Via Feministe: Advocates for Youth, in conjunction with Cure CVS Now, has created a petition to tell CVS to unlock the condom cases in its stores:

Call on CVS to unlock condom cases in all its stores. Locked condoms create a barrier to condom access, and could be a threat to public health. CVS’s practice of locking condom cases in minority neighborhoods is unacceptable, and we urge CVS to change its store policy. Walgreens and Rite-Aid prohibit condom lock-up: it’s time CVS did the same.

CVS claims to have unlocked all of the condoms in its Washington, D.C. stores. Last month, I wrote a story about how, despite the lip service, condom access in our CVS stores remains a pain in the ass. Unlocking the condoms and then placing them into click-boxes which are often broken—and sometimes actually locked!—isn’t good enough. Perhaps the petition should read: Unlock the condoms. For real this time, guys.

Sign the petition here.

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

Date Rape Anthem: Asher Roth’s “I Love College”

Relevant Lyrics:

I can’t tell you what I learned from school but
I could tell you a story or two, um
Yeah, of course I learned some rules
Like don’t pass out with your shoes on (get the sharpie)

And don’t leave the house ’til the booze gone (no we’re not leaving)
And don’t have sex if she’s too gone
When it comes to condoms put two on (trust me)
Then tomorrow night find a new jawn

Why It’s So Rapey: On the surface, Roth’s love-letter to undergraduate debauchery condemns date rape (”don’t have sex if she’s too gone”). So why would this Village Voice detractor call the Morrisville, Pa. rapper’s first album “nothing more than a soundtrack for date rape”?

Read More “Date Rape Anthem: Asher Roth’s “I Love College”” »

Feminist bloggers as colonizers: Surely, parallels can be drawn.

Welcome back to Sexist Beatdown, the weekly feature wherein Sady of Tiger Beatdown (white, heterosexual, cisgendered, American) and myself of The Sexist (white, heterosexual, cisgendered, American), chat. Except for last week, when we did not do it. My fault. BUT THIS WEEK WE ARE BACK, to discuss whether the feminist blogosphere is a form of digital colonialism, and if so, does that explain why feminist blogs are sometimes very boring? Ready, aim:

Read More “Sexist Beatdown: The Triumphant Return!” »

* In case you missed it, George H. W. Bush tells a really terrible joke about mean, ugly pro-choice ladies (above). Bill Clinton’s response, though: Kinda funny [via Feministe].

* Tiger Beatdown offers a feminist critique of John Updike‘ classic short, “A & P.”

* Who’s the hottest Congressional Freshman? (My pick: Tom Perriello, 35, Democrat from Virginia, Romantic Status: Single). I smell slideshow! [via Huffington Post].

* American Apparel CEO / serial “alleged” employee rapist Dov Charney is also very funny, self-aware, and helpful! His latest ad, which features him in bed with one of his female employees, is accompanied by the following text:

Meet Dov Charney. “Women initiate most domestic violence, yet out of a thousand cases of domestic violence, maybe one is involving a man. And this has made a victim of culture out of women.”

Yep, “maybe” one, out of a thousand, even involves a man. The rest are domestic catfights between women who dutifully carry on the tradition of clowning each other in order to claim “victim” when they, like, sue their bosses for reaching beneath their neon triangle-top bikinis.

* Related: Don’t try to rape a raccoon, it may bite off your penis.

* The New Gay writes in defense of public displays of affection, despite the consequences:

Yesterday after brunch, my boyfriend and I decided to nap off a hangover in Kalorama Park. So on a perfect afternoon I was lying with my head on my boyfriends stomach while his hand rested on mine. And thats when the trio of 13 year-olds starting calling us “gaylord fuckers” from all the way across the park.

* Reproductive Reality Check attempts the impossible: Advising “adolescents to make wise sexual choices.”

* Erin Niumata for Ladyblog doesn’t think the premise of upcoming Kate Hudson/Ann Hathaway BFF wedding-off comedy Bride Wars looks very funny. “The movie is ostensibly a comedy. But is watching two intelligent, grown women being verbally abusive and playing nasty tricks on one another actually funny? No. It’s tragic. . . . True friendship, like marriage, means supporting one another, overcoming petty jealousies and being there through sickness and health.” I don’t think the movie looks funny, either, but I’m not sure a film about two “true friends” “supporting one another” would be a laugh riot, either.

* Feminist book corner: Feministe reviews So Many Ways to Sleep Badly by Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore.

* XX Factor’s Melinda Henneberger goes to the mall:

I wound up spending my Friday night at the Montgomery Mall. And seeing for myself what deep trouble we are in: No one was there, shoppers or salespeople, to the point that I began to have horror-flick fantasies. (Oh no, it’s the Rapture and we’ve been left behind at the Montgomery Mall? How humiliating.) Because no one can afford new inventory, it was also like a visit to the Island of Misfit Toys (and Sweaters).

Photo via trialsanderrors.

* Richard Cizik, the VP for Government Affairs for The National Association of Evangelicals, stepped down yesterday after making comments on NPR “that he backs same-sex civil unions” [via Shakesville].

* Jezebel—along with the rest of the Gawker universe—gets a massive face-lift to “increase pageviews.” Agh, what? But we’re still working on our redesign that will shamelessly appropriate your model!

* In other NPR news, ye olde tyme radio content  has aborted an interview with an abortion provider, Feministe reports.

* How is “Hot” Rod Blagojeblahblah like Sarah Palin? Now in cartoon form! [Via WaPo'sTom Toles, who just can't quit her].

* Tiger Beatdown beats down the continuing coverage of ladies drinking and whatever the fuck a “ladette” is.

* Can I “make” this hot little item about Tim Gunn coming to D.C. this weekend “work”? Eh, I guess not. He’ll be at Halo tonight.

Photo by trialsanderrors.

* Daily Intel has some answers on why Alex Kuczynski’s New York Times spread on her experience with a surrogate mother made her out to be a “vain,” “self-centered” “Lady of the Manor” (really, check out the photo that ran with the story, it’s a doozy). From NYT Public Editor Clark Hoyt’s column:

Kuczynski, who said she disagreed with her editors over the photographs before publication, said she felt they were “incendiary” and distracted from the story. Hilling, clearly portrayed in the article as middle class, described the porch as “the ugliest part” of her renovated, 135-year-old home. She said she felt the photo of her was “contrived.” Gerald Marzorati, the editor of the magazine, acknowledged the “upstairs, downstairs” quality of the photos but said they were not set up to be that way.

So, did the NYT distort the situation, or can Kuczynski just not admit to her own insufferable personality?

* Feministe debuts a new feature: Blame feminism! This time, blame feminism for women drinking.

* Via Ars Technica: Everyone’s favorite cartoon siblings, Bart and Lisa, get exploited in a “child porn” scandal.

* Feministing highlights a douchy commercial

* Slate’s Bonnie Goldstein gives employers advice on how to spin holiday layoffs. Hey, Goldstein, don’t give them any ideas!

Photo via trialsanderrors.

Our daily roundup of sex & gender in the District and beyond.

* Via Feministe: Taking your children to vote with you is adorable; homeless voters find obstacles at the polls.

* Slate’s Trey Patterson remembers MTV video countdown “Total Request Live”, set to take a “hiatus” this November:

TRL’s signature moment came to pass one Thursday in July of 2001, when pop diva Mariah Carey dropped in unexpectedly. She entered pushing a cart filled with ice-cream treats, wore a pair of shorts connoting assertive depravity, and gave voice to existential frustrations: “You’re my therapy session right now, Carson.” Her behavior was sufficiently erratic that the crowd couldn’t squeal for it with any real consistency.

* Meanwhile, Meghan McCain blogs her “Last Call with Carson Daly” experience on McCain Blogette.

* Elsewhere on Slate, Josh Patner recaps fashion week’s “re-envisioning” of the “American woman.

* Jezebel updates you on the aftermath of DJ AM and Travis Barker’s plane crash: exes Mandy Moore and Shanna Moakler at bedsides; Lindsey Lohan and Samantha Ronson blog; Jamie Kennedy, Lauren Conrad, and Kathy Griffin sound off.

* Via BYT via Gawker: Anderson Cooper’s (alleged) lovers: a primer.

* The New Gay CANNOT CONTROL THE VOLUME OF ITS VOICE.

* Megan at Jezebel tells dudes “How Not to Get it On“:

Don’t pre-emptively tell me you have a small penis.

Don’t text me on a Tuesday night after midnight “I could totally eat ur puss now if u r interwssetted.” I’m not.

Don’t ask if it’s okay to fuck me up the ass because you don’t have condoms and are “scared” of getting me pregnant.

*Jill at Feministe adds her own dating don’ts:

Don’t tell me, on a first date, about the time you pooped your pants on the Jenny Jones Show when you were performing the commercial outro with your Rick James cover band. Don’t tell me that on a tenth date. Just keep that one to yourself.

* Protesters stage bed-in on steps of Capitol:

Kayne West’s “Gold Digger” blared from the steps in front of the Capitol Thursday as protesters dressed in bathrobes and slippers danced around a bed and threw money. Oil Change USA came to speak out against government’s “all too cozy relationship” with oil companies in the wake of the sex-and-drug scandal reported last week by the Interior Department inspector general. “Literally in bed with big oil” was the theme of this protest, noted with their prop of a man and woman laying in bed together, surrounded by money [via Examiner].

Catch up on the Minerals Management Service scandal here.

* Via Feministing: Bitch Magazine was going to have to fold, but now they’re not. You can still give them money, though.

* Brightest Young Things points you to Seattle’s bikini baristas:

Baristas in spike heels, lingerie, fish nets and other skin-revealing attire are attracting long lines—and large tips. . . . When servers started wearing pasties at a shop called Espresso Gone Wild west of Seattle, however, some residents decided the caffeinated provocateurs had taken it too far. [via NPR]

* Aaaand, drum roll: Fish swims into penis.