Based on my interest in feminine hygiene, YouTube suggested that I watch this vintage Secret commercial, starring Denise Richards, and with a special appearance by Jared Leto. The ad also features one of the most confusing series of floral metaphors that I've ever encountered. And I've encountered some floral metaphors!

Here's the transcript:

They say you're gonna bloom. Heh, what are you, plant life? Please. You've got all these decisions! You've got a life. Hey: You can make it come up roses. It helps to use this. You see, Secret is pH balanced for your body's chemistry, pH balanced for your decisions. Your life. Helps keep you dry. Confident. So when you're faced with one of these [a Jared Leto], you won't pull one of these [wilting flowers]. Secret! Strong enough for him, but pH balanced just for you.

The lesson here, girls, is that floral metaphors for your life are totally pathetic, because, decisions. However, floral metaphors may be helpful in describing the potential romantic benefits of applying deodorant, and when hooking up with Jared Leto is on the line, do you really want to be arguing semantics? In conclusion: Secret.

Razors.

I shave my legs, but I just picked up a new razor that may almost encourage me to unlearn that particular expression of femininity. The razor is called "Soleil Twilight," it's made by Bic, and it features a triple-blade and, as I discovered after I had already hit the check-out line, "lavender scented handles." Because, you see, men also use razors, which means that razors may be perceived as overly masculine, a misconception that can be cleared up with just a touch of feminine aroma making some skin contact with your hand area. The lavender business makes about as much sense as the name, which from my understanding literally means something like "Sun Growing Darkness." It removes hair.

Birth Control.

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Listen, there's nothing more naturally feminine than popping a birth control pill—so far, only women are allowed to perform this particular function. Still, contraception manufacturers have labored to market the medication in the most feminine way possible. Yaz, arguably the most feminized form of birth control, has claimed to alleviate moodiness, reduce bloating, clean up acne, and even help women lose weight in addition to, you know, stoppin' babies. Accordingly, Yaz commercials feature a bunch of Sex and the City types hanging out at a swanky lounge talking about how Yaz has cured their emotional problems, allowing them to continue to hang out at swanky lounges. In case a bunch of women talking frankly about PMS was getting a bit too masculine for you, the ad goes on to explain that Token Woman Who Knows Too Much About Birth Control knows so much because she is a medical doctor, an admission that causes her friends to laugh and dismiss her as a "show off." Tee-hee! Because any woman who could speak intelligently about what birth control actually does has got some 'splainin to do.

Tampons.

Last week, Heartless Doll's Andrea Grimes wrote a screed about frilly tampons, in which she admitted, "I've never been able to tell much of a difference between something like a Tampax Pearl and a Duane Reade Just Shove It Up There, It'll Be Fine." Grimes points to the frilliest tampon of them all, the Tampax Pearl, which features a string of ladylike pearls on its packaging in order to emphasize the product's enhanced feminine quality. What's pearly about this product, exactly? The applicator is made of fucking plastic instead of cardboard, and you can't get anything more girly than that.

Deodorant.

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Everyone knows that Secret is "strong enough for a man, but made for a woman." What I still can't wrap my head around is how this company can simultaneously market deodorant as a product through which femininity must be performed, while insisting that this performance be kept "Secret." As one branding expert explains, "That chant has made the Secret® deodorant brand spectacularly successful, especially with females 12-24, because it reaffirms gender identity to a particularly vulnerable, insecure audience. For a small investment, you get to go from girl to woman and feel good about it." Now women are expected to feminize our armpits for ourselves, because no one else will ever notice. Thanks Secret!

Yogurt.

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OK,  so yogurt isn't a specifically feminine product, but you wouldn't know that if you've ever seen any yogurt commercial ever. Take, for example, this Yoplait commercial, which manages to incorporate commentary on cute men, short men, bridesmaids dresses, high heels, ladies room lines, and bouquet catching within the span of 30 seconds.  Men eat yogurt too. Get the people behind the Dockers ad on this one!

When the American Library Association's annual conference kicked off in Chicago last Thursday, some attendees wanted the world to know that librarian get-togethers aren't all about shushing and stacking: There's a lot of fucking, too.

The nearly week-long librarian meet-up, which began July 9, delivers "over 300 educational programs" to professional bibliophiles each year—including workshops like "Collection Development: Decision Making With Data" and "When Is Nice Too Nice? Strategies For Disengaging From the Talkative Patron." Some attendees, however, haven't been entirely satisfied with the ALA programming. So they launched a "secret" Twitter account for librarians to share more intriguing professional insights. A typical anonymous ALA tweet:

Some librarians are exhausted by the conference's material ("I have reached the point of the conference where I no longer give a damn about anything anyone is saying any more.") Others are inspired by a perceived lack of cultural acceptance for a librarian's sex life ("I am an adult. I am a librarian. I enjoy good sex. Including at this conference. What is the problem?"). Most of them, for whatever reason, are talking about fucking—that's the "sexy" part. Not everyone is happy about it. That's where "stern" comes in.

According to the librarian-blogger at not all bits, ALA's first anonymous Twitter free-for-all, @alasecrets, was accessible via a username and password circulated among conference-goers. Less than two days into the festivities, however, the account was shut down by a fellow librarian. Writes not all bits:

Well, it saddens me that a member of the library profession took exception to @alasecrets and shut it down by logging in and changing the password. They protected the updates thereafter so, supposedly, people couldn’t see them.

You’re going to have to pardon my language here but FUCK that. I despise censorship in any form and I especially loathe the idea that a librarian shut down that Twitter account. So I did something about it.

The sexy librarian gossip site has now been re-born in the form of @ALASecrets2009—and re-illustrated with an icon of a Naughty Librarian Halloween costume (pictured). Conference attendees can now only post to the new feed by e-mail, meaning that fun-hating librarians can't tinker with the account details to quiet the masses. For the less horny librarian, the #ala2009 hash tag still offers up plenty of non-sexual ALA chat fare.

The first go-around of librarian fucking Tweets has now been "protected" from the public. Below, the ten sexiest nerd tweets from the feed's second incarnation:

TEN:

NINE:

EIGHT:

SEVEN:

SIX:

FIVE—THREE:

TWO:

ONE:

UPDATE: The American Library Association annual conference will be held in Washington, D.C. next year. Yesss.

UPDATE 2: Some sexy preservationists have uncovered the lost secret tweets!