Players of first-person shooter game Team Fortress 2 have discovered a new accessory to aid them in offing other players: Images of English pin-up models Lucy Pinder and Keeley Hazell. Users are inserting the cheesecake photos into the game's environment in an attempt to distract other players long enough to sneak up and kill them. They call the tactic "Hot Girl Backstabbing," and judging by the confusion of the targets—many of whom linger near the photos for several seconds before getting blasted—the strategy appears to be working. Is this another instance of feminist-inspired simulated murder, or just another way to apply the exploitation of women to gaming? Judging by the players' enthusiastic use of the word "boobies," I'm going to guess it's the latter.

In honor of hungry arcade icon Pac-Man's 30th birthday, The Digital Vegetarian unearths this photo demonstration of the Sexy Ms. Pac-Man Halloween costume, and how it works (you pull your sexy castle grommet skirt up to reveal a ghost!) I surveyed my fair share of ridiculous sexy Halloween costumes last October, but Sexy Ms. Pacman may be the most curious of them all. Why is the ghost on her vagina? Why is Pacman trying to eat Ms. Pacman—on some boobs? Shouldn't the wearer keep her sexy castle grommet skirt on, in order to protect Pacman and his other half from this life-sucking vagina ghost? Whose side is she on, anyway? Whatever. Sexy! [Via Jess at Birthday Bread Horse].

So, I've been pretty hard on breast implantation lately. First there was this screed against justifying breast augmentation as empowering. And then there was this dissection of the plastic surgery industry in general. And then C.L. Minou, a writer I admire very much, sent me an e-mail basically saying, "Hey! I am a woman who actually has breast implants. Want to talk to me about it?"

And good thing, that! For behold the product of that missive: This lovely interview with Minou about the ways in which the feminine beauty ideal intersects with trans identity and feminist identity and the work of just living our lives and being comfortable in our bodies. But first: Minou blogs at The Second Awakening, a blog about feminism, post-gender-transition; she is also a regular contributor to Below the Belt and Tiger Beatdown; soon you'll see her work over at Change.Org, too. Onward:

SEXIST: What was your decision-making process like in deciding to undergo breast augmentation, and how do you feel about the whole thing now?

CLM: As I say over at The Second Awakening, my experience of privilege has left me an opponent of it in all its forms—because I'm quite familiar with the gradient. And it's not even as simple as male privilege vs female subordination—as a crossdresser, I was a lower status male back in the days people thought I was male. I was a feminist before I transitioned, but I'm a much more ardent feminist since I transitioned.

But there's definitely the possibility of my feminism being dismissed for a lot of reasons. The one you cite is certainly one of them—that I'm only a feminist because I'm a woman now, or to express it more bluntly, that I'm trying to recapture my male privilege. (Of course, some people would accuse me of still having it, or acting like I do). The whole question of my former male privilege is pretty complex and delicate–I've never denied that my career (outside my writing life, I'm a programmer) was certainly made much easier because at the time I wasn't a woman. But is that balanced by the lack of status I have as not just a woman, but a trans woman, one who often loses status even among women? Because there's also a trend to automatically discount my feminism or feelings about a feminist topic because I don't share the background that most cis women share. (In its most extreme form you get the attitude of Lu's Pharmacy in Vancouver, a woman-only store that refused service to trans women because we've never bled.

At the same time, as someone who identifies and is usually identified by other people as a woman, I've certainly become more confident in expressing myself in feminist ways. Obviously my words have greater impact when I speak as a woman, rather than as a feminist-identified man. It's not that I deny there's any self-interest in my feminist viewpoint—it's just that it's not the ONLY reason.

This photograph basically sums up the scene at today's "Boobquake" festivities in Dupont Circle, where women bared their cleavage, and people paid attention to them. Feminism! City Paper photographer Darrow Montgomery, who was on-hand to shoot the event in a completely not creepy way, says that Boobquake participants were outnumbered by members of the press. Click through for more photos of the event.

Last week, I wrote about how women with big boobs are perceived as inherently sluttier than those of us with minimal cleavage. In response, large-breasted women everywhere emerged to tell their stories. (I told you I was committed to blogging about boobs today.) Talk about your boobs in 3, 2, 1 . . .

PD is not trying to tantalize/horrify:

You have no idea how relevant this is to me. Basically, anything cut lower than a standard t-shirt is going to reveal my decolletage. I’ve had big breasts since I hit puberty, and thus have been dealing with trying to find clothes that fit, bras that fit, and ignoring all the stares and comments since I was a kid. I’m not trying to tantalize and/or horrify the general public with my tremendous, obscene, 38J milk bags. Nor am I willing to undergo surgery or resign myself to a life of Victorian-era necklines just because I’ve got big breasts and that makes other people uncomfortable.

This is my gift. This is my curse. Spiderman 3 was a terrible movie.

bellacocker is not giving men "ideas":

I used to have a nice, church lady of a boss who would stand over my desk, look down my shirt, and tell me that my clothing and breasts set a bad example for the staff under my supervision and gave men “ideas.” When I asked for a written copy of the dress code, in order to shop more appropriately, she said she didn’t want to limit her staff’s freedom like that and that we could wear anything as long as it was “professional.” Which meant, I could buy anything I wanted, but I wouldn’t know whether it was acceptable work clothing until I wore it in and had heard her opinion about it.

wisiti is wearing the appropriate level of cleavage for this situation:

I can’t wear anything lower than a scoop neck without showing off ample cleavage. Many shirts and/or dresses are not cut to cover my cleavage to the amount that I would prefer, but the only other option are high-necked shirts that make my boobs look even bigger! I hate that I’m constantly pulling up my shirts or worried about the amount of cleavage I’m showing (am I making that person uncomfortable? Is this the appropriate level of cleavage to show in this situation?) when there doesn’t really seem to be a solution to the problem. And, like the first commenter, I spent the majority of my high school years larger than most of my friends, with a (now seemingly small) size 32C, that were the focus of too much attention, from both my male and female friends. I’ve spent most of my life worried about my big boobs, when there has never really been anything I could do about them.

Melanie is wondering when a boy's legs are "slutty":

And then there’s the problem with dress codes. I work for an organisation whose current dress code amounts to boys, you can wear anything except earrings, girls, don’t show your slutty cleavage or slutty legs. I am trying to convince them that it might be a good idea to de-gender the dress code a little lest it be regarded as discriminatory.

Joliska has got a name, you know:

I have had large breasts for years. I guess I first noticed as a senior in high school when people would yell comments at me as we passed in the hallway. I also found out how people classified me: my name didn’t ring a bell, but when my breasts were mentioned, people knew.
for some reason, having bigger breasts (which wasn’t by choice, however) seemed to make people think they had permission to make comments and grab at them when they felt like it.

I don’t usually have a problem with shirts that expose more cleavage than I’m comfortable with, but I do have a problem finding bras that fit me, and I’m constantly having to readjust and try to mold them into the cups. I also have trouble finding shirts that are long enough if not wide enough. It doesn’t seem that clothing designers thought of my body type when they designed their clothes.

Em has learned how to karate-chop:

Big boobs are public domain. Like, not just ogling, I have had strangers effing GRAB at them. I’ve even evolved to have a karate-chop type maneuver to thwart them if I’m out at a club or a bar.

The way I look at it, it doesn’t matter what I wear, so I might as well look cute. Actually, I get the most attention in a fitted t-shirt–no cleavage, but it emphasizes that my boobs are quite large for my waist size and I inevitably get unwanted attention. I’ve definitely had my outfit called “slutty” (usually by women, who are damn judgemental about these things) when a less endowed friend was wearing much less and apparently not deemed slutty. That’s just how it is. Culture is threatened by big boobs, I think because they’re in-your-face-femininity…also because people make such a big deal about boobs in this country. To quote an international student I used to know, “What is the big deal about boobs in this country?”

Cindy disagrees:

I have large breasts and I do not agree that wearing them on display is some kind of god given right. Maybe this is a generational difference.

Photo via freeparking, Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

* Today is "Boobquake," the day where women are encouraged to show excessive amounts of cleavage in order to disprove the theory of Iranian cleric Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi, who posited that scantily-dressed women cause earthquakes. Local participants are encouraged to haul their breasts over to Dupont Circle from noon to 12:30 p.m. As for me, I'm showing about as much cleavage as I generally do—not much—but as Amanda Marcotte points out, I don't have to dress particularly immodestly to be blamed for a natural disaster—because "by Iranian cleric standards, every day in America is boobquake."

* Thinking it's a bit counter-intuitive to stick it to misogynists by flashing some cleave? A counter-protest, "Brainquake," encourages women to fight Sedighi's words by "show[ing] off their résumés, CVs, honors, prizes, and accomplishments." Speaking as a creative writing major with minimal cleavage, I will instead be participating in "Blogquake," in which I make some sort of point about the oppression of women by just blogging about boobs. Boobs, boobs, boobs.

* What the fuck is this headline? "Women Engage in Barebacking at Higher Rates Than Gay Men." The piece opens: "For all the flack gay men get for their sexual antics, it turns out the ladies have them beat for an oft-chastised but ever-present-in-porn act—barebacking." Hey, way to get personal! It takes two to bareback, so why focus all the shaming on the receptive partner? And as one commenter on the piece points out, there's no need to drag lesbians into this: "Editors: Parallelism in style, and fairness require the headline to read: HETEROSEXUAL Women Engage in Barebacking at Higher Rates Than Gay Men."

* Cracked writer Christina H.'s piece, "Five Mistakes Women (Like Me!) Make on the Internet," chastises women for ever thinking that anyone is ever being sexist to them:

women who expect to be treated better on the Web are often more likely to accuse anyone who disagrees with them of being afraid of a "strong opinionated woman." Not only is this as bad as playing the race card, it insults all the other ladies in that online community who haven't been bashed, since it implies that they're not intelligent enough to be persecuted by your imaginary conspiracy.

The author—who is, if I'm reading this right, too intelligent to not be persecuted by the imaginary conspiracy of sexism—was apparently not dismissive of women enough to actually be accepted by the Cracked crowd. She netted several hundred comments like this one: "This article was only mildly amusing, kind of like when a friend gets diagnosed with testicular cancer. Mostly though it just came off as another female rant with a pinch of humor. That said: TITS OR GTFO."

*Hysteria! points to this horrific feature in the New York Times' T Magazine which asks the eternal question: So, was Simone de Beauvoir hot, or what? Her photographs say "yes"; her ardent feminist beliefs say "no."

Photo via Ian Muttoo, Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

A couple of months ago, I was at a house party. A couple of guys I was with started commenting on the appearance of a woman sitting across the room. She was wearing what they considered to be a very inappropriate shirt—a low-cut v-neck that revealed what registered to them as an obscene level of cleavage. They were speculating as to why a woman would wear such a shirt in public and what her intentions were in putting it on. "If I were wearing that same shirt, it wouldn't seem inappropriate at all," I noted. Of course, it wasn't really the shirt—it was the size of the woman's breasts that was deemed socially unacceptable.

Big boobs: I don't have them. And good thing, too, because if I did, I'd have to dress myself with the expectation that others would view my anatomy as inherently obscene. This week, plus-size clothing company Lane Bryant accused FOX and ABC of refusing to air its latest lingerie commercial over decency concerns. The central objection? Lane Bryant's well-endowed underwear models revealed cleavage that was just too ample. The low-down, from Ad Week:

In a post on LB's Inside Curve blog, the company complains that "ABC and Fox have made the decision to define beauty for you by denying our new, groundbreaking Cacique commercial from airing freely on their networks." . . . The post also claims that ABC "restricted our airtime" and refused to air the spot during Dancing With the Stars, while Fox "demanded excessive re-edits and rebuffed it three times before relenting to air it during the final 10 minutes of American Idol, but only after we threatened to pull the ad buy."

The post continues: "Yes, these are the same networks that have scantily-clad housewives so desperate they seduce every man on the block—and don't forget Bart Simpson, who has shown us the moon more often than NASA—all in what they call 'family hour.'"

The ad depicts several attractive, plus-sized models in the latest line of Lane Bryant lingerie. Ample cleavage—which Bryant says was a problem for the nets—is on display in the ad. "The networks exclaimed, 'She has . . . cleavage!' Gasp!'' the blog post states.

Ah, "ample cleavage"—not to be confused with the socially acceptable amount of cleavage displayed by Victoria's -Secret-sized models, who generally possess large—but apparently not obscenely large—breasts. Fox and ABC didn't respond to Ad Week's request for comment; Lane Bryant has since removed the accusatory post from its blog, Inside Curve, but it still touts the offending ad on its website as "The Lingerie Commercial Fox and ABC Didn't Want Its Viewers to See."

The lesson, ladies, is that great cleavage comes with great responsibility. People who shame women for wearing "too-revealing" clothes like to center their objections on women's clothing "choices," but make no mistake—this is not about what we choose. This is about the things we don't choose—having chests or butts or legs or necks or hair or any other part of our human bodies that others decide to project their particular sexual interests—and their slut-shaming—upon. The man who is horrified at a woman's "overly exposed" breasts will likely never have to worry about wearing one shirt—one shirt out of a lifetime of shirts—that happens to accidentally set off some random person's slut meter, because of the way his body just is. And because my breasts are smaller, less visible, less imposing than other women's breasts—because there's less boob there—I can feel free to wear the more revealing top without attracting claims of public obscenity. It seems that some women's bodies are just naturally sluttier than other women's bodies—and all women's bodies are naturally sluttier than men's bodies.

So I logged on to the High Times Web site today, as you do, and I came across a typical ad targeting pot enthusiasts: A woman dropping her lacy panties alongside the teaser, "Want to see more? We know you want to!" Users who are interested in seeing more are introduced to  "The Whizzinator," a dildo that really looks like a penis.

At first, I was confused by the marketing strategy here. How effective is it to lure people into purchasing a fake (but highly realistic) penis by implying the promise of a vagina? Perhaps I am underestimating the target audience for High Times advertising, but I imagine that many a typical heterosexual dude who eagerly clicks on those panties only to find a selection of penises would be hit with such a raging case of homo- and transphobia that he would be unlikely to invest in the services advertised. But then I investigated the Whizzinator further, and things became even curiouser.

The Whizzinator, as the name implies, is a dildo that facilitates faux pissing. "The Whizzinator Strap-On XXX is the cleanest way to get dirty," the ad copy reads. "This ultra hygenic and sterile ultimate wet sex simulator is designed with sensual pleasure in mind." A Whizzinator comes with a syringe, "synthetic urine pack," heat packs, an instruction manual, and a condom. "Golden Shower" refills of freeze-dried pee are also available.

That's where the Whizzinator's next advertising turn comes in—though explicitly marketed to those who want to incorporate safe, clean urination into their sex lives, a colleague reminded me that the Whizzinator might also be of particular use to men who use drugs, and may resort to fake-peeing through a prosthetic penis in an attempt to pass a drug test. A-ha, so the Whizzinator is of immediate interest to the High Times' target audience.

So why send them through these various marketing hoops in order to get them to purchase a negative test result? I imagine it has something to do with those phobias. When you're trying to sell lifelike penis accessories to hetero men, perhaps it helps to give the more sensitive among them an excuse to say, "Hey—I found this penis accessory by clicking on some naked chick."

The Whizzinator retails for $139.95. And the strangest thing about the marketing here? It is available in white, brown, black, tan and "Latino."

A new study from University of Connecticut researchers Stephenie Chaudoir and Diane Quinn suggests that simply being a bystander to sexism is enough to inspire women to report higher identification with women as a group, and heightened feelings of negativity toward men. The effects of this "bystander sexism" help to explain how a cat-call targeted at one woman can work to demean all of us.

In the study, the researchers asked 114 female college students to watch one of two videos and imagine themselves as a witness to the scene that unfolds. In the first version, a man approaches a woman and says, "Hey Kelly, your boobs look great in that shirt!" In the second, the man greets the woman by saying, "Hey Kelly, what's up?" Study participants then completed a survey designed to show how strongly they identify themselves with women as a group, how much anger and fear they feel toward men as a group, and how likely they are to be prompted to either "move against" or "move away" from men in general.

The result? Even though women only graded the "boobs" comment as a "moderately prejudiced" thing to say, women who witnessed the harassment were more likely to identify as women, feel anger toward men, and express the desire to "move away" from men.

The fact that street harassment tends to divide men and women as classes is no secret. Women who have experienced street harassment often report coping by responding with wariness to all strange men, in order to fend off possible future harassment. And men express frustration that they can't approach a woman in a way they perceive as non-harassing—whether it's to ask for directions or deliver a compliment—without being regarded as a potential offender. But the defensive strategy is often made necessary by the frequency of such harassment; Chaudoir and Quinn note that  "42% of U.S. female college students [report] that they are the direct targets of cat-calls at least once a month." And this casual sexism has serious effects on its victims: "the experience of street harassment is directly related to greater preoccupation with physical appearance and body shame, and is indirectly related to heightened fears of rape for U.S. undergraduate women."

What the new study reveals is that harassment also has serious effects on women who are not victims—and men who are not harassers. "It makes sense that if women feel like they have been discriminated against, or that specific men are engaging in sexist behaviors that can harm them, they’re going to be on high alert in the future from other men, even if those men have no intent of participating in the discrimination," says Chaudoir. For the men, "our data do speak to this unfortunate predicament where men who are not harassers and men who are not doing anything wrong end up being painted in the eyes of women, at least for some period of time, in a negative way," Chaudoir says. "For men who are doing nothing wrong, these [harassers] may be shaping the ways that they’re being perceived as well."

Despite the depressingly divisive results here, this study shows that men and women alike have an investment in working to eliminate sexual harassment. As Chaudoir and Quinn's work demonstrates, harassment against women often occurs in public and in view of plenty of bystanders, male and female. We all have the opportunity to make it clear that this sort of behavior is unacceptable.

Vox Populi, bless its heart, points us to the crowning achievement of Georgetown University's class of 2009: The "funbags" embroidered polo T-shirt ($21.99, detail shown above). The "College Polo" line is the brainchild of Georgetown graduates JP Medved and Anthony Sessa, who also considered it a good idea to embroider beer bottles, beer pong, and, of course, "the shocker" onto the left breast of men's casual-wear. The gun-toting Mexican penis polo is still in the works.

And yet, I keep going back to the funbags. What makes a miniature pair of breasts such an appropriate insignia for the polo-wearing douche?

"Bazookas, melons, cannonballs, tatas, howitzers, cans," the advertising copy reads. "No matter what you call them, there's no denying, they ARE fun. Only one question remains, are they built for speed or comfort? You motorboatin' son of a bitch, you." Surely, that helps. But the funbags polo has a certain je ne sais quoi that can't be articulated through a mere boob thesaurus.

Perhaps the answer lies deeper than the iconography? A-ha: These funbags are not emblazoned into the breast of just any polo. They are "embroidered on a natural (off-white) colored Outer Banks Men's Essential Pique Polo" made of "100% needlespun cotton pique" with "contoured welt collar and cuffs," "pearlized buttons," "double-needle stitched bottom hem" and "two-button placket." For the discerning douchebag.

Hmm. Yes. But there's still something about the innate douchiness of the funbags polo that I can't quite put my finger on. Say we take a broader view?

Oh. They look like balls from far away.

ABC News has picked up the story of local ABC affiliate WJLA's series on breast cancer detection. WJLA has courted national media attention for its decision to televise a local woman's self breast exam, un-draped, un-blurred, and unedited. ABC News, for one, remains committed to blurring the boobs: "for our purposes, we are showing it without any full nudity," the segment explains.

Just so you're clear on that: WJLA's news story on self breast exams will show the boobs, but ABC's national news story on the WJLA news story that showed the boobs will not show the boobs.

I understand the reasoning here. WJLA showed the boobs for a very specific reason: To help women learn how to correctly perform their monthly self breast examination, a teaching moment that's been made difficult by the news media's reluctance to showing boobs on the teevee. ABC News's story isn't educational, so they don't share WJLA's rationale for filming breasts.

But ABC News' choice to blur out the breasts raises a different problem for the network. ABC's story is all about whether television stations should show naked breasts on television, or whether they ought to blur them out. "The move has been met with criticism from people who believe it's inappropriate to show women's bodies during the 5 p.m. and 11 p.m. news," the story reads. "[C]ritics say the reports' airing during a key ratings period suggests the station was exploiting women for gain."

Too bad ABC News can't take an objective look at this issue. It's obvious where ABC News stands: They blurred them out!

They didn't have to do that. They could have avoided the breast shots altogether. Instead, they replayed WJLA's breast examination at length—and they blurred it out. And then they showed the (blurred) breasts again. And again. And again. They just kept playing the same shot of a woman examining her breast, accompanied by a large white box that shifted with the woman's movements to make sure the nipples remained un-slipped.

WJLA showed a couple of breasts in order to help women avoid a terminal illness. ABC News, on the other hand, slapped a scare-tactic white box over the body of a woman who dared to help other women detect cancer. You know what that says to me? It says that protecting an outdated puritanical code against showing women's bodies is more important than preventing women from dying. So, which network is exploiting women for gain?

Tonight and tomorrow, WJLA will air a four-part series on breast exams called "Touch of Life: The Guide to Breast Self Examination." The series will show real women performing breast exams—and it's not going to blur out their boobs.

The Washington Post notes that the full-frontal treatment is a departure of traditional television coverage of breast cancer screenings which feature "female breasts typically depicted only in X-rays or tastefully draped." Which raises the question—how do you tastefully drape a boob? And what's the point of filming a breast self-exam if you can't see how to examine the breast? WJLA is attempting to resolve the second question: General manager Bill Lord told the Post that "the station consulted medical experts who said news reports on breast-cancer detection haven't offered enough detail to teach people how to do an exam properly."

But some are wondering if the station is really showing the breasts in order to save lives, or rather save their ratings—by showing boobs! On the teevee! Skeptics have pointed out that (a) it's sweeps week, and (b) the network sent out a press release announcing, in "bold, underlined type," that "This unique television event will include a clinical demonstration of a breast self-exam without obscuring any of the breast area."

The station won't catch any of the FCC's indecency flack for the program, as news reports are exempt from the rules. Lord says he's hoping to quell the inevitable viewer outrage by prefacing the series with a "viewer discretion" warning. Any viewers who might object to WJLA's breast display should probably reserve their criticisms until they hear the story of 28-year-old Lauren Albright, one of the women who agreed to have her exam filmed by the station. In the Post:

The station's first report features a 28-year-old woman from Northern Virginia, Lauren Albright, who volunteered to be led through an on-camera self-exam by an oncologist. She is shown examining her bare torso in a mirror and on an examination table, in both close-up and medium shots. Reporter Gail Pennybacker says in a voice-over that Albright took the "extraordinary step of baring herself" to teach women how to do the exam.

Albright, a nurse who lives in Alexandria, said it was "empowering" to tell her story on camera. "I'm not looking to change the world," she said, "but if one person benefits, I'm happy." Albright said a breast self-exam helped her catch her cancer early. She underwent a bilateral mastectomy after the TV report was filmed in early October, and now faces four months of chemotherapy. She says her prognosis is good.

Photo by euthman, Creative Commons Attribution License.

Why aren't there more female marijuana activists, Marijuana Policy Project employee Laura Greenback asks in High Times. Ooh! Pick me! I know the answer!

It's not that women don't like smoking weed. We do. And it's not that we don't care about the ass-backwards war on drugs—despite Greenback's fears, half of the MPP's top staff are women. It's not that there are too few pop-culture stoner females, as Double X suggests—though we're getting warmer!

Women don't identify with marijuana activism because weed culture is dude culture. On the surface, a lot of the trappings of weed culture are coed-ready: women, too, can get high, blast Phish, play hacky sack, and stuff miniature Reese's Peanut Butter Cups into our faces. But even if we're allowed to strap on a fucking hemp necklace and toke up with the boys, we will still have to deal with the tits. Let's check out the advertising paired with Greenback's piece:

There's the sexy vaporizer shot (above). There's the weed bikini shot (below):

And then there's this:

Seriously? Pot vagina? No strength of medicinal could calm the nausea that ad just inspired.

Here's what these advertisements say to women: Weed isn't for you. It's for men. (Also for men? Your boobs). And the targets of those advertisements—high school and college guys—often echo those misogynist attitudes.  You know what's even more annoying than a misogynist? A misogynist who is high out of his mind. No wonder we tend to skip the pot rallies.

MORE: Why misogyny in the counter-culture is more annoying than mainstream misogyny.

"DAS Best Oktoberfest," the German-ish drinking festival which hits National Harbor, Md., on Sept. 26, is all about the beer. But how does one market this "beer"? Easy: Take a photo of a woman holding beer, cut off her neck and head, then cut off the beer. I know I need a beer right about now!

The Huffington Post's latest foray into celebrity eye-candy linkbait, "Iconic Swimsuit Movie Moments," comes in two flavors: Male and Female.

The Huffington Post, it seems, has tired of just fetishizing female bodies, and has moved onto more equal-opportunity objectification. Since it's too much to ask for a Web site to refrain from objectifying any humans, is this a cause for celebration?

Blogger Echidne of the Snakes, for one, isn't convinced by the Web site's newfound gender-neutrality. The effort falls short of equal exploitation, she writes, as HuffPo's readership appears to decisively prefer one set of skin-baring pics over the other. So while Phoebe Cates, Ali Larter, and Bo Derek are currently workin' it to the top of the Web site's "Popular Stories" slots . . .

. . . Daniel Craig, Patrick Swayze, and Sacha Baron Cohen are being boxed out of the top spots by such decidedly nonsexual fare as this:

That's right: Huffington Post readers are more interested in discovering the key to happiness than checking out semi-naked dudes. Say it ain't so!

Echidne's got her theories: "Huffington Post wants to make money and advertising money is in clicks. And what gets clicked is bodies of chicks. By dicks? I'm getting carried away here, but let me just add that I would have thought Huffington Post has female readers, too. I guess their clicks don't have the power."

So, is the Huffington Post engineering some sort of mass sexist conspiracy to push naked ladies onto the front-page while subjugating the male bodies to barely-linked territory? Not exactly. HuffPo is just cashing in on that same old mass sexist conspiracy—the one that's been around long before blogs figured out how to make money off of it.

Here's a refresher on that old thing: Young, thin, hairless, and female bodies are for being sexy. Aged, hairy, fat, and male bodies are for making jokes about how un-sexy they are.

By adding the "Male" gallery—and encouraging readers to click through for the hot swimsuit moments—the Huffington Post isn't making an honest attempt to expand the definition of what's sexy, or to ease the objectification of women by objectifying men alongside them. What the Huffington Post is doing, I think, is responding to some recent criticism by turning the heat on its readers, not its editors.

Once HuffPo offers up the naked girls and the naked boys, it's not up to the site's editors anymore to determine which bodies are click-worthy—"you" decide for them.

Unlike Echidne, I don't think the popularity of the female body on HuffPo's site necessarily means that the site's female "clicks don't have the power" of its male readers. I just think that we haven't been taught to objectify male bodies like we have female ones. Cosmo's valiant efforts aside, the objectification of women is a mainstream entertainment standard—and both women and men grow up taking it all in. It's telling that HuffPo's male beefcake gallery has to be filled out with a couple of joke entries—Sacha Baron Cohen in Borat, Eddie Murphy in Norbit—in order to meet sexy slideshow quota. Women—even heterosexual women—are more likely to check out photos of bikini-bedecked females than Speedo-clad males. This trend doesn't let purveyors of female flesh off the hook, of course. Offering men photos of girls in swimsuits helps men see women as objects. Offering women photos of girls in swimsuits helps women feel bad for not looking like them.

Is the Huffington Post's focus on scantily-clad women still sexist? Sure, but it's a sexist view that comes with the support of at least 2,890,011 male and female viewers. Would HuffPo print a sexist op-ed, even if it were of interest to millions of Internet trolls? Probably not—HuffPo readers are usually self-aware enough to shun clear sexism when it's written in black-and-white. But when it's written in tits and ass? Click click.

If the Huffington Post decides to keeps up its gender-neutral exploitation efforts—despite the poor page-views for the male portion—I have just one request. When you're objectifying male bodies, can you try not to ridicule female bodies while you're doing it?

Ella Laseinde is accustomed to seeing strangers’ breasts. “I’m a mammographer, so I’m with the breasts constantly,” says Laseinde, 71, who spent 30 years in government service—including five at the National Institutes of Health screening women’s chests. That’s not to say she’s interested in catching sight of stray bosoms outside the office. “I think in today’s time, they need to cover,” Laseinde says of nursing mothers. “There are so many people walking around who can catch a look.”

In 1995, Laseinde patented a contraption to help women breast-feed in public without sacrificing modesty. Laseinde’s Shield-Me-Baby Nursing Bib, inspired by the birth of a granddaughter, is a halter-style bib that attaches with Velcro around a woman’s neck and fits over her breast.

A circular hole, tailored to the woman’s cup size, allows the breast to peek through the innovative device, enabling the infant to latch on to the food source. To minimize the public visibility of this transaction, the device has a flap that rests on the head or perhaps cheek area of the infant. Though it’s possible that some flesh could be exposed even with Laseinde’s patented breakthrough, there’ll be no full-on breast views with the Shield-Me-Baby Nursing Bib.

Though Laseinde’s 14-year patent on the bib expired last week, it’s recently found new life courtesy of neighbor and public-relations mouthpiece Linda Jones, 55. Jones began helping Laseinde market the product a few months ago in order to address what she calls “the ongoing public breast-feeding controversy.” Which side is Jones on? “I believe in covering,” says Jones, who breast-fed her two children, now 36 and 26 years old. “I don’t believe in showing my girls.”

Laseinde began producing the cotton contraptions as gifts before realizing, in the 1990s, that she could be charging $25 and up to help new mothers cover up.

Laseinde’s nursing garment isn’t the first modesty saver to hit the market, but it is one of the simplest. When Laseinde was breast-feeding in the 1960s, necessity mandated consistent public breast-feeding, and modesty could be maintained with a well-draped handkerchief. With the advent of formula and pumps, however, the public display inched toward taboo. Laseinde designed the bib to help a daughter-in-law breast-feed on the go without offending the public’s newly sensitive eyes.

But in the decade-and-a-half since Laseinde first laid out her design, Bill Clinton signed the Right to Breastfeed Act into law, public breast-feeding has emerged from the back room—and upscale new-mama fashion became en vogue. The maternity market has responded with increasingly ridiculous ways to guard a new mother’s breasts from curious onlookers.

One “apparatus and method for breast feeding,” patented in 2007, “provides a nursing mother a true sense of privacy and modesty”—complete with peep-show atmosphere. Here’s how: “[A] curtain is attached around the neck of the mother by a semi-rigid annular hoop. A layer of material lies across the front panel forming a valance or curtain for added privacy.”

Another nursing garment, titled “an improved garment for providing a privacy screen for the body,” has more of a hardhat-area feel. “The garment lies over the shoulder of the wearer extending down the back to a weighting means and down the front to an expanded lower portion,” the 2002 patent reads. “The weighting means provides a counter-balance to adequately retain the position of the garment on the wearer. The expanded lower portion drapes over the midriff of the wearer to provide breathable privacy to the wearer and contents within.

At least one invention attempts to place the modesty burden onto the newborn. The Breastfeeding Hat (patent pending) “includes a head-receiving portion sized and shaped to receive the head of a child, and a brim portion extending radially outwardly from the head-receiving portion. The brim portion is sized and shaped to substantially cover a woman’s breast.”

There’s even a contraption to help eliminate the need for breastfeeding contraptions. My Third Hand, patented in 2004, “holds the mother’s shirt securely out of the way by hooking onto her bra and her shirt, thereby freeing her hands to hold her baby and making expensive maternity shirts unnecessary.”
Laseinde’s Shield-Me-Baby bibs, too, have grown more sophisticated since their mid-’90s debut; she’s currently working on disposable models as well as party-ready versions “to match her evening-wear.” Perfect for the black-tie diaper bag.

Nowadays, many modern moms see no need to borrow baby’s bib before a public breast-feeding session. Dia Michels, 50, a local breast-feeding advocate, spent a combined 15 years breast-feeding on Capitol Hill, no modesty device required. “The reason women are so freaked out about breast-feeding in public is because we have completely sexualized the breast,” she says. “The only way to make breast-feeding easier for women is to desensitize the public to breast exposure. If these devices allow women to hide what they’re doing and cover it because it’s shameful and because it’s embarrassing, it’s just perpetuating the sexualization of the breast.” Though Shield-Me-Baby’s duckline-printed bibs fail to cover the larger issue, they can help individual women still held down by an outdated taboo. “If your goal is to help a woman with her issues—if the bib allows her to get over the hurdle that’s causing her discomfort—it becomes an empowering device,” Michels says.

Though Michels says that breast-feeding still hasn’t recovered from the rise of formula, the cause to desensitize the public to a dropped breast is alive and well. These days, a good deal of breast-feeding etiquette is now directed not at mothers but at passersby. One guide, published at families.com, advises flashed parties not to bother a mother with questions, complaints, or idle conversation—and to never call security on her. In April’s Atlantic Monthly, Hanna Rosin argued that the dirtiest of playground looks are now reserved for women who refuse to serve up product on demand. When Rosin voiced an appreciation for formula, “[t]he reaction was always the same: circles were redrawn such that I ended up in the class of mom who, in a pinch, might feed her baby mashed-up Chicken McNuggets,” she wrote. “In my playground set…breast-feeding is the real ticket into the club.”

Even among less-exclusive mothering circles, breast-feeding etiquette remains a hotly contested issue. “It’s like fashion,” says Jones. “It’s a cycle. One minute it’s in, the next minute it’s out”—meaning the marketing opportunities are endless. The cyclical nature of breast-feeding acceptance also explains why, in 2009, “a lot of people are still debating this issue,” Jones says. The echo chamber on breast-feeding is exacerbated by the eternal impressionability of expecting mothers. “It’s a scary situation, having a baby,” Jones says. “You don’t know what to expect. When a woman is pregnant, she’s going to be looking for any help she can get.”

And when she does, Laseinde and Jones will be waiting for her. Laseinde’s home is located directly across the street from a reliable stream of impressionable customers: Providence Hospital. Laseinde hasn’t staked out maternity ward graduates just yet. “I’ve thought about it, seeing people coming out,” she says. Adds Jones, “We plan to catch them as they leave—there are so many of them coming out with babies.” CP

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

Boobs.

Co-sponsored by CODEPINK and Breasts not Bombs, the event will now include a call-to-breasts. Breasts not Bombs is inspired by a Mendocino, Cali. woman who, while "celebrating 4^th of July at a local park, removed her shirt to dance in the warm summer sun." This weekend, women will descend upon D.C. to bare their breasts in order to "reclaim the definition of Indecency and stand for mothers and children all over the world whose daily lives are ruined by continued warmongering and profiteering."

Presser is after the jump.

What: Breasts Not Bombs and Code Pink Co Sponsor

A Demonstration for Peace and Cooperation.

Where: White House/Lafayette Square , Washington D.C

When: Saturday May 9th at 1PM until Sunday May 10th @ 1PM

Contact: Sherry Glaser-Love 707-671-3895 or sheandshe@mac.com

Mother's Day for Peace Blogs: http://codepinkalert.org/article.php?id=4865

Mother's Day for Peace Website: http://www.mothersdayforpeace.com

Members of Peace activist Group Breasts Not Bombs enjoy the legal protection and accept a moral obligation to engage in a non-violent topless demonstration for Peace in front of the White House this Mother's Day.

Breasts Not Bombs originated in Mendocino California in 2004 when a women celebrating 4th of July at a local park removed her shirt to dance in the warm summer sun. She was told she was offending people, breaking the law and was threatened with arrest for indecent exposure. Their attorney help prove that breasts “were not genitalia” A series of public protests ensued under the banner, “Breasts Not Bombs” and asked the question, “What is truly indecent?” Protest signs indicate the true obscenity of War, Torture, Immigration sweeps, The Pentagon's budget, Banker bailouts, etc.

We will gather at the White House this weekend to reclaim the definition of Indecency and stand for mothers and children all over the world whose daily lives are ruined by continued warmongering and profiteering.

This demonstration is Constitutionally protected and in Solidarity with peace activists from Code Pink.

Yesterday, Keith Olbermann and Michael Musto took five minutes out of their busy schedules to skewer anti-gay-marriage Miss California Carrie Prejean after the "news" broke that the Miss California Organization had paid for Prejean's breast implants. Olbermann and Musto choose to shame Prejean by tearing into her body—riffing on boobs as "performance enhancers," saying the Miss California Organization's comments "added saline to the wound," and comparing her breasts to basketballs.

A blogger at the Conservative XPress responded to the Olbermann segment, writing, "Anyone know of any women's rights groups defending this woman yet? Nope? Didn't think so."

I'll do it.

Why is the commentary on Prejean's anti-gay commentary so devoid of the context of the Beauty Pageant?

So, Carrie Prejean is a homophobe. Is that any surprise, seeing that she's a product of a pageant machine which proudly parades its sexism in front of television screens across America? And now, the mainstream media is shaming Prejean for her pageant-consistent beliefs because she did something that would—what—help her win a beauty pageant?

The Miss California Organization leaking the news of Prejean's boob job is not sweet revenge for her intolerant comments. The organization paying for her fake breasts only reiterates the fact that pageant organizers deal in and profit from sexism, not public service. Meanwhile, they act completely sanctimonious when one of their fembot minions voices another shameful view? What a clusterfuck.

Try to think of a situation where a man is forced to parade his near-naked body in front of celebrity judges and millions of television viewers for an hour, and then speak for about ten seconds on public policy. It doesn't happen. Everyone knows those women weren't chosen for their policy positions, and that they essentially have no business commenting on political issues. And yet, the Q&A section remains. Why? To produce Youtube videos of pretty girls stumbling over "thinky" questions.

Perhaps the Prejean blowup will move pageant organizers to be more careful about coaching their representatives on the Q&A. But who cares? It's still a fucking beauty pageant.

Show Earl a photo of a topless woman, and he’ll respond like most heterosexual men—sure, he’ll take a look at the boobs. Show Earl two photos of a topless woman, and he’ll ditch the boobs—that’s an amateur move—and look for the color of her thong, the pattern of her rug, or how many eyes her dog has.

Earl is a connoisseur of Erotic Photo Hunt, an electronic bar game that puts a bawdy twist on the “spot the difference” puzzles that fill out kids magazines or the comics page. The rules of Erotic Photo Hunt are simple. Drop in a quarter. Choose “Babes” or “Hunks.” Inspect two photos of the same soft-core pinup, identical except for five Photoshopped differences. Touch all the variations before time runs out, and you advance to the next round. Each round is faster than the last. Never go straight for the boobs—differences are most likely to reveal themselves in the less titillating areas of the screen, like foliage, motorcycles, or pets.

“It’s like playing the one-eyed monster,” says Earl, a semi-retired mechanic who prefers to go by his first name. “You just put your money in, and it just takes it and stares back at you—challenging you.”

Earl is up to the challenge. He’s been playing the game for just over a year, but he’s already dominated the machines at most of the downtown bars where it’s on offer. When a new topless woman pops up—be she lounging on a yacht, surrounded by bananas, or with an Easter basket placed fortuitously between her legs—Earl instantly touches the screen five times, as if working from muscle memory. He seems to barely glance at the screen as he coaxes out a succession of “mmms,” “aahs,” and “yahoos” from the game, payment for accurate touches. Earl attributes his ability to a lifetime working on cars and houses. “I just look, and it’s different,” he says. “You just look at something, and see what the difference is, and bada-bing, bada-bang. One, two, three, four, five.”

The temptation comes courtesy of game distributor Megatouch, whose touch-screen consoles also provide less risqué bar fare, like poker and glorified crosswords. But not all Megatouch consoles are created equal. Since Earl began photo hunting, he’s tried about three dozen District machines, each providing varying levels of screen quality and sensory response. L Street basement bar Recessions “has the best-calibrated machine in the city,” Earl swears. In addition to its prized machine, Recessions also has one of the city’s worst Erotic Photo Hunt consoles—the bar’s second machine, which is smaller, poorly lit, and often requires several finger-pushes to register a hit. Earl holds the high scores on both of them. He’s also the top-scorer on the machine in Mackey’s Public House, a flight above Recessions. Earl harbors a particular distaste for the Black Rooster machine just down the street. He has a high score there, too.

The Recessions machine isn’t just the best—it’s also a couple blocks from Earl’s home. You can find him camped in front of it daily, peering at topless women under a black eagle-embroidered hat when he’s not helping out with barback work and small repairs. When Earl sits down to play, he first locks the machine “so it don’t swivel on you,” then camps on the right side of the screen. “I’m always on the right. I always sit on the right. I’m right-handed, so I’m just like boom, boom, boom, boom, boom,” he says. Earl can sometimes find all the differences before even one of the game’s units of time disappears, “until things really speed up,” he says, “after Round 26.”

On lower rounds, Earl takes the time to crack jokes or explain technique. “Will somebody give her a hand?” he says, after finding an upper extremity missing from one model. “See, it looks like her tit is covered up more on that one,” he says. Sometimes, he plays with friends. “When I play with them, they sit back and let me play, and if I’m missing something, they hit it. They’re like backup.”

Earl’s personal bests—428,000 points alone, and 492,000 with a team—may be modest in comparison to national records. While there’s no national body that keeps an official count, in 2006, a guy going by the name “Tanman” scored 1,042,768 on a Tampa, Fla., machine, and has the cell phone shot posted online to prove it.

Earl doesn’t keep such records. He doesn’t maintain a consistent handle. He will always heed another player’s call for assistance. “Everyone asks for my help,” says Earl, whose games are largely funded by rookie bargoers who need an extra hand. As a result, even Recessions management can’t recognize Earl’s complete dominance of the board. “I don’t know who’s the best,” says Mohammad, a bartender. “I don’t play the game. But he plays a lot. He loves the game.”

Erika, a Mackey’s employee who sometimes serves as backup for Earl, confirms Earl’s generous habit. “Earl takes this seriously, like it’s a job,” says Erika, who says she joins in only on weekends, after her own workday is through. “But 99.9 percent of the time, it’s other people calling him—‘Where’s Earl?’” she says.

“Where the fuck is Earl,” adds Earl.

But Earl remembers which scores are his own and which he still needs to beat. Sometimes Earl signs his games as “ECinDC”; sometimes, simply “Me.” If he gets a high score with the help of a friend, he’ll sign it “Us” or use a double attribution like “Kenny Earl.” For a time, he concentrated on filling an entire leader board—the top 10 scores—under the name “Death to Balls.”

“A while back, a bunch of players were coming in, calling themselves ‘Team Balls,’ ‘Cow Balls,’ ‘Pig Balls,’” Earl explains. “At some point, I just got tired of the balls.” For a month, Earl worked methodically to rid the leader board of balls. “I’ve had people come in and say, ‘Who’s Death to Balls?’ I just don’t say anything, because I’ve got the whole screen filled. I had to go in there and clear the whole screen to get people to try and compete again.”

Earl isn’t an Erotic Photo Hunt completist, but he is a purist. He never plays “Hunks”: “I don’t care if he’s wearing short shorts—I don’t want to be touching his johnson, you know what I mean?” He also avoids Megatouch’s other variations on the classic version—“Chippendales Photo Hunt” and “Penthouse Photo Hunt,” which provide additional distractions for an extra quarter. “You can guess what those are like,” says Earl. “Swinging dicks? I’m not going down that avenue,” he says of the Chippendales version. The Penthouse game has similarly failed to entice him. “So you see the pubic hair. They’re not spread open or anything,” he says. “If I wanted to see a hairy crotch, I wouldn’t be paying for it.”

Earl would just prefer if everyone kept his or her pants on. In the classic game, neither Babes nor Hunks reveal any genitalia, and some of the women even appear with modest bikinis covering their breasts. Earl doesn’t claim to favor any of the few dozen models offered up to him every evening. He has, however, begun to resent some of the women who appear in the more frustrating puzzles. “A couple of them on there, I would smack the shit out of them. I’m just tired of them,” says Earl. “This is a bitch I hate,” Earl says, indicating a busty woman posing suggestively on a director’s chair. “She’s in like seven different pictures, and they’re all terrible—just in a kitchen with so much bullshit behind her.”

To Earl, Erotic Photo Hunt is hardly erotic—just highly addictive. Earl gives one reason as to why he keeps playing the one-eyed monster, and it has nothing to do with boobs. “After 400,000 points,” he says, “you get a free game if you beat the high score.”

Photos by Darrow Montgomery.

Laser light show nightly at seven.

Mexico is also home to wonders of the modern world. Observe:

Gah.

"I want to be in the City Paper!" announced the tuxedoed man. He, several other tuxedoed men, accompanied by several gowned women, were enjoying cocktails at the Marriott Wardman hotel on the occasion of the 2009 Kentucky Bluegrass Ball. "I am D.C.'s most successful hotel developer," he explained.

"Do you know of some sort of scandal I might report?" I asked D.C.'s most successful hotel developer.

D.C.'s most successful hotel developer considered the question. "Here's a scandal," he posited. "My wife"—indicating a lovely woman in a black ball gown—"will grab her breast"—indicating another lovely woman in a black ball gown. "You can take a picture of this," he added.

I agreed that this display might very well gain D.C.'s most successful hotel developer access to the City Paper's pages. Or at the very least, to www.washingtoncitypaper.com, I considered privately.

"What sort of subjects do you write about for the City Paper?" asked D.C.'s most successful hotel developer.

"I write a sex column," I explained.

The tuxedoed man appeared amused. "Let me ask you this," he said, lobbying hard now to appear in the pages of the City Paper. "My wife"—indicating the decollage of a lovely woman in a black ball gown—"is considering buying her breasts"—indicating the decollage of another lovely women in a black ball gown. "Do you think that's a good idea? As a sex columnist," queried D.C.'s most successful hotel developer.

"May I have your business card?" I asked the man, now eager to place his name in the pages of the City Paper, or at the very least, www.washingtoncitypaper.com.

"No, no. I cannot do that," he replied. "Sex is the one thing I will not talk about."

Well folks, it's that time of the year again when I retire to my secret, undisclosed holiday-time punpkin'-pie sunshine bunker* for the remainder of the year. Things should get back on a regular schedule on December 29th, followed closely by another brief hiatus to allow for my first hangover of 2009. Until then, let's reflect.

I started this blog this fall, after jumping ship from the City Paper's arts beat to cover a subject a little closer to my area of interest—women (am one). Since then, I've written on contraception access, coy Internet sex fiends, and that sexy dunce ice queen who would become the Vice President of our hearts. Let's see what subjects ya'll found most interesting this year: in a list!

1. SEX/OBAMA: Electoral Dysfunction: In Search of Election Night Sex
2. SARAH PALIN: The Sexist's Vice-Presidential Debate Drinking Game
3. SEX/FIRE: The Good Guys Trial
4. OBAMA: Is This Man Your Ticket to the Inauguration?
5. SEX: Nude Coworkers: Disturbing?
6. SEX/SARAH PALIN: Star in the Sarah Palin Adult Film
7. SARAH PALIN: Now: Live-Blogging the Vice-Presidential Debate
8. GAY ENDURANCE CONTESTS: High Heel Race Seeks Volunteers
9. BOOBS: Breast Cancer Awareness Cake: Fail
10. WOMEN'S HEALTH: Yes, We Have No Birth Control

Thanks very much for reading. And let me know what sexy fire boob contests you'd like to see covered in 2009!

* Phoenix.

Photo via trialsanderrors.