Andrew Sullivan crashed our servers this morning when he linked to our roundup of the baddest sexy Halloween costumes. The worst of the slutty holiday get-ups are generally reserved for the ladies. But surely, Sullivan deserves an awful sexy Halloween costume of his own, no? Thanks to 3Wishes.com, men don’t have to settle for lame penis joke costumes on Oct. 31: they, too, can join in the fun of inappropriate public erotica with the help of some greasy abs, a Chippendale bow-tie, and a whole lot of manpris.

First up: THE “SEXY FOOTBALL PLAYER”:

Read More “The Worst Sexy Halloween Costumes: Sexy Male Edition” »

The first time I heard Usher’s new gender-bending single, “Trading Places,” the D.J. introduced it as a “backseat jam”—a track that’s very conducive to fucking. “Trading Places,” which follows Usher and his lady-friend as they trade gender roles in the bedroom for an evening, presents gender transgression as a one-off sexual novelty. It’s also not very sexy (in one verse, Usher’s girlfriend orders Chinese food and demands that Usher not wash his hands before they do it. Thrilling). Needless to say, it wasn’t really a jam I was willing to climb into the backseat for—and that was before I knew that the song is also a stealth anal sex anthem!

Let’s analyze the male/female dichotomy through the lens of Usher, shall we?

Now we gonna do this thing a lil different tonight
You gonna come over and pick me up in your ride
You gon knock and then you gon wait
Ooo you gon take me on a date
You gonna open my door and I’ma reach over and open yours
Gon pay for dinner take me to see a movie
And whisper in my ear I bet you really wanna do me
Girl now take me home and get up in my Benz
Pour me up a shot and force me to the bed

Read More “Stealth Anal Sex Anthem: Usher’s “Trading Places”” »

The recession is now in full swing, which means that journalists everywhere have a new excuse to write about the same shit they always wrote about, but now everything is worse.

This time around: cat fights!

New York Times columnist Mickey Meece (seriously) is here to explain why the recession has resulted in a frightening “workplace bullying” epidemic that threatens to destroy all working women. Why are working girls bitchier than ever to each other? Let me count the ways:

Read More “Recession Makes Bitches Bitchier” »

Sociological Images accuses Facebook of sexism and ethnocentricsm for using a “white and male” image as its default avatar to represent a typical user, while opting for “orange avatars of both sexes” to represent its “global connection” capabilities.

So why does this shadowy male figure look just like me?

Read More “Is the Facebook Avatar a Dude?” »

Giant stone erections fail to lift D.C. above the competition.

Combos brand snacks has released a study (stay with me here) ranking the 50 manliest cities in the United States. Washington, D.C. ranks a pathetic 45, proving manlier than only Chicago, Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York.

The criteria for maniness appeared to be but a thinly veiled count of how mant Combos brand snacks each city consumes per capita:

Read More “District of Columbia 45th Manliest City in U.S.” »

Welcome back to The Sexist’s Manliest Workplace in D.C. tournament, our ongoing unscientific investigation into the male/female ratios of local employers’ org charts. Last week, we sewed up the Media Bracket, in which the Washington Times crushed the competition with an impressive 94.5 percent manly factor. Now, we move on to an even more high-fallutin’ category of D.C. workplace: “Culture.” Check out the entire 64-workplace bracket here; today, the one-seed Washington Redskins take on eight-seed National Museum of Women in the Arts. May the manliest cultural institution win!

WASHINGTON REDSKINS: These hometown heroes may have the manliest profession this side of the American Presidency, but do they have the manly goods where it counts—the execs? Let’s check out the team’s ownership and coaching staff [PDF]:

Read More “Man Madness: Washington Redskins Vs. National Museum of Women in the Arts” »

Introducing the Manliest Workplace Competition: In search of D.C.’s most male organization.

The American workplace’s storied glass ceiling is in pretty bad shape. Female workers are on the fast track to conquering the upper echelons of all sectors of industry, including the nation’s highest office. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton invoked the ceiling in her June concession speech: “Although we weren’t able to shatter that highest, hardest glass ceiling this time, thanks to you, it’s got about 18 million cracks in it,” Clinton said, adding, “the light is shining through like never before, filling us all with the hope and the sure knowledge that the path will be a little easier next time.” With Clinton’s defeat, the glass-crushing spread across the political aisle. As Republican vice presidential candidate and self-described “feminist” Sarah Palin confirms, “Women certainly today have every opportunity to succeed.”

But what about that unsung other half of our nation’s workforce: men? As more and more women enter the workplace and climb to its highest ranks, they do so to the detriment of a group that has comfortably occupied high-level positions in our nation’s capital for centuries. At risk of extinction are D.C.’s manliest institutions: its unions, newspapers, and government agencies. In 2008, what workplaces may truly call themselves manly?

Read More “D.C.’s Manliest Workplace Competition” »

Ever since “bro” crept out of the frat house basement and into the mainstream, the now-ubiquitous term has suffered a backlash. Consider the dominant definition of “bro” on urbandictionary.com: “Stupid white trash guys . . . with lifted trucks, wife beaters, shitty music . . . ugly girlfriends, ugly hair, mouths constantly open, retarded as all get up, have no common sense . . . Fags.”

Also indicative of the term’s current status: Even the founder of forthcoming online community BroBible.com —the world’s first online “brocial network“—hesitates to self-identify as “bro.” “The word bro has a negative connotation to some,” admits Doug Banker, the bro behind Bro Bible. “I’m definitely a bro in certain aspects,” he adds. “But I consider myself a well-rounded bro.”

But to Banker, 23, the term “bro” means something different. “We see it in the playful way . . . Really, a bro is just someone who likes to go out and have a good time, who likes to stay connected to their group of friends while expanding their horizons,” he says. “It’s not one of our goals to make the word ‘bro’ more positive,” adds banker. “But yes, hopefully, that will happen.”

Banker, who graduated this year from the University of Richmond with a B.A. in “Leadership Studies,” hopes that BroBible.com will give a voice to what he views as a sorely underrepresented demographic. The Web site, tag-lined “Every bro has a story,” will debut its mix of social networking, open forums, and bro-generated content on Oct. 15. “This is one of the first sites that’s tailored specifically to the needs and interests of the bro,” says Banker. “Finally, there will be an outlet on the Internet where [bros] can truly express themselves.”

The nationwide site aims to connect a diverse network of bros around the country. “The actual type of bro varies, but there are bros everywhere,” explains Banker. “You’ve got the Southern bro, enjoys being outside; the Colorado ski bro; the California surf bro; the Texas down-South bro; the Northeastern preppy lacrosse bro. There are all different types of bros, but they share common attributes.”

Banker hopes to court the bros of the District of Columbia specifically. “A lot of my friends at Georgetown are huge bros, and they really enjoy the nightlife scene there,” he says. “In the bars, you can find a great deal of bros. Any sporting event, a lot of bros. I would imagine that D.C is full of them,” he says. Banker says he is planning to take his promotional bro tour to Washington, D.C. within the next month.

Other types of bros, however, are less welcome in the online community. “It’s not the ‘yo, bro’ type of thing,” says Banker, “We’re not trying to get a guy who’s going to drink ten beers and crash them over his head. . . . The site is not going to be glorifying male conquest and championing their exploits.”

Still, Banker says he hopes to promote an “open forum” where bros “can share all types of stories and not feel embarrassed to get that information out,” he says. “And if that includes beer and hooking up, then so be it.”

Though the bro is typically defined as male, Banker says that female bros—and women close to bros—are also encouraged to check out the site. “I think it’s going to be very popular with women,” Banker says. “Women are really going to enjoy the site. They’ll be able to gain insight into the male ego, the male bravado, how the male mind works. At the very least, they’re going to want to know why their boyfriend is spending so much time on the site.”

Banker is hopeful that, with the help of the online bro community, a new term for a female bro will soon be coined. “I’ve been looking for one. I can’t think of one off the top of my head,” says Banker. “Trust me, I’ve been wracking my brain for a long time.”

Photo by Tavallai.

* For Slate, The Abstinence Teacher author Tom Perrotta explains the political appeal of Sarah Palin’s “Sexy Puritan” archetype:

I’m only trying to locate her within the context of the great American culture war, which she seems to have single-handedly reignited during an election season that was supposed to have been dominated by other issues (and may well be again, now that Wall Street has imploded). With the selection of Palin, McCain succeeded not only in thrilling the Christian right but in scrambling the categories of the campaign. It used to be perfectly clear which ticket represented youth and change, which seemed old and boring, and which had more appeal to women voters. For a moment, at least, Palin seems to have turned these certainties into open questions.

* Also in Slate: How the financial crisis is good for the high-end prostitute business:

Sex workers of the past waited on street corners, outside bars, and around parks, and their transactions were fleeting and usually for a few dollars. Today’s high-end sex workers see themselves as therapists, part of a vast metropolitan wellness industry that includes private chefs and yoga teachers. Many have regular clients who visit them several times per month, paying them not only for sex but also for comfort and affirmation.

Ahh, but what of the comfort and affirmation of your local alt-weekly?

* Stuff Hipsters Don’t Like: Hipsters. Thinking about the economy. Pregnancy:

Hipsters are very torn about pregnancy. On the one hand, they don’t have any problem with abortion seeing as they got their BA in post-structuralist conceptual astrology and have endured hundreds of hours of NPR, Ira Glass’ infanticidal socialist drone lingering in their subconscious. On the other hand, being pregnant is kind of cool. It gives them some sort of purpose in an otherwise directionless post-graduate existence. In fact, some hipster girls dream of having a traditional nuclear family. They fantasize about their husband handsomely dressed in wool flannel and Ray-Bans returning home from his long shift at the record store and coddling their infant son decked out in a vintage neon Morrissey romper.

That said, most of the time they just get an abortion.

* Women dumb! Men lazy! Unfabulouz.com shows “the difference between men and women” in this recovered gender cartoon.

* Guess what’s the only supreme court case Sarah Palin can name! Yeah, that one.

Photo by dreamsjung