“Russian Roulette” has been branded Rihanna’s “comeback single” in order to mark her first solo effort since being assaulted by then-boyfriend Chris Brown in February of this year. Following the assault, the feminist blogosphere exploded with criticisms, defenses, and theories relating to the R&B singer’s personal tragedy. In the following months, Rihanna became a staple on feminist blogs.  The pop star has been consistently mentioned in discussions of sexual assault—but she’s just as often been invoked to fawn over her clothing choices and speculate about her love life. In places like Jezebel, where feminist issues and pop culture obsessions both receive heavy coverage, Rihanna’s abuse has only fueled interest in her more traditional pop-star duties, like carving out a unique style and churning out catchy songs. In 2009, Rihanna’s public identity has emerged as a conflation of high-wattage pop star and domestic abuse survivor.

Rihanna herself, on the other hand, has felt comfortable only playing the pop star part—and has remained extremely tight-lipped about her abuse experience. She has never publicly identified as a feminist or an advocate for victims of domestic abuse. As I prepared this post, I realized with amazement that I had never actually read any full interview with Rihanna. (And, full disclosure, I really like Rihanna, and tend to follow the domestic abuse coverage alongside potential Justin Timberlake hook-up news). The pop star has managed to maintain an extremely high profile in feminism without saying much of anything at all. Rihanna is certainly no Lady Gaga, who has positioned herself in the center of the gay rights movement, even as she releases decidedly apolitical pop tunes (largely about heterosexual sex). It’s not so strange for a pop star to opt out of discussing politics (and her personal life). But it is an odd formula for crafting a feminist idol.

Recent critiques of “Russian Roulette” have made clear that feminists are yearning for Rihanna to step into that role. After hearing the song, Alyssa Rosenberg wrote about her personal wishes for Rihanna’s career. “When ‘Silly Boy’ leaked as a Rihanna track a couple of months ago, I thought it was a perfect career move for her: upbeat, vocally playing to her strengths, and by far most importantly, a rebuke to a guy who would treat his girlfriend badly,” she writes. “I do understand that it’s extremely difficult to leave an abusive relationship, and I respect that.  But I thought it would have been terrific for someone to overcome such a relationship in public.  Instead, Rihanna is using a song about embracing being terrorized as her comeback single.” Jezebel’s North was similarly creeped out by the song, writing: “What I’m actually most worried about is her label’s thinking on this song . . . if anyone pushed a domestic violence victim to record a comeback song about gunplay, that’s something to get angry about.”

But the disappointment and anger over the subject matter of Rihanna’s new single has also been accompanied by concerns over aesthetics. Rosenberg admits that the song “isn’t much good”; North writes that it “kind of sucks.” Perez Hilton, writing exclusively on the track’s artistic merits, expressed that he was “shocked and saddened” by the lackluster production (though apparently unconcerned with the overtones of domestic violence). Rosenberg and North disclose the song’s suckiness as if it’s beside the point, but I wonder if the double expectation that Rihanna be both a successful pop star and a model survivor of domestic abuse is responsible for the perceived feminist failure here. The song’s aesthetic problems extend to its lyrics, which, while “dark” and “edgy,” don’t appear to mean anything in particular, and certainly don’t qualify as a clear “defense” of domestic abuse. Couplets like “As my life flashes before my eyes / I’m wondering will I ever see another sunrise” and “So many won’t get the chance to say goodbye / But it’s too late too pick up the value of my life” clearly connote violence. But I can’t agree with Rosenberg that the song is about “embracing being terrorized”—the main problem with the song is that the lyrics don’t convey any specific perspective on the darkness.

“Russian Roulette” may not have succeeded as Rihanna’s “comeback single,” but it’s important to make clear which comeback we’re talking about—is it her return to the world of pop, or her recovery from an abusive relationship? Rosenberg “thought it would have been terrific for someone to overcome such a relationship in public.” But why does Rihanna’s return to music have to come only after she’s ready to announce that she’s “overcome” domestic abuse? And given Rihanna’s obvious reluctance to make her private life public, how could anyone expect her to live up to the feminist obsession that’s been brewing over her life and career for the past nine months? Perhaps she isn’t ready to play the public role of empowered survivor, and perhaps she never will.

I doubt that Rihanna’s critics would be raising the same concerns over her missed feminist opportunity if she had released an infectious club jam like “S.O.S.” or “Disturbia” which completely steered clear of an abuse theme. Problematically, both Rosenberg and North argue that the lyrics of “Russian Roulette” do evoke issues of domestic abuse—and go on to suggest that Rihanna is either doing it wrong, or being coerced by her handlers to do it wrong. I don’t think we should expect Rihanna to incorporate her new-found feminist fame into her pop songs—like Perez Hilton, I’m more disappointed that the song isn’t so hot. But when Rihanna does decide to make a public nod to her experience with domestic abuse, shouldn’t we refrain from suggesting that she’s not expressing herself correctly as a victim?

AdFreak has discovered these sexualized advertisements for Davidoff cigars. Each ad is accompanied by a photograph of a male model appearing to orgasm upon catching a whiff of some fine Davidoff cigar smoke. The ads read, “Every Man Has a D-Spot.”

Finally, you may be thinking. Men reduced to sex objects in order to sell phallic shit, and not women this time around! [See female "O" faces in advertising: Exhibit A, Exhibit B, and a bonus nonconsensual orgasm ad in Exhibit C]. So is this gender equality? Is it regressive? Or is it just icky?

I say it’s gender-equalizing regressive ickiness, but gender-equalizing regressive ickiness that reveals an interesting dynamic in mainstream sexist advertising. In traditional sex-sells ads, women’s bodies are used to grab the attention of potential buyers whom admen assume either a) desire these women or b) want to be these women in order to be desired by men. The focus, then is always on male pleasure.

And these ads are no different, as this collection of orgasm faces attests:

Still, focusing the imagery directly on male sexual pleasure is helpful for a few reasons. First of all, the ads are specifically not focusing on women/objects as a means to that pleasure. Great!

Second, this conscious inversion of the male gaze is visually disturbing enough to serve as an implicit commentary on our collective comfort with exploiting female sexuality in advertising. We’re comfortable looking at the boobs, but looking at the people looking at the boobs? Yuck!

And then, there’s the whole cigar thing. If you buy into the idea that a cigar is not just a cigar, these men are getting off on the perceived sexual potency of their own dicks, and that’s pretty funny. I really hope that’s what you were going for, Davidoff!

Still, while I appreciate the attempt at sexist imagery switcheroo here, I’m not sure I ever want to be comfortable being persuaded to buy something by looking at a David Duchovny look-a-like experiencing a contact high orgasm:

Last week, Politico’s Melanie Mason tackled the question of why female politicians are so rarely caught with their pants down. Mason starts out with a pretty good theory—”Men far outnumber women in elected office, and statistical probability dictates that if a random politician is caught in a sex scandal, it is overwhelmingly likely that the politician would be male”—and then offers up a bargain basement of half-baked ideas in order to cover all the basis—and sexist stereotypes against women. Most of these reasons would never, ever actually stop a woman from messing around, but that won’t stop us from buying into it all again.

Strong Women Aren’t Hot Enough:

“I guess men in power are terribly attractive to some women, but I don’t think that women in power are attractive to some men,” said former Rep. Pat Schroeder (D-Colo.), who was co-chairwoman of Gary Hart’s scandal-plagued presidential campaign in 1988.

Love Finds A Way: Please. This isn’t true, but even if it were—everybody can find somebody who wants to fuck them. This theory also conveniently lets male politicians off the hook. It’s not their fault! All the women who unexpectedly want to fuck them are to blame, somehow:

male politicians may be lavished with sexual attention they are unprepared to handle. “Most of these politicians were the high school boys that couldn’t get the cheerleader,” said [Suzie] Johnson, whose website GoAskSuzie.com specializes in issues of infidelity. “Now the situation is reversed.”

—

The Media Has Eliminated the Female Politician’s Sex Life:

Being so outnumbered in the political realm can also lead to greater media scrutiny for politicians—think, for example, of the brouhaha over Hillary Clinton’s V-neck blouse that sparked a lengthy discussion on the appropriate amount of cleavage a female politician should reveal.

Love Finds A Way: I won’t argue with the fact that female politicians are often unfairly scrutinized by the news-media. Even when they’re not caught with their pants down, women are often scrutinized over infidelity—Bill’s blowjob meant a lot of obsession over Hillary’s reaction. However, it’s not like the Governor of South Carolina doesn’t have reporters watching his every cross-continental flight—and monitoring his sexy e-mails—as well.

—

Having A Career Is Hard Enough For Women!:

Others say women in high-power careers are so overloaded already that affairs are an unlikely possibility. As Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) points out, “Who has the time? I don’t have enough time in the day to take care of the responsibilities I have between work and family.”

Women tend to be able to juggle a lot, but with so many pressures, throwing an extra romance in the mix may feel like just another item to have to multitask. “In a certain way, it’s a privilege, and it still belongs predominantly to men,” said Williams, who is herself a mother.

Love Finds a Way: First, women were too preoccupied with homemaking and baby-raisin’ that they simply didn’t have the time or energy to hold down a career. They just couldn’t handle it! Now, women are too preoccupied with homemaking, baby-raisin’, and that career they insisted upon, they just can’t manage to squeeze the infidelity in. Are female politicians too busy with their careers to ruin their careers, or are there—again—just not that many women who have had the opportunity to fuck up?

—

Women Can Make Babies, Didn’t You Know!

“The tendency or willingness to transgress sexual boundaries in general is much more likely in men than in women,” said Paul Abramson, author of the forthcoming book “Sex Appeal: Six Ethical Principles for the 21st Century.” Abramson, a psychology professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, added that “women are socialized to be much more cautious about sexuality due to the fact that they can get pregnant. Having an affair is a sexual risk, and women are much less inclined to do that.”

Love Finds a Way: As Megan Carpentier points out on Jezebel, these women are in menopause. And if they’re not: condoms.

—

Women Are Too Emotional To Have Casual Sex!

“That’s the reason you don’t see more female politicians having affairs,” Johnson said. “Women are less likely to have physical affairs but more likely to have emotional affairs, and there’s no way to bust those.”

Love finds a way: Emotional affairs leave paper trails, too. See: Mark Foley’s illicit AIM conversations, Mark Sanford’s flowery e-mails. Also, why are we listening to the advice of Suzie Johnson of GoAskSuzie.com again? You don’t have to take the URL literally!

—

Women are wily bitches.

And, of course, there is always the possibility that female politicians have their own sexual indiscretions the public simply doesn’t know about. Those secrets may stay hidden for a while. According to Johnson, “women are way more clever at covering [affairs] up.”

Love Finds A Way: This is likely true—but it’s likely true for many male politicians, as well. The idea that women are inherently better at hiding affairs is a tempting, completely unsubstantiated, and useless theory.

Photo by veni markovski

Yesterday, Jezebel pointed to a recent study which argued that Disney films were guilty of “elevating heterosexuality” with their butterfly-laden, musical-accompanied girl-meets-boy match-ups:

“Characters in love are surrounded by music, flowers, candles, magic, fire, balloons, fancy dresses, dim lights, dancing and elaborate dinners,” the researchers observed. “Fireflies, butterflies, sunsets, wind and the beauty and power of nature often provide the setting for-and a link to the naturalness of-hetero-romantic love.”

The hetero-romanticism, Jezebel reasoned, could help teach young viewers that “heterosexuality is normal, and homosexuality is abnormal, unusual and unexpected.” But as any grown-up fan of the Disney canon knows, these heterosexual love stories are often accompanied by an obvious undercurrent of homoeroticism. Disney has written its fair share of gay characters into its animated and live-action history—it just has yet to write them out of the closet.

Gary Marsh, president of entertainment for the Disney Channel, hedged the gay question last year. “There have been characters on Disney Channel who I think people have thought were gay,” he said. “That’s for the audience to interpret. . . . What we’re about is telling a great story, a relevant story, a story that addresses the needs, concerns, dreams, and aspirations and hopes of much of our audience.”

To me, Marsh’s “gay is in the eye of the beholder” argument is an acknowledgment of Disney’s willingness to slip homosexual characters into its casts—while leaving out any actual homosexuality. Defining gay characters by their mannerisms, wardrobes, and after-school interests instead of by the people that they love is extremely problematic, of course—characters end up either being straight, or caricatures of gayness. Viewers are left searching for gay stereotypes—and lack of overt heterosexuality—to hone in on any could-be gays in the House of Mouse.

A slew of Disney characters have been plagued by rumors of closeted homosexuality over the years. Beauty and the Beast’s fussy clock-man Cogsworth has been ridiculed for his notable disinterest in Belle and strange loyalty to the Beast. The tortured bromance between Toy Story’s Woody and Buzz has inspired some raised eyebrows–and Brokeback Mountain comparisons. The close quarters shared by the Seven Dwarfs is a bit suspicious, no? And Aladdin villain Jafar gives off enough of a gay vibe to inspire the following Aladdin-Jaffar fantasy spoof:

Even characters who don’t immediately register on an adult viewer’s gaydar have often been recast to satisfy gay male fantasy:

And some characters, like the lisping manicurist manatee who dotes on Sally Field’s sea queen in The Little Mermaid III, appear to just be very stereotypically out—if only direct-to-DVD.

And then, there is High School Musical. The gay rumors swirling around Disney’s live-action monster franchise have often centered on Ryan (Lucas Gabreel), a musical theater performer with a love of audacious hats,  jazz hands, and—other boys? Ryan is stuck with a pseudo-heterosexual plotline in the third film, when he is pressured into asking a girl to prom. Still, nobody is really buying it. (In the Disney stage adaptation of the popular films, it should be noted, Ryan is really, truly, out-of-the-closet gay).

But the controversy over the sexual orientation of the Ryan character only serves to obscure the homosexual undertones that weave throughout the entirity of High School Musical. Open your eyes, people: Every character in this movie is gay.

High School Musical is the story of basketball player Troy (Zac Efron) and academic decathelete Gabriella (Vanessa Hudgens), who must overcome the social pressures of their peer groups to—you guessed it—”come out” as who they truly are. In this homosexual allegory, Troy and Gabriella don’t yearn to come out as homosexuals—just as strangely natural musical theater performers. Yes, even the film’s stand-in for homosexuality is an after-school activity long associated with homosexuality.

Troy and Gabriella aren’t the only students with hidden interests just yearning to break free of societal pressures. One of Troy’s teammates, for example, eventually reveals himself as a cooking enthusiast with a specialty in crème brûlée. By the time the mini crème brûlée dishes get pulled out of the athletic bag, Disney is really piling on the homosexual coding.

Then, there are the students in the film who don’t claim to have a hidden other-life they desperately wish to share with the world. These students are the most oppressed of all. Although these characters castize Troy and Gabriella for attempting to follow their hearts—they also appear to have some deep-seeded secrets of their own.

Take, oh, High School Musical’s entire basketball team, for instance, which repeatedly mocks Troy for his interest in musical theater. In this scene, Troy chides himself to “get his head in the game” and refocus his energy on basketball, not singing and dancing.

Roll the tape:

As you can see, the same high school basketball team that ridicules Troy for singing and dancing does not actually play basketball at all. Rather, they appear to believe they are playing basketball while they are, in fact, singing and dancing. When Troy bursts out of the (musical theater) closet, these boys are so deeply repressed, so far back in the closet themselves, that they can’t realize they’ve been gay musical theater aficionados all along.

I’m not sure what sort of message Disney is trying to send with this one. The film encourages teens to “come out” as their true selves, and is is packed with clear homosexual undertones. However, it repeatedly attempts to deny actually showing the most difficult—and obvious—teen “coming out” scenario: coming out as gay.

Maybe Disney wants to recognize how difficult it can be to be a gay teenager, but in a format that its religious-conservative base can still stomach. Maybe Disney wants to recognize homosexuality while still discouraging homosexual behavior. Or Maybe Disney itself needs to do a little soul-searching. It’s possible that Disney doesn’t just realize how gay its movies can be.

It would be difficult for any advertising campaign to convince me to drink a Bacardi Breezer anywhere—much less in a shopping mall. Unfortunately, Bacardi’s “Get An Ugly Girlfriend” campaign has managed to produce the same feeling of nausea in me, but without the 4 percent alcoholic buzz!

Jezebel has already remarked on how the campaign misfires by attempting to target typically misogynystic alcohol advertising at women instead of the usual target (men). But the “Get An Ugly Girlfriend” campaign got another thing wrong, too: the Internet.

The Bacardi campaign, launched in Tel Aviv, is all set up to make online waves. On the Web site, you can fill out a form to receive a free Bacardi Breezer (though I’m not convinced Get An Ugly Girlfriend will look any better when we’re drunk). You can add write in with your own comments about each of Bacardi’s ugly girlfriends: Sally, the fat one; Daisy, the hippie (and probably the feminist) one; Wendy, the kinda gothy one; and Lucy, another fat one. And you can “friend” each of the girls on Facebook—a feature which sends you over to the campaign’s Facebook page. It’s so interactive!

Well, it was until this morning. When I logged onto the Facebook group yesterday afternoon, the campaign had about 100 followers—and dozens of negative comments applying a variety of critiques to Bacardi’s ad men. The comments ranged from feminist attacks on Bacardi’s misogynystic disregard of its potential customers to more aesthetic criticisms ridiculing Bacardi for passing off a grade-school insult as innovation.

But when I attempted to log onto the Facebook page again this morning—what can I say, I’m a fan—the whole interactive feature had mysteriously disappeared. That’s the downside of “going viral” when you’re trying to sell booze, not pageviews. Personally, I don’t mind a spike in visitors when a lot of people are pissed off at whatever I have to say. But if you actually need your online visitors to buy what you’re selling, it doesn’t help that everyone coming to your site would never buy this misogynystic crap—much less an actual Bacardi Breezer.

It looks like Bacardi has decided to cut its losses on this one and shut down the impromptu Bacardi bitching site (though the ad campaign is still up online). The “comments” feature, however, is still up on the Web site: It includes three generic positive comments supplied by Bacardi. The “Add Your Comment” button below the comments goes nowhere. Now, all that visitors to the Web site can do is shut up and fill out the form for a free Bacardi. That’s more like it!

UPDATE: Oops, looks like the Web site has been taken down entirely. Feminist social networking FTW?

UPDATE: A Bacardi rep sent the following apology to Jezebel:

Thank you for taking the time to post your story on Bacardi Breezer.

The campaign you are referring to ran in 2008 for two months in Israel. Even though Bacardi Breezer is not sold or distributed in the United States, we immediately notified the appropriate Bacardi affiliate and had this website shut down.

Bacardi proudly celebrates diversity and we do not endorse the views of this site. We sincerely apologize to anyone who was offended by this site and thank you for bringing it to our attention.

Please do not hesitate to contact me at anytime should you have any questions.

Feminism: Oooooooooover it.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

AMANDA: … april … fools

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

AMANDA: yes.

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

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

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

* Lately, at times, I’ve felt like Jezebel has dipped ever so slightly into safer ladyblog territory, the one largely claimed by magazines featuring Amanda Bynes on the cover. Then came Tracie Egan’s post on how to allay pregnancy symptoms when you’re just going to abort the thing anyway, so fuck-all to fetus-safe medical care (i.e., “Saltines”). And it was amazing and not previously published in Cosmopolitan!

* Hey, weird, someone has collected some of 2008’s top moments in feminism that are actually relevant to the women’s movement. Thanks, “The Frisky”!

* Gawker’s last lady standing signs off after one year of “Internet news-aggregating and the snark-blogging fishbowl,” i.e. the great “Dadaist experiment.”

* Wonkette has unearthed olde-tyme would-be “Junior” Senator from Illinois Roland Burris‘ GRAVE, which he has ALREADY CONSTRUCTED WITH A LIST OF HIS LIFE’S ACCOMPLISHMENTS, plus some space at the end for “unbought Senate appointment” or whatever.

* Ladyblog’s Phoebe Maltz compares abstinence pledges to her own fifth grade school-sponsored anti-smoking pledge. Both are lame!

If we stayed true to our promise (an honor code our witness) we could attend an end-of-the-year school-sponsored pizza party in the spring. . . . The end of the year came, and, although I’d managed against all odds to make it all the way to June inhaling nothing more interesting than polluted NYC air, I refused to go to the pizza party. This was in part because what could be dorkier, and also in part due to an already-present libertarian impulse, albeit one in which the teachers were stand-ins for the State.

Photo via trialsanderrors.

Well I’m a big girl now
Eyyyeeeauuughhhhh

Repeat.

In this video, shot in a Bloomington, Indiana Planned Parenthood, the clinic rep does some not-so-legal stuff to deal with this no-good very-bad situation: she doesn’t report the girl’s age to authorities, even as she acknowledges that it constitutes child abuse and rape; she conspiratorially puts on some after-the-fact earmuffs to pretend she didn’t hear the ages involved; then she directs Rose to go over state lines to Illinois where she can have a real secret abortion without parental consent. Ha, ha, oh, this is all terrible, good thing none of it’s real, right? Right? Watch it, after the jump:

Of course, though the 13-year-old here isn’t real, there are girls in her situation who get roped into relationships with older dudes, get pregnant, and are forced to consider abortion. That’s a sad, awful way for puberty to come a-knockin’. But as with the abortion question in general, the issue of reporting underage sex is, well, complicated. Megan at Jezebel nails it down:

It sounds good for a doctor to be forced to report abuse, but statutory rape isn’t the same as sexual assault or molestation—which is why there’s a whole different category for it. When young women who have chosen to be sexually active see and hear about this video, are they likely to stop having sex until they turn 14? No. They are, however, far less likely to turn to a medical provider for information about birth control, STI testing or abortion services if they know they provider is going to pick up the phone and call the cops. That’s the consequence of these forced-reporting laws when it comes to statutory rape (which is, by definition, consensual but for the age of the supposed victim).

Dr. Aline Zoldbrod, sex therapist, says, “If you cut your hair you might be making a statement that says, ‘I don’t want to be seen as a sex object.’”

Matt Titus, published author ( . . . of a book titled “Why Hasn’t He Called?”) says, “Men love long hair; the touch and the smell stimulates our senses. . . . The three physical things that attract a man are a great body, beautiful long hair or great lips. So cutting off one third of your beacons of attraction doesn’t increase your chances of having Mr. Right approach you. It’s like sending a nonverbal message that you’re not interested in sex.”

So that’s why he hasn’t called. Short-haired Jezebel Maria respectfully disagrees, and offers up one pro for chopping it off: “One good part of having short hair? It weeds out the slimy creeps,” she writes.

Ha ha, no, unfortunately, there are slimy creeps for every hairstyle. Speaking as a fellow short-haired lady (some characterize it as the “Farrow“; I prefer the term “Napolitano“), shorter hair hasn’t lessened the number of weirdos propositioning me in poorly lit bars. For every Matt Tisus in the world, there is a stranger lurking just outside a short-haired woman’s field of vision, leering at the exposed flesh of her neck.

Also, I once found a boy I was dating searching for “short hair lesbian porn” on his dorm room computer. So, you know, some people are a little too into it.

Photo courtesy U.S. Department of Defense

Today I thought I’d just cut to the chase and find out what ladies on the Internets think is sexist today. Modern sexism, reveal yourself!

* Gender Goggles reviews Yoko Ono’s feminist video project Cut Pieces, thinks jokes are sexist, but not as sexist as sexual assault: “You might argue that there is a world of difference between laughing at a sexist joke and committing mass sexual assault in Central Park, and while this is obviously true it’s also all of a piece. They are on the same continuum of subjugation of women.”

Also sexist, according to the Goggles: some newfangled “Ladder Theory” of relationships.

* Jezebel thinks Bukakke-esque advertising isn’t as sexy as it is sexist.

* Shakesville’s Melissa McEwan thinks cartoon e-mail forwards are sexist, except when they contain visual poo jokes: “we started emailing each other any dumbass forwards we got, especially ones with ‘hilarious; sexist jokes and cartoons, with intros like ‘This is the best email forward you’ll ever receive!’ We also send each other good email forwards, too, like the one I sent her of a guy wearing see-through plastic pants and crapping himself, which is a classic.”

* Tiger Beatdown thinks that maybe she herself is sexist, but also right, for writing this tirade about rom-coms:

I can hear your cries of shock and denial! But es one hundred percent verdad, ladies: people who watch—and consider themselves fans of—such high quality cinematic entertainments as “Runaway Bride,” “Maid in Manhattan,” and “The Wedding Planner” do, in fact, tend to have crappy relationships, due to the fact that they believe in “predestined love,” immediate commitment, and the idea that “if someone is meant to be with you, then they should know what you want without you telling them.”

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.

* Tim Dickinson for Rolling Stone on why Prop 8 failed. (Hint: It wasn’t Mormon or black voters, but it might have been you).

* The Gay Recluse reports on the shielded statues in Union Station (photo above), indicates that behind the shield are uncircumcised Roman penises, calls it “the biggest scandal in the history of hot gay statues!”

* WaPo says Barry and Hills need to work on their “rapport,” but noted this cute press conference tidbit: “Leaving the news conference in Chicago yesterday where he introduced his national security team, President-elect Barack Obama strolled out of the room arm in arm with his choice for secretary of state and onetime rival, Hillary Rodham Clinton.” Oooooooh!

* Mark your calendars: Forum on gay marriage in D.C. slated for Dec. 11.

* Barrack buys Michelle First Bling!

As fires raged in Southern California, protesters around the world gathered to voice their opposition to California’s Prop 8.

* Flickr user Grant Gochnauer snaps this great sign from a Chicago protest (above).

* The L.A. Times details a 1992 Colorado battle against an anti-anti-discrimination amendment that suggests how the fight in California might proceed.

* Andrew Sullivan attends the Washington, D.C. Prop 8 protest. The Daily Dish has more scenes from protests around the world.

* Jezebel also collected Prop 8 protest photos from readers across the country.

* D.C. protest attendee Paula Brooks came angry and left hopeful.

* In pro-Prop 8 news: D.L. Hughley hits the radio to explain why he is “against the gay lifestyle.” He was a guest on the Tom Joyner Morning Show last week.

* Meanwhile, Michelle Malkin keeps her eye on Prop 8 protests to watch for “blacklisting, harassment, and intimidation” by protesters.

* Comedian Wanda Sykes came out of the closet for Prop 8 this weekend. And I love her!

* Tiger Beatdown sounds off on homophobia in Ohio.

Submit more Prop 8 protest news in the comments.

she said that while she was speaking to Thomas, she got this weird feeling and out of nowhere asked, “Are you pregnant again?” And Thomas replied yes!

Last week’s Daily Beast feature which asked former Project Runway contestants to design a Michelle Obama inauguration gown—using only ridiculous materials and some pluck—accidentally asked the wrong Jay McCarroll to design the dress. According to Jezebel, The Beast actually contacted one Jay McCarrol, who has but one “L” in his last name, is not a well-known clothing designer, and has won no national reality television contests. McCarrol proved up to the challenge, however, taking the Beast at their word and asking a friend to sketch up a design for Michelle. McCarrol’s buddy, a 20-year-old student, came up with this pretty okay design, above, considering that the anonymous designer could only use burlap sacks and American flags as material. Tina Brown’s new Web-first outfit recieves a warning, while the fake McCarrol’s young friend establishes herself as a front-runner for the next season of Project Runway.

UPDATE: I’d like to just comment here to clarify the headline of this post, because there’s been some confusion in the comments. I’m not calling the lovely Michelle Obama nor the talented Jay McCarroll ugly. I’m calling the dress design ugly. Proceed to rip me apart for my misguided fashion criticism.

The Daily Beast posed this absurd challenge to former Project Runway contestants: Design an inaugural gown for Michelle Obama using only “Laura Bush’s 2005 Inaugural Ball dress, to be chopped up and repurposed, à la Pretty in Pink; an American flag; burlap potato sacks; and $10 worth of trims of their choice.” (Umm, is that how this happened?) Head to the Beast for god-awful designs from Jay Carroll, Austin Scarlett, Mychael Knight, and others.

Jezebel does the Beast one better by selecting dresses from the Project Runway designers that Michelle might actually want to wear.
Sketches from The Daily Beast.

* 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

* Advanced Style, a street-style blog for the older set. Adorable, inspirational, and regularly updated, this elderly fashion watch is curated by three respectful whippersnappers.

* Jezebel asks if being a successful woman means staying single:

maybe if a woman’s got guts and determination, she “intimidates” men. So she either doesn’t get attached to a guy, or finds one who is content to live in her shadow. Oprah doesn’t have a husband, per se, but when’s the last time we heard anything about that Stedman guy? Anna Wintour? Divorced. Condoleezza Rice? Not married. Tyra? Single and looking to mingle. Angela Merkel? Wikipedia says, “Her second husband is quantum chemist and professor Joachim Sauer. He remains out of the spotlight” . . . While many men have careers in which they shine and the wife is content to stay in the background, it seems that women who live an ambitious life in the limelight rarely have a “quiet” husband at home.

Jezebel’s expounding, of course, on Madonna’s just-announced divorce from filmmaker Guy Ritchie. I wouldn’t assume that the end of this seven-and-a-half year marriage is a result of Ritchie not being able to “handle” Madonna—you probably know what you’re getting into with Madonna. Similarly, I would suggest that Tyra Banks‘ relationship status might not be wholly attributed to her “success.” A lot of marriages fail, successful, famous, or not. Still, I fully intend to co-opt the Stars: They’re just like us! treatment here and assert that by virtue of being a single woman, I am successful. It’s that easy!

* In the wake of Joe Wurzelbacher-gate, Radar imagines the inevitable “Joe Plumber” porn spoof:

Layin’ Pipe will feature five hard-core scenes, including a threeway with other pander-worthy icons, namely Mother of Iraqi Solider Against the War and Teacher In Tennessee Who Can’t Afford Her Parents’ Nursing Home. Bob Schieffer will also be spoofed as the announcer who dishes the sex action that will take place during the film.

Yeah, well, as long as he isn’t portrayed by the lame, pathetically in-shape dude who hangs around the smoothie/tanning salon, I may be interested.

* Plus, what else might “Joe the Plumber” be hiding from the American People? Josh Levin for Slate has your non-pornographic predictions.

* Okay, one reason to have kids:

Photo from Advanced Style.

It gets weirder, reports the Windy Citizen: Painter Bruce Elliot used his own daughter as a nude model for the piece. “My daughter is a heck of a stand-in for Sarah Palin,” Elliot told the pub. “She can even do the voice.” Dad, you are so embarrassing.

* It looks like the titular blogger of “Confessions of a College Call Girl” is closing her little black blog:

I’m tired of talking about whoring—at some point reliving these stories becomes less about healing and more about playing with fire, dipping my toe into the quicksand. I’m not sure if my life is interesting enough these days to write about; it’s a tribute to how much writing this blog has helped me that I’m mostly sane and boring today.

She does tell “one last” story. There’s lots of fucking.

* Jezebel’s Megan Carpentier responds to yesterday’s Jezebel-referencing post in The Times titled, “Women have so many don’ts. What’s a guy to do?” Writes Carpentier:

The difficulty with all the post-feminist whining about how women have “rules” that change that men don’t know how to follow is that it continues to be a failure to recognize that women are all different, just as all dudes are different. . . . And — this might be shocking — there was no halcyon time when women all wanted the same thing any more than there was one when men did.

* Jezebel debunks the debunkers of the rumors facts of Palin’s rape kit debacle.

* Meghan McCain at McCain Blogette has posted another election playlist. McCain writes that she creates “playlists for almost every interesting experience,” but doesn’t identify exactly what that interesting experience is this time. What could the combination of David Bowie’s “Golden Years,” Joan Jett’s “Bad Reputation,” and Lady GaGa’s (?) “Beautiful, Dirty, Rich” be referring to? Whatever, I’m digging it.

* Via The Nation: A pastor protects Sarah Palin against “the spirit of witchcraft” in 2005. Go to the video’s 7:30 mark to watch Palin get de-witched.

* Feminist fiction writer Chimamanda Adichi wins the intellectual lottery—she gets $100,000 a year for five years and gets the nickname “genius.” [via Feminist Daily News].

* David Levinson Wilk for Politico reports on the domination of “OBAMA” and “BIDEN” clues in the New York Times‘ crossword. “MCCAIN” has never appeared. As for McCain’s Veep: “Like a cruel joke, PALIN has appeared dozens of times as an answer in the crossword grids of the nation’s most esteemed news publications—but always with clues such as ‘Monty Python member’ or ‘Cohort of Cleese and Idle.’ It’s pretty obvious: The left-wing media elite is mocking her. For shame!”

* Via Feministing: Tuesday was bisexuality day. Whoops, see you next year.

Photo by dumbonyc.

* 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.

Where I come from, women don’t abandon their absurdly offensive and largely nonsensical blogger personas just because they are so in love they have chosen to get married forever.

“It recently occurred to me that I might be one of the only girls whose reputation is ruined by committing to one guy for the rest of my life,” wrote Egan. Call me old fashioned, but getting hitched is no excuse to quit self-identifying as a wholesale distributor of the sexually promiscuous. But there’s more—even the purging of Slut Machine is not enough for the Wedding Machine, which will not rest until it bulldozes a perfectly innocuous moniker as well:

“I actually might be changing my last name, too, which is something I never ever thought I’d do,” writes Egan. “But my fiancé’s last name is really cool: Morrissey. And I kinda like the sound of ‘Ms. Moz.’”

Whatever. What Ms. Moz does in her personal life is her own business. Just keep blogging the good blog.

Photo by odius.