In the two years I've written The Sexist, I've offended Catholics, sorority sisters, former homosexuals, Tucker Max fans, breast massagers, a child's sense of innocence, the Huffington Post, heterosexual men, librarians, and the producer of a novelty product designed to keep a man's balls dry when receiving oral sex. And all I got was this CockBib.

OK. Two CockBibs:

The CockBibs—for the uninitiated, the product description clarifies that "BASICALLY... Its A Bib With A D*ck Hole In It!"—arrived unexpectedly by post last Friday, after more than a year of silence from the mysterious inventor of the novelty sexual accessory.

When we last left our inventor, he was defending the "pure comedy" of a baby-sized bib designed to inform your sexual partners that your penis "may cause" them "trauma"—or maybe just "kill" their "pussy." He was also hard at work planning an upcoming line of CockBibs aimed at women ("They will have saying like 'You call that a D*ck'…LOL," he told me at the time). Then, the inventor ceased returning e-mails—and the CockBib website expired.

Fourteen months later: Not one, but two CockBibs, wrapped in plastic and shipped in a  manila envelope with a return address label for a cell phone parts company arrive at my desk. The proportions are generous: I can slide the designated penis hole on these things clear past my elbow. Touché, inventor. But what does it all mean? "Prepare for the driest blow job of your life"? Or perhaps: "Time to throw in the CockBib."

I'm afraid it's the latter.

And so, this will be my final post on The Sexist. And I'd like to thank every person who read this blog and commented on it and shared their stories with me and argued with me and fact-checked me and professionally gchatted with me and tolerated my CockBib jokes here over the past two years. Next month, I'll begin covering sex and gender for the yet-to-launch local website TBD.com. Until then, you can find me on my personal e-mail, or, as always, on Twitter.

As for The Sexist: After a time, the comments sections on these posts will begin to shut their lights and close their doors. You don't have to go home, but you might want to mosey on over to the rest of the content the City Paper has to offer. And stay tuned: In the future, the blog may yet rise again, not unlike the CockBib, with another sex-and-gender columnist at the helm.

Photographs graciously taken by Darrow Montgomery.

Just after midnight on Sept. 8, 2008, D.C. police found Serbennia Chase hiding down the street from the Skylark Lounge strip club covered in her ex-boyfriend’s blood. Chase, who worked at the club as a dancer, admitted to stabbing the man in the neck with a knife outside the club. She was charged with assault with intent to kill and transferred to the D.C. Jail’s Correctional Treatment Facility to await trial.

Chase got a lawyer. And that gave a jail guard the opportunity, Chase claims, to subject her to an escalating series of sexual assaults. As he escorted her between legal visits, Chase claims, a jail employee named “Lt. Harris” repeatedly grabbed her buttocks and vagina, a pattern that culminated in Harris cornering Chase on a back staircase, grabbing her and saying, “When are you going to let me put this dick in you?”

Chase claims that “if she was not an inmate she would [have] slapped his face.” Instead, she reported Harris to jail brass, who she claims responded to her disclosure by restricting her movements within the jail. Chase claims she was barred from participating in the anger management and Narcotics Anonymous classes she had been taking at CTF. She claims she was first transferred to a “more restrictive CTF jail unit,” and then moved to a more restrictive facility entirely—the Rappahannock Regional Jail in Virginia’s Stafford County. There, Chase says she spent two weeks in 24-hour lockdown, getting her food through a slit in the door and only leaving her cell to shower. And even after she was downgraded to a lower security level at Rappahannock, Chase was now two hours away from family—and her defense attorney.

So Chase got another lawyer, and sued the District and the Corrections Corporation of America (which manages the CTF) in February for violating her constitutional rights. In the suit, Chase claims that CTF and jail employees increased her security level “for reasons unrelated to infractions of jail policies and procedures”—namely, to retaliate against her for snitching on an alleged sexual assailant.

In its legal response, the D.C. government and CCA argued that there’s nothing wrong with slapping more restrictive security conditions on Chase. “Such a policy is not itself unconstitutional,” as increasing restrictions against an inmate has “several legitimate penological purposes relating to security and inmate safety.” Especially, the District says, in the case of a whistleblower: “This is likely particularly so where an inmate has filed allegations of sexual abuse and harassment against a member of the prison staff.” Trust us, the city and the prison corporation were essentially saying—we’ve got to do whatever it takes to keep our inmates safe. Even if the only threat to their well-being came from prison guards. (A CCA rep said the corporation doesn’t comment on litigation, but that “CCA lacks the authority to determine which facilities D.C. inmates are assigned to.”)

The District’s legal arguments persuaded U.S. District Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle to dismiss the case earlier this month. Which is, more often than not, how these sorts of cases go.

In corrections facilities across the country, “inmate safety” is a persistent rationale for punishing those who have reported assaults behind bars. “After an inmate reports an assault, they often end up having more restrictions on them, going into isolation, or being transferred to another facility with a higher security level,” says Melissa Rothstein, senior program director for prison rape watchdog organization Just Detention International.

But when the staff is responsible for the victimization, solutions like isolation don’t necessarily offer much protection, even though that’s the argument prisons rely on to get judges to approve their actions. “The rationale is that the inmate will be safer there—but they often remain at great risk for assault or retaliation by staff as well as by other inmates,” Rothstein says. “We’ve unfortunately seen some pretty serious retaliation against inmates who file sexual assault reports against staff members. While corrections officers justify this housing as needed for safety and order, it does not always result in better protection for the victim.”

Chase is not the only CTF inmate to complain of retaliation-by-security after a sexual assault report. In 2008, Jessica Rubio was in CTF on solicitation charges and attempting to “turn her life around” by participating in the facility’s “Life Without a Crutch” support group. Rubio claims that “Sgt. Powell,” the CTF staffer running the group, repeatedly paid Rubio’s pimp for the right to have sex with her in the jail’s satellite kitchen. Rubio says that Powell would remove her from her cell during designated “quiet times” and take her to the kitchen where she “felt obligated to have sex with him.” (Her pimp provided her with a receipt.)

After disclosing the alleged assaults in June 2008, Rubio claims that she was put under “lock down,” and that “certain services and programs, that she enjoyed prior to her disclosures, were denied to her”—including phone calls and hygiene packages. Later, Rubio, like Chase, was transferred to Rappahannock Regional Jail, “without a hearing on the transfer, or its impact on her.” In February, Rubio filed a similar suit against the District; attorney Wendell Robinson, who represented both women, declined to comment on the cases.

According to The Examiner, the D.C. jail put Powell and Harris on administrative leave after the allegations surfaced at CTF. But sexual assault allegations have a way of following the accuser no matter where they’re incarcerated. “If a staff member abuses an inmate, and an inmate reports it, you’ll sometimes see other staff members retaliate against that inmate because they ratted on one of their own,” Rothstein says. Even transferring an inmate to a separate facility won’t necessarily prevent retaliation. “Information tends to travel with a person,” Rothstein says.

Given the pervasive nature of retaliation against accusers, it’s not surprising that corrections officials feel justified in increasing security around inmates abused by staff. But when heightened security means loss of privileges, increased distance from family, limited access to educational programs, and sometimes 24-hour lockdown, even a well-meaning policy “can become a kind of a punishment for reporting assault,” Rothstein says. It’s unlikely, however, that the form of punishment is actually unconstitutional: Rubio’s case, which is ongoing, rests on very similar claims to Chase’s dismissed suit.

“People don’t have a right to be at a certain facility,” Rothstein says. “Jail officials have a lot of leeway in how they make that determination.” You might expect an inmate’s accommodations to be determined by what brought them to jail in the first place—like stabbing someone in the neck. In D.C., though, jail officials are free to reprimand inmates for what happens next—like being sexually abused, and talking about it. That’s a lot of leeway, indeed.

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

Creepiest wedding gift in human history? You decide:

The present I humbly send her today is this column; this public note, this irrevocable display of affection and support and gratitude; this worldly absolution from any guilt or sadness she felt between the time she said no to me and the time she said yes to him. No one ought to have to carry that with them into a marriage. I showered her with as much love as I could muster when we were together. I still love her and always will. So I am only too happy to offer my toast to her now, one more time, before she takes her vows.

Politics Daily's Andrew Cohen is obviously in a pretty weird place in his life right now. And he has decided to share it with us all! So let us count the backhanded compliments Cohen delivers, as "the great love of my life marries today and I am not the groom" [Thanks to Date Lab for the tip]:

* Crazy love: "not enough" or too much? And am I to blame for my own unhappiness, or are you? Oh, it's probably me:

I had my chance, a few years ago, but did not realize until too late how fleeting my moment with her was meant to be. Whether it was my fault or hers, and, let's face it, it was probably mine, I will wonder always about the life I might have had with the most loving and loveable woman I have ever known. Sometimes, I finally now understand, love, even crazy love, is not enough. Sometimes, as the romance novelists know, timing is everything.

* Hope you made the right choice!!!:

But today is not a day for remorse. It is not a day for lost causes. Today is a day for celebration. The woman I once promised to keep happy is happy. She tells me she is marrying a wonderful man, with a good heart, whom she believes I would have liked had we met in different circumstances. She lives where she wants to live. She has selected her life's path. All that is left for me to do is to wish her well and to hope that she has made the right choice; that she continues to find in him what she did not find in me. And I am sure he considers himself today the luckiest man on the face of the Earth.

* Did I mention the son you left still talks about you?:

I want to thank her for being so delightful with my son, who talks about her still.

* At least my dead dad thinks we're still together:

Until almost literally his dying day, my dad would ask me about her. Near the end, almost exactly two years ago, I did not have the heart to tell him that we had broken up. It gives me peace figuring that he died thinking she'd be in my life when he was gone.

* Even though you're gone, you helped me discover that I could find happiness again. By impregnating you:

Before I met her, as a single father, I never would have considered having another child. Although it took more time than it should have, I came to realize through her love and devotion that there would be nothing more I would rather do in the world than have a child with her. How many poor souls go their whole lives without the heart-string pull of such emotions?

* Thanks for inspiring me to resent most other women in this city:

I want to thank her for being such an inspiration. She did not give in or sell out or become one of those poor women of a certain age in New York who have put their careers ahead of their lives. When we met, she was living in New York but was not of New York; transplanted from the West Coast, she had not allowed herself to be seduced entirely by the City's charms. She took from Manhattan, like so many other beautiful women do, but she never gave to it her heart and soul. She was always rooted even among the rootless of her age and time. She knew she would one day leave the City, and she did, on her own terms. I admire her for that. I respect her for that. And I love her for it.

* Our imaginary wedding doesn't make my love for you any less real:

It wasn't too long after we met that I began imagining what our wedding day would be like. My second, her first, I nonetheless pictured her not taking it too seriously, laughing off the little crises that always pop up. I pictured her stunning in her dress and with that smile that would melt me. I pictured her having a vodka and soda to ease her nerves. I pictured us laughing a lot. I pictured myself at the end of the aisle. It was not to be. I've known that for years. But that doesn't make the love any less real.

So . . . was he invited to the real wedding?

FOX5 investigates why some D.C. special events—including D.C.'s traditional Halloween drag event, the Dupont "High Heel" race—aren't forced to pay the city fees for the D.C. police officers employed as security for the parades. Kristopher Baumann, Chairman of the Fraternal Order of Police's Labor Committee, suggests that the city money used to subsidize the parties might be better spent, like, address the murder rate. [Via Metro Weekly]

Yesterday, D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier released a statement on the incident. "I take concerns about the appropriate use of police powers very seriously," Lanier said. "Members who are found to have abused their authority are subject to both criminal and disciplinary penalties up to and including termination." So, was Culp canned over the slur-happy arrest?

Lanier refused to comment on the disciplinary penalties applied to Culp. But according to Lanier, Culp was not, at least, subject to criminal penalties over the arrest. The D.C. police's Internal Affairs Bureau "immediately launched a criminal investigation into the matter and subsequently referred the arrest to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for further criminal investigation and prosecution, if appropriate," Lanier says—but the Attorney's Office declined to prosecute Culp.

The American Civil Liberties Union, which represents Tuma, is looking for more than just discipline—it wants to revise D.C.'s "disorderly conduct" statute to reduce the possibility for police abuse. The ACLU told Fox 5 that "disorderly conduct" is "a false charge used every time an officer thinks someone has spoken disrespectfully or harshly to them, so we want that changed." Lanier disagrees with the ACLU's characterization of the law—she says that "disorderly conduct" is a necessary charge to prevent people from "urinating in public" or "blocking the sidewalk or road and refusing to let others pass." But she adds that D.C. police are committed to working alongside the ACLU to review the statute.

Lanier will say that Culp's tactic isn't exactly the D.C. police's preferred method for dealing with citizens who mouth off to cops. That would be something called "Verbal Judo."

"[B]elieve me, police do not make an arrest every time an officer thinks someone 'has spoken disrespectfully or harshly to them,'" Lanier's statement continued. "That happens everyday, and we train officers in a widely used tactical communication strategy (Verbal Judo) to defuse these situations." Lanier added that "Verbal Judo" is "by no means a magic wand," but that "it would be a mistake to let this case in which an officer is alleged to have acted outside both the law and Department policy drive the current discussion about revisions to the law."

* NOM's nationwide "One Man, One Woman" bus tour takes a turn: Dude with sign voices support for lynching gays.

* Via Broadsheet, the gays aren't the only ones destroying marriage: Sleeping in separate beds may also be threatening the institution.

* Sady Doyle writes in support of snark (kinda):

"Snark" is one of those fundamentally goofy internet neologisms that we could try to fight, but are better-off just learning to work with. The word denotes mean humour: sarcasm, venom, the art of the put-down. Mostly, it's an attitude. Snark is the kids at the back of the class, heckling the substitute teacher; it's the voice of people who feel stifled, talked down to, or left out; the tool of people who have discovered that honing in on the weaknesses of those in power, exposing them publicly (if only to their own circle of friends), and reducing them to figures of fun (if only in their own minds), makes them feel a little less helpless.

* The Washington Blade has more on the death of Secrets dancer Mark Gower:

Although it couldn’t be immediately determined how long Gower was dead inside his apartment, White said police indicated he could have died shortly after he was discovered missing, which was nearly two weeks before the body was found.

* Lilith redux: NPR talks to 700 female musicians about the industry.

Last week, a brief history of racism among participants in the Washington Post Magazine Date Lab inspired some spirited defenses of racial preferences in the boudoir—and some polite rejections of the idea that one's blind date is merely acceptable "for an Asian guy." Let's take a look!:

Kim Chi Ha says it's about preference, not ethnicity. (I say it's about preference for ethnicity! But I digress):

I really think it’s a matter of preference and not a matter of ethnicity. You’re attracted to who you’re attracted to. Some people prefer blondes, others prefer brunettes. It’s not discrimination. You can’t help what features you’re attracted to. Some people are attracted to Asians, some are attracted to whites, some are attracted to them all. Just because you have a preference on the basis of someone’s ethnicity, doesn’t make you racist. It’s like having a preference for someone who’s tall versus someone who’s short. If you’re going to prefer an Asian over someone who’s white, it’s probably because of the culmination of looks that tend to occur more among Asians.

Why does everything have to come down to being about racism?

Katie says it's not natural:

you can’t help who you’re attracted to, but you can help making blanket statements about entire races of people that are probably based on stereotypes and subconscious or overt racial discrimination (you being used generally here). We have to at least be willing to consider what informs our attitudes and ideals of what makes a person “attractive.” It’s not just genetics.

Kit-Kat says the daters are doing it wrong:

If it was really just about looks, that might be one thing–we’re attracted to what we’re attracted to. If I have a thing for dark skin, or blond hair, or green eyes, then I’m likely to find myself attracted to people from ethnic or racial groups in which those features are more common.

But (1) not all people in the same ethnic group look the same. There is a *huge* amount of variation in terms of hair color, skin color, facial features, etc. among Caucasians, Hispanics, African-Americans, Indians, Asians, etc., which makes a statement like “I don’t find Indians attractive” just stupid.

And (2) not all of these daters are speaking purely in terms of looks. Some of them are pretty open about their prejudices. Plus, to not even really give someone a chance because of their race is discrimination.

. . . My real objection though, is that it’s stupid dating behavior. Sometimes a good match for you is someone you are not initially head-over-heels for, or who doesn’t match your superficial checklist. Sometimes attraction grows over time, as you get to know someone. Sometimes looks become less important as deeper connections develop. Even if it’s not racist, it’s pretty shallow and self-limiting.

chris sets some ground rules:

Litmus test for whether something you’re saying is racist or not: Would you be willing to say it face-to-face to someone of the race/ethnicity you’re talking about? If not, it’s probably racist. If so, it might still be racist and you might be a colossal asshole. . . . protip: Saying “All x people always/never do y” is not really helping you look not-racist.

upk on the effects of bedroom racism:

. . . some people might be applying the idea that racism is a combination of prejudice and power. Even if they choose not to date a person because of his race, they are not depriving him of something he is legitimately entitled to (sex with them).

Matt is like, does being straight make me sexist? (In other news, commenter Matt is straight, everyone!):

Is it sexism if, as a heterosexual man, I don’t want to date a dude??? Give me a break!

Photo via George Eastman House

A post from City Paper intern Alex Burchfield:

Last week, NPR’s Andrea Hsu aired a story about the shackling of incarcerated women during childbirth. Her report sheds light on a little-known practice that lawyers and human rights advocates are calling “tantamount to torture.” Take the story of 25-year-old Jennifer Farrar, who was arrested and charged for cashing fake payroll checks:

One day the following January, Farrar went to court for a hearing, and there the pains began. An ambulance was called. Farrar says officers cuffed her hands and chained her legs together. Another chain was placed around her belly, connecting her hands to her feet. When she got to the hospital, she says, the belly chain was removed, but her legs were still chained and one hand was cuffed to the bed.

For a woman accused of merely faking payroll checks, this treatment seems excessive, to say the least. And according to doctors and nurses, such treatment also poses serious health risks. Ginette Ferszt, an Associate Professor at the University of Rhode Island's College of Nursing, informed The Sexist of a number of risks involved with shackling: It can interfere with pain relief, prevent the proper performance of a C-section, and delay the administration of an epidural. Possible complications can include excessive bleeding or even the death of the child.

As stories similar to Farrar's have proliferated across the country, ten states have passed legislation to ban shackles, handcuffs and restraints during childbirth:  California, Colorado, Illinois, New Mexico, New York, Texas, Vermont, Washington state, West Virginia and Pennsylvania.

Notice that the District of Columbia is not included on that list? The District’s Department of Corrections didn't respond to a request for comment on shackling. So attorney Deborah Golden, a member of the DC Prisoners’ Legal Services Project Staff, provided some insight into D.C.’s history with the practice. “DC doesn’t explicitly ban shackling and there is no policy, per se,” Golden wrote in an e-mail. “But in 1996, in the course of Women Prisoners of DC v. DC, the court banned shackling of women in labor."

Can a woman be legally chained to her bed while giving birth in the District? Technically. In 1993, Women Prisoners of DC filed a class action lawsuit against the Department of Corrections, alleging that their constitutional rights had been violated after male prison staffers had physically and sexually abused them. Over the course of three years, the DOC was ordered to institute mandatory training on sexual harassment and hire a health educator. In addition to these demands, the court banned all use of restraints during and after child delivery. So far, the precedent of this ruling has not been rescinded—but it is by no means an absolute safeguard. "Technically, the injunction doesn’t exist anymore," Golden said. "[B]ut everyone has pretty much followed that practice, as far as I know.”

Photo via captain.orange, Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

"This is an action for damages and other relief by Pepin A. Tuma, who was detained, arrested and humiliated by Defendant Officer James Culp without any lawful basis and with the sole and illegitimate purpose of harassing Mr. Tuma because of Mr. Tuma’s criticism of the police and Officer Culp’s perception that Mr. Tuma is gay," the complaint reads.

Tuma—accompanied by friends Luke Platzer and David Stetson on U Street that night—admits to engaging in some light taunting prior to his arrest. From his complaint:

Across the street, on the north side of U Street, several police cruisers were parked with their lights on and several police officers were engaging in what appeared to be a traffic stop of a single civilian. Mr. Tuma noticed the police cruisers and commented to his friends that this seemed to be another example of excessive policing. As Mr. Tuma passed the police cruisers, he said, in a sing-song voice, “I hate the police; I hate the police.” Neither Mr. Tuma nor his friends stopped or slowed down as they walked. They did not approach, address or gesture to any of the police officers.

Then, Tuma claims:

Within seconds . . . Officer Culp charged across U Street shouting, in substance, "Who do you think you are? Who do you think you’re talking to? You can’t talk to me that way!" . . . When Officer Culp reached Mr. Tuma, he forcefully pushed Mr. Tuma up against a utility box . . . handcuffed him, and dragged him across to the north side of U Street to the police cruisers where he was searched and placed under arrest. Mr. Tuma did not resist in any way. When Mr. Tuma asked why he was being arrested, Officer Culp replied, “Just shut up, faggot.” . . . Mr. Tuma later learned that he had been arrested for disorderly conduct.

According to the complaint, Tuma filed complaints against Culp with the Second District police station, the D.C. Office of Police Complaints, and D.C. police chief Cathy Lanier. Tuma's complaint says that Culp was disciplined over the arrest. Tuma, who is being represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, is now suing Culp and D.C. for violating his constitutional rights, false arrest, assault and battery, and intentional infliction of emotional distress—as evidenced by the slur.

Tuma seeks compensatory damages—and "an injunction directing the District of Columbia to expunge all records of his arrest . . . and authorizing him to deny that he was arrested on July 26, 2009." I have an e-mail out to MPD for comment.

* HUD claims that transgender people are protected against housing discrimination via the Fair Housing Act's prohibition against "gender discrimination"—even though the law doesn't specifically list gender identity discrimination as prohibited.

* Mark Gower, a 26-year-old dancer at SW strip club Secrets, was found dead in his apartment last week.

* The Washington Post conducted a four-month investigation into the career of former Manassas schoolteacher Kevin Ricks, a man the paper says "moved from one teaching job to the next over nearly 30 years, navigating the nation's public and private school systems undetected, evading traps designed to catch him"—and racking up molestation allegations along the way.

* Carolyn Hax on the etiquette of outing your gay ex-husband.

* DC Center plans discussion on body image issues among gay, bisexual, and trans men.

* Susannah Breslin on sexual assault games:

To promote the release of Bret Easton Ellis' new novel, Imperial Bedrooms, a digital creative agency in London created an online game that encourages players to virtually manipulate a young woman. If you play the game right — encourage her, get her drunk, get her high — you'll score a blow job, and then you can brag to your friends about a job well done by posting your "high" score to the social networking site of your choice. So, is this social commentary, or marketing misogyny?

Last week on the Sexist:

1. Buttman v. The Man, in which milk enemas manage to disgust, but fail to offend, D.C. jurors.

2. A Brief History of Date Lab Racism, in which I was hoping to be hooked up with someone less racist, but he's cute so I'll keep an open mind.

3. But Was She Wearing High Heels?, in which victim-blaming hits the courtroom.

4. Anti-Porn Scholar: Watching Porn Gets Women Raped, in which zany theories are aired.

5. The Morning After: Post-Racial Deodorant Edition, in which Old Spice heals our racial sexiness divide.

This snappy two-minute video recap of NOM's bus tour stop in Maryland reveals a clever new twist on the hetero marriage defense: "We're asked to believe that a mother, a biological mother, will have no problem sharing the care of her child with another woman!" one speaker announces at the rally. "Moms, do you believe that?" (They do not!) Sure, NOM can understand two women loving each other and wanting to spend their lives together. But once it's time for the couple to share in the child-rearing, the biological mother's jealousy will ultimately destroy them both—along with every American family? That's just science.

When NOM's mandatory heterosexuality tour stopped by Newark on Tuesday, Parents & Friends of Ex-Gays (PFOX) leader Greg Quinlan was on-hand to present the ex-gay position on heterosexual marriage: Desperate! "If you know of anybody, send them my way," said Quinlan, who is totally straight now (and divorced). "I live right here in Roxbury Township, up in North Jersey. I’ll give you my name and number afterwords, if you know of anybody who’s available." He then offered his criteria for a potential mate: "Female. And breathing." Go get him, ladies!

Does the legacy of Riot Grrrl live on in your District of Columbia? Tell it to Sara Marcus and Cat Tyc, currently planning a video installation on riot grrrl called "Girls to the Front" to accompany Marcus' upcoming book of the same name. Marcus and Tyc are looking for people of all genders and ages whose lives have been changed by riot grrrl and "punk-rock feminism." "The point isn’t to wax nostalgic," they write. "It’s to acknowledge and celebrate the countless ways that the legacy of Riot Grrrl is still very much alive in all of our lives." Here's how to contribute a video to the project:

It doesn’t have to be anything fancy. If you don’t have access to a real camera, you can shoot it on a cell phone or a laptop.* And short: 1–3 minutes is plenty.

In the video, tell us some or all of these four things:

1. Who are you?

2. Show us your life. (This means whatever’s important to you: art, work, family, home . . . anything.)

3. How did you first hear of Riot Grrrl (or punk feminism, or whatever)?

4. How has it shaped who you are today?

Camera tips:

Feel free to use different shots and angles for different questions. Make sure you’re well lit—natural light (like sitting by a window or outside) is always best—and make sure there’s minimal background noise. Have someone else hold the camera if possible, so you can just concentrate on telling your story.

*If you don’t have any way to shoot video, just send us a photo of yourself that portrays something important about you, and email us your answers to the questions. We’ll fit you in.

Technical stuff about how to send the video to us:

Don’t worry about editing the video before you send it to us, unless you really, really want to, because we’ll be editing it on our end.

Before sending, you need to export the file into a Quicktime file. In iMovie, you can do this from Share – Export using Quicktime. In Final Cut, you Export – Using Quicktime Conversion. A box will pop up and you should click options to adjust the codecs to these specs: H.264 video setting at 640x480 pixels. You can find where to adjust these settings in the same box that asks to name the file & where you want to save it to under Options.

If you don't have Final Cut or iMovie, you can also just record your testimonial on your web cam (using Photo Booth on a Mac, or your computer’s built-in camera software on a PC—look in the Programs list for something that looks like the name of a camera, for instance on my Dell it’s under “Dell Webcam”) and upload it directly.

After it’s done, please send to girlstothefront@gmail.com via YouSendIt (www.yousendit.com) which is a free and easy way to send files.

You can find this call online, and pass it around, by going to the book’s Facebook page: http://bit.ly/cLSPku.

* Alyssa Rosenberg articulates my annoyance with the glamorization of "housewife":

This is a show [Real Housewives] where the term that distinguishes the franchise, "housewife," is pretty much stripped of all meaning. You don't have to be married to be a Real Housewife. You don't even have to be dating anyone particularly seriously. And you're almost certainly not simply a stay-at-home wife or mom if you've been found interesting enough to be on the show. You're running a business, or a charity, or at the very least, stirring up a hell of a lot of trouble semi-professionally. Being an American wife doesn't mean anything in particular these days. That definitional void might be scary, but it's also an opportunity to fill it up with something valuable and interesting and varied.

Interesting. I've always seen the show's title as a shallow attempt to redefine successful women solely by their roles as wives and mothers. But perhaps it works the other way, too—housewives can have it all. Even jobs!

* Via the Washington Blade: D.C. police chief Cathy Lanier has launched an investigation into a satirical flier circulated around the force announcing "D.C.’s First Deaf Mute Gay Marriage."

* Not only will watching porn cause you to get raped, it may also kill you!

* Graph! Canada loves gay marriage. And "Kisses to the 3.5 percent of gay-affirming Jamaicans," Rick Rosendall writes at GLAA Forum.

* NOM tour hits Maryland, attempts to prevent all video evidence of the event:

[youtube:v=qe9QNdcRplw]

Photo via The U.S. National Archives

Back in April, I reported on national standards proposed to end prison rape in the American justice system—and speculated as to whether the pricetag was too high for corrections facilities t commit to implementing them. Last week, the Department of Justice released a report from consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton detailing just how much the PREA standards will cost federal and local governments.

Last month, Attorney General Eric Holder missed his deadline for implementing permanent corrections standards to bring U.S.corrections facilities in line with the Prison Rape Elimination Act, passed 7 years ago. The Prison Rape Elimination Act Cost Impact Analysis [PDF] is an attempt to weigh the recommendation of the PREA commission against the financial concerns of corrections facilities across the country. Just Detention International, bless it, sifted through the 414-page document, and JDI executive director Lovisa Stannow has one major gripe with the accounting: It only includes the costs of the PREA standards, not the benefits—like people not being raped anymore. Stannow:

Strong national standards aimed at ending sexual violence behind bars are urgently needed. The Justice Department's own studies have shown that tens of thousands of prisoners, jail inmates, and juvenile detainees are sexually abused every year. The measures recommended by the National Prison Rape Elimination Commission have the potential to improve safety significantly in our nation's detention facilities.

In the recently released report, Booz Allen Hamilton only examined the cost of each proposed standard, without considering the benefits and cost-savings that would result from instituting these basic measures to improve safety and decrease sexual violence in detention. Beyond the dramatic impact on the well-being of inmates, staff, and society at large, the prevention of prisoner rape will decrease costs of litigation, grievance petitions, staff turnover, and the need for medical and mental health treatment.

Notwithstanding its focus on cost regardless of savings, the report found that the vast majority of the proposed standards are readily achievable without significant expense. Three standards—assessment and use of monitoring technology, limits on cross-gender viewing and searches, and inmate supervision — accounted for 99 percent of all estimated upfront costs. Through innovative practices already established at forward thinking facilities, these expenses can be minimized.

Regardless of cost, corrections and detention agencies have a moral and constitutional obligation to protect inmates in their charge. The proposed standards will greatly assist officials in upholding that duty. Attorney General Holder should adopt a robust set of standards as quickly as possible. Every day that he delays action, men, women, and children are subjected to rape behind bars.

Current compliance with the proposed PREA standards ranges widely from state to state—and standard to standard. While 98 percent of facilities currently comply with a standard of "disciplinary sanctions for staff" found to have sexually assaulted inmates, only 62 percent provide "agency protection against retaliation" and a mere 8 percent offer "zero tolerance of sexual abuse." The best corrections facilities in the country are as high as 88 percent complaint across the standards; the worst are as low as 38 percent complaint. Obviously, the corrections facilities with the lowest current compliance rates will have the biggest gripes about the costs associated with implementing the standards. How long will the Justice Department continue to tolerate the concerns of these unsafe facilities?

Photo via christian.senger, Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

Translatina, a documentary on the lives of trans women in Latin America, will see its D.C. debut next week at the Pan American Health Organization. The film tackles a host of issues affecting the community—from sex work to sexual assault to homelessness to HIV to  police brutality: "We hit them, with no shame, because they are men," one police officer says in the film. "They are transvestites. They are homosexuals." Screening details after the jump.

Thursday, July 29 2010, 6 p.m.
Pan American Health Organization
525 23rd St. NW

RSVP to sida@paho.org.

The courtroom was silent, save for the faint sound of screaming emanating from the jury box. Fourteen District jurors, outfitted with court-mandated headsets, watched excerpts from gonzo porn titles Milk Nymphos and Storm Squirters 2: Target Practice in the course of the federal obscenity trial against pornographer John “Buttman” Stagliano last week. An audience of about 50 onlookers watched them watch it.

“Yes, it was nasty,” says juror Terri Crawford, 46, who spent the bulk of the viewing looking sad. “There was things in that video that was degrading to humans.”
In opening arguments, the U.S. government had warned the jury of those things: Performers using “syringes and tubes to pump milk into women’s anuses and vaginas,” then expelling the milk from their orifices and “into each other’s mouths.” A performer inserting his “penis into a woman’s anus” and then immediately into “another woman’s mouth.” “Drills” in “women’s vaginas.” “Extreme close-up shots” of “women squirting liquid” across the room. A “foot inside a vagina.”

The government also warned the jury of what it wouldn’t see: a “real plot-line.”
What the government failed to detail is why the jury should care. “This wasn’t any of our business,” juror Stephanie Mordecai, 43, said after the trial. Throughout the viewing, Mordecai held the base of her headset defensively in front of her face, as if the thin swoop of plastic could shield her from the parade of milk enemas unfolding on screen.

Last Friday, U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon threw out the government’s case against Stagliano due to lack of evidence. But before he did, the jurors were forced to watch 50 minutes of Milk Nymphos and 36 minutes of Storm Squirters, porn titles Stagliano was charged with transporting from California to a D.C. post office box. The jury never got the opportunity to decide whether the films violated D.C.’s “community standard” for obscene material.

Too bad: The government had cherry-picked the titles for the express purpose of riling them. “Looking at the covers [on the website], it appeared that those movies emphasized the excretory function and squirting,” FBI Special Agent Dan Bradley testified on the witness stand. “So that’s why I ordered them.” The Milk Nymphos soundtrack contained a little extra trigger for District jurors: In it, porn actress Annette Schwartz entreats fellow performer Jon Jon to “come on you nigger, fuck me in the ass,” then instructs Lorelei Lee to “look in his eyes when you suck his nigger cock.”

But after the trial, jurors were more concerned with what wasn’t in Milk Nymphos: Violence. Rape. Bestiality. Kids. “These people were adults and they were willing. No one put a gun to their head,” Crawford said. “Had they brought a child out in pampers, then we would have been like, hell no,” Mordecai added. In opening arguments, the defense emphasized that the only entity forcing anyone to watch porn is the government. “The movies are not—and are not meant to be—distributed to these 14 strangers sitting in a federal courthouse,” defense attorney Paul Cambria said. The films feature “adults putting on a performance...for another adult, who would make that choice [to watch it] if that were his or her cup of tea.”

After watching two (or three) consenting adults engage in milk enemas and vaginal squirting in open court, Stagliano jurors may not be clamoring for more milk in their tea—but they’re not crying over it, either. After the trial was dismissed, one of those adults, Milk Nymphos’ Lee, passed quickly by a group of jurors in a court hallway. “We’ve seen you before. Aren’t you the milk girl?” a juror called after her. Lee waved. The juror turned back to her fellow jurors. “She should get her teeth fixed,” she said. “I guess the milk isn’t doing too much for her.”

“That’s because they keep spilling it all,” Mordecai said.

A lot has changed in the 30 years since the government last brought a high-profile obscenity case to D.C. In 1973, a city jury was tasked with deciding whether the Swedish adult film Hot Circuit was obscene enough to require jail time for Louis K. Sher, who’d been charged with “distribution and exhibition” of the title. According to IMDB, the film is an ensemble porn featuring a salesman, a stripper, a babysitter, a feminist, an anti-feminist woodcutter, a forest’s nymph, a secretary, and a hustler who accidentally spills whipped cream onto the stripper.

Unlike Milk Nymphos, Hot Circuit’s dairy play failed to amuse District jurors—they found Sher guilty of violating federal and local obscenity laws, including “knowingly presenting” the film in D.C. and shipping obscene material from New Jersey.

In the three decades since U.S. v. Sher, the government’s approach to obscenity cases hasn’t exactly evolved with the times. Despite the proliferation of adult material online—where anal milk is hardly the strangest fetish on display—Stagliano was tried for the antiquated offense of physically shipping obscene material across state lines.

The government made a half-hearted attempt to modernize the prosecution by introducing the online trailer for Belladonna’s Fetish Fanatic Chapter 5 as evidence: Minors could access in as few as “four clicks” on Stagliano’s website, prosecutors said. But the trailer was thrown out of the trial after prosecutors couldn’t figure out how to play it for the jury without it freezing mid-way through the display of vaginal drilling.

In the end, the prosecution’s case fizzled not on the obscenity test, but on simple facts: The government failed to prove that Stagliano actually sent anything to anyone.

Obscentity prosecutions have ebbed and flowed over the years. Once a culture-war touchstone—Reagan-era Attorney General Ed Meese famously authored a 2,000-page report that blamed porn for a variety of ills—smut-versus-state battles slipped from the headlines during the ’90s. George W. Bush’s administration made some efforts to revive the war on filth, nearly doubling the number of prosecutions. And now they’ve fallen again under Barack Obama. But Stagliano’s trial, like many of the obscenity cases still languishing in federal court, was originally the work of a Bush-era task force.

The Justice Department declined to offer a rationale for the prosecution—or any predictions about whether D.C. residents can expect a less bumbling repeat performance anytime soon. For his part, Stagliano told reporters outside the courthouse that today’s government simply lacked the “passion” to prosecute him. One of his attorneys, though, said porn cases were doomed not because of missing passion on the part of the government, but because of free-speech sensibilities on the part of potential jurors.

“Jurors have a difficult time with the government telling people what they should think, see, or believe,” offered Robert Corn-Revere, who served as local counsel for the defense. “That will likely be a lesson for the government going forward.” After hearing that a group of female jurors had convened post-trial to make milk jokes, Cambria was more direct: “Women!” he exclaimed. “Fantastic.”

Juliana Brint contributed to this report.

As a past date lab participant, I want to vomit every time this beaten to death subject arises. Luckily none of the above mentions my particular article, but I have to chime in. As with any reporting, as I’m sure Ms. Hess knows, the interview process which took about an hour and a half over two days was boiled down to about 45 seconds worth of quotes pieced together to make an ‘interesting’ story.

Most questions are fairly run of the mill to try to get a dialogue going (what did you do before the date? How did you feel about blah blah blah), but a fair number were very specific and in hindsight an attempt to lead the interviewees toward a particular topic. I recall being told that a certain application question answer was used to set us up, and was asked if I was happy with the looks and race of the date since they thought he would be ‘my type’ . . . then the interviewer linked my response to this question to a totally separate one in which she asked me to describe in detail what my date looked like physically ‘because she hadn’t seen photos yet.’

Yes, obviously in retrospect after reading the final product I should have foreseen this, but at the same time it’s kind of ridiculous of readers to take these stories as truth and divine prejudice/racism/whatever. Maybe, City Paper, if this is newsworthy, you should create a better date lab type column? Or highlight something actually new and different for a change?

Interesting. Any eager applicants for the Washington City Paper's Race Lab?

* The New Gay is looking for stories of people affected by a lack of ENDA. "Fired from your job for being gay, lesbian, bi or trans? Do you feel that no one cares about your lack of livelihood born from our governments systematic betrayal of its own people? Now you can do something about it," TNG writes. File your stories here.

* Fugitivus on sex work:

Theoretically, I don’t have a problem with sex work. I don’t think there’s anything inherently, fundamentally wrongdirtybad with sex as a job, or sex for pay. But that’s based on a concept of sex work in a vacuum, and we don’t live in a vacuum. We live in a patriarchy. And sex work situated within a patriarchal world is inevitably swimming in a pool of wrongdirtybad, and anything tagged with the wrongdirtybad brush becomes fair game for serious violations of humanity.

On the one hand, since my ideal vision of the world doesn’t differentiate sex work from any other kind of work, it seems like that should be the thing I’m working toward. I “should” be the kind of feminist that is all on board for decriminalization or legalization, or normalizing the sex trades so they’re not a dirty stigmatized mess — and often I feel bad that I’m not more so. On the other hand, I work in a profession where I frequently see young girls who have been trafficked and exploited, and/or mothers who have had to prostitute themselves in order to feed their children, and their desperation has usually caused them to be exploited as well. Some of the abuses I see surrounding exploited sex work are so heinous that it’s very difficult not to come away with a “SHUT IT ALL DOWN” view of sex work. And yet, I know it’s not something that can be shut down, not now, not ever. I often just don’t feel like my brain is large enough to find a way to integrate some of the worst horrors I’ve ever seen with a utopic vision of positive, healthy sexuality. I don’t know how to overcome my revulsion of abuse long enough to separate the tools (which are not inherently abusive) from the abusive people who are handling them. At some point, they just seem practically, realistically fused together, even if conceptually I know they aren’t.

* Speaking of: Last month, D.C. police busted six people for solicitation [PDF] at 2121 P St. NW.

* Westboro Baptist Church turns its attentions to Lady Gaga.

*Metro Weekly takes a local angle on Chinese counterfeit condoms lubricated with vegetable oil, featuring FUK!T Campaign leader Dan O'Neill:

''When you have counterfeited items, like your Louis Vuitton bags and what have you, at the end of the day, that's not great. But here, when one's life is put at risk,'' [O'Neill] says. ''This has real implications in that it undermines the public's trust in these products.

''What we don't want, or what would be terrible, is if people are just trying to get a deal and at the end of the day they just totally abandon their trust in using condoms altogether, thinking, 'Why bother?'''

As promised, the NOM mandatory heterosexuality tour hit Annapolis today at noon. There, NOM leader Brian Brown demanded that Maryland voters have a chance to vote on same-sex marriage. Brown lives in Virginia. Derek McCoy of the Association of Maryland Families was on-hand to lend local support of the idea:

We will fight for marriage in this State until the end!… Our definition [of marriage] is not passe, is not outdated, is not stale; it’s the definition we’ve already had in a state statute, that we’ve all known for years . . . Let’s take this issue to the ballot box. Let the people decide! Let the people vote!

Maryland will truly never be free until its citizens have the right to restrict the rights of other citizens.

Also of concern: Anti-gay doctor lifts nickname from Julius Erving!

According to internal police documents, sexual assaults in the first half of 2010 are up as much as 325% in areas across the District. Baumann's letter breaks down the numbers:

Internal department documents show that as of June 8, 2010, serious sexual assaults were up 46% city-wide (from 56 during the same period in 2009 to 82 in 2010 . . .  The increases in serious sexual assaults were not uniform throughout the city. The Second Police District (Ward 3) had a 250% increase (from 2 in 2009 to 7 in 2010) and the Third Police District (Ward 1) had a 133% increase (from 6 in 2009 to 14 in 2010). Both of those increases are alwarming and certainly necessitated a proactive response from the police Department, both in enforcement activity and increasing public awareness of not only the problenm, but also resouces for victims and individuals in abusive relationships.

In the Seventh Police District (Ward 8), the increase in serious sexual assaults has been dramatic. Serious sexual assaults increased 325% from 2009 to 2010 (from 4 in 2009 to 17 in 2010). It is important to remember that the Seventh Police District covers an area of only 6.5 square miles and a population of some 60,000. The fact that 17 serious sexual assaults have taken place in an area that small with a population that size cannot be taken lightly. The fact that the Department has taken no steps to identify the problem, warn the public, create education and awareness programs, focus on registered sex offenders, and proactively address the crisis is indefensible.

It's impossible to say whether the increase is due to more assaults or better assault reporting. But Baumann's greater concern centers on discrepancies between the way sexual assaults are reported internally within the police department and externally to the public:

The Department's website contains crime statistics for the city and individual police districts. Rtaher than report serious "sexual assaults" as a category as it oes in internal documents, the Department on its website instead reports all sexual incidents as "sex abuse." This allows the Department to include all criominal sexual reports in one category.

As a result, criminal sexual misdemeanors (e.g. unwanted touching) are included in the numbers for sexual offenses. The number of misdemeanors is significantly higher than the serious felony sexual assaults, and their presence in the same category skews the numbers and serves to mask the increase in serious sexual assaults. For example, the Department's website reported that in 2010 for the Seventh Police District up to June 8, 2010, "sexual abuse" was actually down by 3% (from 33 in 2009 to 32 in 2010).

So by grouping all sexual offenses together—from groping to violent rape—the D.C. police department has obscured (intentionally or not) the increase in reports of the more serious offenses. Beyond the numbers, Baumann's also concerned with the department's tone—he took Lanier to task for downplaying acquaintance rape in her appearance on WTOP earlier this month. Baumann has called for D.C.'s Office of the Inspector General and the D.C. Council's Committee on Public Safety and the Judiciary to investigate the police department's reporting practices.

In an e-mail to WTOP, Police Chief Cathy Lanier wrote, "I have absolutely no problem with the OIG conducting an investigation into my crime statistics." Lanier chalked the controversy up to "confusion" over the department's comprehensive reporting practices: "I am committed to providing full and complete information on crime in the District. Indeed, if anything, more confusion arises because we do provide data in a variety of formats that allow people to analyze the data themselves."

On the subject of "Lesbians Until Graduation," and all the stigma attached to the label, a commenter points to the Two Nice Girls song on the subject. A sampling:

I spent my last ten dollars on birth control and beer
My life was so much simpler when I was sober and queer
But the love of a strong hairy man has turned my head I fear
And made me spend my last ten bucks on birth control and beer

It concludes: "there's certain thrills that lesbian love simply cannot supply / Like paying for abortions from sperm gone awry." Indeed.

Last month, Wheelock College University of Pennsylvania professor Mary Anne Layden hit Capitol Hill to explain how pornography "robs men of their masculinity, of their psychological health, of their self-respect, of their greatness . . . of themselves." Now, Layden is back to explain the effects of pornography use among women: It gets them raped.

From a Washington Times story on the new trend of pornography "addiction" among women:

"The more pornography women use, the more likely they are to be victims of non-consensual sex," said Mary Anne Layden, professor of sociology and women's studies at Wheelock College in Boston. "The earlier the male starts using pornography, the more likely they are to be the perpetrators of non-consensual sex."

The story never mentions that rape thing again. It doesn't offer up any evidence or statistics in its defense. (In fact, it never uses the word "rape"—just the skeezy "non-consensual sex"). In a response, psychologist David J. Ley attempts to figure this all out:

This is a staggering statement, and a frightening insight into the rebirth of the "blame the victim" argument against rape. . . So a female victim testifying her assailant is going to be asked about that time she downloaded a dirty movie to watch? And that has what to do with the immoral, narcissistic, selfish and angry acts of the man who violated her rights? The only way this has any kernel of truth is that highly sexual women are more likely to report use of pornography. Highly sexual women are also likely to report greater numbers of partners, and somewhat higher risk of an incident of sexual abuse or rape, possibly as a result of situations of date rape. But it's not the pornography, and it's not even the women's sexuality. It's the act of person who violates the rights of another.

Layden's assertion is both victim-blaming and perpetrator-excusing. Pretending that porn is responsible for creating rape victims and perpetrators—that it robs men of "themselves" and robs women of consent—shifts the blame for sexual assault away from rapists (the few) and on to every man and woman who watches porn (the many). The implication is that the perpetrator and the victim deserve each other.

And since almost every man admits to looking at porn—and only some women admit to the same—the burden for avoiding "bad" behavior falls largely onto women. Notice how, in Layden's statement, women are faulted for the quantity of porn they consume, whereas men are faulted for the age at which they begin watching porn. Presumably, a woman can control the amount of porn she consumes, but a man can't control the fact that he was initially exposed to pornography at a young age.

Under Layden's model, all men are potential rapists—but some women are good enough to resist making themselves into rape victims.

* Thomas MacAulay Millar on the problem with seeing sexual assailants and domestic abusers as "monsters":

I’m fine with saying that one who does monstrous things is a monster, and the data tells me that this is true. But there is a danger there, that by calling rapists monsters we may convince people that we should be able to see them. We can’t. They look like everyone else. They certainly will give some behavioral clues, but those are subtle. The rapists fit in. If they didn’t, we would all know who they are, and all their targets would avoid them.

. . . Monsters, and not monsters. Regular people that are nice to children and small animals, tip well and bring attention to important causes may also be misogynists, rapists, abusers, racists . . . all the wrong that people are capable of is not concentrated among people who look like they mean to do harm. The people who do the most harm do it, in part, because they can walk among us and not look like monsters. Monsters don’t look like monsters. They look like the rest of us.

* Monsters, and not monsters: Lloyd Mack Royal—also known as "Blyss," "B," and "Furious"—has been sentenced to 37 years in prison for human trafficking of minors in Maryland. Testimony in Royal's trial asserted that he profited off of coercing minor girls into prostitution; threatened those girls verbally and with a gun; hit them; transported them between Maryland and D.C. for the purposes of prostitution; gave them illegal drugs; raped them; forced them to lie about their ages; forced them to sell drugs; and "forced them to kiss his pinky ring."

* Emily Nagoski on sexual fluidity and LUGS.

* Via the GW Hatchet, the GW Medical Center has received a $3 million grant for HIV/AIDS research courtesy of The National Institutes of Health.

* Evil Angel general manager Christian Mann weighs in on the Stagliano trial in the comments:

What could be more absurd? That would be the U.S. government, represented by the real Fetish Fanatics (AKA the DOJ) spending taxpayers’ dollars to clog the judiciary and bring such a case to trial in 2010. My elation at having my boss (and friend) exonerated is tainted by one small regret: I quietly hoped we would have a chance to bring milk enemas and squirting orgasms to the U.S. Supreme Court and douche the archaic obscenity laws from the Criminal Code once and for all.

Photo via George Eastman House

On Thursday, Men Can Stop Rape will host the D.C. premiere of THE LINE, Nancy Schwartzman's documentary about sexual consent as filtered through her own experience with rape. I interviewed Schwartzman in April about confronting her rapist on camera for the film; she'll be on-hand at the event to "facilitate discussion on how to use the film as a teaching tool among advocates, prosecutors, and college men." Details after the jump.

Thursday, July 22, 2010 at 6 p.m.
Center for Education on Violence Against Women
801 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, Suite 375

Space is limited, and RSVP is required: Send full name and organization affiliation to nbates@ncjfcj.org by July 21.

“Moving up to the primary endorsement process, we intentionally started a conversation about women’s rights and what is at the center of it, what shouldn’t be at the center,” [Susan B. Anthony List president Marjorie Dannenfelser] told The Daily Caller. “The women’s movement in its current form has abortion at the core and that is why we have started a dialogue about what true feminism is. It is not because I have ever labeled myself a feminist, but we really felt we needed to take them on on their own ground.”

Ah, so Dannenfelser is a feminist in the same way that I'm pro-life. It's just that the current pro-life movement is focused on ending abortion rights, whereas I'm more interested in making abortion legal and accessible to all women. Because there's no reason that people who are actually against abortion rights should be the only people who are allowed to say that they're against abortion rights.

Tomorrow at noon, the NOM mandatory heterosexuality bus tour will hit Annapolis. The big anti-gay bus will pull up in front of the Maryland State House, where it will be joined star local anti-gay talent: The Bishop Harry Jackson, described by NOM as a "leader in the effort to take back marriage in Washington DC." Also on-hand at the rally will be Association of Maryland Families president Derek McCoy, an outspoken opponent of marriage, abortion, and gambling. Bring your lunch!

D.C.'s Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance (GLAA) has released its questionnaire for the D.C. mayoral race, quizzing candidates on their thoughts on everything from the D.C. police department's Gay and Lesbian Liaison Unit to  "water-based lubricant."

The document surveys the candidates on 26 questions in six categories: marriage, public health, public safety, human rights, education, and business. Some of the queries are pretty pointed: Just try giving the incorrect answer to "Will you support legislation to curb abuses by NIMBYs who are now allowed to file an endless series of baseless complaints to harass or extort bars and restaurants?" or "Will you rein in police officials who respond to legitimate crime concerns with unsustainable, media-centric quick fixes that infringe constitutionally protected civil liberties?" Come on. That's practically a cheat sheet!

Another question of note: Question 26 follows up on the GLAA's push to legalize prostitution earlier this year: "What are your thoughts regarding GLAA’s proposal . . . to mitigate the problems associated with prostitution by legalizing and regulating it? What will you do to provide alternatives to survival sex for at-risk populations like homeless youth and transgenders?"

Participating candidates must file answers to the GLAA by Aug. 17.

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

Last Wednesday, the D.C. Council held a public oversight hearing to discuss D.C.'s recent LGB Health Report—and its exclusion of transgender health data from the findings. In this video summary of the meeting from the DC Center, trans activist Ruby Corado sums up the problem: "There's a lot of agencies—and I will say local agencies—that are in charge of promoting the health of D.C. residents that really do not understand or do not want to understand that we're real people," she said. "They still don't want to hear it."

* The Daily Beast's Tricia Romano declares Old Spice Guy Isaiah Mustafa a "post-racial commercial genius." Commercial genius? Yes, ladies. Post-racial? Not so much, says Georgetown Girl.

* Liz at THE LINE writes about the problematic social imbalance between fraternities and sororities:

The social structure that we lock into as a sorority is, for lack of a better word, stupid. Here’s how it works: sororities are dry and fraternities are not. This means there is absolutely NO alcohol allowed in the sorority houses. If the fraternities host all the parties, decide who gets to come, and provide all the alcohol, who holds all the power? Frat parties can be fun –my friends and I are even known to take our costumes to the next level. But there is a problem with the structure because it promotes an unbalanced social scene.

* Help Holla Back DC! re-brand itself.

* Milk Nymphos star Lorelei Lee talks to Broadsheet about the importance of keeping her real name private:

While most of the fan mail that I receive is positive, I've also received a number of e-mails that have been pretty frightening. For my own safety, my professional name is the one that I use in every public context. There was never a need for my legal name to be revealed in open court. The prosecutor's claim that using my professional name would give me an "air of legitimacy" was incredibly insulting.

First, the headline: "Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell's former in-law speaks out for gay rights." Deane certainly does speak out for gay rights, but it seems odd to emphasize that fact above her trans activism. Next, the photo gallery: It begins with a series of photos of Deane applying makeup, hair-spray, and pantyhose, as if to emphasize the fact that Deane's  beauty regimen (quite typical, for a woman) is somehow relevant to that activism.

And then there's this:

For years, Deane, a man who is in the process of becoming of woman, had considered revealing her lengthy but largely unknown connection to Gov. Robert F. McDonnell (R). She had told no one that this would finally be the moment she went public.

From whose perspective is Deane "a man who is in the process of becoming of [sic] woman"? The state of Virginia? The Washington Post? Deane's herself?

The Post identifies Deane with feminine pronouns. It also implies that Deane very much considers herself a woman—it mentions that "she changed her name from Bob to Robyn, and transformed herself from a cleanshaven, dark-haired man to a blond woman saving her pennies for sex reassignment surgery." The story states outright that Deane previously "came out as a woman" to her family. What criteria is the Post using to classify Deane as "a man" in the process of "becoming" a woman? The paper doesn't say.

So how many local Date Lab daters discriminate based on skin color? Plenty! A brief history:

A lot of daters set up by the Washington Post just don't want to date white people. Set up last March, professor Steven Kelts requested anyone but a white lady: He asked for "An Asian, Indian, Latino or black woman who is educated, likes to talk about ideas and wants to travel the world with me!" Another dater told Date Lab, “I tend to like girls that show signs of being foreign-born or maybe have something ethnically awesome about their looks.” Sadly, the Post matched him with a woman with a “Midwestern” appearance.

Other daters are looking to date exclusively white. In 2009, Patrick Chang stated a preference for “Tall, Caucasian women." Unfortunately, his date told the magazine this: “I tend not to find Asians attractive." When she met Chang, "With a name like Patrick I was kind of expecting an Irish guy," she admitted. "I tried to be as open-minded as possible." The pair declined to pursue a second date.

Chang's date isn't the only one to nix the entire continent: In one 2008 date, both Asian daters didn't date Asians. "I thought he was attractive and well put together, but you always have to end it with 'for an Asian guy,'" Stephanie Villaflor told the Post. "I don't usually date Asian guys." Her date, Christopher Dum, admitted: "I've only really dated white girls." Daters are generally open about their intra-racial racism: In 2006, a half-Filipino, half-Indian guy revealed a prejudice against Indian women—he finds them “a little snobby.”

Most racial preferences are aired out of disappointment—when the date who arrives is a little too white or a little too Indian. But sometimes, racial preference makes a match. Son Vang told the paper his date has "gotta be Asian, preferably Vietnamese." When Caroline T. Nguyen arrived, "I wasn't sure if my date was going to be Asian, so I was pleasantly surprised when she was," he said. Later, Vang told the paper: "At first we were trying to figure out why The Post set us up. We thought it might be the Asian thing." They hit it off.

Dater prejudice isn't limited to race, of course. After being set up with a man who uses a wheelchair, one dater reported being “really mad” at Date Lab for refraining from disclosing her date's disability prior to the meeting. “I felt like I was set up . . . I'd look like a jerk, and he'd just be ‘the handicapped guy,’" she told Date Lab. "I also didn't think it was fair to him—what if I had turned out to be a mean, tactless person?” What if.

For the record: Date Lab's gays daters can be prejudiced, too. “He's attractive, but [he has] this whole aura [of] your basic white guy,” Bob Baden said of his 2008 same-sex date. “I go for a more ethnic or foreign look.”

Last week, pornographer John "Buttman" Stagliano was tried on obscenity charges in D.C.—but the government fucked up its case so bad that the trial was dismissed before 14 Washingtonian jurors got the chance to weigh in on Stagliano's work. Sexist readers, for one, aren't too fond of the government prosecuting their milk enemas and squirting:

Barbara Booey sees art in the enema:

The very fact that Stagliano was put on trial is a miscarriage of justice. John Stagliano is the Kurosawa of dairy-product enema cinema.

Bart wonders if the government cares about his girlfriend's "actual dick with veins":

I’m young and ignorant of the law. I thought porn was legal in DC. I buy DVDs, I order in on Comcast. My girlfriend has a vibrator, and not a medical looking one but an actual dick with veins. What is he exactly on trial for and why are they wasting time when thugs, dealers, spies, BP execs, Republicans etc are running lose in this city?

Legba Carrefour on the government's insistence on releasing a porn performer witness' real name:

Fucking bizarre. Simultaneous to this, the federal government (through the Department of Health and Human Services) is investigating the leaking of personal records of two actresses who were STI tested by the Adult Industry Medical Health Care Foundation (AIM). The testing results are made available to producers, one of whom decided to leak the information to an industry blog. One of the major points of contention was the leaking of the actresses’ real names and social security numbers and addresses and medical records.

So the federal government is opening a criminal investigation into one outing of sex workers but actively pursuing the outing of sex workers in another case.

Aaron is impressed by the government's incompetence:

I’d be a lot more worried about modern obscenity trials if it didn’t so often turn out that the prosecution is utterly hapless. It seems kind of like how if you criticize somebody’s spelling or grammar on the Internet, you’ll invariably screw up your own? Like if you try to prosecute for obscenity, you’ll invariably trip over your own ass in front of the judge, or something like that.

Rover shares:

On the Internet, no one knows you’re a dog with an enema fetish.

brian is looking for more variety in his enema porn:

i think they are missing an opportunity here, theres a whole drink market to consider…O.J., purple stuff, sunny D….maybe even diet cola and mentos.

Obscenity obscmenity. I probably spelled that wrong.

Typical DC BS asks where babies come from:

I hope the jury takes about 5 minutes to find this guy non guilty. Hard to believe an FBI agent was given the go-ahead to initiate and perform this investigation.

Maybe the FBI will also discover that sex is required to create babies and that the stork doesn’t really deliver them.

Photo via psd, Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

In June, MOCA DC—the District's most nude-friendly art gallery—was informed it must vacate its Georgetown location after an incident involving nipple pasties. But last week, MOCA DC renegotiated its lease in its Canal Square digs—under the condition that it cover up. "Under terms discussed with RB Properties last Thursday MOCA DC will be staying put for the foreseeable future," gallery owner David Quammen wrote in a statement. There is, of course, a price: "In exchange for a lease in my name and a few improvements that they will make, I will not display nude figurative art in the lobby, make some renovations—which I had in mind anyway—and ensure that events will be contained in the rear portion of the gallery."

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

* In her final dispatch on the Buttman trial, porn director and performer Aurora Snow claims that LAPD Det. Michael Ozaki, a witness for the prosecution, is a fan:

[Ozaki] looked all too familiar to me. I heard the detective explain how he had to attend the AVN Expo for the last five years in a row “undercover” in order to research the new material being put out by adult companies. I was surprised to hear how the LAPD spends tax money so consistently on porn related materials in the name of “research” when the city is reeling from recent budget cuts. But mostly, as the LAPD detective answered questions under oath, I began to realize why I was recognizing him; I am almost sure that I have signed autographs for him at adult conventions. That is one dedicated undercover officer! I wonder if somewhere in a police evidence folder is a signed photo of me or if the detective kept that for his personal collection. I hope the latter. I don’t want to be in a file and even detectives should have fun with their porn collections.

* When Maryland man Aaron Burroughs was convicted of "sexually exploiting a minor" for an offense involving child prostitution and child pornography, he was sentenced to 16 years in prison—plus extra restrictions "that required him to keep a daily log of his computer use and to permit the authorities to monitor that use." Last week, a federal appeals court struck those restrictions, as Burroughs' offense wasn't conducted via computer.

* GLAA Forum updates us on the NOM bus tour for hetero marriage, declares it an "epic fail. As it turns out, holding rallies at noon on weekdays isn't the smartest way to drum up support for opposite marriage after all. The tour hits D.C. Aug. 15.

* Figleaf 0n how sex work obscures assault in the Lawrence Taylor case:

the word “prostitution” magically washes away all traces of “statutory rape,” “sexual assault of a child,” “sex offender registry,” “corruption of a minor,” and every other offense prosecutors, judges, and juries are usually (and, I think, correctly) willing to throw at people who have sex with minors

* Via Metro Weekly: Victim of hate crime plans to leave D.C.

Photo via State Library of Queensland.

1. Opening Arguments in the U.S. Vs. John "Buttman" Stagliano

2. Buttman Trial: Courthouse Porn Shows Enemas, Racial Epithets

3. Buttman Trial: Couthouse Porn Viewing Turns to Squirting

4. Common Roman Polanski Defenses, Refuted

5. Buttman Trial: Should Porn Star Testify Under Her Real Name?

On hand to celebrate the victory: Stagliano's wife, Karen Stagliano, pregnant with a boy; Storm Squirters 2: Target Practice director Joey Silvera; Milk Nymphos performer Lorelei Lee, who just escaped being forced to reveal her real name on the witness stand; documentary filmmaker Simone Grudzen, currently filming a documentary on Lee; and porn performer and director Aurora Snow, covering the trial for AVN.

"They were sloppy," Stagliano told reporters outside the court. "They were doing it for the wrong reasons . . . there wasn't any passion to prosecute it."

Roman Polanski is free again: A victory for art, intellectualism, European sexual mores, and French dudes with a column on HuffPo, no? Um, no—all attempts to hide a convicted rapist who fled sentencing under a pile of shiny Oscar statuettes will not fool Sady Doyle of Tiger Beatdown and I! For, as Sady explains in this excellent piece for the Atlantic, Polanski ain't the only predator to hide behind the veil of "art":

Last week, the New York Times reported that Emma Tamburlini, the daughter of artist Larry Rivers, was asking to have videotapes of herself—young, topless, fielding uncomfortable sexual questions from her father about her breasts—removed from her father's archives and destroyed. She referred to them as "child pornography." The director of the Rivers Foundation, David Joel, demurred: "I can't be the person who says this stays and this goes," he said. Nor can Emma Tamburlini be that person, apparently; the current agreement is that the tapes will be shown after her death.

Looks like some priorities are fucked up in the art world! In this edition of Sexist Beatdown, Sady and I are totally on this! So join us as we  "sneak in a little Buttman discussion, and debate the merits of creating art while simultaneously not sexually assaulting people.

—

SADY: Hey! You know what feminist blogs haven't discussed, ever: Roman Polanski.

AMANDA: Nope. Kind of just let that one go. It's been so long, after all!

SADY: Right! If there's one thing I can say for us all, it is that a very famous dude sexually assaulting someone, confessing, being convicted and serving NO SENTENCE WHATSOEVER for this is something that we all just kind of let fade, after a certain point.

AMANDA: That, or convicted criminals who have fled the country gradually gain points for stamina. I think that's a legal thing. Particularly if they spend their 30-year European vacation doing things like making fancy movies!

SADY: Hah, yeah. This is the thing that kind of enrages, about the Polanski thing: The way so many folks were like, "but... he made MOVIES? They were really good!" And I won't deny that those were some really good movies. And that they benefited from having Roman Polanski direct them. The non-Polanski directed sequel to "Chinatown," for example, is just not so good! (Although, you know, kudos to Jack Nicholson for trying. And for not being convicted of rape.)

AMANDA: Generous points for that last detail. But like, how good do the movies have to be for people to excuse the rapist? As you pointed out in your piece, it's not like this happens all that often, but I'm betting that a lot of people would be willing to forgive people who make less than "Pianist" levels of art. Even saying that is ridiculous. THEY'RE MOVIES. Not people!

SADY: Right. I mean, if Tommy "The Room" Wiseau were convicted tomorrow, I doubt we'd be seeing these outpourings of sympathy. Although folks did rally around R. Kelly during his trial, which makes me think that the question is not how good one is, but how famous one is. If it were some random "Law and Order: SVU" directing alumnus, we wouldn't be here. But Le Cause de Polanski has always been framed as this issue of the permissive/enlightened European sophisticates/degenerates versus The Hard-Working Moralistic American People. Which is a take that's been encouraged by both sides, and ends up serving neither.

AMANDA: So there's a little bit more fame-mongering in Bernard-Henri Lévy's free-Polanski intellectualism than he'd like to admit, is what you're saying.

SADY: Oh, goodness me oh my, yes. I mean: How immeasurably has Levy's profile been raised, now that he's A-Number-One Polanski supporter in the public eye and/or the on the Huffington Post? And I'm sure he'd feel above all that, to some degree, but I don't understand why he keeps publishing on the philosophically enlightened and sophisticated HuffPo if he's not eager to get his name out there. I mean, maybe he just feels passionate about this cause, but I feel that demeans him MORE than a desire for HuffPo readership. Which is not something I say often!

AMANDA: I have several original Huffington Post nipple slips in my collection. So I'm covering this obscenity case in D.C. right now, and it's funny how the "art" argument worms its way into the legal pornography debate as well. These jurors have to decide if there's any redeeming artistic or literary or scientific value to the copious milk enemas they've viewed over the course of the trial. And so on cross-examination, the defense is asking witnesses stuff like, "And are you aware that the Adult Video News Awards are the Academy Awards of the adult entertainment industry?" "And are you aware that Buttman has won several of these awards?"

SADY: I SEE.

AMANDA: The whole thing is ridiculous. Like, I'm not against obscenity. But take the absurd "art" defense out of it.

SADY: Right. I mean: That's the thing. Like the Tamburlini/Rivers case that was being reported earlier this week. In that case, you could maybe make a more convincing argument for "artistic value" — an Artist, Recognized As Such, was coercing and pressuring his daughters into participating in uncomfortably sexual video shoots! For his Art! — but we're still not assuming that Art has the right to involve harm to actual human beings in the process of its creation. A person coerced and pressured his daughter into sexual activity, to which she objected. In the case of "obscenity," which is always tricky — even Dworkin didn't fully support banning porn under "obscenity" laws — the Art question can be brought up in defense, however. If it was relevant for Joyce, it's relevant for Buttman, sad to say. Which is what's so infuriating about this: Often, as in the Max Hardcore case, what's being prosecuted is sexual abuse of performers. And then people are like "obscenity laws are unconstitutional; why didn't these performers bring their cases to court?" Whereas if they did, as sex workers, they'd be slut-shamed and devalued and wouldn't stand a chance of winning.

AMANDA: That's true. The tricky thing is when there is legitimate abuse of performers (as in the Rivers case) and then the dissemination of the work in effect constitutes more abuse. Which, again, in any of these cases, the art argument only serves to obscure the issue, right? Are you producing these works with full consent and participation of everyone involved? Or are you abusing people, and filming that? In either case, it doesn't really matter to me if there's zero artistic value there or if it's fucking Shakespeare abusing his kids for "art.”

SADY: Yeah. Exactly. I mean, I think our conception of Artist as Special Person who is obliged or privileged to Stand Outside Of Societal Norms is useful, in some respects. In the respects that you can't just send D.H. Lawrence packing because he uses the fuck-word a lot, or you can't shut down Mapplethorpe because he's showing these queer BDSM images. But it's abused so easily by folks for stuff like the Polanski case, or the Rivers one — the Polanski case being even more indefensible because SEXUALLY ASSAULTING THAT GIRL HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH ANY OF HIS MOVIES — to argue that These People Can't Be Held To Normal Standards.

AMANDA: Right. It also ends up being really elitist, or in Polanski's case, both elitist and celeb-focused. Like, hey, what if I'm a really shitty artist who works with queer BDSM imagery?

SADY: And I have to admit, most of my off-the-top-of-the-head associations with Artists who we have to Defend Against Charges of Obscenity because they're just outside the norm have to do with very famous men. Kathy Acker, maybe? But maybe not. I don't recall court proceedings, but that may just be the result of insufficient Googling.

AMANDA: Yeah. I mean, the art test is a really fucked up standard for obscenity law in my opinion. Like things we determine to be “good” and things we determine to be “bad” just balance each other out, naturally? And I think the Polanski case is some sort of bizarre extension of the logic—that if art is good enough, it can make anything tolerable. And maybe if Polanski starts making really shitty movies, everyone will have to be like, "Alright, lock him up," on principle.

SADY: Right. And it might just be a case of removing the quality of the art from the equation: Like, if we're testing whether the art in question is "obscene," that can apply to any kind of art with any kind of behind-the-scenes process. As a person who watches the extremely sophisticated Bravo program "Work of Art," I know this. BUT, if we make the question whether the creation and distribution of the "art" (????) objectively has to harm in order to be produced, we can actually legislate on the level of production, not content. And no-one will ever be able to say that this glorious painting made with the entrails of their Gramma deserves serious consideration ever again. I mean, yeah, we should protect "artists" against petty common morality charges. DUR. But "please don't rape anybody" isn't petty. Nor, sad to say, all that terribly common.

Photo via Jacob Freeze, Creative Commons Attribution License 2.o

Wondering how butt enemas and female ejaculation came to be the subject of the first obscenity case to hit D.C. in decades? Credit Los Angeles Police Department Det. Michael Ozaki, who testified yesterday as a witness for the government—and may be responsible for bringing the works of John "Buttman" Stagliano to the attention of the FBI.

Ozaki works with the LAPD on obscenity-related matters, helping to regulate everything from child pornography to topless bars to video arcades. Ozaki has been following Stagliano's work since July 22, 2007, when he first spied Stagliano's Evil Angel booth at the Erotica LA trade show. Ozaki testified that LAPD was on-site at the adult convention to ensure that the venue—the L.A. Convention Center—was in compliance. While on duty, Ozaki also observed Stagliano standing behind the Evil Angel booth, "speaking to a male" to whom he later "sold a DVD."

Ozaki next spied Stagliano on a police field trip to the AVN Adult Entertainment Expo in Las Vegas, which Ozaki says he attends yearly to keep tabs on the "new line of products" hitting the industry. On Jan. 11, 2008, Ozaki saw Stagliano engaging in similar activity—selling DVDs, magazines, even T-shirts—from behind a convention booth.

Later that month, Ozaki paid a visit to the Evil Angel offices in Van Nuys, California, where he snapped some aerial photos of the facility and secured photographic evidence of Stagliano's wife, Karen, entering the building. Also visible in that photograph? A sign reading "Beware of the evil pussy." DVD sales? Pussy jokes? The evidence may seem tame, but the government is attempting to prove not only that Stagliano disseminated obscene matter to D.C., but also that he's is in the regular business of "pandering" obscene materials "for commercial purposes."

After Ozaki brought Buttman to the attention of the feds, the feds set to work bringing Buttman to D.C. As it turns out, before 14 jurors were forced to view Milk Nymphos and Storm Squirters 2: Target Practice in court this week, there is no evidence that either film has ever been screened inside the District of Columbia by anyone else—not even by the FBI.

Though FBI Special Agent Dan Bradley arranged to have the DVDs sent to a District P.O. Box in 2007, Bradley actually watched the movies in a cubicle in his office in Manassas, Va. Since Bradley is not a resident of D.C., didn't order the DVDs from D.C., and didn't watch them in D.C., defense attorney Paul Cambria questioned what, exactly, this case has to do with the District at all. "Did you conduct any surveys to determine the level of acceptance of adult materials?" he asked Bradley. "Have you visited any adult bookstores in D.C.?" he asked. "Have either of those two movies been declared obscene by any jury or any court?" he asked. Government prosecutors objected to Cambria's line of questioning—and the mystery of why milk enemas and vaginal discharge became D.C. issue remains unanswered.

Photo via big-ashb, Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

Unlike the first two days of of the John "Buttman" Stagliano trial, yesterday's court session involved no video evidence. Despite the lack of porn screenings, though, someone in the courtroom was still getting fucked: the prosecution.

Prosecutors needed to rebound after yesterday's Fetish Fanatic 5 fiasco—which resulted in the barring of the trailer as evidence, thanks to a corrupted file—but the cross-examination of FBI Agent Daniel Bradley, the government's chief witness, raised a whole new set of problems for Prosecutor Pamela Satterfield.

When asked during cross-examination when he last viewed the charged films, Milk Nymphos and Storm Squirters 2: Target Practice, Bradley answered that Satterfield had told him that Judge Richard Leon wanted him to review the films before the trial, so he re-watched them in full last Wednesday.

If Bradley's testimony were accurate, it would almost certainly necessitate a mistrial—it's not exactly kosher for the presiding judge to be advising lawyers on how to prepare their cases. But Leon was adamant that he had never issued instructions of this kind to the prosecution, and Satterfield concurred—meaning Bradley had, knowingly or not, issued false testimony.

After the jury and witnesses were released for the day, Leon and the lawyers discussed how best to address "the Bradley situation." Leon made it clear that he would issue a statement to the jury assuring them that the court had never instructed Bradley to watch Milk Nymphos and Storm Squirters 2 in preparation for trial. But the defense team argued that a remedy would have to be more extensive than that.

Because Bradley attributed the instructions to Leon through Satterfield, the defense argued that they have the right to call Satterfield to the stand to give testimony on the matter. Doing so, however, would make her an impeaching witness against the central witness in her own case—and would force her to recuse herself as prosecutor.

Leon suggested that it might be possible to find a way around that outcome, possibly by having Satterfield issue an affidavit. Leon said he would rule on how the issue will be handled this morning.

Regardless of how the false testimony is addressed, though, it will probably cause a significant blow to Bradley's credibility as a witness, upon which the lion's share of the government's case rests.

"How can [Satterfield] vouch for the credibility of her witness before the jury?" Defense Attorney H. Louis Sirkin asked.

"I would say gingerly," Leon replied.

* Ms. Magazine reporter Kate Noftsinger asks a panel of Lilith Fair artists a question:

“Who here identifies as a feminist?”

I got a long pause, followed by nervous laughter.

Finally [Brandi Carlile] spoke, “I don’t know, it means something different that it used to.”

Before I could ask what it meant now as opposed to then, [Sarah McLachlan] assumed the role of official spokesperson and began building a mystery:

"It’s a tricky question, because it’s been redefined and I think we all define feminism to a certain degree. We all define femininity. I think we’re able to have a little more balance. There’s still fights to be fought. There’s still inequality, absolutely. . . . I think as long as we’re being mindful and honest with ourselves and doing what we feel is right, and that’s a very personal decision for all of us, if we’re going forth with that intention, then we are; we’re being feminists, we’re being humanists, we’re being feminine. We’re being true to ourselves, in every way, in every facet of our personalities."

By conflating feminism with femininity, Sarah McLachlan officially lies squarely in the feminist tradition of Sarah Palin devotees.

* Metro Weekly profiles "the first out transgender Capitol Hill staffer."

* But, also in Metro Weekly, magazine co-publisher Sean Bugg is "terrified to write about transgender issues."

* In 1999, David Segal penned the definitive Buttman profile:

Ladies and gentlemen, hide your daughters: John Stagliano is strolling down a riverside walkway and he's got his mojo working.

Cradling a video camera in his hands, he sidles up to a curvy brunet and fumbles for a pick-up line. Gazing into the lens, the woman seems flustered at first, then amused, then — lo and behold — flattered. She follows him to a hotel room, and within minutes she is standing on a coffee table, peeling off her dress. A man knocks on the door and eventually there is a whole lot of naked writhing on a white couch.

Stagliano shoots. Stagliano scores.

* Sady Doyle channels Simone de Beauvoir-as-dating advice columnist.

Photo via Kashmera, Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

This December, the TED series of conferences will launch TEDWomen, a two-day meeting in Washington, D.C. that will discuss "women as powerful change agents: In developing nations, women and girls hold the vital link to economic growth, public health, political stability." The slate of speakers hasn't been released yet, but the TEDWomen website says the line-up will include: "The women who redesigned their country’s financial system in the wake of near-catastrophe"; "The physician who discovered the life-saving importance of treating men and women differently"; "A world leader bringing peace to her conflict-ridden nation"; "The teen-age filmmaker whose stories changed how a community saw itself"; "The sports champion who defies convention with her ability and her appearance"; and "The anthropologist who traces altruism to the mother-child bond." [Via Huffington Post].

Yesterday, Lee's attorney Carmen D. Hernandez filed a motion for a protective order to withhold Lee's legal name and allow her to testify under her stage name (which Lee takes from the Marilyn Monroe character in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes). "Ms. Lee, who is scheduled to be a witness for the defense in the instant trial, seeks for reasons of safety to be allowed to testify under her professional stage name without disclosing her true identity and address in open court," the filing reads. The filing goes on to argue that judges "have wide latitude to impose reasonable limits on cross-examination based on concerns such as harassment, prejudice, confusion of the issues or the witness's safety."

For a porn star like Lee, the filing argues, simply testifying under one's legal name has the effect of threatening the witness. "[T]he need to protect the witness’ true identify in open court will protect her from explicit threats of danger," the filing reads. The exact nature of these "explicit threats" are not explained, but the filing says that Lee will present "identifiable need for protection" in a "separate sealed submission" to the court.

Witness intimidation isn't the only rationale for allowing celebrities to testify under their stage names. Professionally, the witness "is identified in the movie credits by her stage name, Lorelei Lee"—and it's in her context as a porn performer that she plans to testify. The filing cites a 1992 decision in the First Circuit: "One can easily envision circumstances in which a witness testifying under his birth name might present a much more spectral figure than if he or she testified under an adopted name," the decision reads. "For example, the appellations Issur Danielovitch Demsky, Betty Joan Perske, and Marion Michael Morrison will probably be of less assistance in placing the affected individuals in their proper settings than their screen names (Kirk Douglas, Lauren Bacall, and John Wayne, respectively)."

The government is already aware of Lee's real name, the filing reads, so "the use of a pseudonym merely shields the identity of the witness from the press and public." But yesterday, prosecutors for the government aired plans to oppose the motion. Using the performer’s stage name in the legal proceedings “gives some air of legitimacy to the porn star,” Pamela Satterfield argued for the government. “She shouldn’t be treated any differently than anyone else in this case.” Judge Richard Leon has yet to rule on the matter.

On Aug. 1, The Washington Post Magazine’s weekly blind date feature, Date Lab, will print what has become a once-yearly ritual: The gay date.

Every Sunday, the magazine writes up the adventures of two single Washingtonians set up by the Post; after the date, both spill the night’s details to a reporter, judging their companions on everything from body weight to tolerance for “that’s what she said” jokes. Since launching in 2006, Date Lab has run nearly 200 heterosexual encounters. But it’s only managed to set up four same-sex couples in as many years—and one dater was a repeat.

The Aug. 1 item will be a milestone for Date Lab editor Amanda McGrath—her first same-sex write-up since assuming the feature in May 2009. “I heard stories from the previous editor about how difficult it was, and I thought, ‘This won’t be a problem for me. It will be so easy,” says McGrath. Nope: Date Lab’s last gay date hit newsstands on Jan. 20, 2008. It ended with “a little bit of an air hug.”

According to a recent survey, nearly 7 percent of D.C. residents identify as gay, lesbian, or bisexual. Which you’d think would mean The Post wouldn’t go two years between gay dates. Apparently, in order to qualify as a same-sex match on Date Lab, being gay isn’t enough. Asked in an online chat in 2006 why Date Lab mostly experimented with straight romance, then-editor Sandy M. Fernandez said it was a matter of math: “We just need to get in enough applicants that it isn’t one of those soap opera dates, where if you see two gay or Latino or African American characters, they’re inevitably going to hook up.” Four years later, the feature’s applicants remain prohibitively hetero—and, according to The Post, that’s why the people who make it into print do, too.

“We honestly try with every couple we send out to make a good match, to find a pair that will hit it off,” says McGrath, 27. But “it’s really hard to find people who seem compatible when you have such a limited pool to work with.”
Obviously, in the grand scheme of injustices, the paucity of gay Date Labbers ranks pretty low. But the lack of diversity—in a feature that so clearly strives for it in other ways—does stand out. After all, plenty of heterosexual couples have been matched based on glancing similarities: “She roasts; he bakes”; “He paints, she pots”; “He’s tall; she’s tall”; “She’s tall; he’s very tall.” The paper has matched three pairs based on a shared interest in distance running (“Have these two marathoners run into romance?”; “Two runners finally cross paths. Can they go the distance?”; “Can two marathoners go the distance?”). Some daters don’t even have that much in common. Past unifying principles include “They Were Adopted And Keep Losing Debit Cards. Will They Hang Onto Each Other?” and “They Both Agree: She’s ‘Not Hideous.’” In 2008, a monkey from Rockville tried its hand at making a match. Both daters rated the date a “5.”

So with a track record like that, why not “He’s gay; he’s gay”?

The Post’s answer: Date Lab’s shallow same-sex pool. Of the 3,300 potential daters who have submitted applications since 2007, only 84 identify as gay, lesbian, or bisexual. Fifty-one are men; 33 are women. Since Date Lab keeps potential lovebirds on file for years, some once-promising applicants wind up in committed relationships or rethink their interest in romantic exhibitionism—particularly if they’re not out to all their friends and family who may happen to pick up the Post. From there, start factoring in age (daters range from their 20s to their 60s), interests, personality, and appearance, and you’ve got a pretty skimpy selection of gay and lesbian Washingtonians.

"A lesson lived is a lesson learned," porn performer Angela Stone announces after expelling copious amounts of vaginal fluid in Storm Squirters 2: Target Practice. Shortly after the film was shown to the court in the John "Buttman" Stagliano obscenity trial yesterday, prosecutors learned the greatest porn lesson of all: That shit will fuck up your computer.

When the government attempted to play Exhibit 9—a copy of the trailer for Belladonna's Fetish Fanatic 5, as downloaded from the Internet by FBI Special Agent Daniel Bradley on Jan. 21, 2008—the video froze midway through the 5-minute parade of enemas, squirting, and foot play. "The video worked before trial," Prosecutor Pamela Slattery informed Judge Richard Leon. "The file is corrupted." She added that the file is "so sensitive" that it could be thrown off by something as minor as the laptop overheating. She suggested that jurors view the remaining 1 minute 53 seconds in the trailer off a copy of the original file prepared by the prosecution.

The corrupted file threatens to undermine a big part of the government's case against Stagliano: The accusation that he made obscene materials available to minors. Count Seven in the indictment against Stagliano asserts that he "knowingly used an interactive computer service to display an obscene image, that is, a motion-picture trailer identified as 'FETISH FANATIC CHAPTER 5,' in a manner available to a person under 18 years of age." Without the full Fetish Fanatic 5 trailer, the count could be scrapped.

Defense attorneys jumped on the opportunity to clear the count, urging the court to strike the corrupted file from evidence—along with any copy made by the government. "We were never able to open up the copy we were sent," defense attorney Allen Gelbard argued. And since the defense never viewed the government's original, "we have no way of knowing" if the copy is exactly the same as the trailer that was actually admitted into evidence. Furthermore, both the original and the copy are "glitching at different points," making the "audio continue to play while the video catches up," Gelbard said. The defense went on to argue that the inconsistent glitching made the porn unreliable as evidence: You're "not seeing it or hearing it as a whole. . . . This is going to go back in the jury room and it's going to play differently. . . . we don't know how it will play." Also: In its first presentation to the jury, the trailer was mistakenly played without sound.

The government countered that the file was already admitted into evidence, whether it plays correctly or not. Exhibit 9 "is what it is," Slattery said. "It's like a grainy photo of a robbery outside a 7-11"—the evidence could require some explanation, but it's still the file that Bradley downloaded from Stagliano's website. Now, the defense is just "playing games," Satterfield added. "They were hoping that I wouldn't be able to open it." Satterfield said that she first sent the defense the evidence for review over two years ago, and that "they have a duty" to object to the evidence before trial begins if they have concerns about its reliability. "There's been so much time for them to work with me on this," she said. As for the sound? Slattery attributed that to "a jack in the wrong hole," but added that the sound wasn't a significant part of the evidence. It's just "groans, screams, moans, and expletives," Slattery said. "It's not as if we're missing any dialog."

The determination will come down to the pornographic memory of FBI Special Agent Bradley. Slattery asserted that Bradley could confirm that the trailer and the more reliable copy were an exact match, but under cross-examination, Bradley admitted that he couldn't determine whether the trailer is glitching in the exact same spots.

Judge Leon voiced his "frustration" with the prosecution over the technical glitch. "You've had a year and a half to get this together," he told the government. "This is not an acceptable way to do business." If Leon remains unconvinced that the government "copy is complete and accurate. . . . that count is gone," Leon said. He is expected to rule on the matter this morning.

Photo via Stallio, Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

* Porn performer Aurora Snow is also filing updates from the Stagliano obscenity trial. Her take: The prosecution hates fun:

Opening arguments began yesterday, and as a performer I was stunned by the prosecution’s description of what made the material obscene. From my point of view, the prosecution’s lack of contact and knowledge of what we do in adult entertainment seemed laughable. Oh no, there are close-up shots of pussy? Oh, the horror! If this were not such a serious matter, it would be a pure farce of cardboard bad guys picking on others for having more fun than them in life.

* Feminist running tally: Score one for Playboy, Chloe Angyal says.

* Remember that "conscience rule" the Bush administration squeezed through in its lame-duck period, allowing workers in federally-funded facilities to refuse to provide services they found morally objectionable? Yeah, Megan Carpentier noticed that Obama never repealed that.

* Silvana at Tiger Beatdown on the fun and frivolity of fashion! Unless you're fat:

For fat women, clothes are supposed to be about making people forget that you’re fat. “Hiding” “flaws.” “Smoothing out” your “shape” (i.e. your fat). “Emphasizing” your “assets” (at least you have big boobs, fatty). “Defining” your waist (because, hey, at least you can make one part of you look smaller than the other parts). It’s all code for: Don’t look fat. The advice isn’t too different for thin or average women. You also want—surprise, surprise!—to not look fat. And for a long, long time, I bought into that. I bought the idea that my body wasn’t acceptable and I had to use clothing as best I could to try to make it acceptable.

* The D.C. Attorney General's Office has dropped all charges against Lt. Dan Choi in relation to his "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" protests outside the White House last Spring.

Photo via walid.hassenein, Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

Yesterday, jurors in the John "Buttman" Stagliano obscenity trial got a 50-minute display of milk enemas. Today, prosecutors turned their focus to a different substance. This morning, jurors viewed a 36 minute scene from Storm Squirters 2: Target Practice, a film about women expelling impressive amounts of discharge from their vaginas—colloquially, "squirting."

The trajectory of the scene went something like this:

Porn performers Angela Stone and Richelle Ryan are just hanging out in a living room, commenting on the quality of each others' asses. "Have you ever squirted before?" Stone asks Ryan. Ryan has not. "Have you seen a girl squirt before?" Again, no. One thing leads to another. "I want to use you as target practice," Stone tells Ryan, as Ryan performs oral sex on her.

Stone sits on a chair and instructs Ryan to position herself on her knees. Stone states her intention to aim her vaginal secretion into Ryan's mouth. "I don't know if I can do it," Stone says. "I don't know if I can do it that far." She tells Ryan to crawl closer to her. She does. She tells Ryan to scoot a little back. She does. She tells Ryan to remove her top. She does. She tells Ryan to turn around and show her her ass. She does. She tells Ryan to turn back around. She does.

Stone screams very loudly and squirts a clear substance into Ryan's mouth. Ryan gargles. They furiously make out. Then, the naked guy shows up. That's Jay Lassiter. They all have sex together in various ways. Despite the ejaculatory role-reversal that Storm Squirters 2: Target Practice is predicated on, the scene ends with Lassiter ejaculating onto the faces and mouths of Stone and Ryan.

"You're everyone's target practice!" Ryan announces. Stone turns to the camera: "A lesson lived is a lesson learned," she says, for some reason. If there's any serious literary value in the film, that's gotta be it.

When the trial concludes, jurors will be forced to decide whether the acts filmed in Storm Squirters 2: Target Practice violate the District's standards for obscenity. Until then, they're being forced to watch hours of porn—in a public hearing—that they likely wouldn't have chosen for their own private viewing. As the scene played, a couple of the female jurors remove their headsets, relieving themselves of the frequent sounds of gargling, gushing, and the two women choking on Lassiter's penis. Apparently, this is not their cup of tea. But will the jurors' personal disinterest in target practice affect their decision about what erotic sporting activities other Washingtonians are allowed to watch in their own homes?

Photo via doreta-wm, Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

The prosecution opposed the motion. Using the performer's stage name in the legal proceedings "gives some air of legitimacy to the porn star," Pamela Satterfield argued for the government. "She shouldn't be treated any differently than anyone else in this case."

Gelbard argued that porn stars who are outed to the public can endure stalking, harassment, even death threats. He told the story of one porn performer whose legal name was aired in public. A fan used her name to track her down when she visited his city on business, then showed up at her hotel room door. "Anyone involved in this case could receive death threats," Satterfield countered. "I have received a death threat" as a result of the case, she told the court.

Gelbard said that by opposing the motion, the prosecution gave off an "air of witness intimidation."

"I can't remember any case where a request of that nature has even been made, much less granted," Judge Richard J Leon told Gelbard. He promised to rule on the motion later.