* D.C. Mayoral candidate Leo Alexander only has 700 bucks in the war chest, and $200 of it came from Phyllis Schlafly's Eagle Forum. That's rough, dude.

* Woman marries her partner in D.C., but is denied a name change in her home of Tennessee, on account of her absurd document from the nation's capital claiming her to be married—to a woman!

* The Bilerico Project takes the temperature of gay online media. Zack Rosen of the New Gay submits: "The state of gay online media is, simply, that it exists."

* In the Washington Post, Mark Judge calls for more male teachers in Catholic schools, for feminism:

[T]his is the kind of feminism that can sometimes be best delivered by a man. This year girls basketball team at St. Mary's won the league championship. As a reward the girls on the team got to come to school out of uniform, wearing whatever ever t-shirts they wanted to. The boys, whose team had not done as well, were sulking around school, bristling whenever the girls would brag. I noticed they were whispering to each other, "Yeah, but girls basketball is not a sport." They would never say in front of any teachers, 90 percent of whom are women. But then the sixth grade came into my classroom in the afternoon and, the boys saw me standing in the front and they let themselves go. "It's not a sport!" they cried. They called out, men to man, for validation—"Mr. Judge, girls basketball is not a sport! Right?"

I was surprised. I grew up in the 1970s, and even in those dark ages we would never have claimed that women's basketball was not a sport. Had thing moved that far backwards? Actually, I answered, not only is it a sport, it's a lot more interesting than men's basketball. Men's basketball has become a lot of dunking. In women's basketball there is strategy, jump-shots, thinking.

The boys looked at me suspiciously for a few seconds. But then they seemed to take it in.

* So sorry to bother you, via Feministe: How men and women pitch stories to the Awl. According to the site: "The emails from men are pretty direct. The emails from women are often kind of . . . apologetic!"

Photo via Nationaal Archief

*Broadsheet's Tracy Clark-Flory reports on an X-ray manufacturer's foray into the pin-up market. Clark-Flory's take: "damn, these skele-girls got femurs for daaays. As the Weekly Vice suggests, I guess the message here is that beauty isn't skin deep, after all. Or something." I think the real message here is that even Skeletors can look "sexy" if we splay them out in a suitably compliant pose and strap the right shoes on their feet.

* At Feministe, s.e. smith declares open season on bikini season.

* Bitch Magazine's Kjerston Johnson aggressively campaigns for the Twilight series to show Bella's vampire-baby birth on-screen, in which "Edward has to deliver the baby Cesarean-style . . . with his teeth." In response to Twilight screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg's claim that "you can do childbirth without seeing childbirth . . . it doesn't mean it's any less evocative of an experience," Johnson replies: "Um, he rips their baby out of her stomach with his mouth! I would like to see what kind of mise-en-scène director Bill Condon conjures up to ensure it's no 'less evocative' without this unnatural natural birth."

* Why is the National Organization for Marriage (NOM NOM NOM) bankrolling a local ANC commissioner to the tune of $60,900? [Via Metro Weekly].

* Vote in Freedom to Marry's blogger scholarship contest; our local pick is The New Gay editor Zack Rosen. (Read his submission here).

Last week, I interviewed Jaclyn Friedman about fucking while feminist and the tangled web feminists weave when we try to bring a relationship partner into our down-with-the-patriarchy worlds. In the interview, Friedman expressed the desire to establish a dating litmus test that feminists can use to weed out incompatible matches early on in the relationship. Friedman used to screen guys who professed a love for Fight Club, but she abandoned that particular test after she "learned that a lot of smart, progressive, even feminist guy like Fight Club." Is there any shortcut that feminists can use to ensure they're not wasting their time on misogynists? After Friedman bared her dating dilemmas, the feminist blogosphere exploded with insight on the idea of the feminist fucking litmus test. But first, I'll share my own litmus test:

Mine is pretty simple. I don't require people I date to identify as feminist, or be aware of what "male privilege" is, or watch porn with a critical eye, or give even the tiniest shit about gender roles in Superbowl commercials. Of course, I've got some idiosyncratic deal-breakers unrelated to feminism (if you have ever changed your handle or IP address in order to comment multiple times on a blog post, it is probably not going to work out). My dating litmus test is the same one that many have used to consider candidates for the United States Supreme Court: If you don't support a woman's right to abortion, then we can't have sex, ever.

Jill Filipovic at Feministe suggests that it's a lot easier to suggest litmus tests for other feminists to follow than to actually weed out men based solely on principle:

Even getting to the point of “this is a person worth dating in the first place” is… not easy. Any relationship requires compromise and flexibility, sure; but how and where to compromise on the feminism thing is particularly difficult because we aren’t talking about a political issue here, we’re talking about a way of seeing the world. I also watch a lot of women date men who are, to be kind, Not Great, but they want to date someone and Not Great Guy is there I guess. I remember being at one feminist conference or another, and an audience member who identified as a feminist asked a panel of feminist writers what they do about the men in their lives who joke about sexism — she was engaged, she said, and her fiance and her dad love to joke about how she should get in the kitchen and make them a sandwich, ha ha ha, and she told them a bunch of times that it bothers her but that they still do it. And all I could think was, “Oh sister they are not joking, dump that dude and dump him now.” But I’m pretty sure I could have said that and she would not have dumped that dude, now or otherwise. And then I remembered that I once dated a dude who sat me down to watch an episode of Tough Love (“I know you’re skeptical, but he totally helps these girls!”) where host-man tells one of the contestants that she’s so slutty she’s going to get herself raped. I voiced my disgust and he was basically like, “But host-man is kind of right, don’t you think?” And I didn’t dump that dude on the spot either, even though I felt so gut-punched I could barely talk.

Point being, it’s awfully easy to look at other feminist women and think that they are making obviously terrible choices with their love lives; it is much harder to actually find someone who meets all the requirements of a feminist litmus test, and is single and is someone you’re attracted to and is also attacted to you and is someone who you want to discuss things other than feminism with and is in the right place at the right time. So if you want a relationship — and I think that most people really do want relationships — you have to be able to put some things aside. Where and how you put your feminism aside is, for me, significantly harder than he likes cats and I’m more of a dog person.

Andrea Grimes at Heartless Doll doesn't cop to a particular litmus test, but she does say that her feminism has greatly improved her love life. At some point, her standards shifted in imperceptible ways, and it resulted in a quality-over-quantity change to her dating roster:

I didn't self-identify as feminist until a couple of years ago. It was a long process of consciousness-raising through blog-reading, book-buying and news consumption before I finally, at the age of 24, decided that feminism was the way to go. And I definitely did a whole hell of a lot more dating–casual and serious–before I was 24. Is feminism to "blame"? Hard to say. Being in college, and being young generally, put me in a bigger dating pool. I was less jaded, willing to put up with all kinds of shit and fairly serious about seeing what the world had to offer me in the way of dick.

. . . As I've gotten older, I find it much, much more difficult to even crush on anyone. The allure of the deadbeat rock-star-bartender is gone. I no longer want to sleep with a guy just because he looks like Dan Radcliffe. I'm not gazing longingly at every writer under age 70 with a Rolling Stone byline. Having had several long-term relationships and experienced the good and the bad that comes with, I'm much, much less personally invested in finding one again and far more comfortable and happy with myself overall. I fantasize about weddings, not marriage. (I  need to upgrade my Hello Kitty toaster, anyway.)

But while my dating quantity has gone down as I identified as a feminist, the quality of dating has gone way, way up. If I never again talked to most of the guys I slept with before I was 24, I would not much be bothered. But the guys I've met and loved and screwed since will, I hope, remain my friends to some degree or another.

I think being a feminist has made me a better girlfriend, a better dater, a better lover, a better person generally. What's not to like? (Apart from the functional alcoholism and cat obsession.) Indeed, I polled guys I've dated since my feminist awakening, and none of them seem to take much issue with my fierce-ladyness. In fact, it seems to be something they're into. I asked them whether my feminism was a problem, and whether they're more or less attracted to feminists generally.

Merrit Martin from Heartless Doll says forearms first, feminism later:

... when I was dating, I would look for someone interested in learning about the feminist ideals and women's issues I believe in . . . though, to be honest, I'd do that after the first chit-chat and "do I even like his voice, forearms, hair, etc." part. I have to be honest—the physical part is important. I may be fairly traditional in terms of waiting a while before doing the deed, but if I can't even comprehend his P in my V (or at least Frenching a little), there's no point in finding out how he feels about Margaret Sanger.

Natalia Antonova keeps her feminism in perspective:

When I first meet someone, and decide that I adore them, I don’t really consider their politics at first. And while I usually mention that I’m a feminist, I do it in a flirtatious way—“yeah, I’m a feminist. A hardcore one.” . . . I don’t mind being anyone’s challenge, not initially, probably because I believe that initial attraction is always pretty superficial. I don’t even care if a guy offends me at first, because I’ll argue with him, and maybe he’ll argue back, and maybe we’ll discover that we actually have more in common than we realize, or else even less in common than previously thought. I’ve made my peace with the fact that “feminist” tends to be a loaded term, and when it provokes a reaction, I just deal with it, and move on. I don’t even think about it much anymore. It’s a little like being on autopilot.

Whenever I sacrifice my feminism for a man, I do it while remembering that it’s feminism that allows me that choice in the first place.

Viv at Finally, a Feminism 101 Blog has got a litmus test that works on the very first date:

In terms of feminist dating litmus tests, it’s nearly 20 years since I last dated, and perhaps this one isn’t so uncommon now as it was then, but one of my litmus tests was: is he OK about me thinking of something we could go see together, me ringing him up to invite him, and then me organising and paying for the tickets plus paying for the meal beforehand? My experience was that some men found this reversal of stereotypical dating roles confronting. Most were surprised, definitely. My partner of the last nearly 20 years hardly turned a hair (this doesn’t mean that we haven’t had our “why can’t you see this is a problem?” moments at times, but it was a damn good start).

Some Sexist commenters offered up their own guidelines. bellacoker looks for men who have been capable of change:

I have a litmus test, but not about feminism particularly. If the topic comes up in conversation I pay close attention to how potential partners discuss their previous partners, how those relationships ended and how they distribute the blame.

Super bonus points for being able to analyze personal situations critically and admit and learn from their own imperfections. Complete deal breaker for references to how their ex’s are any kind of “crazy,” unless diagnosed by an actual mental health professional in a clinical setting.

Amber looks for men who treat her as an individual:

In my current relationship with a very good man I have taken an incremental approach to explaining what feminism is and how it relates to his life. When we hear a story about “corrective rape” in South Africa on NPR that can become a conversation about the rape culture here. When we see an ad that sexualizes rape, I try to explain how these images normalize violence against women. Why “Law and Order SVU” sucks. Point being, I’ve tried to show him the world through my eyes. There are compromises; the gender roles are a little more traditional than I would like but he passes my personal litmus test of seeing me as an individual rather than filling the role as an archetype for their personal narrative. I’ll take it.

And DB's litmus test sounds awkward:

Potential litmus #1:

his last girlfriend isn’t an idiot (ask for references)

Photo by L Marie, Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

Since it seems to be body hair week here on the Sexist [Exhibit A, Exhibit B], it must be fate that I happened to catch Train's "Hey, Soul Sister" on the radio yesterday—didn't immediately switch the radio dial—and discovered that the song actually includes this lyric: "I'm so obsessed / my heart is bound to beat out my untrimmed chest."

"My untrimmed chest" is not the only ridiculous lyric in this song, of course: The tortured wordplay begins with "Your lipstick stains / on the front lobe of my left-side brains," continues through "Hey, soul sister / Ain't that Mister Mister on the radio," past that chest hair thing, and onto "So gangster, I'm so thug / You're the only one I'm dreaming of."

This song inspired me to do three things:

(a) Lobby for the use of the phrase "my untrimmed labia" in a Top-40 pop song;

(b) Respectfully request that alt-rockers never use the phrase "I'm so thug" again;

(b) Survey male Sexist readers on their grooming habits.

Last week, after the whole Vajazzling conversation blew open, Jill at Feministe asked her readers how they prepare their vaginas (there, I said it!). She received almost 200 comments from (mostly) female readers about how they shave, wax, trim, pluck, and bedazzle—or don't—their pubic areas.

But with all this focus on what us ladies do to get our vaginas closer to the current beauty ideal, I'm left wondering how much time and effort men actually spend managing their own body hair. Train seems to be suggesting that having an "untrimmed chest" is something to boast about these days. So. Fellas. Do you spend time cultivating your untrimmed chest? Shave your pubic hair? Wax your back? Propecia your chest? Have you been pressured by a partner to do so? Do you wish you could trim up, but feel like you'll be dismissed as overly feminine? Do you feel the need to adopt an aggressively heterosexual posture in order to feel comfortable engaging in the possibly girly realm of personal grooming?

[youtube:v=bevJr3Ra84Q]

Discuss.

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"?

Maybe it has something to do with the context of Roth's one-line defense of consensual sex. At the beginning of his video for "I Love College," Roth awakes on a fraternity house couch with a half-naked girl passed out on his lap. He doesn't date-rape her: He just pushes her off onto the floor and starts drinking again. Later, when the party is in full-swing, Roth boasts that he drank the party house dry as he "danced my face off and had this one girl completely naked." He doesn't date-rape her: He just uses her naked body to boost his cred in a rap song.

Roth's song does sets limits for consensual sex—don't do her if "she's too gone"—while simultaneously urging college students to push those limits by getting wasted and getting it on—in other words, doing her when she's juuuust gone enough. In a fraternity house full of people partying naked until all the booze is gone, "she's too gone" might start to seem pretty relative.

Meanwhile, one in four women will be sexually assaulted while in college, making the listener wonder how Roth learned the "rules" of college behavior. Roth knows now not to a) pass out with your shoes on, b) leave before the booze is gone, c) date-rape a girl, and d) have unprotected sex. Has he learned from experience?

Still, it's enough for commenters on feminist blog Feministe to defend Roth against charges of racism and sexism: "He does the bare minimum of saying, '…don’t have sex if she’s too far gone,' whatever his motives," one writes. "I honestly didn’t expect that much because date rape is usually so fucking hilarious to frat boys."

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:

REFERENCED:

What If The Feminist Blogosphere Is A Form of Digital Colonialism, in which two lady bloggers, Brittany and Mandy, postulate that the feminist blogosphere may, in fact, be a form of digital colonialism.

An Apology From Brittany and Mandy, in which the aforementioned bloggers apologize for postulating that the feminist blogosphere may, in face, be a form of colonialism.

Well Allow Me To Retort, in which an alleged victim of said digital colonialism argues that she is not, in fact, a victim of digital colonialism.

Then: a series, in which alleged digital colonizer Feministe talks, and talks, and talks about whether it is, in fact, guilty of digital conolialism.

Our turn!

—

SADY: it is time for the discussion of why GUEST BLOGGING WILL DESTROY THE WORLD, apparently! did you even get through all the billions of words in the links i sent you? i have been re-reading them myself this very evening.

AMANDA: i got through many of them. i got very tired. let me start off by saying, i apologize for featuring your words in a weekly token guest blog. i did not mean to offend

SADY: you know, i will have to think that over. as a LARGER ELITE BLOG, i am aware that my decision to work with you is based on my own misguided naivete, so really, i have only myself to blame!

AMANDA: you're white though, so i think it's better? or maybe worse, i can't keep it straight.

SADY: i am a white lady, yes. therefore this argument is not nearly so insulting to me as to many! but what frustrates me in the "what if the feminist blogosphere is a form of digital colonialism" post is that its one central point—women of color who guest post at Big Feminist Elite Blogs are being exploited and don't know it somehow—is so very NOT REALLY THE POINT AT ALL, if you read it closely. it mainly seems to be about Big Feminist Blogs and how they are keeping people—like maybe the authors of this very post!—out of the spotlight, and guest blogging is... causing this? i do not know. what i do know, from reading feministe, is that one of the authors once had a fight with jessica valenti

AMANDA: i see. i read a lot of the stuff, but i got bored around the middle of the feministe series.

SADY: awww

AMANDA: yeah, i'm sorry. i did get a little frustrated at how vilified the two women who wrote the post were by these other blogs that they had implicated in the post, to the point where they felt the need to write a long and excessively delicate, i thought, apology on it

SADY: yeah, i sort of read through that apology but i kind of was not able to keep my attention on it. i should say that i originally found the post through Shark-Fu's response.

AMANDA: Shark-Fu's response was great, and actually this whole exercise has brought up a criticism that I've had about some of the larger group blogs for some time, which is that they can be very, very boring sometimes. regardless of the identity politics of the writers, most of which i'm not really familiar with—this being on the internet and all—i think that the smaller individual blogs are where great voices are really cultivated and stranger issues are addressed, and when they're filtered into these larger monoliths i think a lot of that gets lost. (except for Shark-Fu, whose voice can never be silenced). take jezebel, for example, which i like—after reading that blog for a couple years, it just begins to feel very safe. though there are points of daring writing by some of the women who blog there, i wish there was a little more branching out in terms of content and voice.

SADY: yeah, i definitely agree with you about jezebel. although i think some of jezebel brings up the issue of maybe Blogging While Corporate, in that a lot of the writers I definitely sought out on that site were lost or started posting a lot less after they were moved to "part-time.” but i agree that single-person blogs, where you really get to watch one voice grow and develop and chart out the areas of its obsession, are usually more fascinating to me.

AMANDA: definitely. also, the very sad loss of Pot Psychology. i think one of the problems with blogs is that they are for people to just talk and talk and talk (see: this very blog post), and so these areas of opinion are worked over and over again, which draws a lot of conversation, but which doesn't always advance the scope of the topics we're actually talking about. which is the sad fallout of the fall of dead tree journalistic outfits i suppose.

SADY: ha, yeah. i also think that this one post we're talking about now has some interesting stuff to say, but that stuff is (ironic!) drawn from critiques, largely framed by ladies of color, that they didn't link to directly except through WEIRDLY ACADEMIC FOOTNOTES BECAUSE THEY ARE BORING, sorry. but the questions of who gets "authority," who gets to be "representative," and how that lines up with the class or racial privilege you have, i definitely think are worth investigating. i mean, blogs are for talking and talking and talking, but are we also listening and listening and listening? and to whom? and what are we doing with what we learn there?

AMANDA: i thought their original post was very interesting, and often right, and also wrong, and that the bigger blogs (i suppose i am only talking about feministe here) did a sort of cop-out move to focus only on the criticisms that were easy to shoot down. (not only . . . largely). i think one of the very interesting aspects of the original post was that it made the point that, hey, the Internet is great because everybody has a voice, but actually, there are so many voices on the Internet that the little blog representative of one aspect of feminism is not heard if it's not picked up by the larger sites. so really, no, not everyone has a voice.

SADY: true enough, and there may be a lot of factors (like, if someone is writing from a marginalized perspective within feminism—if they are a trans feminist, or a feminist sex worker, or a lady of color) that may cause people to view those as... i don't want to impute ill will to anybody, but let's say those are viewed as "specialized" whereas if you are writing from a more privileged place you get to present your concerns (and have them accepted) as "universal"

AMANDA: definitely

SADY: am i saying any of this right? i am pretty sure i am not!

AMANDA: yeah, and i wish that jezebel and some of the other blogs would touch on more glbtq stuff sometimes, but they're allowed to define their content area as they please. on the other hand, they're in this position to do so much interesting stuff that i think a lot of times they don't take the opportunity to. and part of that is because they're getting cut, they're overworked, underpaid, etc.

SADY: yeah, right, and here's where i think the questions about money and audience and status and whatever get very interesting. because if you're getting paid, let alone paid WELL, to be a feminist blogger (and are dependent for your paycheck on the goodwill of a dude who is not precisely known for being warm and cuddly, in jezebel's case) then... well, you have to write in a way that will capture your audience's attention and justofy those ad purchases on your site, and that might lead to the kind of "safe" stuff you were talking about, where you go back to things that you know will work and don't get to have the same sense of adventure as a blog without those concerns. which is not to say that i don't get a lot of news from jezebel! or even that i think jezebel is what they were talking about rather than feministing, feministe, shakesville, which i'm told make far less money, and which i also read.

AMANDA: yeah. i think it's just like any other capitalist industry, really, it's a meritocracy but it's not, and it's important to remember that. at the same time ... hell, it offers a lot of opportunity for a lot of discussion, and that's great! though very very extended discussions about Why We Are Not Racist i'm pretty much over with for now. thankfully, once the pageviews subside the blogs will move on to something else.

SADY: yes, thank god for the Internet: proving once and for all that if you just stop paying attention to some people, they will go away. and then maybe you can actually pay attention to people for doing something good! like being talented! it's sad how much easier it is to talk and talk forever about someone you don't like.

AMANDA: it is sad, but that is the internet in a nutshell. it's also easy to come up with reasons you don't like something that you might even have good things to say about.

SADY: it's also easy to say purposefully inflammatory things to get attention. I DON'T LIKE NUNS OR BABIES. Next baby I see: I'm punching it, HARD. see how easy that is?

AMANDA: piece of cake.

* 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.

* 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.

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.