* Via BLOgT: Even ex-gays are allowed to wear fabulous scarves.

* Feministing points to a Brightest Young Things piece on how some LGBT folks define queer virginity.

* At Tiger Beatdown, Silvana reacts to a piece in the Washington Post about a victim of trauma who built an anti-terrorism career out of her fascination with "evil and violence":

Ironically enough, reading an article about someone else’s fascination with terror caused me to feel a little terror of my own. What if this explained it all? What if my fascination with detention and corrections, and compulsion to fight for people who are locked up, was all a complicated outgrowth of my history of trauma? I was harassed almost every day as a teenager, groped, assaulted, and in my late teens and early twenties raped repeatedly by a boyfriend. I was surrounded by people who had done bad things to me. But instead of being repulsed by criminals, rapists, terrorists, I identify with them. Because, just like women are the sex class, to be the recipient, the dumping-ground for male aggression, men of color and especially mentally ill men of color are the dumping ground for white male authoritarian state-sanctioned violence.

* At Jezebel, Irin Carmon interviews former staffers about The Daily Show's boys club. Head to the comments to read a deluge of defenses of this "progressive" product with a gender problem.

* Tracy Clark-Flory on a man who allegedly hacked into over 100 computers in search of private sex tapes and photos (44 of the victims were underage):

When we come across stories about violations of people's sexual privacy, whether on the news or in our personal lives, there's a tendency to go, Oh, well, that was stupid of them — they shouldn't have filmed that, they shouldn't have taken that photo, etc. And then you feel a bit safer, thanks to your superior wisdom, which tells you that you should not let your boyfriend keep a copy of your homemade sex tape and that you should decline that guy's request for a sexy photo (and maybe you even follow this advice, most of the time). The reality, though, is that precautions—no matter how sensible, no matter how self-righteously we trumpet them—are no match for someone set on exploitation.

* The Chronicle of Higher Education on how pop culture figures can inspire "people of working-class backgrounds to pursue academic careers":

Among the interview subjects, whose names Ms. Wright kept confidential, were a man who was inspired by the Rolling Stones and other British Invasion bands to envision being in Europe, as well as a woman who was inspired to think independently by Wonder Woman and Batgirl comics. Another man came to think of academic research as "a cool thing to do" based on his devotion to the comic series The Atom, the hero of which was a college professor by day and a miniature crime fighter by night. . . . A woman who entered a community college to learn a trade following a divorce credits her decision to continue on to earn a doctorate partly to an obsession with Dana Scully, Gillian Anderson's character on the X-Files television series. Watching the combination medical doctor-FBI agent at work inspired the subject to think of women in the role of professionals with advanced degrees.

The pop-culture icons who taught me that women can be kick-ass, brilliant, and successful: Dana Scully. Clarice Starling. Lisa Simpson.

* Just how skinny do your skinny jeans have to be for a defense attorney to argue that they were so tight that you could never have been raped? Apparently, size-6-skinny-jeans-on-a-42-kilogram-frame is a sufficient degree of tightness for rape to be deemed physically impossible. I'm eager to hear the science behind this.

* Commenter: "Do you have any women on your staff?"

You guys have a column called “the sexist”? And with such stupid content? But who even cares about the content. Just calling it that is really sexist. Do you have any women on your staff? And would you ever consider having a blog called “the racist”? Or “the xenophobe”? This is so disappointing. I occasionally come to your site. Perhaps I hadn’t seen it before. Now that I have, I won’t be coming back. How ugly and irresponsible.

* Chloe Angyal at Feministing takes on penazzling, compares Jessica Simpson to Werner Herzog. Finally:

Which brings us to penazzling. As both Simpson and Herzog demonstrate, sometimes you have to turn things upside down to realize just how ridiculous they look right side up. Sometimes you have to look at the practice of gluing crystals onto a dude's junk region to realize just how absurd it is that Jennifer Love Hewitt devoted an entire chapter of her new book to encouraging women to gluing crystals onto theirs. It's worth asking ourselves, next time we're giggling at penazzling or makeup for men or man Spanx why we find these products so amusing or absurd. Chances are, it's not because of what they are, but because of who they're aimed at. It's not the practice of bedazzling one's private parts that makes us realize that, come on, this is ridiculous, it's the fact that the practice is now being marketed to men.

* Why is the media so obsessed with singledom among black women? The Loop 21 floats a theory: The media is white:

I would like to note that there are so many more issues of dire importance affecting Black women and men, that it’s frustrating when such a powerful platform is devoted to a topic that while not entirely a media creation, has certainly been overblown by them. A Google search of “Why are successful Black women single?” yields over 3 million results, while a search for “why are Black men jobless?” yields just 120,000 results. (Anyone else see a problem with that? Because I do.)

I've been fascinated by the dust-up over "trigger warnings" that's inched across the feminist blogosphere this week. "Trigger warnings," for the uninitiated, are warnings placed before blog posts that touch on certain subject areas (or particularly graphic presentations of them) that could possibly "trigger" the past trauma of a survivor of sexual assault or abuse. So: To trigger-warn or not to trigger-warn?

The debate over the feminist blog staple began with sex writer Susannah Breslin, who thinks trigger warnings are condescending at best, and a disingenuous ploy to keep feminist blogs relevant at worst. The topic then migrated to Feministing, which employs trigger warnings for the simple reason that it "care[s] about rape victims." Feministing declared Breslin a "certifiable asshole," at which point the debate moved on to Jezebel, which doesn't employ trigger warnings, also cares about rape victims, and thinks Breslin is an asshole, too. (For the record, I think Breslin is an asshole, and that's often what makes her work compelling to this feminist, anyway). Melissa McEwan shies from the Breslin: Asshole? angle, but does provide the most impassioned defense of the warnings, writing:

A trigger is something that evokes survived trauma or ongoing disorder. For example, a person who was raped may be "triggered," i.e. reminded of hir rape, by a graphic description of sexual assault, and that reminder may, especially if the survivor has post-traumatic stress disorder, be accompanied by anxiety, manifesting as anything ranging from mild agitation to self-mutilation to a serious panic attack.

Those of us who write about triggering topics (sexual assault, violence, detainee torture, war crimes, disordered eating, suicide, etc.) provide trigger warnings with such content because we don't want to inadvertently cause someone who's, say, sitting at her desk at work, a full-blown panic attack because she happened to read a triggering post the content of which she was unprepared for.

We provide trigger warnings because they give survivors of various stripes the option to assess whether they're in a state of mind to deal with triggering material before they stumble across it. Just like someone who isn't easily triggered can nonetheless have, say, a shorter temper when stressed or tired or hungry, a person whose history of trauma makes some material triggering for them can often navigate triggering material without a problem, except when stressed or tired or hungry. Trigger warnings give them a moment to consider whether they want to deal with potentially triggering material right now.

We provide trigger warnings because it's polite, because we don't want to be the asshole who triggered a survivor of sexual assault because of carelessness or laziness or ignorance.

My personal position on trigger warnings is pretty clear to regular readers—you won't see a trigger warning on this blog. Unlike Breslin, I don't think trigger warnings are some sort of page-view ploy or a harbinger of the End of Feminist Days. But like Breslin, it seems that neglecting to trigger-warn does make me kind of an asshole.

I'll likely never stop being an asshole, but I am open to reconsidering my position on the warnings, and I'd like to know what my readers think about that. So: What are your thoughts on trigger warnings? Survivors, do you find trigger warnings effective? Are triggers too personal to be avoided with a blanket warning? What about feminist blogs that write about potentially triggering subjects in nearly every post (hi there!)? Anyone got a feminist argument against trigger warnings up their sleeves? How big of an asshole am I? Discuss.

Photo via Let Ideas Compete, Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

First up: Sexist reader and feminist blogger Chloe Angyal responds to Sexist Comments of the Week: “Yo, Gorgeous” Edition, in which a commenter suggests that some recipients of street harassment develop "thicker skin." Last year, Angyal wrote her sociology thesis at Princeton on women who work in male-dominated fields—where she found that systematic workplace sexual harassment was often excused using the exact same phrase.

—

Earlier this week, Amanda posted Sexist Comments of the Week: “Yo, Gorgeous” Edition, in which she summarized the discussion happening in the comments section on her post about HollaBack DC. The post she chose was one woman’s account of being catcalled on the street in D.C.:

Out of nowhere, I hear “Yo, gorgeous!” and I turn in the direction where it came from. I see these two losers in a red and yellow truck smirking at me. Gross. The truck pulls up further in traffic, and I catch up to it and snap a photo with my phone. . . . When I told them that they needed to do their jobs and not hit on women, they didn’t care. They continued to smirk and giggle… I felt like these harassers just ruined what was a good afternoon.

In the comments section, certain readers expressed misgivings about the idea that yelling “Yo, gorgeous!” at a woman could constitute sexual harassment. One man wrote:

Really? Your day was “ruined” by that? Seriously? No lewd comments, no name calling, no following. “Yo, Gorgeous” is what passes for sexual harassment now? Geesh…. I guess the women I know have thicker skins than the woman who wrote this particular piece. Not that that’s right or wrong or good or bad, it just is what it is and reasonable minds can and will disagree.

Ah, thick skin. When I read Amanda’s post, the phrase jumped out at me because much of my senior thesis in college focused on the idea of “thick skin.” For my thesis, which was about women who work in male-dominated professions, I interviewed women who worked on the trading floors of Wall Street, arguably one of the most statistically and culturally male-dominated workplaces in America. What I was interested in was how those women adapted their behavior, from how they dressed to how they worked, in order to survive and thrive in an often hostile environment. The answer: Thick skin.

During my thesis research, the concept of “thick skin” was constantly invoked by subjects. Dana, 30, had extensive experience on several trading floors. She explained that “you definitely need thick skin, because working on the trading floor, if you take anything personally, you just can’t, there’s no point in your working there.” Alana, twenty-five years old and in sales for Credit Suisse, warned that “You can’t be easily offended…you can’t be a prude and work on the trading floor. You have to develop thick skin.” The phrase came up again and again, and I realized after a while that it was no coincidence. A belief in the need for “thick skin” was a kind of shared narrative among all these women, a story they told themselves and each other in order to survive on the trading floor.

More importantly, “thick skin” was a way for women to ignore behavior that they might otherwise interpret as sexual harassment or discrimination. Alana described one male colleague, a trader “who’s very old-school, just because he didn’t start his career in the P.C. generation… the old-school guys will wink and call me ‘sweetie’ or ‘honey’ and wink. And if I were easily offended, then that would be sexual harassment.” But because Alana isn’t “easily offended,” because she has thick skin, that colleague isn’t a sexual predator. He’s “old-school.”

The women I interviewed were trying their best to succeed in a hostile environment, and that often meant adapting and changing their own behavior rather than demanding that the environment be adapted and changed for them. This is understandable, given that they were very much in the statistical and cultural minority. But when men like the commenter on Hess’s post suggest that women develop a thicker skin, they’re asking women to adapt to a hostile environment rather than asking themselves the hard questions about what they, as men, need to do to change that environment.

Of course, there’s an argument to be made that women who invoke thick skin are making it easier for men to do so, and are therefore being complicit in the ongoing hostility of the environment. And I’m not letting those women entirely off the hook, because the thick skin narrative is used, by men and women alike, to divide women into two groups: the reasonable women, and the victims. When I asked Alana about how other women might have responded to that “old-school” colleague, she talked about women who had filed sexual harassment and discrimination suits against her firm and other Wall Street firms. “I think that women who take that attitude are really at fault, because if you approach everybody like a victim, you’re not going to get anywhere… If you can fit in, and not call attention to the fact that you’re a woman… it’s better to just not call attention to the fact.”

The irony is that these women don’t need to call attention to the fact that they’re women – they’re being sexually harassed for that very reason. Women who accept sexual harassment, be it at work or on the street, have “thick skin” and are “reasonable.” Women who don’t are “victims” who “can’t hack it.” At work women are faced with two equally unpleasant choices: suffer harassment or discrimination in silence, or speak up and be branded a thin-skinned victim who makes all the other women look bad. On the street, speaking up comes with the added danger of a physical attack. It’s a no-win situation that we face on the way to work, on the way home, and every moment in between. “Thick skin,” as handy a survival method as it might be, is not a solution: the solution is to change the acceptability of harassment and discrimination.

—

Chloe Angyal is a contributor at Feministing, where she currently reviews romantic comedies. Want to contribute to Reader Beatdown? Send your thoughtful essays and scathing criticisms to ahess@washingtoncitypaper.com.

Over 1,200 people have signed a petition to demand the right to carry three condoms in the District of Columbia without fear of arrest. Why do 1,200 people think that carrying more than two condoms is against the law?

Widespread media reports of a "three-condom rule" in D.C. began with an item on RH Reality Check investigating the District's anti-prostitution provisions. The item, written by researchers Aziza Ahmed and Brook Kelly, claimed that in the District of Columbia, "Anecdotal evidence suggests that having three or more condoms is considered a proxy for being a sex worker."

When that piece of intel migrated over to the Women's Rights blog at Change.org, Alex Dibranco phrased Ahmed and Kelly's anecdotal evidence this way: "Think you might get lucky tonight? Well, if you're in D.C., don't bring more than two condoms in your purse, or you could be arrested as a prostitute."

Last week, the three-condom rule hit Jezebel, where it received 4,426 page-views—and inspired dozens of comments from women concerned that a late-night prophylactic run could send them behind bars. "Don't many brands sell in 3-packs? Anyone who carries around a new package is automatically carrying 3," one wrote. "so people in long term relationships that decide to stock up are really screwed," wrote another. Feministing also picked up the three-condom rule. On Amplify, Jaclyn Friedman worried that her new "cute red vinyl condom case" designed to hold three Trojans could be grounds for arrest. "I once used over a dozen [condoms] in a particularly memorable weekend," Friedman writes. "And I still wasn't a sex worker." Meanwhile, Dibranco's post has been viewed over 40,000 times.

Where did this "three-condom rule" originate?

It's not a legal standard. In D.C., police can set up temporary "Prostitution Free Zones" where officers who suspect you of loitering with the intent to commit prostitution can force you to leave the area. If you don't leave, they can arrest you. The zone can remain in place for up to 10 days. According to the Prostitution Free Zone Law, "prostitution-related offenses" include "repeatedly beckoning to, stopping, attempting to stop, or attempting to engage passers-by in conversation for the purpose of prostitution," "stopping or attempting to stop motor vehicles for the purpose of prostitution," or "repeatedly interfering with the free passage of other persons for the purpose of prostitution." Cops can also ask you to disperse if they recognize you from previous incidents as a gang member or a sex worker, or if a "reliable source" informs the police that they have observed you engaging in prostitution. The law contains plenty of objectionable procedures—they can make me leave my neighborhood if someone "reliable" tells them I'm a sex worker?—but no mention of contraceptives.

According to D.C. police spokesperson Gwendolyn Crump, carrying condoms can lead an officer to suspect prostitution—but there's no three-condom arrest rule. "Although the possession of multiple condoms may be a factor that leads an officer to suspect (reasonable suspicion) that a person is engaged in prostitution, it is not enough to establish probable cause for any crime," Crump writes. "Depending on the circumstances, factors such as this may justify an investigative stop—but not an arrest." She adds: "Essentially, if police cannot arrest someone for having two or more condoms outside a [Prostitution Free Zone], police cannot arrest them for it within a PFZ." [Update: DCist also reported on this statement from Crump].

Of course, it's possible that some D.C. police officers don't always follow the letter of the law. Is there any evidence that D.C. police have an internal three-condom rule?

Both RH Reality Check and Change.org cite a 2008 "Move Along Report" on the Prostitution-Free Zones as evidence of the cops' condom counting. The report cites plenty of evidence of police officers confiscating or destroying sex workers' contraception. According to the report, 8.6 percent of sex workers interviewed claimed that officers had taken "safe sex supplies" from them during their interactions with police; the report also cites evidence of police officers seizing or destroying condoms in Las Vegas and San Francisco. Again, the report's findings reveal police conduct that can be extraordinarily harmful for D.C.'s sex workers. However, the report includes no magic number of condoms required to ignite suspicion—and it doesn't provide any evidence that condoms alone are enough to get you locked up.

Cyndee Clay, Executive Director of HIPS (Helping Individual Prostitutes Survive), says her organization has heard from "many, many" sex workers in D.C. who attest to police targeting them over condom possession. "People will come in and tell us they're afraid to carry too many condoms, because they're afraid of drawing attention from the police," says Clay. Still, no specific number has emerged as a red flag.

Brook Kelly, who co-wrote the original RH Reality Check item, wrote in an e-mail that the three-condom tidbit emerged during the course of her research. Kelly's work included "interviews with sex workers' organizations, sex workers, or individuals who do not identify as sex workers but who seek support from DC based sex worker organizations, organizations that worked with drug use in the DC area, lawyers working on issues of HIV/AIDS, homelessness and poverty, and law enforcement." But even though Kelly's anecdotal evidence suggests that "having three or more condoms is considered a proxy for being a sex worker"—at least according to one source she interviewed—her report didn't mention anything about three condoms leading to arrest.

D.C.'s anti-prostitution laws and internal practices are dangerous to sex workers. Frightening sex workers into being unsafe—or physically removing their protection from them—is an extremely harmful practice, whether it's reinforced in the law or not. But the blogs and petitions that extend the harm of these practices to any girl who runs over to CVS for a three-pack of condoms are misleading. "Did you know you can be charged with prostitution in Washington D.C. if the police catch you carrying three or more condoms on the street?" the petition reads, in an attempt to rally all of D.C.'s condom users against the Prostitution Free Zones. Really, condom possession is only going to present a problem if you're a sex worker. And that should be enough for all of us to get angry about.

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

Via Feministing: Glenn Beck has slapped down rumors of a Palin-Beck presidential ticket in 2012. Why? Because Glenn Beck would be an even worse Vice Presidential pick than Sarah Palin was is really sexist!

"I was just thinking, what, I'm going to take a back seat to a chick?" Beck said, before resorting to the most clichéd remark ever:

I'm just saying, Beck-Palin, I'll consider. But Palin-Beck—can you imagine what an administration with the two of us would be like? She'd be yapping or something, I'd say, 'I'm sorry, why am I hearing your voice? I'm not in the kitchen.'

So . . . Glenn Beck is too sexist to consider being vice president. Everybody wins!

Jessica Valenti is right about the Miss Universe Pageant: As offensive as the public ranking of female swimsuit parts may be to the feminist eye, there's something very comforting about pageantry. Every year, the Universe comes together to televise an event that proves that sexism exists. In other words, they make for a really easy blog item.

And what's even better for a feminist critic than a beauty pageant? A beauty pageant with judges who try to bolster the Q-and-A with some feminist-lite questions, only to crown the winner who answers with the most sexism-denying rhetoric.

"I believe that nowadays we women have overcome many obstacles, and I do believe that we have reached the same level that men have," said Miss Venezuela, now Miss Universe, when asked what women can do to overcome sexism in the workplace. "We must realize there are no longer any barriers amongst us." And the crowd—along with us bored feminist bloggers—goes wild.

* Slate intrudes on the Sexist beat, telling you how to donate a kidney through your vagina ("Good news: You can now get a kidney from a vagina. . . . The kidney doesn't start in the vagina, of course"), and asking whether sharing a bed with your baby is a good idea (Answer: No).

* Progress! DC Nearlyweds refers to "bridesmaids" as "bridesmaids," not as an acronym shared by "Bowel Movement"!

*Girls Gone Wild creator Joe Francis goes wild, evades taxes, gets arrested. Say hi to Daschle for us! [via Feministing].

* A 26-year-old Montgomory County couple was indicted for prostituting minors in Gaithersburg and Washington: "U.S. Attorney Rod Rosenstein says the two created a sex-trafficking scheme where the three girls were drugged using cocaine, PCP, and marijuana or alcohol before having sex in Montgomery County or D.C."Lloyd Royal and Angela Bentolila are also accused of forcing the girls to sell cocaine, forcing them to have sex with Royal, and using their home and car for prostitution.

* Photo by Trevor Blake.

* PETA makes overly sexual, vegan Superbowl ad (above). NBC rejects it, counts the ways:

- licking pumpkin
- touching her breast with her hand while eating broccoli
- pumpkin from behind between legs
- rubbing pelvic region with pumpkin
- screwing herself with broccoli (fuzzy)
- asparagus on her lap appearing as if it is ready to be inserted into vagina
- licking eggplant
- rubbing asparagus on breast

* The New Gay seeks contributors.

* Roissy in D.C. finds the District's youngest cat lady. Quoth the cat lady, "My cats have never taken me on a date to the 7/11. My cats have never pretended to be the love of my life, then disappeared into thin air without even the courtesy of a post-it note explanation. My cats have never lied about being Navy SEALs. Not once." Replies Roissy, "She sounds like one of my exes. Always bitching. Her standards are way too high. What’s wrong with 7-11?"

* Feministing outlines the trouble with panic over teen sex—it's only reserved for the girls, and not the boys.

* Evil Slutopia dreams of Joe Biden:

I had a Joe Biden dream the other night. I was at some event where he was speaking, and I snuck backstage so I could talk to him. (Apparently there are no Secret Service agents in dreams, which made it really easy.) I told him all about the Joe Biden Feminism Watch, and he laughed and was all "no, really?", and I was all "yes, really!", and he thought it was awesome and gave me a hug. I also gave him an ESC business card, and then had to explain what our name means and that we weren't posting about his feminist achievements in between porn and/or erotica posts. (Not that there would be anything wrong with that, but it would have required a longer explanation probably.) So he took the card and he was happy and thought it was all cool, and then he went off to give his speech and I woke up with a massive hangover.

* The New Gay is looking for submissions and editors.

* Reproductive Health Reality Check writes on how euthanasia registers as a reproductive rights victory.

* Dr. Shirin Ebadi, an Iranian activist and Nobel Laureate, faces increased threats to her person and home. Most recently, an angry mob "chanting death threats":

Ebadi told the Campaing for Equality that "there are a lot of writers on this street, but I am the only writer who is also a traitor! I called the police immediately after the mob arrived. Two police officers arrived on the scene. They stood and watched, as those chanting slogans spray painted my home and attacked the building. They stood and watched, until it was over. The mob left and then the police also left." [via Feminist Majority Foundation].

* Via Feministing: Now, get rehabilitation for your Internet addiction—they're doing it for kids in China! Actually, don't, because your Internet addiction may very well be the only thing keeping my newspaper afloat.

Photo via trialsanderrors.

From Feministing's analysis of the coverage:

While many are in shock and awe over the "brash" phone conversations she took part in that resulted in the charges against the governor, the Times' tabloidy take on Blagojevich by painting her as this "first lady gone bad" is just tacky. . . . Taking any opportunity to paint women involved in politics as divisive and manipulating is sadly an old tactic by mainstream media. But when it specifically comes to women who are married to men involved in political scandals, the media seems to usually victimize them for not knowing about their husband's "double life." This case, however, is different; her knowledge of it immediately makes her not only his partner in crime, but the trophy wife turned trickster.

Hmm. I'm not sure, given the evidence, how the media is expected to cover either Blagojevich as not "divisive and manipulative." And isn't there something refreshing about that?

I, for one, far prefer Patricia's totally gun-ho [expletive]-that-[expletive]-and-[expletive]-them role in this scandal to the alternative: trotting out on stage with a big 'ol frowny face and being Very Disappointed in Your Husband. Sure, this not being a sex scandal makes it a lot easier for Patricia to jump on board here. But you know what they say: the couple that pays-to-play together, stays together.

* 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.

* The New Gay reveals an "an exciting new way to internalize homophobia": It's not gay, it's g0y! G0ys (pictured) hate anal sex, femininity, and gay dudes, but love God and casually bro-ing out with other dudes and blowing them. And they spell their sexuality with a zero. Sign up here!

* Slate tapes an interview with a MILF.

* Fashion Fuel D.C. wonders if men will save us from recession, because "while women tend to shop out of frivolity, men tend to shop out of necessity." But women shop for others, too.

* Bay Windows rates the LGBT friendliness of Obama appointments.

* From Feministing: New Zealand dude thinks abortions lead men to beat women, because their "maleness is under threat." Kind of sweet and old-fashioned, no?

Photo from g0ys.org

Via Feministing, a photo of a new ad in New York subways for Manhattan Mini-Storage—and against Sarah Palin. When will the kitschy pro-choice advertisement strategy hit the District?

* Slate asks you to break off your long-distance relationship for the sake of the environment. Advises Barron YoungSmith:

You're sitting in the airport terminal, rolling your copy of the Economist into a sweaty tube and waiting to see a significant other who lives far away. You're excited. You're aroused. But there's something else, a nagging feeling that gurgles in your stomach and won't go away. Is it pangs of guilt? It should be: The planet is about to suffer for your love.

* Listen up, cynical ladies: Roissy in D.C. finds sarcasm sooo unfeminine:

Sarcasm is a leading indicator of low self esteem in a woman. It is a masculine manifestation driven by the ego that cannot coexist with the inner feminine driven by the heart. A girl who leans on the crutch of sarcasm to thrash her way through a conversation is hiding insecurities behind a phony facade of gritty toughness.

Yep, and we all just secretly want a dick. Your dick.

* Feministing and Jezebel sound off on Chantilly's new pro-life pharmacy.

* Via Daily Intel: Upcoming Gossip Girl guest star Nastia Lukin hints at (maybe) GG's next plot twist: threesome, anyone?

Photo by PetroleumJelliffe

* Melissa McEwan over at Shakesville says a cat's place is in the cleavage:

this morning, after [the cat had] been driving me bananas for about an hour with this new routine, I tucked the bottom of the tanktop I was wearing up under my boobs to create a little pouch, then stuck her inside, where she promptly fell asleep for about three hours.

And yes, there is a photo.

* Over at The New Gay: A David Foster Wallace obit, from the perspective of someone who's never read a book by David Foster Wallace.

* The District cracks down on clubs that have different age requirements for men and women, the G.W. Hatchet reported last week. Metro News Editor Alexa Millinger writes that it's "not uncommon for bars and clubs to advertise events with a minimum entrance age of 18 for females and 21 for males," and writes that ABRA community resource officer Cynthia Woodruff-Simms "said she knows of a few places in Adams Morgan, U Street and the Southeast Waterfront that use these practices"—all of which seems unnecessarily vague. Can we get the skinny on the effect on those "few places"?

* Via Feministing via Boing Boing: Sexist men make more money. Writes Vanessa:

Most of my friends who make a lot of cheese (finance, technology – all male-dominated fields mind you) seem to have experienced or witnessed more sexism than others. (The corporate world alone is enough to make one nauseous.) And what is there to be said for women who believe in traditional gender roles making less money than women who don't?

* Via Slate: How the "Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood" made the case that "Bratz" dolls—along with "explicit music," "rap videos," and M&M flavored "lip gloss," contribute to "eating disorders, low self-esteem, depression and poor sexual health."

* Larry Craig is back: The Idaho senator has started a legal defense fund to aid in his attempt to overturn his guilty plea from a June 2007 "misdemeanor disorderly conduct" charge, the Idaho Statesman reports. Last February, the Senate Ethics Committee admonished Craig for spending over $200,000 of unused campaign funds to try to reverse the plea; now, he's accepting donations after the fund, dubbed "The Fund for Justice," was OK'd by the Ethics Committee.

* Larry Craig extra: While perusing the Senator's Web site, I came across this page, wherein Larry Craig debunks common Internet rumors for his constituents. The page features a totally creepy photo of Craig who, through some feat of dark magick, appears to be balancing a man-sized Fabergé egg in his palm. My favorite of Craig's "fact or fiction" crusades for truth, filed under "Tax on email":

Some folks have contacted me about a possible five-cent tax on email. This is a hoax that began circulating on the Internet several years ago. An email message warns people that "House Bill 602P" will levy a five-cent surcharge on every email sent. It goes on to say that the bill is sponsored by Congressman Tony Schnell, and the funds would go to the U.S. Postal Service. Further, it refers to an "editorial" in the "March 6 issue" of The Washingtonian supporting the tax. . . . Let me assure you, there is no Bill 602P. There is no Member of Congress by the name of Tony Schnell, and the United States Postal Service has nothing to do with delivering email. The Washingtonian is a monthly magazine, and does not even have a "March 6" issue. It is highly unlikely that a measure like this will ever come to the Senate floor for debate.

Glaring omission: That pesky Larry Craig gay rumor.

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.

* In an interview with the Blade, comedian Margaret Cho calls Sarah Palin the "worst thing to happen to America since 9/11."

* The New Gay, which already has a gay male comic strip, Curbside, has added a sister comic: Lefthanded Lesbians by Mag.

* Feministing finds an extremely disturbing McCain/Palin t-shirt that gives new, somehow even creepier meaning to the phrase "Drill, baby, drill."

* Unrelated, don't care: McSweeney's remembers David Foster Wallace.