hall at approximately 1 a.m. on Sept. 27, at which point she vomited. The woman’s friends later told her that between the hours of 11:30 p.m. on Sept. 26 and 1 a.m. on Sept. 27, she had made out with three different men at the party. The next day, the woman looked up GHB online and believed she had experience its symptoms. She also told police that she had attempted to contact the fraternity president and had left several messages at the fraternity, but had received no replies. She told officers she was reporting the incident to document the event in the hopes of preventing any future sexual assaults.

Photo by kenlund, Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

When Laura Ingraham covered hosting duties for Bill O’Reilly on the O’Reilly Factor last week, she sought out to answer the age-old question: Why do feminists hate Sarah Palin so much? Hmm—I can think of a few reasons. The resulting discussion between Ingraham, Washington Post columnist Sally Quinn, and Republican pollster KellyAnne Conway produced some pretty interesting theories. Let’s check them out:

Theory #1: We hate her because we’re childless spinsters.

CONWAY: I think of some of the spinster childless columnists who have attacked this woman for her right to choose . . .

INGRAHAM: Can you name names?

CONWAY: . . . and have five children. There are too many to name and then it would make them relevant on such a great show.

INGRAHAM: Spinster columnists, OK.

—

Theory #2: We hate her because Todd is cute.

CONWAY: . . . I think she makes some women feel inadequate because she has five children, no household help. Not only is she not anti-man, but she has, as we could tell, a supportive husband and father.

INGRAHAM: And cute, too. He’s real cute.

CONWAY: . . . the extended family. He’s cute to go.

—

Theory #3: We hate her because Palin lost weight after having the 5th baby we never had because we were too busy being childless spinster abortionists without cute husbands:

CONWAY: . . . And look, she lost all her baby weight. It makes some women crazy. They’ve got 1.3 children and a Pilates schedule they have to keep, and it makes some of them crazy.

QUINN: . . . Well, let me just say first that she has a point about people being jealous about her losing her baby weight. I have to say.

NGRAHAM: OK, we’ve gotten that out of the way.

CONWAY: But you did too, Sally.

INGRAHAM: I got that.

QUINN: No, I’m crazed about that.

INGRAHAM: Right.

QUINN: And I have to admit it right here.

INGRAHAM: You’ve always been fit.

QUINN: Yeah.

INGRAHAM: So we’re not going to hear that from you.

—

Theory #4: We hate her because she’s a woman:

CONWAY: And look, I just want to say this, that with Palin, she looks so feminine. She acts like a woman, but governed like a man.

—

Theory #5: We hate her because we’re jealous that she’s pro-life:

INGRAHAM: Admit it right now. Palin is hot. She is pro-life. She shoots. She hunts. She has a big family. And all these feminists are like just seething with jealousy about it.

—

Theory #6: We hate her because she is against everything that we stand for:

QUINN: . . . I have to say that of all the people I know, I don’t know a single person who feels jealous about her. I think that most of the people I know who are not Sarah Palin fans just don’t like what she has to say.

Photo by lifeisaprayer, Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

A friend* pointed me to an interesting divide in the Maine election results: While only 47 percent of Maine voters opted to keep same-sex marriage legal, a full 59 percent voted to legalize medicinal marijuana. By my expert analysis, that means that a significant percentage of Maine’s voters are raging potheads who hate gay people.

Here are the latest election results:

Overturn same-sex marriage:

Yes: 53 percent

No: 47 percent

Legalize Medicinal Marijuana:

Yes: 59 percent

No: 41 percent

So, which residents of Maine are fighting for their right to get high while expressing their disregard for the civil rights of gay people? My friend floats a theory: Frat guys?

* In order for me to steal his idea, he insisted that he be described as “sexy.”

Photo by wstryder, Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

Last we checked in with Dr. Ruth Jacobs, president of the Maryland Citizens for Responsible Government, she was explaining why transgender women should not be allowed in her bathroom: “If somebody with an opposite body part is allowed in to a ladies’ restroom—a guy who has a penis, who could put his penis inside my vagina—what am I to do?” Jacobs said. “We need to be able to retain the right to speak up about men in our bathrooms without being labeled bigots.”

Okay! Well, now Dr. Jacobs is back to apply her anatomical expertise to the issue of gay marriage. Let’s see what she has to say!

Thanks to Metro Weekly for getting this all on tape. Here are the money quotes:

* “An anus was designed for exit, not entrance.”

* “Who will protect the children?”

* “Once it becomes law, you cannot opt out . . . students are terrified to be taken out of sex ed. They get on their knees and beg to their parents to be included. Because, to be outside is to be labeled the conservative. To go to the library while everyone else is in class having sex ed, means that you then—when you refuse to go to sex ed, you then become the group that is discriminated against.”

* “46 percent of black men . . . are HIV positive” (No).

* Marriage and the vagina and the penis are designed to go together, and the penis and the anus do not.”

* And a dose of reality courtesy of Councilmember David Catania: “If your testimony is that you’re only eligible to marry if your population has a low HIV rate, the first in line . . . are lesbians. So based on your testimony, we could only marry lesbians.”

First up: “A Milli,” a track off Tha Carter III:

Relevant Lyrics: “The Bible told us every girl was sour / Don’t play in her garden and don’t smell her flower / Call me Mr. Carter or Mr. Lawnmower”

Feminist: Weezy’s lawnmower is here to destroy all those antiquated ideas about female sexuality.

Misogynist: A man’s lawnmower chopping up a woman’s flower is not exactly the most sex-positive imagery.

—

“Mrs. Officer,” a song about a sexy cop.

Relevant Lyrics: “Doin a buck in the latest drop/ I got stopped by a lady cop/ She got me thinking I can date a cop/ Cause her uniform pants are so tight . . . And I know she the law, and she know I’m the boss / And she know I can hide above the law / And she know I’m raw, she know it from the street / And all she want me to do is fuck the police.”

Feminist: He’s attracted to women in positions of power!

Misogynist: . . . as long as their pants are tight, and he can neutralize their authority by pulling out his wang.

—

“We Like Her,” a song about wanting to fuck every girl in the world. Every single one!

Relevant Lyrics: “Open up her legs then filet mignon that pussy / I’m a get in and on that pussy / If she let me in I’m a own that pussy / Go’n throw it back and bust it open like you ‘posed to / Girl I got that dope dick / Now come here let me dope you / You gon’ be a dope fiend / Your friends should call you dopey”

Feminist: Every woman is beautiful.

Misogynist: Just beautiful enough for Wayne to declare ownership of her genitals and describe their courtship in sexual assault terms.

—

“Lollipop,” a song about oral sex.

Relevant Lyrics: “I get her on top / She drop it like it’s hot / And when I’m at the bottom / She Hilary Rodham.”

Feminist: He just name-checked Hilary Rodham. In a positive way! And without the Clinton, even!

Misogynist: I’m not sure that riding Weezy is exactly the type of women’s liberation Hil is working for.

—

“Prostitute Flange,” a song about not caring if your lady previously turned tricks.

Relevant Lyrics: I wouldn’t care if you were prostitutin’ / That you hit every man that you ever knew / See it wouldn’t make a difference / If that was way before me and you girl.

Feminist: An anti-slut-shaming anthem: Her sexual history is not an issue, even if she had sex with every man she has ever met. That’s pretty progressive!

Misogynist: Well, the history is unimportant as long as it’s ancient—”way before me and you”—and as long as she’s now only his forever: “Three letters: I do.”

—

“Project Bitch,” a track from Lil Wayne’s Hot Boys days.

Relevant Lyrics: Wayne’s contribution to this track is devoted to the ladies who ” be puttin’ they mouth on it / and they suck everything out of it / and they catch it and swallow it. . . . When I come through in a Rolls Royce / I leave them with no choice / but to hop up in it an just let me make they throat moist.”

Feminist: Hmm.

Misogynist: Yeah.

This week, anti-abortion activists staged an eBay auction to help raise a legal defense fund for Scott Roeder, who was charged with murdering abortion provider George Tiller back in May. With the auction, anti-abortion activists were hoping to capitalize on Roeder’s newfound notoriety by selling off a series of his signed, pro-life memorabilia.

But before the items could hit the virtual auction block, eBay announced that the memorabilia would be removed from the Web site. In a statement, the company said that it would “not allow listings that promote or glorify violence, hate, racial or religious intolerance, or items that encourage, promote, facilitate or instruct others to engage in illegal activity.”

St. Louis cartoonist Gary McCoy had a more personal beef with the auction: It totally ripped off his work.

Among the offending items listed for auction: A cartoon presumably penned by one of Roeder’s fellow inmates and kindred spirits, Jason Dubrowski. The cartoon depicts a newspaper clipping that reads, “Late-term abortion provider killed. Pres. Obama ’shocked and outraged.’” Beyond the paper is the cartoon’s ironic payoff: rows of graves, each marked “Aborted Baby.” It’s signed: To all you prolifers, thanks for your support. Scott Roeder.

McCoy, a conservative cartoonist who regularly addresses abortion in his work, published that very same image back on June 1—minus the alleged murderer’s salutation. Today, Cagle Cartoons, which syndicates McCoy’s work, recognized Roeder and Dubrowski’s cartoon as a near replica of McCoy’s effort, and called the incarcerated duo out for their plagiarism. As the syndicate’s blog notes, Roeder “seems to admit” the theft in the cartoon’s eBay listing: “His name is Jason Dubrowski and is one of the best artists I’ve seen in here . . . The drawing of the field of babies tombstones with the newspaper headline comments of Obama was done after a Christian newsletter printed this illustration which a lady in Valley Center sent to me.”

McCoy was not impressed with the tribute from “one of the best artists” in prison. “I was extremely upset to learn that my cartoon was being plagiarized in order to defend Scott Roeder,” says McCoy, who was alerted to the misappropriation this morning by friends, colleagues, and even Roeder’s estranged wife, Lindsey. Lindsey called McCoy to inform him that Roeder had previously sent both her and her son a copy of McCoy’s original cartoon from prison. Clearly, Roeder was a fan.

McCoy claims he only intended the cartoon to condemn abortion, not support murder. “It was merely my attempt to comment on the contrast between Obama being outraged over Dr. Tiller’s murder, and his lack of action on abortion,” says McCoy. “Look, I’m pro-life. But I don’t condone the killing of abortion doctors. Most legitimate pro-lifers condemn that action. Only the fanatical fringe do that sort of thing, and it really upsets us.”

Roeder and Dubrowski aren’t the only ones who have insulted McCoy’s work this week. eBay’s response to the auction “kind of irked me as well,” says McCoy. “They say they don’t allow listings that promote or glorify violence, and it kind of bothers me that they thought my cartoon promoted violence. I’m glad they took the cartoon down, of course, but I wish they had made it clear that they removed it because it was a plagiarized cartoon, and not because my cartoon was violent.”

Kathryn Holmquist’s little piece of horrific sex advice—sometimes, girls, it’s “too late to say no”—has evolved into a more advanced discussion on this blog. The question: Why should women be required to say “no” in the first place?

The “no means no” mantra that Holmquist is railing against is itself pretty old-school. “No means no” operates on the outdated assumption that men are the “scorers,” women are the “gatekeepers,” and the goal of every sexual encounter is for men to sneak past a woman’s line of defense and get her to not say no. In this model, the default setting of women’s bodies is “available.” Only by verbalizing a “no” can a woman signal that her body is not up for grabs. In recent years, that bullshit has been replaced by more progressive models which focus on raising the consent bar from “absence of no” to “enthusiastic yes.”

On the other hand, “no” is still a really helpful tool for women to use when they must quite urgently communicate to a person that, actually, he does not own her body. Mrs. D lays it out:

“no” should be said, clearly, when the first unwanted interaction occurs. A guy starts to get handsy, you push his hand away, and say “no, stop it.” You’re making out with a guy, and he wants more, you stop what you’re doing and verbally make it clear you’re not interested in more. Most women won’t do this…they’ll do a fully choreographed routine to get away from him without directly telling him no. That is social conditioning imposed on women that needs to change.

She makes a good point: Because women are consistently told that their bodies are public property, it can be a pretty transgressive, frightening, and even dangerous move to tell a man “no.” Saying “no” communicates to a man that he does not own you, and if you’re dealing with a rapist, he may not take too kindly to that suggestion. This power gives “no” its effectiveness, but it also makes the word sometimes difficult to verbalize. (At this point, I’d like to stop and administer another big fuck-you to Kathryn Holmquist for making saying “no” even harder).

When is it difficult to say “no”? Obviously, if a person is passed out drunk, it can be impossible to verbalize a no. It can also be difficult to say “no” when there is a physical and social power dynamic encouraging you to stay silent—when your sex partner is stronger than you, older than you, more respected than you, more confident than you, 0r simply maler than you (remember the part about everyone just assuming that men have a claim on a woman’s body?) In other words, it can be difficult to say “no” when you find yourself in a rape scenario.

But acquaintance rapes present a peculiar barrier to saying “no.” In an acquaintance rape, the power dynamic is a little bit different—you may be hanging out with someone who is bigger, stronger, and maler than you are, but you know them and you trust them. You’re friends. That implicit power imbalance doesn’t even enter your brain. A couple of comments left on a Daily Kos piece on rape discuss how that sense of security can make “no” a lot more difficult:

Yesterday, City Lights Editor Mike Riggs revealed that he dressed as “Trailer Trash Zombie” for Halloween this year, a costume he claimed was “not even a little bit” sexy—“unless short denim shorts, suspenders, a camo ball cap, a black sabbath tee with no sleeves, and really upsetting face paint is your idea of sexy.” Now, we have the photo evidence to judge for ourselves. Is Trailer Park Zombie sexy? Is it just offensive? Or is it one of the rare offensively sexy costumes?

Keep this tidbit in mind, courtesy of Riggs: “also, the shorts progressively shortened through the night as I (a) ripped pieces of them off and (b) pulled them up over my gut.”