* NOM's hetero-happy summer bus tour will be shadowed by counter-events organized by Freedom to Marry. The marriage rights group will  respectfully disagree with NOM's "one man, one woman" message at every stop the NOM bus makes. Unfortunately, no actual gay bus will be stalking NOM's anti-gay bus across the highways of this great nation.

*  Fugitivus [via Figleaf] on rape victims who drop charges, refuse to participate with investigations, and decline to testify:

I am sure that in this wide, wide world of people, there are rape victims out there who truly want nothing more than for their rapists to go free without punishment, without retribution, without justice. That’s their right. But I don’t think I’ve actually heard any of them. Instead, what I hear is, “I just want this whole thing dropped. I don’t want it prosecuted. Every time this gets brought up I get harassed.” Or, “I don’t want this prosecuted. I don’t want to be called a slut in court.” Or, “I don’t want this prosecuted. I could never win, I don’t have the money, and nobody would believe me.” Or, “I don’t want this prosecuted. He would kill me. His friends would come after me.” Or, “I don’t want this prosecuted. I can’t stand to see him every day in court.”

None of those statements can be reasonably boiled down to, “Rape victim doesn’t want her rapist to come to justice.” They can be reasonably boiled down to, “Rape victim suspects pursuit of justice will feel worse than getting raped did.”

I think it can also take forms like these: "I don't want this prosecuted. It's not something to ruin another person's life over." Or: "I don't want this prosecuted. He says it didn't happen that way, and maybe it didn't." Or: "I don't want this prosecuted. I'm not worth all of this attention."

* Olivia Munn talks to Salon about posing for Playboy (among other things):

I don't find myself to be the kind of person who is easily swayed. I could see what this guy was doing. But if I pose for Maxim, I know that if my nipple accidentally slips out, they can't publish that. With Playboy it's different. I understand that the criticism is: "Yeah, but she posed for it anyway." Well, that's like saying, "Oh, you were asking for it cause you dressed a certain way."

* Georgetown Girl collects the views of women who say "I'm not a feminist, but . . ."

* Jamelle Bouie on "acting white":

as a nerdy black kid who was accused of "acting white" on a fairly regular basis, I feel confident saying that the charge had everything to do with cultural capital, and little to do with academics. If you dressed like other black kids, had the same interests as other black kids, and lived in the same neighborhoods as the other black kids, then you were accepted into the tribe. If you didn't, you weren't. In my experience, the "acting white" charge was reserved for black kids, academically successful or otherwise, who didn't fit in with the main crowd. In other words, this wasn't some unique black pathology against academic achievement; it was your standard bullying and exclusion, but with a racial tinge.

Yesterday, Mary Elizabeth Williams wrote an open letter on Broadsheet to all the "celebrities" who appear in leaked sex tapes. Short version: You are all dumb sluts.

She begins:

Today's revelation that Hustler is releasing a 75-minute opus of "Real Housewives" star Danielle Staub doing the nasty is just the latest in a genre that wore out its welcome long before Dustin Diamond popularized the Dirty Sanchez. At this point, if you're a contestant on "Survivor," ever ran for president or have the name "Kardashian," we just assume there's a video out there of you making your O face. And our fatigue from your narcissism has actually finally won out over mere prurient curiosity.

Believe us, when it comes to the getting on of anyone's freak, we give a really wide berth. But call us cynical, we just can't shake the suspicion that what was once a private, loving act between an aspiring model and an aspiring DJ has now become something else—the pilot for a new Bravo series. Spare us the outrage at how you feel sooooo betrayed, how you have no idea how this could have fallen into the wrong hands. At least Jesse James admitted that, deep down, he wanted to get caught. This whole pretext of "I didn't really make and distribute my own little porno here" so you can give the public something that appears furtive and dirty and secret while still showing off how weird you look in night vision? Enough. And if you are actually dumb enough to make a sex tape and think it won't get leaked, you are too dumb to ever have sex again.

Allow me to translate for all the dumb sluts reading along here: You were asking for it. You saaaay you don't want the sex tape of your boyfriend coercing you into making a sex tape revealed to millions of downloaders, but we know better. You say no, but you mean yes. And if you can't figure even that much out—well, you're a dumb slut, after all.

We would like to just let this slide, but it turns out that your dumb sluttiness is getting veeeeery, very inconvenient for us sex bloggers out there in the business of covering dumb sluts. This business: Let me tell you, it is rough. We are routinely chained to our laptops and forced to watch Dustin Diamond, Kim Kardashian, various Survivors, and all manner of one-time political candidates pretend to not want us to be watching them do it, and then pen Internet posts detailing our displeasure with this scenario. We tolerated this, for a time. But now: A Real Housewife? For 75 minutes? This, it is too much to bear.

Perhaps you are wondering whether people who are tired of being forced to watch celebrity sex tapes are actually just too stupid to use the Internet? And to that we say: Quiet, dumb sluts. We are very busy judging you right now.

There may have been a time, long ago in the Tommy and Pam era, when simultaneous horniness and access to technology was a novelty. And there are no doubt still many, both in the celebrity spotlight and here among the rabble, who just want to mix it up a little in the bedroom now and again. There's no shame in wanting to watch yourself blow your boyfriend, I suppose. As far as attention-getting ploys go, though, the sex tape makes going out without your underpants look downright classy.

Of course, there are exceptions. There's "no shame," we suppose, in making a videotape of yourself having sex, as long as you ensure that your last name never becomes famous, you never run for office, you never appear on television, and you never participate in any beauty pageant. There's no shame in it, as long as you never attend middle school. There's no shame, as long as you never blog about sex—just like us dumb sluts. But if visual imagery of you engaging in sex ever comes anywhere near the periphery of possible Salon blog topics—well, prepare for a thorough public shaming. It's a long, lonely road, shame: We will not also be shaming the ex who leaked the tape without your consent, nor the porn company that's profiting from it, nor the downloaders consuming "the sex tape they didn't want you to see!" The dumb sluts will have to go it alone on this one. If you're lucky, you'll be joined by people who do not wear underwear. There's a special place in hell for both of you.

As a friend pondered recently: What happened to the eroticism of imagination? Whether you're a Real Housewife or just plain folk, a transitory adventure, with no record beyond the smile you just can't wipe off whenever you remember it, can be pretty goddamn awesome. And if ever there were a moment to stop self-promoting, to worry less about how cool this looks and more about how nice it feels, that'd be while you're doing it.

And where would a good round dumb-slut-shaming be without an Andy Rooney moment to cap it off? Sex was just better in the good old days, before some dumb slut got her hands on a video camera. Of course, there's always the possibility that you dumb sluts aren't videotaping  yourself each and every time you have sex, that you're not all ignorant to the peculiar pleasures of sex with the lens cap on, and that you're actually quite aware of how nice sex feels. If so . . . Well. It looks like you're even sluttier than we thought.

Photo via makelessnoise, Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

This week, disabled feminist blogger Annaham wrote a piece about dealing with Internet harassment of the international, televised, celebrity-sanctioned, horrible-death-threat variety.

And Salon writer Taffy Brodesser-Akner wrote a piece about dealing with Internet harassment of the if-you-experienced-PTSD-after-a-traumatic-childbirth-then-you-sound-like-a-bitch-who-just-shouldn't-ever-reproduce variety.

And recently, Sady Doyle of Tiger Beatdown wrote a piece about dealing with Internet harassment by loudly and publicly eviscerating the harasser, and then replacing all of their comments with the word "[BONERS]."

And also Awl writer Maura Johnston wrote a piece about dealing with Internet harassment by developing a "thick skin" because the Internet is "pretty much as mean as all of us," no more, no less.

And all of these people are women. And so, in this edition of Sexist Beatdown, Sady and I get to talking about Internet harassment of the you-women-ought-to-employ-your-mouths-for-dick-sucking-and-not-opinionating variety. Come troll, come all, and join us for a conversation which, oddly, does not conclude with Sady and I shutting up and performing blow jobs!

SADY: Hello! And, in related news, I hate you! Because we are on the Internet. Where ladies are hated abundantly!

AMANDA: With much vigor and from many angles! I really, really identified with Annaham's post, mostly about how shit on the Internet does affect me, but I'm not allowed to talk about it because "it's the Internet." But there. I said it, it does.

SADY: INDEED IT DOES! I once spoke to someone who was like, "all you ever talk about is who hates you on the Internet today. And why are you letting it get under your skin?" And I was like, "Because they hate me! I don't care where they are! Being on the Internet makes it WORSE, because I can SEE them hating me, FROM MY BEDROOM!" "I have a phone with e-mail on it! I can see people hating me WHEREVER I AM IN THE WORLD!"

AMANDA: Yeah, or from my office? For my career is located on the Internet.

SADY: PRECISELY. And, I mean, I really identified with Annaham's piece too. It said stuff I had been struggling to say, for like the LONGEST time, but in an actually sensical way that could potentially persuade people. Rather than me being like, "AND ALSO, in the SUBWAY, people are mean!"

AMANDA: For me, it wasn't so much that I couldn't figure out how to say it—though she said it very, very well—but that I didn't want to, because I don't want to tip my hand toward awful, anonymous commenters, or show any weakness, or risk being eviscerated for acting like a victim. It's not that I feel that I've been victimized. I just want to be able to talk about this shit, basically, and there's no space for that. So she's very brave, is what I'm saying.

SADY: Exactly. Because, the thing is, when you talk about Dicks On The Internet Getting You Down—or, worse, snap at one of them—people think you are just hypersensitive, and a whiner, and petty, and whatever. They think it's a personal problem. Whereas, me, I've talked to a lot of ladies who are on the Internet. I'm really into building Internet Lady Community, because it's not so easy. And here is the one way I have learned that you can start a passionate conversation with a lady who works on the Internet: MENTION MEAN COMMENTERS. Because we all get it! In super-intense ways! And at high volume! Every single lady on the Internet gets this thing!

AMANDA: Oh yeah. None of us is immune. And it's not subtle, either. It's obviously—just obviously—targeted at shutting us up.

SADY: Yes. It is not personal, it affects ladies qua ladies, it hurts and saddens, and I believe in ye olden tymes we would refer to this as a "Really Fucking Obvious Feminist Issue."

AMANDA: I know you recently quit the Internet for a weekend, and who can blame you? Because the real world is pleasant? But actually, people who aim personal attacks at us know that it makes us turn away and shut up, even for a little bit.

SADY: Exactly! And you can tell, because it tends to get more intense the larger one's audience is. I feel like I, full disclosure, have been relatively privileged insofar as I do NOT get mean commenters all that often, largely because they can tell I am WAY MEANER than they are. I have developed this Massively Uninhibited Bitch Who Will Cut You Persona. And as much as that might alienate people, I feel like it was a smart decision. Because when posters OTHER than me are at my blog, they DON'T have a rep as someone who will cut off your balls and feed them to you, perhaps in a delicate white wine sauce, and the assholes feel a lot safer.

AMANDA: Well, I know a lot of women who fucking love that persona of yours because we sort of live vicariously through it. But we shouldn't all have to adopt extremely defensive strategies in order to just ... speak.

SADY: Right. You should be able to post a picture of your new hat on the Internet without having to have built up 9,000,000 defensive strategies for when someone calls you ugly. Because they will call you ugly! They just will! Or a slut, if they can't call you that. "WHY ARE YOU SHOWING OFF YOUR PROVOCATIVE TORSO IN THIS FASHION?"

AMANDA: Because can I tell you? This woman on my blog the other day posted a comment about how the arguments that I make are less valid because of how my voice sounds. Because of how words sound when they leave my mouth. And because it sounds kind of like how a lady sounds.

SADY: Hahaha. So, she is just LITERALLY TELLING YOU not to speak. "When you speak, I can't help but notice that you are speaking," is what she says, "and that makes it harder for me to pay attention when you speak."

AMANDA: Right. Like could you perhaps get a surrogate voice, a more manly and patronizing one? Perhaps then my voice (but not my voice) can truly be heard.

SADY: Right. I mean: I think that, when people talk about blogs, they talk about the democratization of voice, and how it allows everyone to be heard. But what they don't talk about, so often, is how (a) We also re-iterate the same structures of rewarding or punishing voices that you see in Actual Real Life Not On The Internet, and (b) How the possibility that ladies might be TAKING to the Internet, and thus might have finally found a forum in which you literally CANNOT SHUT THEM UP by refusing to publish them or listen to them at your party or allow them into your fancy organizations or whatever, scares the shit out of dudes, and thus amps up the harassment to a truly scary degree. Like: I get harassed on the street, told to smile, have my tits pointed out to me, whatever. But on the street I don't TYPICALLY get told that someone should rape me to death. Thanks to the Internet, I can in fact have just such an experience!

AMANDA: Oh agreed. And I certainly don't get the degree of vitriol that some other people get, who are not cis, and not white, and not straight. But good golly do I still get a lot of it! There is just so much vitriol to go around!

SADY: That is the thing! And I feel like, you know: We can talk about the New Niceness, and whether it is a thing (it is probably not a thing) or "Internet harassment" in general, but looking at it: I've written so much that is mean about ladies in the pop culture! But I have NEVER gotten it as hard as Annaham has. And I have to think that it is because she has not one, but TWO marks against her in the Things I Can Dismiss A Person For column. She's a feminist lady, and she's a lady with a disability. And making fun of "feminists" is a time-honored Internet Pastime, but "disabled feminists?" Boy howdy, is that ever an excellent punchline for Amanda Palmer and her delightful comedy routines!

AMANDA: Oh God, I know. International televised harassment for ... what? Not particularly enjoying the way a particular musician she likes is appropriating disability?

SADY: Right. And then, the Internet Douches, well-accustomed to not listening to ladies, ESPECIALLY not listening to feminist ladies, and ESPECIALLY not listening to people who talk about disabled folks getting the short end of the stick, are like: YES. TARGET ACQUIRED.

AMANDA: One of your commenters (you have some really great commenters, along with the bad ones) made a really good point about the difference between criticism and harassment, and how Amanda Palmer and her legion of defenders have failed to recognize the difference. And I feel like that's a common trait of all trolls—just flat out refusing to engage in any kind of subtlety or empathy.

SADY: Exactly. I mean, I did not read the Male Studies Scholar Conference that happened on Sexist Beatdown two weeks ago IN ITS ENTIRETY, but I do vividly remember the gentleman who requested that, next time we spoke, the other one suck his personal dick, that he might be able to tolerate our lady jabber. That is not, "I think the political underpinnings of your work are flawed." That is not, "Okay, good post, but here's the line I have an issue with."

AMANDA: Oh, well I live for this man to tolerate me!

SADY: I forget. Is it your turn to fellate this gentleman? Or mine?

AMANDA: It is what feminism has been striving for all these years. Tell Gloria Steinem that it was just as easy as a blow job.

SADY: I mean, it's so easy to dismiss everyone who criticizes you as a hater or a bad person. So easy! But I've been CRITICIZED, from a lot of different angles, by a lot of people. And it might irritate me. But none of it is people just flat out saying, "fuck or walk, bitches." And that's what the Internet is, for women, a WHOLE STINKING LOT OF THE TIME. Like, maybe if they are Gawker commenters they might wrap it up in some clever allusion to a Baumbach movie, or whatever. But you can still feel it seething, a lot of the time.

AMANDA: Yes. And this is one of the reasons why I love, love, love Feministe's Next Top Troll series.

SADY: Is it not the best?

AMANDA: Because the comments? They never change. It doesn't matter what woman is talking or what she's talking about or what the tone of her argument is. The vitriol is across the board just exactly the same as what I get. And it's fucking hilarious, and I take comfort in it.

SADY: Exactly. In summary, for Troll SEO Purposes: Male studies. Male studies, male studies, male studies. Women tell the truth sometimes about rape. Circumcision! DIVORCE. There. That ought to get them started! Oh, and also: I dislike prog rock, and dudes who make prog rock, sometimes. WHAT DO YOU GOT, INTERNET? WHAT. DO. YOU. GOT.

AMANDA: I can't wait to hear the troll perspective on this. Oh please! Yes. Explain the various ways that voluntarily reading and commenting on my blog oppresses you! Go on! Or perhaps you'd like to argue as to why you are doing me a service, and why I ought to be praising you for your volunteer work in the comments section? I am interested in considering all of these possibilities.

SADY: "One time I was on the Internet, and someone disagreed with me! I politely explained why she was a stupid little girl, and then, she YELLED at me. My oppression, it is intense at times. And yet, I soldier on!" — A Commenter.

AMANDA: In conclusion, BONERS.

SADY: It is a regular BONER PARTY, out there on the Internet. And it makes my lady boners wither away in despair. Though not really! Because also, I keep blogging. At this point, mainly just to piss them off. Do you hear that, Feminist-Blog-Hating Internet? YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR FEMINIST BLOGGING!

AMANDA: The world will never shrink this feminist boner!

Photo via EraPhernalia Vintage, Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

Good morning, Sexist readers:

* Salon's Mary Elizabeth Williams got me all excited when she titled this post "Fighting for Ke$ha's Right to Suck," because . . . come on, she does. But isn't it interesting how aggressive sucking is pretty much exactly the vibe that  Ke$ha's music is going for? I mean, the woman is auto-tuned within an inch of her life, her music is all about getting extremely shitty in the most self-conscious way possible, and her stated cultural icon is P. Diddy. Even her cultural appropriation (from the horrific "native" garb to her confused appreciation of "the transgender community") is half-assed. Also, I know all the words to her songs. Accordingly, I was extremely pumped for Williams to commence pontificating on how Ke$ha's brave, brave suckiness is actually a subversive feminist rejection of the expectation of perfection placed on young girls today, but instead Williams suggested that maybe Ke$ha won't suck forever. Oh well.

* 14-year-old  Jordanna blogs about her experience dealing with street harassment:

What would have happened if he had come closer towards me?  I felt so completely powerless; I could have done almost nothing to protect myself from this man.  At that moment I hated myself for being so small, for wearing something one day that actually made me feel pretty, for walking with my head held high.  Because I was running so fast I had a few minutes alone at the bus stop. My breathing was heavy, my heart was pounding.  At that moment I felt so utterly alone.

* Amanda Marcotte grades country songs on "family values" criteria on the spectrum from sin to salvation. Truth: "Ramblin’ is sinful behavior."

* Thomas at Yes Means Yes!, describes the patterns emerging in the accusations against Ben Roethlisberger:

As the number of accusations mounts, and the accusations themselves look like classic engineered acquaintance rape situations — pick victims with little recourse and/or use alcohol, test boundaries, physically isolate, deny — there may be some people stupid enough not to see it. But mostly those who choose not to see it are those who don’t want to see the problem because they’re in favor of the problem. They think that any woman who wanders too close to Big Ben is a very bad girl and deserves something of his stuck up something of hers whether she wants it or not. The serial rapists themselves may be a small percentage, but the number of people who are basically their fan club is large enough to allow them to operate with impunity for a good long time.

* Check out SAFER Campus' policy suggestions for dealing with sexual assaults on college campuses.

* Bitch Magazine reminds us that some people employ the term "sweater puppies" to refer to boobs, and I am saddened.

This week Chreky was expected to go to trial in his second sexual harassment case brought against him by an employee. The first case, brought by colorist Ronnie Barrett, was decided last week, resulting in a 2.3 million dollar judgment to Barrett. The new case, brought by another former stylist, accuses Chreky of persistent sexual harassment that allegedly escalated from inappropriate sexual comments into repeated, attempted rapes.

The stylist's complaint alleges a variety of horrific sexual acts inflicted upon her by her boss. A sampling of allegations from the complaint she filed with the court:

• "On a daily basis, Mr. Chreky will comment to one of more female employees that she looks 'sexy' or 'especially sexy today.' He also repeatedly references the sex lives of female employees, questions whether their husbands can please them in bed and offers to 'help out.'"

• "Starting in the fall of 2000, Mr. Chreky made daily comments to Plaintiff about the way she looked and her attire. Such statements included that she looked "sexy," had "sexy legs," and that he liked the way she looked in that shirt or with that lipstick."
• "Starting in the fall of 2003, Mr. Chreky repeatedly required Plaintiff to come to his office at the end of the day. During such visits, Mr. Chreky would discuss sexual topics and repeatedly proposition Plaintiff to have sex with him. He also told her that other stylists were having an affair with him."
• "During such visits to his office, Mr. Chreky would promise better work, such as assigning the President's family to her or offering to let her travel with the President's family, in an attempt to induce Plaintiff to have sex with him."
• "At a fundraiser in December of 2004, Mr. Chreky asked Plaintiff if she wanted to have a threesome and that he 'would get any kind of girl [she] wanted. blond or brunette.' Later he asked another employee if Plaintiff was the "hottest" stylist and if the three of them wanted to get a room for him for a threesome."
• "Throughout her employment, Mr. Chreky would often direct Plaintiff to help him with a client's hair. Mr. Chreky would then stand close to Plaintiff, rub hips against her or lean very close to her face as she worked."
• "On or about November of 2003,  Plaintiff was eating lunch in the kitchen area. In front of other employees, Mr. Chreky stated that Plaintiff had sexy legs. When the other employees had left, Mr. Chreky returned, leaned over Plaintiff and rubbed her leg and upper thigh. Plaintiff told Mr. Chreky to stop and he responded, 'you have such smooth legs. Just let me touch them.' Plaintiff slapped his hand and fled the room."
• "On or about early summer of 2004, Plaintiff was waiting outside of the Salon for a ride that was over an hour late. Mr Chreky offered her a ride, which she declined. After Mr. Chreky repeatedly insisted on driving her home, she reluctantly agreed. On the drive home, Mr. Chreky pulled the car over and attacked her. He pulled her toward him, tried to kiss her, pinned her to the back of the seat, and rolled on top of her. Mr. Chreky lifted her skirt, grabbed her underwear and pulled it to the side, exposing her vagina, and then grabbed her genitals. Plaintiff pleaded and tried to get him to stop. My. Chreky unzipped his pants and tried to penetrate her with his penis. When Plaintiff threatened to call the cops, Mr. Chreky stopped and drove her home while threatening her to not tell anyone about the ride home."
• "Later in 2004, Plaintiff was again assaulted while alone in the lunchroom. Mr. Chreky shoved her against the sink, pushed his groin against hers and attempted to get his hand under her bra. When Plaintiff grabbed his arm and told him to stop, he pleaded for her to 'let me touch it one time, just one time.' Plaintiff threatened to scream if he did not stop."
• "In 2004 through 2006, Mr. Chreky would continually attempt to trap Plaintiff alone while at work. If he ever found her alone, he would grab her around the shoulders or waist and press his groin against her body. He would often try to grab her buttocks or genital area, and would grab and lift her skirt. These attacks occurred, at times, as much as twice per day."
• "In March of 2005, Mr. Chreky attacked Plaintiff in the kitchen by slamming hr into the sink. He pressed his body against hers, pried her legs apart with his leg and placed his hand underneath her skirt. Although Plaintiff repeatedly tried to escape, Mr. Cherky physically restrained her. He repeatedly asked her to just let him touch her. Mr. Chreky was able to grab the side of her underwear and told her, while holding a lighter up to her face, that if he kept fighting that he was going to burn her underwear off. Mr. Chreky then violently ripped her underwear off (bruising her genital area) and holding it up to his face, while saying, 'see, now I got it and now I am going to keep it as a souvenir.' That day, he repeatedly taunted her at her work station following this attack."
• "Repeatedly during 2005 and up to her termination, Mr. Chreky would grab her when he found her alone and push her head toward his genitals demanding that she 'give him a blow job.'"
• "In late summer of 2005, Mr. Chreky ordered Plaintiff to do inventory on the fifth floor. Plaintiff thought she was safe on the fifth floor because Mr. Chreky was with a client, but Mr. Chreky followed and attacked her by forcing her against a wall at the top of the stairwell. Plaintiff tried to escape down the stairs, but to no avail. When Plaintiff screamed, he covered her mouth with his hand. Mr. Chreky unzipped his pants, pulled Plaintiff''s skirt up above her waist, pulled her underwear to one side and attempted to penetrate her. At this point, Plaintiff was sobbing loudly and having trouble breathing. When he released her mouth, she began screaming and again, he covered her mouth. Plaintiff was finally able to get away when another employee walked to the bottom of the stairwell."
• "In the fall of 2005, Mr. Chreky again required plaintiff to come to his office. She went, but stood just inside the open door. Mr. Chreky got up and slammed the door, pushed her over and got on top of her. Plaintiff began to cry and yelled for him to let her go. He grabbed her skirt, tore it and tried to get his hand to her genital area. Mr. Chreky unzipped his pants, tried to get her skirt about her waist and attempted to penetrate her At this time, another employee knowcked on the door. In response, Mr. Chreky jumped up and zipped his pants. Plaintiff opened the door and ran past her shocked colleague."

In a response to her complaint, Chreky and the salon denied all the stylist's allegations. They did include one clarification, in response to the allegation that Chreky would "rub hips against her or lean very close to her face as she worked": "Defendants deny the allegations . . . save that defendants aver that all employees of the Salon work in relatively close quarters and that, when employees collaborated on a single client, it was impossible for those employees to do other than 'stand close' to each other. Defendants deny that any such positioning was sexual in nature, or constituted discrimination or harassment during the course of employment based on gender or sex."

If you're wondering how allegations of attempted employee rape might affect a salon's business: Last week, Chreky's camp announced that the salon has filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy.

Ladies: You prefer Antwerpen Toyota. At least, that's the impression held by the Clarksville, Md. car dealership, which has been circulating the "Ladies prefer" assertion in its advertisements since 2007. In order to keep the ladies happy, the dealership offers up female-friendly extras to waiting customers, including professional manicures, on-site cappuccinos, and pastries.

According to a 2007 story in the Maryland Daily Record, Antwerpen Toyota's female outreach services initially went far beyond the fingernails. The story read: "On 'Ladies Days'—Tuesdays and Wednesdays—women who come to get their car serviced can get manicures, pedicures and cappuccinos. And the truly brave can even get their eyebrows and bikini lines waxed."

Wait: which of us ladies prefer to get their bikini lines waxed at a car dealership?

"I can't imagine anyone getting their bikini waxed at a car dealership," insists Ben Messier, Antwerp Toyota's general manager. Messier says that the dealership's resident professional manicurist performs up to 25 manicures a day—but offers none of the more intimate spa extras. Not even pedicures. "I’m sure you understand, we’re not trying to do a full-service salon here," says Messier. "We're not offering pedicures, shaves, or Brazilians. But if you bring the car in for an oil change, and you've got 35 minutes to kill, we can have your nails done by the time you’re finished."

Then again, the Daily Record story broke before Messier's time. Messier inherited the "Ladies Day" programming from Bob Schrader, who served as Antwerpen Toyota general manager back in 2007 (he's with Jim Coleman Infiniti in Rockville now). Schrader says that the bikini wax was never a part of his package. In fact, it's not even a part of his vocabulary. "I don't even know what that is," says Schrader, who was heretofore unaware that the Daily Record story attributed the bikini wax to his Ladies Day regime. "I've never heard anything like that in my life. That's absolutely ludicrous," he said.

Daily Record reporter Louis Llovio, for the record, couldn't immediately recall where the four-year-old factoid originated—whether from manager, advertisement,  manicurist, or otherwise. Messier offers up one possibility: "We do offer hand waxing—on cars," says Messier. "Maybe they jumped from hand waxing to bikini waxing."

I would love nothing more than to write an insightful article about healthcare reform, but I'm dumb now. Anything I write relating to healthcare would end up as a screed about why my children have to take a back seat on getting their flu shots to a bunch of kids with “respiratory disorders.” Why are kids who can't breathe right so much more important than my own kids? My kids love to breathe, and they're good at it, and they should be rewarded for their aptitude in breathing. But I digress.

Traister should be commended for managing to pen a quite intelligent essay about how stupid he has become. But after generations of women have sacrificed their private intellectual lives for the purpose of child-rearing, why has it taken a stay-at-home-dad to articulate this?

Traister touches on that point in the opening of his essay:

I don't know if parenting makes you chronically stupid or just temporarily slow, but after nearly four years of child rearing, most of them spent as a stay-at-home dad, my intellect has been dulled to a nub. Women have known this for generations. Maybe that's why the "stay at home vs. get out and work" debate is so contentious. Of course, I've never heard anyone talk about it. But maybe I just wasn't paying attention until now. All I know is, while my wit may never have cut with the precision of a Ginsu blade, my mind was a bit sharper than the rusty pair of kindergarten safety scissors I'm working with these days.

I wonder why Traister has never heard and/or paid attention to anyone talk about this before? I imagine that when women have written and spoken about this, it's been considered a "women's issue," and therefore not something that would necessarily emerge on Traister's radar. There's a reason that Traister's story is considered a more general-interest piece: A woman's intellectual talents just aren't publicly valued in the same way a man's are. Who cares if you're losing your mind if there wasn't much value there to begin with?

Nowadays, most people don't have a problem accepting women as intelligent. Career women are certainly celebrated for their braininess in their chosen fields. But when it comes to baby-making, a woman's intellectual contributions have got competition—they must be weighed against her perceived innate talent for child-rearing. When a woman chooses to abandon her career in order to raise kids, the loss to the world of ideas is balanced against the valuable nurturing she'll provide to future generations. (Women who have always been on the mommy track, of course, are never assumed to have any brains to lose).

Not so for men, whose intellectual lives are assumed to outweigh their worth as readers of monosyllabic storybooks and preventer of babies swallowing small toys. Stay-at-home-dads are still seen as the exception rather than the rule. (Of course, our refusal to see men as nurturers isn't fair, either).

Were Traister's piece written by a woman, I imagine the following would be different:

a) She would have to work harder to prove that she had a valuable intellectual life in the first place;

b) She would be required to insert the appropriate number of caveats about how much she really, truly loves her children, even though they are making her dumb, and wouldn't trade her full-time mom job for anything;

c) A portion of the backlash would be centered on her failure as a woman.

As it stands, Traister's article has gotten its share of negative responses—but none that I can see which single out Traister's failure as a man (just as a parent and writer). But it's also received dozens of grateful letters from SAHMs (that's Stay-At-Home-Moms) who are happy to see another parent write frankly about his newfound inability to think normal adult-person thoughts. Obviously, Traister is exaggerating a bit—his life as a stay-at-home-dad hasn't made him too dumb to write a coherent essay about his discomfort with parenting's brain rot. But the question remains—why are more women expected to fight the slow atrophy of their intellect than men are?

In this Bloggingheads conversation between BeliefNet's Steven Waldman and Slate's William Saletan, two dudes demonstrate why two dudes should not film themselves talking off-the-cuff about abortion for an hour. They call the segment "Two Men, No Uteruses." Waldman and Saletan putting their headsets together to figure out how to convince women not to be so aborty? I call it torture.

Broadsheet's Amy Benfer sums up the low point of the dialogue, which begins around the 26-minute mark:

The topic, once again, is abortion reduction, a topic dear to both men’s hearts. This time, Waldman brings it back to wondering why women with an unplanned pregnancy aren’t cool with adoption. He starts off with a very good point: Most adoption policy focuses on incentives to adoptive couples, while virtually ignoring the women who will actually be carrying those children to term. He concedes that, “It’s an awfully big thing to ask the mother to carry a baby to term so that someone else can raise it.” Yep, glad we can all agree on that. But then he veers into outright lunacy. “I know this dangerous territory,” he says, “but I’ll just throw it out there.” OK, Steve, just throw it out there.

Waldman’s modest proposal goes like this: “Someone is three months pregnant, we say, ‘Just go another six months.’” Right. Just go ahead and go through that whole thing called pregnancy, with that thing called childbirth at the end. Hey, you can’t even get an associate degree in six months! Why not spend that time incubating another person’s child as a womb-for-rent? But, he acknowledges, there are problems: “You might have to drop out of school, drop out of a job, as well as taking a huge health risk.”

. . . And how much does he think that woman’s time is worth? “Maybe we should pay her, say, a thousand dollars. I don’t know what the right number is, because you don’t want to create a financial incentive for babies.” Because that would be baby-selling. Also, if we learned anything from the Reagan years, it’s that poor women will pop out children for cash given any opportunity. (Even if that incentive works out to a little more than $100 per month of pregnancy.)

This is too much, it seems, even for Saletan, who seems floored. (And for the record, though I’ve disagreed with him in the past, in this instance, he doesn’t really deserve to get tarred for Waldman’s display of pure idiocy). He points out, rightly, that Waldman’s proposal isn’t so far off from a kind of “national surrogacy policy.” But then he says, “It feels a little bit icky to me.”

Waldman agrees, “As the words are coming out of my mouth, they taste a little funny.”

Watching conversations like this probably won't dissuade any women from choosing abortion. But it might just help those women realize that the people who claim to care most about what comes out of your uterus have no fucking idea what's going on in there before the thing pops out.

Today, Mike Madden published a piece on Salon about the conservative tea-bagging parties staged across the country to protest Obama's first Tax Day. In it, Madden quoted Brian Smith, a Greenville, S.C., man who attended the Washington, D.C. Lafayette Park protest while in town on business. Writes Madden:

Another seemingly sedate protester, Brian Smith, a marketer from Greenville, S.C., who was in Washington on business and came by the rally, wandered equally off message. "I love my country and I don't like what's going on," Smith said. "Government—to be honest with you, and this will probably be misquoted, but on 9/11, I think they hit the wrong building. They should have gone into the Capitol building, hit out, knocked out both sides of the aisle, we'd start from scratch, we'd be better off today." I pointed out that "they" did try to hit the Capitol. "Yeah, I know, they missed," he said. "The wrong sequence. If someone had to go, it should have been the Capitol building. On that day I felt differently, but today that's the way I feel."

I was curious: Did Smith feel he was misquoted? I called him to find out.

When I called Smith, he had yet to read the Salon piece, but he allowed me to read the paragraph back to him to gauge his reaction. "Well, the context is wholly facetious," says Smith, "I don’t want my entire government to be gone, but we might be better off if we start from scatch."

Did Madden fail to make Smith's facetiousness clear? "In the way you read it, yeah, I think so—don’t you?" replied Smith, raising another question: Was it Madden's writing or my own delivery that caused the context to suffer?

Smith added that he, too, could have aided in further contextualizing the quote. "I probably should have said that they can leave peacefully, and that would be fine, too," clarified Smith.

Beyond the lack of clarity on the facetiousness of his comment, Smith says Madden's presentation was fair. "Yeah, I 'spose," Smith confirmed.

Photo by irrational_cat