"Sarah Palin, in spandex, discusses her 'throbbing thighs,'" is the classic ladymag linkbait-and-switch:

A. Write about an issue of great interest to the American public. Ex. Sarah Palin; tight-fitting clothing; throbbing body parts; the portion of a woman's leg nearest to the vagina.

B. Present the story as a feminist critique on the political ramifications of said topic; in other words, issues of lesser interest to the American public. Ex. "Anyone who still thinks Sarah Palin isn't trying to use her enviable physique to her political advantage should read this Runner's World profile in which Palin says, 'I knew my thighs were going to just throb.' The throbbing thighs are accompanied by a slew of cheesecake shots of Palin in close-fitting running gear" (courtesy of DoubleXer Jessica Grose)

C. Write headlines and teasers for the story that are indistinguishable from the T&A treatment. Hey, I clicked on it!

I happen to disagree with Grose's post. I see nothing particularly exploitative about Palin discussing her running techniques and wearing running gear in a magazine photo. On Runner's World's end, you could say that the full slideshow was overkill—though this short-shorts photo of David Paterson shows that Palin isn't the only victim of the magazine's political cheesecake.

That being said, I understand why the the piece was packaged in the strange way that it was—pull in the readers interested in Palin's "throbbing thighs," only to criticize Palin for showing them off.

DoubleX has needs. We all do. It's no secret why my critique of local media sex writing, "Teen Sex Scandal!," is consistently one of the most-clicked blog posts on the Sexist. Sure, I could have titled it something a little more to the point—and a lot less sexier—but that would have meant sacrificing the slew of impulse google clicks from readers that are certainly more interested in porn than whatever feminist critique I have to offer.

Are these ladymag link tactics any better than Web sites which deal in fleshy linkbait, only to offer real flesh on display, and not a feminist critique of the same? Probably not. But there is one upside to the T&A bait-and-switch: The pleasure in knowing that Web surfers searching for Sarah Palin cameltoe are unsuspectingly clicking through to a big dose of feminist theory. Sometimes they even stick around to write long-winded negative comments—another reliable source of linkbait!

One woman recalls her post-20 week abortion:

The baby had contracted a virus and you could see on the MRI that its organs were all messed up. It looked like there were bubbles in them, instead of solid masses like they were supposed to be. Then they figured out that the baby had been exposed to Fifth disease. All sorts of researchers contacted us, because they wanted to study it.

That was at about 20 weeks. I got a blood transfusion and I thought everything was cool. We went on vacation. But then we came back, and the doctor realized everything wasn't cool. His brain had a hemorrhage. The MRI reminded me of my other son's. He's autistic, and when he was three he'd had an MRI that also showed abnormalities. At a minimum, they said the baby would have developmental delays. But the doctor also used the words: "This child could not make it into childhood." I was six months along then, and I was already showing. But we couldn't handle having another special needs kid. Psychically, we just couldn't handle it.

. . . I cry all the time, and that will be for the rest of my life. Because I really, really wanted that baby.

And from another patient of Dr. Tiller's

In July 1993, my husband and I received the worst news about our son's impending birth: He suffered from multiple, severe fetal anomalies, both internal and external, thought to be the result of a rare blood disorder. If he could survive his early birth at 24 weeks he most likely would not survive his blood cancer beyond the age of 9.

. . . While still reeling from the shock, we were told we could take our chances and let the baby be born, but that the state would be forced to intervene if we did not then take every measure to keep our son alive. Or, we could consider two late-term abortion clinics—one in Wichita, Kan., the other in Holland! Our initial thoughts were "how could we be in a major NYC hospital in the United States and be told these are our only choices?" To say it was surreal is an understatement.

And then, very quickly, a commenter did a stupid thing!

"doovinator," who appears in his photo with a young child wrapped around his neck, writes:

A woman once took me home with her; I thought we had some real, if drunken, feelings for each other after we'd met at a party. She took a shower, joined me in her bed, things progressed the way you might think they would, and I thought we had a lovely encounter, though she seemed a little bit tense and I mentioned it to her. She responded, "well, you'd be tense too, if you'd just been RAPED!"

Wait a minute, I said, that's not how I saw it AT ALL. We didn't exactly discuss our intentions beforehand, but she joined me in bed, nude and apparently willing, and hadn't offered any resistance when I made my advances. She may have whispered "no" once or twice, but didn't make any effort to stop me or even slow me down much. Some may call it "date rape", but I really liked her, thought we were doing fine and would have loved to have had a further relationship. That didn't happen.

~DJ

"Some may call it 'date rape', but I really liked her." Okay, now I am taking a shower.

Feminism: Oooooooooover it.

In this edition of Sexist Beatdown, Sady of Tiger Beatdown and myself of the Sexist talk of DoubleX, Slate's new online magazine for women—it's just like us, except we're the problem! Also, people who don't report their own rapes. It is mostly them (and not, saaaay, rapists) who are the problem.

Oh, problems. They create so many pageviews, which, in turn, solve our main problem ($$$). I think it's about time for Sady and I to CASH IN: What's the problem with DoubleX, anyway?

SADY: hello! are you ready to speak? or are you too busy KILLING FEMINISM?

AMANDA: i actually just thew up a blog post, which, as you shall see, is what i actually think is "killing" "feminism." let me start with the Bust quote on DoubleX's dead feminism obsession, though: "We don't know about you, but we're disappointed. (And we also need to figure out the best way to fight off this new undead feminism before it eats our brains.)"

SADY: yeah. I mean: any new publication that focuses on lady issues is exciting! And, Katha Pollitt! Latoya Peterson! That is super exciting!

AMANDA: did you follow XX Factor religiously (or, subscribed to the RSS) like i did?

SADY: Yes, I did! Every single day! So this new DoubleX thing, with its lead off of

7 reasons why feminism is boring/stupid/dead/anti-feminist" is kind of puzzling to me. the quote of the day on the first day was about hating feminism!

AMANDA: ... april ... fools

SADY: fortunately, today, it is about how dolphins are rapist babykillers. which is a slightly less controversial opinion. FUCKING DOLPHINS, man. they think they're SO GREAT.

AMANDA: it's just kind of bizarre, i think maybe the "conversation" format which worked so well for the blog hasn't really panned out as a "magazine" yet

SADY: yeah, exactly. on XX factor you got to see people talking back and forth, which was exciting! this time around, it's just weird and hard to navigate, because you don't know who's saying what or if anyone has yet spoken up to disagree with them.

AMANDA: yeah. did you read breslin's piece about how DoubleX is an entity "beyond" feminism after its death? her point is, basically, "let's shut up and just do it." But isn’t the point of writing in general to "not do anything and just talk about it"? or more positively, "do something BY talking about it"?

SADY: oh, susannah. i'm happy that she writes in-depth stuff about porn and all, and i like what she writes, but every once in a while she's just like "feminism! I hate it! I ran it over with my truck! Now it is dead! You are all victims!" And it's just like, huh. I like your reading of it, though. That makes more sense than mine. And, you'/Susannah are right, it does make more sense for folks of this generation to LIVE their feminism, given that we have more opportunities to do that than elsewhere.

AMANDA: i don't mind the "death of feminism" so much—hell, i've written a eulogy for feminism before, mostly because it's kind of fun and pretty easy—but the way it's weirdly tied in with rape victims is unsettling.

SADY: yeah, and that "Jezebel is hurting women" piece – it made no sense at all, or rather, made sense on a level I really can't get down with, which was: (a) Megan Carpentier has taken exception to my stuff before, so I will write about how she is a bad rape survivor who makes ladies get raped, or something, and (b) what is a way to get traffic for our feminist blog? Attack another feminist blog in a way that is certain to cause controversy!

AMANDA: rape + Jezebel = $$$$$$$$

SADY: it's odd. i am the first lady in the world to say that feminist (or "post-feminist," whatevs) disagreements are enlightening and good and awesome. HOWEVER. It seems weird to me to lead off your (initially marketed as feminist) site with all of this stuff that is, basically, contrarian for the sake of contrarianism.

AMANDA: and i think that's a problem that affects the blog/commentary world in general: what's around, and how can we be different—let's find something to criticize about something else. i do it all the time, you do it all the time — we just choose different targets. and if they think feminism is boring, i think that's okay! but it's more interesting than talking about why feminism is boring. i'd rather they talked about the dolphins.

SADY: RIGHT? we have got to end this mindless social acceptance of dolphins. and, you know, it's fun to make fun, or to criticize, and sometimes it's easier to define yourself in opposition to something else. like, "see, this is what I DON'T believe, so now I can talk about what i DO."

AMANDA: i think they should have gone meta and asked their contributors what the problem is with DoubleX instead of what the problem is with "feminism"

SADY: yeah. and, you know, probably all of this "AUGGGH DOUBLE X LAUNCH" is going to open up conversations that we can use. at some point. i have a story with a moral about snarky blogging. can i tell you my story?

AMANDA: yes.

SADY: okay. so, a million years ago, when i was a tiny little blog person with a blog that was read by 3.5 people in the whole world, i wrote a very snarky post about john devore from the frisky. and this morning, when i opened my e-mail, there was a message! from john devore of the frisky! telling me he liked my blog! and i was like, "ha ha, um... THANKS?!?!" but the moral of the story is that this dude i wrote a cranky post to make fun of turned out to be a totally reasonable dude who writes very nice e-mails. and this established for me some of the things that you DON'T know when you sit down to write a weinery post about somebody else on the Internet. and, yeah, i like the fact that double x is committed to writing stuff that can be snarky (MUST STOP WRITING THIS WORD) or harsh or controversial. still. maybe peeing all over feminism's bloody corpse is not the best tactic, given the fact that the people who are going to read your new lady blog are likely to be... you know. feminist, and stuff.

AMANDA: definitely. and maybe we should think about why it's almost a guarantee that people who write mean blogs also write really nice emails. ALWAYS TRUE. So i usually just write the blog stuff off as a big game that we're all trying to win, but isn't personal—but that gets complicated when you write about personal stuff (rape experience) and a writer takes that personal life (not reporting your rape) and turns it into snarky commentary. in short, bloggers are people too. people who need pageviews.

SADY: ha. yes, we do. which is why my latest story, "How Linda Hirshman Is Hurting Women, and Me Specifically, Because She Made Dolphins Give Me an Abortion" is going to be SOLID INTERNET GOLD.

... But thats not all! DoubleX is doing even more to encourage you to fill out a comment form. In an e-mail last month, the magazine's editors informed loyal readers that they're "going to start having cocktail meetups and other fun events for our core commenters in New York and D.C."

So if having your voice heard ain't enough—drink specials?