* 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

Apparently, my extensive punning work on the topic of Male Studies has qualified me to comment internationally on the nascent academic discipline. Yesterday, I appeared on Canadian CBC radio program "Q with Jian Ghomeshi" in order to provide the yin to Male Studies founder Lionel Tiger's yang on the phenomenon of the "male as male," and how we can prevent feminists from thwarting this exciting development in maleness. Bonus: Near the end of the segment, Tiger accuses me of possessing "petty vigor"! You can listen to the debate here, and join the conversation on the CBC blog.

Photo via d_vdm, Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

The health center at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada is currently outfitted with this anti-drinking PSA that warns that excessive drinking can get you raped. Funny how that just happens. Can't we get a "You can also rape someone"? Thanks to Waterloo student BuChanda for the tip.

According to the Ottawa Sun:

Testifying through an Ethiopian-dialect interpreter, [the defendant] denied doing anything but his job and said he didn’t even remember the woman until confronted by hospital officials.

He refused to agree with prosecutor Paul Attia that the woman was attractive, insisting he only found his wife beautiful.

Fournier scoffed at that.

“If 50 men, self-respecting, objective men, men who respect women, were to view (the woman), however briefly, they would conclude that she meets the standard of an attractive woman, at least in the city of Ottawa,” Fournier said.

The accused refused to admit it because he knew it would bolster her account he was showing her “undue attention,” Fournier argued.

“Here is a woman, relatively attractive, scantily dressed in a miniskirt, at times she is lying on the bed, exposing a great deal of her leg,” Fournier said.

“This accused refuses to acknowledge he noticed that. In my view this is virtually impossible.”

Strangely, the Sun piece does not mention any additional facts in the case that may have led to the orderly's conviction. As far as this account is concerned, the woman's appearance alone was enough to stick the guy with a sexual assault conviction.

I agree that claiming, in a court of law, that you are only capable of recognizing your wife's beauty is a pretty stupid defense. But it's depressing that even as a judge convicts a man of sexual assault, he insists upon reinforcing the most victim-blaming sentiments about women bringing unwanted attention onto themselves based on how they look and what they're wearing. When a judge uses the word "scantily" in his description of a victim, you know you're in trouble. (She was coming straight from work, remember). And the idea that a woman exposing "a great deal of leg"—in a hospital exam room—is just too tempting for a medical professional to ignore is ridiculous.

But Fournier didn't stop there—he then launched into a little hot-or-not scenario in open court. If he were to invite 50 regular dudes to come in and ogle this sexual assault victim, most would agree that she "meets the standard of an attractive woman"—well, at least for Ottawa! (Because she's not that hot, amirite?). Way to re-victimize a sexual assault victim even while convicting her assailant, Judge Fournier.

Welcome back to "Sexist Beatdown," wherein the very abnormal Sady of Tiger Beatdown, and the merely abnormal Amanda, of the Sexist, chat about topics of interest to finer women. This week: Sex, is it normal or abnormal? How about when there is pee, children, and/or wheelchairs involved? Canadian young adults shall reveal all!

Last year, the Canadian Journal of Human Sexuality published a study asking 104 undergraduate college students—36 men, 68 women, 96.2 percent heterosexual, two of whom had engaged in anal sex within four weeks of taking the survey—whether certain sexual behaviors were “normal” or “abnormal.” Half the respondents were provided surveys had the sexual acts being performed by men; half of the surveys had females performing the acts. The sex acts mentioned ranged from the routine ("A man/woman having sex somewhere other than a bed") to the—let’s face it—abnormal ("A man/woman becoming aroused by watching children play in a playground"). Read the study here [PDF].

After a National Post story interpreted the findings to mean that "society accords men less 'sexual latitude' than women," and that a "new sexual double standard" was now at work against men, not women, in the bedroom. The Internet exploded: The battle of the sexes was again rehashed on the Daily Beast; Jezebel defended men against shame; somebody twittered that "Jezebel is the new patriarchy."

Frankly, we're not exactly buying any of this.

AMANDA: hi

SADY: hello! i am just perusing the great "who is a sex freak" study now. confession: i'm kind of bad at just reading raw statistics. did you read through it?

AMANDA: i did read through it. i skipped most of the intro.

SADY: as did i

AMANDA: but i basically get the findings

SADY: so, the operating theory behind this study is that men are judged more harshly than ladies for getting all freaky in the sack. here is an interesting fact: MOST OF THE PEOPLE WHO RESPONDED TO THE SURVEY WERE LADIES. so seriously, are we surprised that girls are maybe more understanding of girls getting off in weird ways?

AMANDA: that's a good point. But i think commentators—and the original news story—are overestimating the difference between perceptions of men and women here. and i think it's important to note what respondents were asked. they were asked whether something was "normal" or "abnormal,” not whether something was acceptable or unacceptable. so when i see a question like this one:

A man (woman) in a wheelchair performing oral sex on someone who is able-bodied

do I think that's normal? I've never done this, or heard a story about this happening, or seen it in porn. i think it's very abnormal. That just doesn't fucking happen all that often. That doesn't mean that it's wrong, it's just not really an average thing

SADY: yeah, it's unusual, but probably not to folks who are romantically involved with someone who's disabled. my favorite question is "a normal weight person having sex with a person who weighs 322 pounds." surprisingly, 32% of folks surveyed thought it was "abnormal" for a "normal weight" dude to have sex with a 322-pound lady, but only 25% thought it was "abnormal" for women to have sex with a 322-pound man! That's not freaky sex time, that's the plot of "King of Queens."

AMANDA: i know. and how specific the weight is! but that's exactly where i was going to go with this—a lot of our idea (or 104 Canadian college students' idea) of what is normal comes from what we see regularly on television or in porn. you're more likely to see a 3-way with two women and a man than two men and a woman—that's "more normal.” you're more likely to see a girl get peed on than the other way around—that's "more normal.” also, i can see why some men would want to say, you know, for example, it's totally normal for a woman to want to have anal sex, because i want to have anal sex with my girlfriend.

SADY: hah, right, and a lot of that (porn) IS based on a model of sex and gender wherein men are totally active and in control and hypersexual and women are only responsive and there to gratify the dudes. that's just the way these things go.
AMANDA: right, exactly. i think the idea that this study has any implications on the sexual double standard is misleading. a man can say he thinks it's normal for a girl to want to have a threesome, and a man may want to have a threesome with two girls, but does he want to date a girl who he knows has had a threesome? that's an entirely different survey.

SADY: that's the survey of my life, friend.

AMANDA: hahaha

SADY: i do think it's interesting, though, even though we admit that we're looking at this totally overtly normative version of sex, that there are two questions with HUGE disparities: one, it's considered way abnormal for dudes not to get turned on by nekkid ladies, and two, it's considered way abnormal for dudes to get turned on by wearing lady clothes. neither of those are AS abnormal for girls.

AMANDA: you're right about that. i did read somewhere that the vast majority of respondents were heterosexual, with only one gay male reporting

SADY: yeah, precisely... and all of the questions about partner sex were phrased in an overtly hetero way, the only question where you don't know the gender of the partner are the ones where somebody's getting peed on.

AMANDA: also, while everyone thought it was abnormal for men to get turned on by children playing, only 91.7 percent of respondents thought the same of women

SADY: UM?

AMANDA: i have no explanation for that one

SADY: yeah, well, it's also more "abnormal" for dudes to have rape fantasies than ladies.

AMANDA: i think this study would be more interesting if it were accompanied by one that surveyed people about their actual turn-ons. how many dudes get turned on by peeing vs. how many women think that is normal? now we'll see who's normal!

SADY: that would be exciting! there could be a whole undercurrent of pee-love in the American populace, and we wouldn't know about it. but who's going to answer those questions honestly? this all reminds me of the bonobo porn study from a while back.

AMANDA: i know, maybe we're not ready to rehash that just yet. it would be interesting to know, at least, how attitudes about what's "normal" affect your feelings for a person. "would you be more/less likely to date a man who liked to be peed on?" i'll answer that: i would date him, but not necessarily pee on him.

SADY: i would feel bad about dating that dude. i would be unable to pee on him and i would know that he was missing out. i think he should meet a nice girl who drinks a lot of beer and coffee, that's my answer.

AMANDA: no very abnormal feelings toward you though, man. also, what university can only find one gay person out of a hundred?

SADY: exactly. i mean, these are just questions about Generic Dude and Generic Lady and their many (hetero)sexy adventures. so are we surprised that we're coming up with this super-generic picture here?

AMANDA: you're right, there's no personal investment here at all. i bet most of them don't give a shit what a theoretical person does on or off a wheelchair

SADY: exactly. there's no history there at all. like, is the wheelchair dude or lady in question having sex with his/her spouse? girlfriend? MAILMAN? we don't know!

AMANDA: and do they get off on the disability, or do they just happen to be with a disabled person? inquiring bloggers want to know. in short, this study was not nearly sexy enough

SADY: too true. one thing i have learned from this study is that the 68 ladies who took it (as opposed to the 36 men) are REALLY not into (a) dudes not getting turned on by their nekkid parts, and (b) dudes masturbating while in a relationship. are we that insecure that dudes can't occasionally NOT have boners, or get boners on their own sometimes? there are plenty of boners to go around! in conclusion, boners.

AMANDA: boners

SADY: embrace your boners, people of the world! let no-one tell you they are abnormal!

AMANDA: boners.

Photo by venetia joubert sarah oosterveld

From an inspired Vancouver woman: Seeking a sexual tyrannosaur for a romp in the park - w4m

I am a very career-focused, attractive, 5'9, 120lb woman who is seeking a man who is willing to fulfill my ultimate sexual fantasy. I am an executive with a very successful corporation that keeps me very busy and I sometimes have difficulty finding men who share similar interests to my own in the bedroom.

Nothing turns me on more then Jurassic Park themed role play. You must be the animatronic dinosaur, and I must be the helpless child (Tim or Lex) stuck in the park at your mercy.

You will growl mechanically into my ear and stare threateningly. I will feign panic and search for the flash light in the back seat of the visitor jeep. You will sniff at the window slowly and then release a robotic roar into the night air. I scream for Alan Grant, but your over sized robot jaws come crashing down through the overhead window, pinning me to the floor.

I cannot stress this enough however, you must play as a ROBOTIC dinosaur. This is very specific, my interest lie entirely in animatronic dinosaurs, not real ones. I thought I should mention this as there have been unfortunate miscommunications in the past, leading to performances that have left me without an orgasm.

Other situations could include you being the dilophasaurus and spitting in my face and then going for my jugular. Or you could be the ill and moaning triceratops, and I would be Ellie Sadler, digging through your stool to find the source of the ailment. More or less any scene from the film involving a mechanical dinosaur interacting with a human will do fine.

I don't like wasting my time, so make sure you do your homework and watch the film and make sure you can fully embrace the mindset of an animatronic dinosaur. I am an incredibly sexual person and I would make it a blockbuster night that you would never forget.

Photo by cliff1066