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

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

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

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 Yeah, Megan Carpentier noticed that Obama never repealed that.

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

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

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

Photo via walid.hassenein, Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

Yesterday, Feminist Law Professors drew my attention to the Miami Daily Business Review's "Rodent" column, a weekly anonymous rant written by various members of the legal community. The latest missive, "Lady Lawyers Should Dress the Part," warns female attorneys that they may be sabotaging their careers with overly sexy business attire. Actually, I think it's more likely that the conveniently anonymous Rodent, who spouts off platitudes like "women who dress like Barbie dolls get treated like Barbie dolls," is the force that's keeping women down in the workplace.

According to the Rodent, otherwise capable female lawyers are ruining their chances at being taken seriously by forgoing pantyhose, wearing heels, and revealing their cleavage:

Women who dress like Barbie dolls get treated like Barbie dolls. I know a lawyer who is in her mid-30s. She is stunning—tall, long blonde Lady Godiva hair and a body that would make a porn star jealous. This woman also happens to be a crackerjack lawyer. But she dresses to emphasize her looks, not her mind; as a result, her career seems to have stalled. Though she is an extremely bright woman, no one sees past the stilettos and low-cut blouses.

The vermin continues:

Clients tend not to hire women who look like hookers unless they hire them as hookers. Don’t show your “girls” at work unless you are looking for a one-night stand.

All right, let's hear one more:

I knew an associate who wore shoes that looked like she was a bridesmaid. She was a good lawyer, but there was a real disconnect between those gold sandals and the notion that she wanted to go the distance as a lawyer. She didn’t, and the shoes were a tip-off.

The Rodent's theories are convenient: The lawyer who looks like a porn star stumbled because her shoes are too high. The lawyer who looks like a bridesmaid is not serious about her job because her shoes are too strappy. The lawyer who looks like a hooker is not successful because her breasts are too prominent. Beyond the offensiveness of grouping female professionals into categories like Barbie, porn star, hooker, and bridesmaid, the Rodent appears to be going to great lengths to deny the obvious. Perhaps the lawyer who looks like a "porn star" is devalued because people think she's too attractive to be smart, not because she dresses like a Barbie. The lawyer who wears anything other than a turtleneck is devalued because she's got boobs, not because she dresses like a hooker. And the lawyer who looks like a bridesmaid, whose strappy shoes are a "tip-off" that she's not a serious lawyer? That sounds like a pretty insane explanation for a career misstep to me.

The Rodent, of course, is attempting to explain away a more offensive aspect of the legal profession: women are consistently partnered and paid less than men are. A commenter on Feminist Law Professors draws the obvious comparison between devaluing a woman's work based on her attire to outright sexual harassment. She writes that men have informed her of the harassment rule: “If she’s going to dress like trash, then she’s going to get treated like trash.”

Blaming a woman's clothing choices for her professional failure is simply a strategy for selectively discounting women without being called on your sexism. All you have to do is project your biases on to "her choices," and you can discriminate away.

This becomes clear when the Rodent gets specific about what aspects of a woman's appearance are unacceptable. Interestingly, several of the Rodent's tips are not specific to female lawyers. "A tattoo that shows is NEVER appropriate when you are a female attorney," the Rodent writes—as if face tattoos are generally accepted among lady litigators' male co-workers. The Rodent then offers up a weak defense for focusing on lady ink—women sag. "I promise you that once you are a woman of a certain age, your skin will lose elasticity, and that cute Asian saying . . . simply won’t look good when it’s sagging."

Many of the Rodent's recommendations are inconsistent. According to the Rodent, "Frumpy is the opposite end of the spectrum, and I see a lot of that these days, too. Looking like an unmade bed—wrinkled clothes, no makeup, dirty hair—doesn’t inspire much confidence either." Apparently, femininity-enhancing attire like heels are unacceptable, but makeup is required. The anonymous ranter also points to Condoleezza Rice as an acceptable style icon, even though Rice hardly shied away from figure-hugging, sexy-heeled outfits in her tenure as Secretary of State.

The lesson we can learn from this is that the standards regulating female appearance are largely arbitrary, and are designed that way to keep the door open for criticism. Men may either be labeled "sloppy" or "professional," but women must also navigate between being "frumpy," "professional," and "overly attractive." And since the "too sexy" meter can often be set off by simply looking like a woman, not dressing like one—having breasts, hips, legs, and a waist—hitting the right note can be a lot more difficult than learning to knot a neck-tie.

Feminist Law Professors' Bridget Crawford concurs with the Rodent on some points:

I myself am on record against visible toes in the office, so I am inclined to agree with the Rodent on this topic. . . . Displays of exaggerated female sexuality (cleavage, heels, etc.) are tools that some women attempt to use to their benefit. Kathleen Bergin explains this in her article Sexualized Advocacy and the Ascendant Feminist Backlash Against Female Lawyers . . . the Rodent reminds us that the same tools can be used against women, too.

I agree that this double standard—be attractive, but not too sexy—is used against women in the workplace. But I disagree with the Rodent's conclusion that the solution to workplace sexism is for women to modify their behavior by buttoning up and trashing the sandals. Apparently, no matter what a lady lawyer wears, there will be some vermin waiting on the sidelines to tell her it's not appropriate.

Photo by markusram, Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

Tosin Abasi was walking down the street in the East Village when he ran into New York magazine. Abasi’s outfit had caught the eye of a reporter looking for a subject for the mag’s fashion blog, the Cut. Abasi obliged, and proceeded to detail his street style for the camera: a pink paisley scarf, a Schiaparelli fedora, and khaki linen women’s shorts he scored as a hand-me-down from his girlfriend.

Such an outfit wouldn’t prompt a second thought if Abasi worked as a writer, artist, butcher, salesman, or in any number of other professions.

But Abasi is a metal guitarist, and women’s shorts don’t sit too well with that crowd.

Two days later, the shorts had made their way to MetalSucks, a “heavy metal community” dedicated to “intelligent, thoughtful discussion.”

In a post titled “BORN OF OSIRIS’ TOSIN ABASI WEARS WOMEN’S SHORTS,” MetalSucks proprietor Axl Rosenberg opened Abasi’s feminine inseam for discussion. “Born of Osiris are making it very hard for those of us who like their music to defend them against the tr00est of the tr00,” he wrote. “I really, really don’t like to judge people solely for what they wear, but… what the fucking fuck dude. Women’s shorts? I’m at a loss for words. Truly.”

It wasn’t Abasi’s first appearance on MetalSucks—the Web site had previously bestowed a “glowingly positive” review on Abasi’s D.C.-based solo project, Animals as Leaders. Abasi’s personal style elicited a less enthusiastic critique. “The guy was appalled,” says Abasi. “It was like he was personally insulted by my shorts.”

Orea Guthrie, Abasi’s girlfriend, wasn’t concerned with metal fashion commentary when she bought the offending shorts in June 2008 at Banana Republic. She didn’t particularly like them at first, either. “I’m really pale, and I thought they looked too ‘soccer mom’ on me,” she says. Guthrie, who studied fashion at Savannah College of Art and Design, had Abasi try on the shorts and deemed them a good fit. “He’s curvy!” says Guthrie. Abasi, who wears a women’s size 8, agrees that the women’s shorts are more than just a good look. “I do shop body-conscious because I have large thighs, and women’s clothes are usually more forgiving in that area,” he says. “But they’re linen shorts. It’s not the most feminine short in the world, really.”

[youtube:v=8SvJFEqMeSw]

They are, however, a couple of inches shy of metal. “In metal, you generally see kids wearing the cargo shorts and the camo shorts,” says Abasi. The looser, longer versions are more befitting the metal lifestyle. “It’s because of all the moshing. There’s a lot of thrashing and windmills and stuff that goes on at the shows,” Abasi says. The demand for pit-appropriate bottoms is so strong that Born of Osiris even markets its own athletic shorts—a white mesh pair with the band’s logo screen-printed above the right knee. Gym shorts are one thing—having the band’s name associated with Banana Republic casual women’s wear is quite another.

Abasi had just joined the band, after filling in on guitar for the band’s Summer Slaughter tour, when news of his shorts broke. “I felt really bad, actually. I felt like I had brought a negative perception to their band, and I had just joined, literally, weeks earlier. And I was afraid the whole shorts story was going to be a negative hit for them,” says Abasi. “I was hired to work for this band, and if they like to wear black, unmarked T-shirts on-stage, that’s their thing, and I’m going to respect that. It’s not my place to throw this left-field element in there. But some people took that to mean that I was just pretending onstage, and that this thing [wearing women’s shorts] was my secret life.”

Within a week of the New York piece, that “secret life” was following Abasi on tour. At shows, Abasi would hear the call through the crowd: “Hey! I saw your women’s shorts!” Online, fan responses proved more colorful.

There was the derisive homophobic angle: “He looks like he is on a safari for some weiner.”

The supportive homophobic angle: “[Born of Osiris] FUCKIN RAPES ALL YOU HATER FAGGOTS.”

The hypocrisy angle: “If you wanna where women’s shorts and carry a handbag, at least have the balls to wear it on stage.”

The philosophical angle: “He wears women’s shorts, which is so far from metal that it’s actually the most metal thing on this site right now.”

But the most common response to the women’s shorts dust-up was the shredding angle. “I couldn’t care less if the dude mud wrestles in wading pools with midget tranny hookers between sets at their shows, or if he writes music while wearing a garter belt with stillettos and nipple clamps for inspiration,” wrote one commenter, “just so long as he keeps ripping.”

After all, Abasi is not just any man in women’s shorts. Abasi is a man in women’s shorts who can shred. The video “Born of Osiris Guitarist Tosin Abasi Wears Women’s Shorts” currently has 26,587 hits on YouTube, but “Tosin Abasi playing custom 8 string guitar” has nearly five times as many—plus a five-star rating. Abasi’s women’s shorts may inspire homophobic vitriol, but his guitar work has reduced metal fans to fawning same-sex overtures. Back in July, metal music writer John Gnesin hailed Abasi’s eclectic solo album as “brilliant instrumental metal” that will leave the listener “cock-strokingly orgasmic over this man’s talent.”

[youtube:v=I-lv9ltZ2cw]

In metal, the penis fixation is not uncommon. “Metal is a male-driven, testosterone-fueled style of music,” says Abasi. “In metal, you’re more of a man if you hate gay guys. You’re a pussy if you like this band. You’re gay if you wear women’s shorts. I’m straight, but the small-mindedness can get really depressing,” says Abasi. Abasi’s modest resistance to metal gender norms has, at least, been appreciated by some. “The band is fine with it,” says Lee McKinney, 20, who shreds alongside Abasi in Born of Osiris. “To be honest, I’m just a pale-skinned kid with red hair, so I could never pull things like that off. I dress really boring,” he says. “But we’ve all learned a lot from Tosin, as a human, which is cool.”

Last week, Abasi embarked on Born of Orisris’ fall tour, Night of the Living Shred. He says the women’s shorts will remain a staple off-stage, whether or not the metal kids get it. “Because I can play, it opens the door to tolerance just a little bit. Now they can say, ‘we can excuse this, because he shreds,’” he says. “But it’s not that I have the freedom to do what I want because I’m a human being—it’s that I’ve earned it because I can shred at guitar."

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

Take a look at this man. He is sculpted. Sophisticated. Discriminating. Confident, as if in possession of a heightened sense of core consciousness. Ripped. But no—this man is more than ripped. This man is RIPT.

" ?" you may be wondering. RIPT, according to RIPT, is "a body-sculpting undershirt designed to support your core, shave inches off your belly and enhance your posture. Immediately, you will look and feel better in your clothes with a heightened sense of core consciousness." It's also a product on the cutting edge of achieving equality for women via regression.

How does RIPT work? Sophisticatedly—by "compacting the abdomen and back" to create "a flatter silhouette under clothes," while subtly bringing men down to the level of women by impugning their masculinity with make-believe standards of physical perfection, then marketing uncomfortable and impractical products meant at solving what ails them (retail price $58). If only Sojourner Truth were alive today to see this.

But wait just a minute. What's wrong with the relaxed sense of core consciousness inspired by a man's regular old cotton t-shirt?

Honey, no: "Regular cotton t-shirts are so dead and gone," RIPT informs. What you need is a "compression garment" that may be worn under a "dress shirt, a polo, or a sweater." Can your regular cotton t-shirt do that, with the added benefit of making women feel better about feeling bad about their bodies? No. Only through a padded bra for men will women experience true equality.

How do you put on this goddamned thing anyway?

Okay, smartass. But how do you take it off?

My God—a $58 dollar shirt that will make men sophisticated, discriminating, confident, flatter, just as miserable as women, and which can be applied to their bodies just like a regular t-shirt? What's the downside here, beyond the totally awkward scenario of pulling your padded t-shirt up to your underarm, then grabbibg one side and pulling all the way over your head—in preparation for having sex with a woman? As a friend of mine pointed out, in a resounding defense of RIPT: "Whatever, who wants to sleep with the same woman twice anyway?"

In a blog post entitled Sigh . . ., El Guapo in DC makes his triumphant return by lamenting the mass exodus of high-heel wearing ladies from the district. "Ballerina flats," he writes. "Si, ballerina shoes. The women of DC have for some reason turned to wearing ballerina shoes. Have they done this to spite me? I think so. Is this their way of telling me that I’ve mistreated women in the past? Lo siento. En serio, I’m sorry. Please, por favor, put the heels back on. I cannot take this anymore."

El Guapo shies from outright blaming the return of "the footwear equivalent of sweatpants" on "that Latino president that is in the White House (Yes, he’s part Guatemalan. No black man is that smooth)."

"I don’t want to point fingers," he writes. "No fingers pointing at Obama. But there were no ugly ballerina shoes when Bush was in town. All heels. All the time. . . . Please bring the heels back. You look horrible. Seriously."

Okay. I'll bite. Are Democratic women more likely to wear flat shoes? I voted for Obama, and have never worn any shoe north of a half-inch heel for more than a very uncomfortable afternoon. Coincidence? Probably.

But aren't Democratic women more likely to be hippies, who are more likely to ride bikes, which are more likely to require flat feet [Fig. 1]?

FIGURE 1:

OBAMA —> HIPPIES —> BICYCLES —> BALLERINA SHOES

Bushies, on the other hand, were rich enough to not have to care about the environment, OR to display their token hippiedom by using special lightbulbs and staging charity balls for trees, to which they traveled in taxis, which are far more accomodating of the high heel [Fig. 2].

FIGURE 2:

BUSH —> $$$ —> LIGHTBULBS/ CHARITY BALLS —> TAXIS —> HIGH HEELS

Proof.

Photo by Kekka

I'm tempted to sympathize with Will here: Some weeks, you're just really hard up for a column. In this case, however, Will's misuse of his cushy WaPo spot is too egregious not to mention. Will spends half his jeans essay rehashing Akst's jeans essay, chortling along as he relives Ackst's every turn. Will co-opts Akst's argument that the blue jean, once decidedly working-class, has now become an expensive, obnoxious, and hypocritical mark of the American elite, who take pains to "slum it" in their unwashable designer jeans. Will then rehashes Akst's SUV-to-the-Whole Foods joke, his McMansions joke, and his Steve Jobs joke.

Akst's sartorial commentary, though as curmudgeonly as Will's, works because Aksts sticks to elite subjects for his satirical ribbing. Now, more than ever, rich people who act extravagantly and decadently poor are ripe for criticism, even by fellow elites. When Akst writes, "Our fussily tailored blue jeans, prewashed and acid-treated to look not just old but even dirty, are really a sad disguise," he's making a social commentary—when even the richest men in the world are begging for government handouts, it's important to remember that the rich are well-versed in acting like the poor when it suits their expensive tastes.

But when Will finally forges ahead with his own ideas as to why denim is so terrible, he ditches Akst's class argument. From there, things get much, much, worse.

It's not just the rich who wear denim who deserve Will's scorn—no, Will hates poor people who wear denim, too. When he goes on to call jeans the "infantile uniform of a nation," he sneers at all those pathetic, lower-class Americans who will never rise to the occasion of sporting an anal bow tie and smug grin in promotional photos for their bloviating Republican columns. With jeans-wearers he also tears down grown-ups who watch sitcoms, cartoons, and Indiana Jones movies (two of the three television shows made Time's list of the "Best Television Shows of All Time," which I suppose is only impressive for those heathens who actually watch television), and also anyone who wears anything not sported by Fred Astaire (seriously).

Will isn't pissed at the rich for their hypocritical adaptation of the fashions of the working class. He's pissed at the rich for not looking rich enough, and at the poor for not being rich. Will's essay is a call-to-arms for the rich to flaunt their wealth in tailored suits and real, full-sized mansions.

The only worthwhile flourish in Will's condescension-layered WSJ expectoration is the postscript:

(A confession: The author owns one pair of jeans. Wore them once. Had to. Such was the dress code for former senator Jack Danforth's 70th birthday party, where Jerry Jeff Walker sang his classic "Up Against the Wall, Redneck Mother." Music for a jeans-wearing crowd.)

Now this—beyond being a thinly-veiled, name-dropping kiss on the ass to Jack Danforth—is interesting. If only Will had devoted his essay to this one incident, the near 1,000 comments on the Washington Post Wen site wouldn't all be calling for Will's resignation. Please, George: Tell us how the denim bristled unnaturally against your leg hairs in the Saks fitting room! Describe how you carefully belted the pair over a crisp Oxford shirt! Regale us with details of that infamous night, when George F. Will, swathed in Mom Jeans, rocked self-consciously to the backwoods music of redneck country, one hand cradling a boutique beer, the other uncomfortably pawing uncomforably at his bow tie. Now that's a column.