Here in ladyblogger land, my esteemed partner Sady Doyle of Tiger Beatdown and myself know all about the lady issues. But we are just positively pickled by all things manly. Pickled, I tell you! We cannot seem to winkingly referring to our female employees as "perky," successfully manage a bromance, or understand what it's like to live in constant fear of having our balls shaved by militant feminists. That's why we're fascinated with one James Chartrand, the woman who took on a male persona to feed her kids, and managed to master these manly arts—and more!—in her tenure as the very masculine blogmaster at the aptly titled "Men With Pens."

In this edition of Sexist Beatdown: How DID she do it? What would you choose to be your absurdly gendered pen name? (Mine is "Chester der Schninkle Man Man," for some reason!). Are you prepared to reference balls you don't have, a LOT? And most importantly: Can you do it all, and still emerge as a feminist? All your imaginary ball queries, not quite answered, after the jump!

SADY: Helloo! How are you holding up? It is I, Sir Baron von Winkie!

AMANDA: Why, hello, bro! Me here, Chester der Schninkle Man Man. I feel comfortable conversing with you and possibly hiring you in a variety of work situations based on your hyper-masculine name.

SADY: Yes. I congratulate you on having the balls to hire me, and my enormous, hirstute balls, for this purpose! I know I am risking my balls, here, but: balls to that, say I!

AMANDA: I applaud you for putting your balls out in a world full of women ready to shave your balls at every opportunity! BALLS.

SADY: OY. Can I tell you, when I first read the James Chartrand piece, I was really sympathetic? I mean, I know what it is like to create something of a distance between your writing life and your private life! I know what it is like to worry about losing out on opportunities because you are being stereotyped! But one thing I DO not know what it is like is to not only worry about stereotyping, and create a pseudonym (this was seriously going to be a project of mine at one point! To adopt a dudely pseudonym and see how reactions differed from reactions to "Sady") but to TOTALLY VIOLATE ANY STANDARDS OF TRUSTWORTHINESS by creating an entire imaginary life, INCLUDING BALLS, for your pseudonym.

AMANDA: Brave, precious balls!

SADY: And make your imaginary man character a sexist, also. That was a fun choice!

AMANDA: Yeah. I mean, the thing about James, is that she probably was not aware that she was accessing male privilege when she wrote that balls-out post about how feminist mommy-bloggers with their sharpened ball clippers were being so MEAN by totally ignoring her when she posted balls-y comments on their Web sites under a male name. She thought, hey! I'm a single mom! I know exactly what this is like! Why am I not being accepted by them, JUST BECAUSE I APPEAR TO BE A MAN. She felt this was very sexist, and she decided to write a little ball post about it to right those wrongs. I just wonder why, knowing that the rest of the internet was so sexist it FORCED her to adopt a male persona to make money, she didn't work very hard to discuss sexism against women in her posts?

SADY: Ha, yes. Somehow, Imaginary Person James Chartrand, CREATED BECAUSE OF DISCRIMINATION AGAINST LADIES WHO WRITE ON THE INTERNET, found himself compelled, on the basis of a handful of blog comments, to engage in the time-honored and ridiculous pastime of... complaining about discrimination against DUDES who write on the Internet? Even though Chartrand had concrete proof that such discrimination did not actually exist? I mean, I think on the "why don't you discuss sexism" front, this is the peril of people adopting individualist agendas and slapping the name "feminism" on them. Because Chartrand was getting ahead, even though she had to circumvent sexism in a totally absurd way in order to do so, the goals of Feminism had actually been accomplished and she didn't need to confront sexism or aid women in any real way.

AMANDA: Right, and you know, as much as I sympathize with women who can't get jobs writing, as much as I know that happens, and as lucky as I am to write for a paper where my voice is valued, I just immediately thought something was not quite right with this story. I suspected that Chartrand had some sort of fascination with creating another character for herself, on some level. And that's fine! As long as you don't then turn around and say, after you've been outed, "Uh – it was a feminist act. Had to."

SADY: Right. I mean, I don't know if the "imaginary character" thing sits right with me. At all. And, FULL DISCLOSURE: "Sady" is not the name by which my family and close friends know me. They know me as Sara PleaseDon'tGoogleMeOfficeJobEmployers.

AMANDA: Bah! How could you! You accessed the inherent privilege in having the name "SADY WITH A Y" which is a really cool-sounding name!

SADY: But Sady is also me. As much as I keep private, I think one of the basics of writing is that people can TRUST WHAT IS COMING OUT OF YOUR KEYBOARD. They believe you mean it. Writing things that are substantively composed of lies is not a good way to go.

AMANDA: I sincerely hope you have been privately donating to some sort of fund for Women Named Sara.

SADY: Screw 'em! I'm getting mine!

AMANDA: Yeah, the lying thing also disturbs me. Like, did sexism force you to to spin an absurd lie about how you came to be a man with a knitting hobby? And also, this woman is the owner of Men With Pens. She has several employees at this point. At what point does acting like a strangely masculine weirdo begin to actually directly affect other people?

SADY: Right? Like referring to defender Taylor as the sole woman on staff and getting all wink-wink nudge-nudge... does owning a company CALLED Men with Pens and making objectifying comments about the "only" woman on staff create a certain environment in which female candidates feel discouraged, you think? Because I think! I seriously do!

AMANDA: I also think. And I also really want to hear WAY more from James Chartrand about this, because the act of manufacturing male privilege is extraordinarily fascinating to me. Like, James: How many hours a week were marked away on the Men With Pens calendar to Manufacturing Male Privilege? "Well, Chester der Schninkle Man Man, one thing that most women don't know is that Manufacturing Male Privilege is practically a full time job." I mean, how much time did this woman spend devoting to how masculine she were?

SADY: I, Sir Baron von Winkie von Testicle-Schmidt, almost doubt that it was fully intentional. The male privilege thing, I mean. I think that Chartrand devoted herself to creating a "believable" man, and this guy ended up being almost like a cartoon of a dude (Maxim-y comments about women wanting to shave his balls included) and so the sexism became, maybe without Chartrand's conscious intent, a part of the performance. And certain people have drawn parallels between this and trans men, which I find REALLY OFFENSIVE ACTUALLY, because: the point of being a trans dude is that you were always a dude. You transition, you change your name, your presentation becomes more fully YOU.

AMANDA: UGH. I had not heard that, but that is offensive.

SADY: Chartrand is consciously creating "a dude," a Man with Pen, who is NOT her, and hence... the male privilege and corresponding arrogance, uninformed by life experience and almost reading like it was assembled by studying obnoxious male stereotypes.

AMANDA: And it was a grand success!

SADY: Right! That's the thing! When I first read the Chartrand story, not knowing much about this Chartrand person, I was like, "oh, what a sobering illustration of the continuance of sexism." And then I realized what she did to keep it up, thanks to your take, and I was like, "wow, this is SUBSTANTIALLY MORE SOBERING than I had initially thought, and in more depressing ways."

AMANDA: yeah, it is pretty depressing. i'm sort of putting myself on James Chartrand watch now to see where she goes from here. She doesn't seem to be retiring the pseudonym—she's keeping her given name secret for "personal reasons"—but I wonder if she'll relax some of the masculinity. perhaps it will be revealed to be a little bit silly, now.

SADY: Yeah. That is my hope, as well. I mean, I know having two feminists chat about you critically is often the gateway drug to writing posts about how awful feminists are, or whatever. But I would hope Chartrand would take this moment and run with it insofar as actually exploring the gender question a little more honestly. Or, at least, retiring the objectification and Michael-Bay-ified aesthetics.

AMANDA: And as a show of good faith, I will retire my pen name, Amanda Hess, and reveal my true identity: an olde-tyme prospector by the name of Seamus P. Flannihurtz, a man who could only make it in the sexist prospecting business by posing as a modern-day female feminist blogger. It is a cruel business, olde-tyme prospecting!

SADY: DECEIVER! I myself am motivated to new honesty by this disclosure. I am a long-time tailgater and appreciator of The Babes, by the name of Beefnachos Budweiser McGreenBayPackers. "Tiger Beatdown" is but a launching platform for my new venture, "BikiniInspectors.com." And now you know.

AMANDA: I feel so ... feminist.

SADY: As do I, my friend! As do I! When all female writers are replaced by more manly counterparts, then will the goals of our movement have been truly accomplished.

Photo via George Eastman House, Wikipedia Commons

They came, they researched, they let us in on a "little secret". Now, "CockBibs," the first novelty item for keeping your genitals creepily dry, are officially available for sale. And the Inventor of the CockBib has reached out to the females to let them know that CockBibs are for us, too (and certainly not offensive to anyone!). A notice on the Web site reads:

***Attention*** We apologize for any misunderstanding in regards to our appreciation for women as it relates to them orally pleasing us men. We love and have the utmost respect for women. The CockBib is just our attempt at creating a fun and humorous novelty item. It is not our intent to offend or disrespect anyone. Thank You! :)

No, CockBib. Thank you.

The whole idea for cockbibs came to me right after I was pleased orally and realized, "Damn, I can't just fall asleep, I need to get up and wash my balls." I had just been a victim of another sloppy blowjob. I sat there wishing that I did not have to get up and go do the whole wipe down routine and thats when it hit me. I said "what if I had something to protect my balls, some sort of bib, a bib for my cock." . . . and so, cockbibs were born.

And so, a guy gets a bad blowjob and he responds by designing and marketing 38 different novelty ball-covers to hang on your penis during oral sex. Given that these things look like tiny portable glory holes, this post-oral pioneer takes care to note that he is "Happily Married to a Beautiful Woman." No word on how that "victim of another sloppy blowjob" comment went over.

In case you were wondering, there is a Yes You Can! CockBib. Some of the other CockBib designs, however, come off as a tad less progressive.

5. "Caution: May Cause Trauma." Yeah, I'll go ahead and heed that warning, and steer clear of the dismembered penis poking through the baby clothes, thank you very much.

4. "Caution: Dick Curves to the Right." Again: HEED THIS WARNING.

3. "Today's Special: Cock Meat Surprise." As in, "Surprise: That Hole in My Cock Bib Is For My Cock"?

2. "Pussy Killer." I wonder why this "Caution" theme is so central to the CockBib aesthetic!

1. "It's Showtime: These Nuts In Ya Mouth Take 1." Sigh. The WHOLE POINT of the CockBib is so your balls don't get wet, right? Fucking nonsensical CockBib!

But oh, it was funny while it lasted. Let's relive the jokes, shall we?

Anderson Cooper: "It's hard to talk when you're teabagging."

Rachel Maddow and Ana Marie Cox (haha, "Cox").

[youtube:v=OLsKt4O4Yw8]

Huffington Post commenter: "Did the women who protested wear 'pearl necklaces' to the 'tea bagging?'

But some unsuspectingly pervy grocery store cashier takes the cake. Blogger "Jenny the bloggess" reports:

Then when I was checking out the bagger asked me if I was “going to any teabagging parties today”.  Like, WTF? And the cashier was just looking at me waiting for my response and I was all “Uh…no” because I was too shocked to say anything else and then I got home and thought maybe teabagging means something else now but no, I googled it and it still totally means the same thing.

Like, I don’t even have a witty ending here to wrap things up.  I’m *that* freaked out.  Teabagging. I am never going back to HEB.

Only later does Jenny realize that it does mean something else now.

UPDATED: Hi.  I’m an idiot.  Apparently “teabagging” is a truly horribly named Republican rally going on around America today to protest taxes or tea or something.  Teabagging. Good one, Republicans.  You totally got me.

As the inauguration nears, Craigslist has been a-flutter with the romantic overtures of dudes looking for inauguration ball arm-candy and other dudes looking for inauguration week couch-surfing-with-benefits. Your best bets:

* This man-seeking-man inauguration ticket offerer has a range of interests, including "hiking, backpacking, mountain biking, snowboarding, reading, writing, cooking, dining out, watching movies, dancing, exploring the city and good conversation." Could you be his other interest? "I tend to like younger, or at least youthful, intelligent, energetic, interesting, skinny/lean guys who look at the world differently," he writes. Interested parties could get more than just a dance: "I'm also well-endowed and pretty damn good in bed."

* A recent widow based in Old Town Alexandria is hungry for French cuisine—and historic dancing. "I'm thinking about meeting at the nice French Restaurant La Gaulois in Old Towne, one of my favorite places. Wine, dinner, dessert on me," he writes. "I also have passes to inaugural balls—we can talk about—if that is something you would be interested in accompanying me to." For those with discerning dinner date standards, this Virginian comes highly recommended. He is a "very nice man, no children, upscale professional, nice house in Old Towne, former military leadership position, great job with job security, 6'3'', well cultured and well traveled."

* This inauguration invite is strictly local—this ticket-holder seeks "an attractive woman who would like to go with me to the ball and maybe even the inauguration itself"—as long as she keeps it in the neighborhood. "Please live in DC near GW (like FB, Dupont, Georgetown, Logan, etc)," he writes. "I have heard that traffic is going to be horrible and don't feel like getting stood up because some bridge is closed."

* This 48-year-old inauguration week visitor seeks three days of "clean and bug free" housing for "sleeping and rejuvenating for the next day." Interested renters net $150—and perhaps "a little fun."

"One of my goals will be to pass out business cards foldable but I am trying to create. www.stopthemurders.org your picture gets mine," he writes, adding: "I am 420 friendly but cannot participate."

* This 56-year-old unemployed Philadelphian "will pay $25.00 to you, for the privilege of sleeping on your sofa for one night, Inauguration Eve." The remainder of the post bears repeating:

I will provide my own food, probably take out.

All I require is a sofa, some blankets, and a sink for shaving, brushing teeth, and washing up.

I am quiet, will not disturb your routine. I will read or watch tv with you.

I will be gone first thing in the morning and will not need to return to your home after that.

Having said that, I am not crazy about long distance relationships. but I can return the favor if you travel to Philly and perhaps a friendship could develop.

Any race, any age, any religion.

If required, I can provide a photo ID (uploaded to email) in advance of completing the arrangement.

Thanks.

Photo by soundfromwayout.