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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ever had a sexual experience? Then welcome to the magical world of "virginity," where a white wedding dress can restore a sexually-active 40-something's innocence, a set of pigtails can turn even the most experienced porn performer chaste, and a new hymen can be shipped from China for about 30 bucks. Documentary filmmaker Therese Shechter explores the culture of denouncing sex (even while you're doing it) in "How to Lose Your Virginity," a film about our cultural obsession with chastity— and the way its meaning shifts mysteriously depending upon the implement and the orifice.

Shechter has got nine days to raise a couple thousand dollars to finish the film; while she's waiting to seal the deal, she agreed to answer some questions about surrendering your precious chastity orb to that one special fella who will ensure its proper maintenance until death do you part:

SEXIST: What's it like making a movie about people not doing something?

TS: The definition of virginity is so subject to interpretation. A Mormon college student who considers herself a virgin did a post for my blog, The American Virgin, about how enthusiastically sexually active she was, even though she was waiting for her wedding night to have intercourse. In the film you get the whole spectrum of sexual activity, from Cindy, a very religious and abstinent 30-something screenwriter I met at the Sundance Film Festival, to former ‘abstinence poster girl’ Shelby Knox who now runs seminars called “Fucking While Feminist.” This is all pretty much North America I'm talking about, by the way. There's so much more to say about the rest of the world and I deal with a lot of that on the blog.

SEXIST: In your pursuit of understanding our culture's obsession with virginity, you've examined a variety of industries and subcultures that rely on our fascination with virginity for their own purposes—from "barely legal" porn producers to wedding dress retailers to religious abstainers. How have you seen the meaning of "virginity" shift to satisfy these different contexts?

TS: I think they’re remarkably similar in that they all work within the fantasy of female sexual purity as something to be fetishized. They have different props—the Big White Wedding Dress, porn’s white panties, and the purity ring—but all use a sort of ritualized process whereby a symbolically virginal female is offered up to a male for deflowering. I say symbolic because the porn actress is definitely not a virgin, we’re pretty certain that most modern brides aren’t either, and given our shaky definition of the V-word, we might not even consider some purity pledgers to be totally chaste. But it’s the fetishization of all three that really fascinates me. For whose benefit is it this being played out?

Interestingly, in shooting these scenes, I felt the most comfortable in the company of the pornographers. I don’t know what that says about me, but I’d sooner go back to Barely Legal Ranch than a bridal salon or an abstinence conference.

How does our culture's emphasis on virginity affect men and women differently?

TS: That’s kind of at the heart of it all, isn’t it?

There are the abstinence-until-marriage programs and purity balls that focus almost exclusively on female virginity, going as far as having young girls symbolically hand over their purity to their father for safekeeping until their wedding night when it gets transferred to the husbands. You know, we may cringe at this, but as I mentioned earlier, it’s just a more blatant version of the traditional wedding ceremony. That’s something I really get into in the film as I deal with my own wedding planning and all its chastity-based rituals.

In terms of more mainstream culture (and by that I mean teen sex comedies), I think it used to be that the guys had to be total horndogs and get rid of their virginity as quickly as possible, and the gals had to defend the castle for as long as possible. I feel like recently there’s been a cultural shift where the guys are still basically supposed to be horndogs but it’s now okay for gals to have pre-marital sex under the right conditions (i.e., sex with your perfect boyfriend in a romantic setting with scented candles, possibly after prom, after you’ve professed your love for each other). And by sex, I mean intercourse. I think the idea that a woman needs a penis in her vagina to turn her into a full-fledged sexual being is still pretty prevalent. In reality, young men and women do all sorts of things sexually that don’t fit these gender-based scripts at all, but then they run the risk of being judged, shamed or punished by their peers, media, religious authorities, what have you.

Something seems to change for women in college. Young women talk about this in the film: there’s this metaphysical dividing line between high school, where no one is talking about having sex, and college, where everyone is expected to be having sex. Except not too much. Because that would be slutty, or according to the media, soul-killing (see: Caitlin Flanagan’s article “Love, Actually” in The Atlantic Monthly). The flip side of all this is if you don’t feel ready for sex, you’re considered freakish or undesirable, so you end up either keeping that fact to yourself or doing a bunch of stuff you don’t really want to do.

What’s really interesting is how this plays out after college with people who haven’t yet had sex. Those earlier expectations—that ladies should only have sex when in love and guys should be getting some nightly—often continue past the college years. The women are usually still waiting for that ‘special someone,’ and the men are so totally humiliated by their lack of horndog experience that they just withdraw. I hear this so often—people just assume that not only is everyone but them having sex all the time, but that no one would want to have anything to do with someone who was sexually inexperienced. Again, I think it’s the script we think we should be following so we’re not honest about what’s really going on. I got into this film project because I was pissed off by how women were shamed for being sexual, but as I’ve looked deeper, I’ve found there’s a significant portion of people out there who feel shamed for being non-sexual. I was a post-college bloomer myself, so I can relate.

I think it’s interesting that if you’re queer, you don’t really have a cultural script to follow, because among other things your sex life isn’t about penis-in-vagina sex. Maybe that’s good because you can create your own script when it comes to sexual initiation. I love the Marshall character in “The United States of Tara,” and I’m hoping the writers are building up to some kind of interestingly complex virginity loss scenario. I haven’t seen all of season 2 yet, so if it happens in Episode 11, don’t tell me about it.

In your work on the issue, have you come to find any healthy, inclusive, and non-judgmental conceptions of what "virginity" could mean? Or should we just call the whole "virginity" thing off?

TS: I don’t think we can call the ‘virginity’ thing off. Even though it’s socially constructed, impossible to really define (there isn’t even a medical definition), and often employed as a tool of the patriarchy, virginity still matters. For most of us, sex is important, and the first time you have a significant intimate moment, it’s a milestone (maybe not the best one, but a milestone nonetheless). But it’s hopefully just the first of many milestones in our sexual lives.

So, I don’t necessarily have a problem with the word ‘virgin,’ just the values we attach to it. Virginity is already imprinted with so many meanings, depending on who you’re listening to. It would be nice to be able to create our own personal language of sexuality, and dis-engage it from religious dogma, double standards, the fantasy porn sex you just downloaded or last night’s episode of Gossip Girl.

We spent a whole day talking about all this at the “Rethinking Virginity” conference where I was a panelist, and in the end it came down to this: Do whatever you want with whomever you want as long as it’s consensual and safe. Go forth and shag. Or don’t. That’s fine too.

Your film is called "How to Lose Your Virginity." Any tips?

TS: Unfortunately, no. I’m hoping that by the time you’re done watching the film, you think that phrase is absurd. There’s no right way, we’re not losing anything, and virginity is ultimately an ephemeral and elusive concept. So maybe you’ll be mindfucked, but you’ll still technically be a virgin.

* Sarah Silverman on losing her virginity:

He sat up on the side of the bed to smoke another Merit Light, carefully ridding the end of any excess ash, molding the red tip of it into a constant point. He put out his cigarette and pulled back the sheets to get up, revealing a Rorschach-like pattern of blood. Like a red butterfly stamp, getting lighter and lighter with each imprint.

There was a long moment of silence before I worked up the moxie to say,

"That came out of you."

"Um. No it didn't."

Another long pause, broken by him,

"It's okay. Just buy me new sheets."

* The Abortioneers are bored by the whole abortion-is-black-genocide argument:

You know what's boring? The whole black genocide conspiracy theory. It's hardly worth talking about, except as a person of color I feel obligated to defend against such ludicrous proselytizing. I don't understand how blacks, by and large, can support affirmative action on the premise that black folks in this country need a leg up, but are horrified that there are minority funds for abortion care.

IT'S THE SAME THING!

* To LGBT or not to LGBT: John Avarois weights in on acronyms:

I think LGBT is a cop out for straight people. Much easier for a politician to laud the LGBT community than the GAY community, because no one outside of the gay community knows what the LGBT community even is. I've seen signs at rallies proclaiming something or other about "LGBT", and I'll bet everyone at the rally who wasn't gay was scratching their head. In an effort to be more inclusive, we've shoved ourselves back into a sort of linguistic closet.

* How many bags of heroin could you fit inside your vagina?

* Tortoise / shoe sex, EXTREME CLOSE-UP:

[youtube:v=6R3BYCT5oWw]

Photo via wit, Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

If we must turn the art of photography into a sexual metaphor, this is how it usually goes: The camera represents the photographer's phallus. The camera's lens is the artistic extension of the male gaze. Female subjects "make love" to the camera, and by extension, the artist. But what happens when a photography exhibit featuring solely women artists wants to get a little sexy?

(a) NEGATE THE PHOTOGRAPHER'S SEXUAL AGENCY. At Georgetown's L2 Lounge this Thursday, "Art Soiree" will host a photo exhibition of five female photographers. The title? "Five virgins and the camera." Naturally, since the photographers are not dudes, the camera—the phallus in this scenario, remember—will just turn around and penetrate the photographer-virgins, because it can! Instead of the photographer enforcing her sexual agency upon her subjects by wielding the camera, per the traditional sex metaphor, the camera is actually fucking the photog in celebration of her first public exhibition.

(b) TURN THE MALE GAZE ON THE PHOTOGRAPHER. Note the photograph chosen to illustrate this exhibition. No, it's not a work by exhibiting artists Alyona Vogelmann, Emily Clack, Natalya Skiba, Xeniya Kirpichenko or Zanyasan Tanantpapat—it's a thin white lady with no head in a see-through dress holding a camera in front of her crotch. Because even when a woman is taking the photos, we still have to make sure there's a male gaze taking photos of her taking those photos, sexily.

(c) AND THE SUBJECTS? STILL WOMEN. Art Soiree says that its virgin-photographers will be  "capturing emotions, personality and individuality in everyday reality of women’s lives." Sounds great! But again, even when women are photographing other women, the "everyday reality of women's lives" they are revealing necessarily comes down to that old traditional display of submissive femininity: "The vision of hidden weaknesses and the vulnerability that create beautiful and mesmerizing moments."

(d) BONUS! PRETEND THIS IS ALL IN THE SERVICE OF FEMINISM. From the press release: "This Thursday Art Soiree is all about women, celebrating their beauty, elegance, talents, achievements and much more. Come and meet these talented photographers as they share with you their lives through their works, all while enjoying a jazz performance by our female guest
musician." When exhibiting the work of female photographers, remember that a woman's beauty comes first, followed by her elegance, with her talents and achievements—her fucking photography, presumably—bringing up the rear. But wait: The guest musician is "female." Forget about the jazz performance, is she pretty and elegant?

On Monday, Sady Doyle of Tiger Beatdown will speak at Harvard's "Rethinking Virginity" conference, a summit on the state of sexual purity.

But before she Rethinks virginity, Sady must first Think it! Accordingly, I have volunteered to help Sady pop the proverbial cherry of Virginity Thinkin', a rite of passage every ladyblogger must endure, and which readers of this blog must endure as well!  It is awkward! It is sometimes painful! And it goes on far too long! In this edition of Sexist Beatdown, join Sady and I as we recall That Time It Almost Went In, mourn the loss of the Precious Treasures, and devolve into a fit of terrible sexual puns.

SADY: LADY! I think it is time for me to lose my Having This Particular Chat Virginity! As opposed to my Oral Sex (Receiving) Virginity, my Oral Sex (Delivering) Virginity, my Various Other Stuff Virginity, and my Virginity Virginity. All of which are gone already. I HAVE SQUANDERED MY PRECIOUS TREASURE!

AMANDA: Oh wonderful! Well I'm personally excited to commence Rethinking Virginity ... out of existence! For it has never really worked for me.

SADY: Oh, no? Please do detail the manner in which it failed to work!

AMANDA: "Failed to work" may actually be the operative term here? Because if someone were to ask me When I Lost My Virginity, they would then be subjected to a series of stories about Those Times It Almost Went In, But Didn't. I tried REALLY HARD to lose my virginity! I was like, Out, Out, Damned Virginity! But it just ... it just didn't work. Physically. For a long time. And now I don't fucking know/remember when it happened. It was late.

SADY: Right. The definitive moment at which you become an Anti-Virgin is hard to peg! In fact! And, honestly, gives too much credit to the first person to definitively Stick It In. Like, it's not like no-one has visited these territories before! Those dudes are like Christopher Columbus. They, like, Claim This Land for Spain, but fail to notice all the people who were already there. Uh. Sort of.

AMANDA: RIGHT. (?) And everyone pretends it's this really objective moment that's defined from the outside, but I've found for most people you just have to Decide when it is, and pretend that that time syncs up with whatever everyone else is talking about. I count myself as lucky to not have a very intimate relationship with Virginity and Non-Virginity, though. Fuck that noise.

SADY: Yeah. I mean, I myself was at one point one of those girls who went around telling everybody that I was totally not going to sex it up until I met the dude I was going to marry. And people would laugh at me, and I would be like, "WHY MUST YOU DEVALUE MY MORAL CHOICES?" But then something magical happened, which was that I went to college. And there were like three dudes with whom it could very plausibly have happened, and I was just so tired of trying to figure out which one was going to be my husband (HINT: None) that I had sex with the WORST ONE just to get it over with. Which is also not a choice I recommend!

AMANDA: Haha! STRATEGY. I waited a long time to (try) to have sex, and it wasn't for some sort of sense of morality. I was never surrounded by any religious influences or anything like that growing up. But I did feel really, really, really, really uncomfortable with the idea of having sex, and a lot of that had to do with stuff imposed on me on the outside about how sex was bad. Like I was worried about getting AIDS if my boyfriend's penis got too close to me.

SADY: Yeah. That is also part of it. Like, there are so many risks to sex — AIDS, all the other terrifying illnesses, etc — that delaying sex can feel, really, like the best of all possible options. And also, there are other risks of sex If You Are A Lady, which include: Getting Knocked Up (I would basically consider this to be a terrible illness, in my current circumstance) and Getting Called a Slut. But here is the magic thing: All of these things can happen to you EVEN if you are not a virgin! And I feel like the emphasis on virginity, or the lack thereof, encourages everyone to place the emphasis on this ONE sexual encounter, your FIRST (and hopefully not last), instead of being like: Sex! You're going to be doing this eventually! Here's a realistic risk evaluation!

AMANDA: Exactly. And the emphasis on virginity didn't really help what I was going through either. The message was, "Don't have sex! And if you do, just wear a condom!" Which didn't speak to any of the issues I had with sex, or how to decide how to do it and when and with whom and why. Like, I am very much anti-abstinence-only education – and in high school, having sex was NOT going to be a productive option for me, in the place that I was. I was a VIRGIN and wanted to stay one, for a while. And still the emphasis on the virginity stuff really did not help me.

SADY: Right! And, like, a while ago, there was this headline all over the place, which was "Abstinence Only Education: Totally Works!" And what it actually WORKED at, apparently, was delaying vagina-to-weiner intercourse for a few years among the preteens. Good job! But also, this magically effective abstinence-only education program taught abstinence this way: Don't have sex until you are totally comfortable with having sex and know how to make good sexual decisions for you. This program that worked? NOT TEACHING ABSTINENCE, actually. What it was teaching was SEXUAL CONSENT. Like, "Hey, when you decide to have sex, your decision should probably be full and informed!" Uh, OK. But feminists have been teaching this for approximately FOREVER? I guess we never thought to call it "abstinence." I guess that's why we don't get the credit for our revolutionary sex-education technology!

AMANDA: Exactly. SEX ED EDUCATORS: PLEASE TEACH CONSENT. Because honestly, I've been having sex for a while now, and it took me a long time to be "totally comfortable" with it. A lot of that had to do with body-image stuff and all the connotations that went along with not being a virgin anymore, and so being a slut, but some of it had to do with people not respecting my right to make decisions about when I have sex and when I don't.

SADY: Right. I mean, I think my thing is: My first few sex experiences were kind of HORRIBLE, which I think had a lot to do with choosing the worst of all possible contenders so that I wouldn't have to think about being a virgin or not being a virgin any more. Because when I say "the worst," I mean we were at TWILIGHT LEVELS OF AWFUL. But also, I think they would have been awful anyway, because I had been taught "don't have sex," and I had been taught about the importance of putting a little rubber outfit on his apparatus if I ever DID have sex. But what I had NEVER been taught, apparently, was how to respect what I wanted, and to ask for it, and how to say "no" if I did NOT want something he wanted. I mean, I didn't even know how to say "ow" or "yikes." My impression was that one could Have Sex or Not Have Sex, and so my first few experiences were like, "oh, so apparently sex is AWFUL? It seems weird that people are so into it! But, OK! I am Having Sex!"

AMANDA: EXACTLY. GOD. I very much had the experience of something like, happening to me—-"Having" "Sex"—not participating or enjoying something, but like, enduring it. And part of that was necessary to come to a time when I would figure out how to like it, and assert myself, and that stuff. But surely, we can do better about the way we talk about things and prepare people for them, and how to know when Bad Sex is not bad sex and when it's Rape. We don't do enough of that.

SADY: Right. And I think it goes back to what we were talking about before, which is: Sex being defined as this very heterosexual experience of having a Penile Apparatus stuck into our Vaginal Apparatus in an Act That Could Potentially Produce Offspring (if you don't make his weiner wear an outfit, or whatever). Like, OK: There are a lot of things that are pretty darn sexual, which this description of Sex does not cover! And I am struggling to say this without sounding like some kind of creepy Tantric sex instructor, but: If you're like, "OK. So somebody is going to stick that into the other thing, and then you will Have Had Sex," you're missing out on (a) much of what makes sex fun or enjoyable, (b) much of the potential complications, and (c) the fact that sex, ideally, should not be some sort of terrifying Bene Gesserit test of fortitude? Like, that thing where they stick Kyle McLachlan's hand in the box and are like, "WITHSTAND THE PAIN OR DIE" so he can't take his hand out or the space nun will kill him instantly: Sex should, ideally, have little or nothing in common with this experience. Why can't we all just enjoy ourselves? By, like, respecting what feels good and what doesn't?

AMANDA: Right! And I'll add that making the definition of "sex" "Penile Apparatus stuck into our Vaginal Apparatus in an Act That Could Potentially Produce Offspring" also includes "rape" as a thing that is "sex," and so perhaps we should move toward a definition that includes shit that people want to do, and also expels the word Virginity from existence, because it doesn't mean anything and it's stupid.

SADY: RIGHT? Okay, so: Here's another reason why making "virginity" important is scary. There was, some time ago, an Ohio-based abstinence education group, and they had this little online "game" for students. This game, it was kind of a downer! In that it was about deciding whether a lady had been raped or not! So, lady SAYS she's raped. And, as we all know, rape accusations are totally fun to make for kicks! So you have to evaluate the testimonies of the people she knows, about her character. And one of them — A GIRL CHARACTER! IN THE GAME! I BELIEVE! — mentions that she's had sex before, and is thus probably a liar. Guess which conclusion you are supposed to draw?

AMANDA: UM. That she's a liar?

SADY: YES. Like, the idea that you can either want NONE of the penises or ALL of the penises: That is an idea that is taught! By "education" "groups!" They had to take the game down. But we can't take it out of the equation, when we look at the cultural ideals around virginity.

AMANDA: Well I know that there's a direct correlation between how much sex I'm having and how much I lie about everything!

SADY: LIAR. I mean, I would classify several of my experiences, especially early experiences, in the "consensual but not okay" zone of sexual activity. Not to make this a big downer of a chat. But, the idea of Sex or Not Sex means that sometimes you don't say "no" because you don't totally have it in your mind that you CAN say "no," because you don't have any idea in your mind that Sex is not just one big package that you are either OK or not OK with. So, like: You go along with it, and you even say “yes,” so there is consent although it's not enthusiastic, but that is in large part because Boundaries are not really a part of the understanding you have of Sex. Or maybe that is just me! Maybe I am just a people-pleaser! But I don't think I am! Because I please very few people, really, on a daily basis.

AMANDA: Yeah, well, you either want to Have Sex (slut) or you want to Not Have Sex (virgin), and so if you decide to have sex, then—"SEX"! Sometimes, you don't really know all the possibilities of what that could mean, but you do know that you've consented to It, Sex, and that's as far as the conversation goes.

SADY: Right. And I think a lot of girls struggle with it. Like: My frequent yelling about slut-shaming and my frequent yelling about rape culture are actually the same yelling. Because the devaluation of female sexuality devalues female pleasure which in turn devalues your ability to say, "I don't like this, but I do like something else, can we do that instead?"

AMANDA: And some people who have had sex many, many times, when confronted with the opportunity to pass judgment in a rape case, still believe that. Even though it's plainly obvious that sex is not all or nothing.

SADY: Right. Exactly. That's where it gets really kind of scary. And, I mean, if I look at my various virginities: Every time you do something new for the first time, you are basically a virgin at it. You have no idea how anything works and you are probably kind of bad at it and you just sort of muddle through. Like this chat! Which for some reason I am terrible at expressing any ideas within!

AMANDA: We are virgins at rethinking virginity! It's OK! But now we're rethinking virginity sluts. And there was much rejoicing.

SADY: Yes. Next time I do this, hopefully I will know more about what is happening, and be able to contribute! Or something!

AMANDA: Instead of being like, Ow! You are inserting your opinions into mine quite vigorously, and in a way I am unprepared to respond to! Can we try this on e-mail!

SADY: I am just sort of lying here. I am like, "okay, you take it from here, I'm just going to scope out the whole operation." I didn't mean for this to end in a really inappropriate sex metaphor between two heterosexual ladies with dudepartners, Amanda. IT IS JUST PART OF THE PROCESS!

AMANDA: And I'm like, ouch, my position ... on virginity is beginning to form a cramp, in my brainparts. OK! I have finished! After dragging this on for far too long, after you have grown bored with it!

SADY: Yeah. I think we're done. And now, to go on and have Rethinking Virginity Chats... WITH MANY OTHERS! Truly, after doing this one-on-one, the only other option is to do it with four other people. Simultaneously! In public! And possibly on film! THEY WERE RIGHT! THEY WERE RIGHT ABOUT THE ABSTINENCE! THE DAM HAS BROKEN, THERE IS NO TURNING BACK NOW.

Photo via MRBECK, Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

The Real World D.C. premiered last night, and MTV's eight strangers picked to live in a house did not disappoint on the sex front: These people are obsessed with gettin' it on. The girls (Callie, Erika, Ashley, and Emily) and the boys (Mike, Josh, Andrew, and Ty) arrived in D.C. ready to cheat on their significant others and attempt to hide their disgust over dudes who have sex with dudes. The top 10 sexy (or more accurately, sex-ish) moments of the first episode—from anti-lesbian cartooning to how bisexuality is like snowboarding—after the jump.

10. ANDREW GIVES TIPS ON HOW TO PICK UP WOMEN.

“Seducing a woman doesn’t have to be this big ordeal. You turn to her and you say: 'You know, for a girl, you’ve got a nice face.'”

9. TWO GUYS SHOW UP IN TANK TOPS.

8. ASHLEY AND MIKE'S BORING FLIRTATION

For this pair, flirting amounts to trading religious affiliations and cavorting on the "love sac."

Ashley on Mike: "He’s a cute boy, he’s tan, he’s got green eyes, nice sense of style. He’s cute.”

Mike on Ashley: "Ashley. She has a lot of energy and, you know, she’s cute."

7. ASHLEY AND ERIKA LISTEN IN ON JOSH'S CONFESSIONAL

Erika freaks out when she hears roommate Josh admit that he's "pretty fixated on Erika right now" in the Confessional.

“I immediately think, Oh my god, he’s going to be sleeping right next to me!” she says.

Andrew, too, is immediately unnerved by Josh's forwardness. "When Josh walks into the house, he walks around like he’s cooler than everyone. And to be fair, he is, but I don’t like that he knows that he is.”

6. ANDREW TAKES PHOTO OF GIRLS' BOOBS

He tells him he's taking a photo of their faces. But he zooms in on the boobs! Za-zing!

Tonight, the District will finally embark on the long-awaited experiment in forgoing politeness for realness. If these early previews of the Real World D.C. are any indication, the seven housemates will commence "getting real" by arguing over whether God exists in the Dupont Circle Bucca di Beppo. In other words, Real World looks to be getting a little bit too real this time around. But these seven real people will, at least, furiously attempt to have real sex with one another. And damned if I'm not going to record each of their pathetic stabs at doing so.

I suspect that MTV fucked up in a major way by airing Jersey Shore, not because the premise is offensive and the footage socially damaging, but because it's raised the bar for reality show sex and violence to unparalleled heights. Tomorrow, the network's follow-up to its Guido-rific reality hit will transport viewers into the squarest TV territory possible: following around a bunch of aspiring political aides as they struggle at their internships and get drunk at McFaddens. I have lived this television show! It was called George Washington University. It was just OK.

But there is hope! Earlier this year, Ruth Samuelson reported that the Real World D.C. house does, indeed, have the requisite hot tub, but there were several months there where we weren't even sure if we were going to get that much sexualization out of this show. Now we know:

People will make fun of Andrew for being a virgin! (above)

Andrew will outrageously pretend that he is not sexually attracted to Emily in order to convince viewers that he is, in fact, actually attracted to women!

Girls will speculate as to which boys are gay! And they will guess Andrew.

Andrew will say this: "I wanted to improve my chances of being laid by forcing Emily to be my roommate, I feel like I kinda put that on her. Gahh, I'm such a dirty guy, I hate myself. But I probably will have sex with her. When Ty is done with her."

People will hang out near a shower!

Will Andrew ever get laid? How many times will Ty air-dry his muscular body for all the housemates to see? Who will hook up at McFadden's? Check back in with the Real World D.C. hook-up round-up, every Thursday.

Think boys are simply born into their masculine gender role? Consider, for a moment, how quickly the cultural norms of acceptable maleness can change. The past decade of masculine fads saw cultural expressions of manliness range from finely-groomed boy bands to shlumpy stoners to blowed-out "guidos." The versions of masculinity that gained popularity in the aughts saw an infusion of traditionally feminine traits—along with a heavy dose of hyper-masculine compensation. Seven of the decade's enduring expressions of masculinity, below (and revisit the Decade in Femininity here).

BOY BANDS

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Peak Year: 2000

Lou Pearlman is credited with single-handedly inventing the slickly marketed boyhood embodied by the late '90s "boy bands." In a brilliant move, Pearlman (now serving time for the giant Ponzi scheme he engineered to exploit the Boys) created not one but two wildly successful boy bands, *N SYNC and the Backstreet Boys. These groups were essentially the same product, but they nevertheless managed to inspire strong preferences among young consumers (*N SYNC vs. Backstreet became a longstanding source of debate in American middle schools). It could be argued that Pearlman's bands were more a reflection of late-'90s girldom than boydom; the slickly packaged, highly emotional masculinity adopted by the boy bands provided an inoffensive outlet for young female fantasy. But face it, boys: You were into it too.

Ambassadors: Justin Timberlake, Nick Carter

Uniform: Skin-tight mock turtlenecks, earrings, hair gel.

Activities: Choreographed dancing, emoting.

—

METROSEXUALS

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Peak Year: 2003

Metrosexuality reflected a conspicuous consumption of masculinity in a way that had previously been reserved for women. According to Mark Simpson, who is credited with coining the term, metrosexuality revealed a willingness to incorporate aspects of gay culture into heterosexual maleness. Metrosexuals, like gay men, were "decidedly single, definitely urban, dreadfully uncertain of their identity (hence the emphasis on pride and the susceptibility to the latest label) and socially emasculated. . . . gay men pioneered the business of accessorising–and combining–masculinity and desirability." Interestingly, metrosexuality began appropriating gay culture before mainstream America was entirely comfortable celebrating men who were actually gay. Straight guys were identifying as "metrosexual" well before Neil Patrick Harris and Lance Bass came out in 2006, and Dustin Lance Black gave his Oscar acceptance speech in 2009.

Ambassadors: Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, David Beckham

Uniform: Designer.

Activities: Shopping, exercise bulemia, reading GQ.

Patience is a virtue, possess it if you can
Seldom found in woman, never found in man.

We often hear that "patience is a virtue." It's the second half of the sentiment largely goes unspoken: Patience is a virtue for women. What is patience, exactly? In Helper By Design, Elyse Fitzpatrick's guide to submitting to your man in the name of God, patience is defined as the "power to endure without complaint something which is disagreeable." That's right, ladies—our gender is number one in leading lives of quiet desperation.

Throughout history, this "power to endure" has proven . . . inconvenient. While patience has its perks in dealing with events that lie entirely outside of our control—war, famine, terminal illness—it becomes a bit of a bother when applied to the realm of romantic relationships. Wait to be asked on a date. Wait to be swept off your feet. Wait for sex—if not until marriage, then at least 90 days. Wait for him to bend down on one knee. Once hitched, wait on him. Then, die.

Why are women encouraged to wait around for major life events to just happen to us? Patience, my dear. These relationship milestones have been engineered and reinforced along traditional gender lines in order to test a woman's ability to shut up and sit pretty, while encouraging men of action to make all the decisions around here. But unfortunately for the patience lobby, us women have figured a few things out over the history of time. One: Our vaginas won't implode upon completion of premarital sex. Two: Our significant others can still love us without investing two paychecks worth of bling into one of our virtuous little fingers. And three: Waiting does not work. Ever.

In light of these developments, some have chosen to trash those pesky romantic milestones altogether, refusing to see virginity and weddings as indicators of our worth as women. Others have flipped the gender script they're based upon: Ask out. Initiate sex. Propose. But some just can't let go of the passivity thing, and they're going to try their hardest to make feminine patience work in the 21st century. For them, the ideal of passive patience needn't be discarded; it's just got to be re-coded and re-sold as proactive patience. Nowadays, getting men to come to you doesn't have to be a pathetic waste of time—it can be a subversive, brave, and even—yes—feminist act of empowerment!

Coincidentally, all of these people appear to be concentrated in our nation's record labels, movie studios, publishing houses, and newspapers. Behold, pop culture's vision of a feminism of patience: No need to abandon traditional marriage—just celebrate women who are strong enough to get what they want (that ring). Don't propose to your significant other—just subversively coerce him into doing it for you. Don't bother waiting around in your ivory tower for your prince to come—just make damned sure you're on the receiving end of that fairy-tale ending. Girl power!

—

Exhibit A: The works of Taylor Swift.

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Hoo boy, how are we going to reconcile this one, ladies? Taylor Swift sings songs about waiting around, being a princess, and crying for her "Romeo" to rescue her from her dad, who is so mean. Then, she makes videos for these songs where she is literally waiting in an ivory tower for her prince to come:

Romeo take me somewhere we can be alone
I'll be waiting all there's left to do is run
You'll be the prince and I'll be the princess
It's a love story baby just say yes

Okay. Breathe. Despite the traditional trappings—Romeo, waiting, prince, princess—it's not hard to find a girl-power lining in this song. Swift is coaching Romeo here. She's giving him exact instructions on where to find her. She's charting out their escape route. And she's imploring him to say yes to her demands. That is, until we get to the fairy-tale ending:

Romeo save me I've been feeling so alone
I keep waiting for you but you never come
Is this in my head? I don't know what to think
He knelt to the ground and pulled out a ring

And said, marry me Juliet
You'll never have to be alone
I love you and that's all I really know
I talked to your dad, go pick out a white dress
It's a love story baby just say yes

Ooh! So close! Notice how Swift whiles away her time waiting, crying, wishing, hoping, praying, etc. while all Romeo has to do is . . . go over and talk to her dad. It's not exactly rocket science, folks. And yet, Swift expends a whole lot of emotional energy in order to goad the love of her life into performing the most basic of tasks, instead of just, like, dealing with her father herself, or realizing that her father is a dick and she's 18 so he can't tell her what to do anyway. But whatever—surely we can channel all of Swift's emotional energy into some sort of feminist reading of her work? Alyssa Rosenberg, noted critic of passivity in popular culture, sees Swift as feminist, in a way:

I am an enormous sucker for . . . Taylor Swift's "Love Story," which is an absurdly mature and lovely piece of pop songwriting. "I was a scarlet letter" spoken as a declaration of pride, devotion, and sexual desire is kind of amazing as a commercially successful act of feminist reclamation.

I don't see the phrase as a "feminist reclamation" so much as a mixed literary metaphor inserted into a song about waiting to get a ring on that finger. And "Love Story" is not Swift's sole offense: In "You Belong With Me," Swift passively spins elaborate fantasies that the boy of her dreams is dating her, and not his girlfriend. In the song, Swift is "Dreaming bout the day when you'll wake up and find / That what you're lookin' for has been here the whole time." Since Swift refuses to just ask him out or something, her solution is to aggressively strut her passivity in front of his face at every opportunity.

But let's be fair—while Swift's princess persona is a bit dull, Swift herself has been spending her pre-wedding days writing and recording hit crossover records. That's something, Ann Powers argues for the Los Angeles Times:

the authority these fledgling artists claim is a great sign of feminism's ripple effects. Swift might play a princess in many of her songs—in fact, the best parts of "Fearless" meditate on the princess myth and how reality subverts it—but in the studio she's her own boss, writing and producing those fairy tales.

This is the Sarah Palin theory of feminism. If she's a woman, and she does stuff, it's feminist—even if that stuff is writing songs about waiting around for boys do stuff to you. These women don't deserve our ire, but they don't deserve a cookie, either. Swift should be celebrated as a promising entertainer who writes catchy tunes I like to listen to on the radio. Feminist? Not so much.

—

Exhibit B: The cautionary tale.

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If "Anna", the central character in the upcoming rom-com Leap Year, is a "princess," it is in the urban dictionary sense of the word: She is a beautiful, well-heeled control freak with a serious thirst for a solitaire diamond. Anna wants to propose to her boyfriend, but she can't, because girls can't propose to boys. So our determined young heroine finds a patience loop-hole: Propose to her boyfriend on a day that only comes around once every four years, because it is socially acceptable to do so, in Ireland, on that day alone (?). Anna hops on a plane to secure the man of her dreams on her own terms.

But ho ho, no, not so fast, independent woman. You've still got to wait—for your plane to get re-routed, your car to get blocked by a sea of cows, your ass to fall down a muddy hill, and a charming and handsome Irishman to accompany you on your hilarious misadventures. In fact, our heroine has to wait juuuuust long enough for her boyfriend to realize that he, in fact, wants to propose to her—and for the charming and handsome Irishman to begin to aggressively court her also.

Moral of the story: There's nothing more irresistible than a woman who desperately needs to get married as soon as possible . . . as long as she doesn't end up doing the proposing. That would be pathetic.

—

Exhibit C: Team Bella

Bella Swan, the heroine of the Twilight series, gets a lot of flack for being a passive lump of femininity with no defining characteristics besides her tasty blood. (Rosenberg has penned an exquisitely written anti-Bella screed). By series end, that blood will catapult her into vampire royalty, making her a—you guessed it!—princess. But in New Moon, the second installment in the Twilight series, Bella actually takes on a ton of pretty sweet hobbies.

She fixes up old motorcycles! She jumps off cliffs! She goes on joyrides with dumpy bikers! She sees movies with her friends! She uses e-mail! Okay—so our expectations for Bella's extracurricular activities are pretty low. She actually spends the better part of New Moon staring out of a window, watching the seasons change as she "endures without complaint something which is disagreeable"—bad vampire break-up. But the motorcycle thing is pretty rad, right? Too bad she only does the more interesting stuff to prove how vulnerable and suicidal she is in an attempt to coerce her ex-boyfriend to come back and save her from herself.

Bella's empowerment of desperation presents the most difficult form of patience to re-cast as a new feminism. But let's give it a try—if we can't give up the wedding shit, and we can't give up the princess shit, and we can't give up the patience shit, then we have got to find some way to justify this to ourselves. Sady Doyle, in a brilliant turn, points out that Bella is passive in the way that men in porn are: They're faceless, save for one sizable talent (tasty blood = big penis), and somehow they've got tons of perky, tanned blondes servicing them for no apparent reason. This is exactly what happens to Bella—she does nothing, she is nothing, and hot guys fight over her. (Nevermind that one other thing Bella doesn't do: Sex before marriage). No, it's not feminist. But at least women aren't alone in this peculiar set-up. Plus, it helps religious ladies get off, apparently, so proceeds go toward a good cause.

—

Exhibit D: Feminist v. Princess

Last year, the Washington Post published Rachel Beckman's "One Ring Circus," a story about the years Beckman spent waiting, wishing, agonizing and flat-out fantasizing that her boyfriend Eli would propose to her. Beckman is more attached to the romantic relationship milestones than most—she began imagining Eli's proposal after their first kiss. A few years down the road, she had formed an "Engagement Watch Team" among her coworkers to chart Eli's every move. The obsession was not all white taffeta and seating arrangements; the anticipation of the proposal haunted her. One Valentine's Day, Beckman "carefully checked every dish of food for a diamond ring so that I didn't accidentally swallow it and become one of those proposals-gone-bad stories in the bridal magazines." When Beckman, then in her early 2o's, realized Eli wasn't popping the question that moment, she wept.

Unsurprisingly, the diamond fever left Beckman with some personal conflicts:

I felt like engagement was the one off-limits topic. I didn't want to pressure him or spoil the big, elaborate surprise proposal (that he hadn't even started planning). I was caught in a Catch-22. I could be hands-off and leave it all to him (feminist Rachel says no), or I could be hands-on and get what I want (princess Rachel says no).

I don't doubt that Beckman has been largely influenced by the feminist movement. But the distinction between the "princess" who waits patiently for her boyfriend to propose to her and the "feminist" who actively coerces her boyfriend into proposing sets up a bit of a false dichotomy. The main difference appears to be that the princess waits around for her prince to ride up on his horse, while the feminist pressures her boyfriend to man up and play his assigned role.

A desire to get married is not necessarily an anti-feminist one. The problem is when the decision to wed is left exclusively to the man, leaving the woman to waste years of emotional energy as she waits patiently for him to do so.  The whole point of the milestone is to set up a relationship based on feminine patience and masculine decision-making. Beckman's "feminist" solution is to micromanage the process—to talk openly about her desire to get married, open up negotiations as to the time frame, and instruct Eli on the perfect ring. In doing so, Beckman converts her private agony into proactive patience, but she can't go so far as to pop the question herself—in order to fulfill her lifelong engagement fantasy, she must submit to Eli's better judgment.

Beckman may see this subversive engagement planning as a feminist development, but really, women have always coped with a lack of institutional power by working behind the scenes. I appreciate Beckman's essay, because it's good to remember that achieving patience takes more than switching on your feminine tractor beams and waiting for your prince to come. Getting what you want while seemingly doing nothing is work. Even in 1964, Burt Bacharach knew that just waiting around and being a woman wasn't going to cut it. You have to strut your patience. You have to work your waiting.

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"Wishin' and Hopin,'" a ditty made popular by Dusty Springfield, instructed women to stop their traditional wishin', hopin', thinkin', prayin', plannin', and dreamin', and instead, get off their asses and do stuff: like "the things he likes to do" and wearing "your hair just for him." As the song demonstrates, aggressively pursuing what you want isn't always an act of female empowerment.

Photo via George Eastman House

1. Abstinence-y Track: "Virginity (Vees Up)" by Cindy St.Vil

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Plot: Cindy wants to wait until marriage, so she's ecstatic when her guy gets down on one knee—she gets to get it on soon! But not too soon, gentlemen—Cindy breaks it off with her beau when he tries to pressure her into some post-engagement action.

Relevant Lyrics:

No sex before marriage, because Jesus said it
There ain't nothing to debate if Jesus said it.
If she walk out on a date, don't even sweat it.
If he don't wanna wait, then leave, forget it.

—

2. Abstinence-y Track "That Kind of Girl" and "I Don't Want It" by DC Talk.

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Plot: In this epic live medley, the men of DC Talk present themselves as perfectly chaste—their dream woman is "virtuous in every way"—but make sure to drop hints that they're still hot-blooded males. "I don't want your sex," they declare. "For now." (Okay, there's not much of a plot here. But what they lack in storyline they make up for in those outfits).

Relevant Lyrics:

I don't want it
Yo I don't want it
Yo I don't want your sex (for now)
Sex!
I don't want it
I don't want it want it
I don't want it 'til we take the vow

—

3. Abstinence-y Track: "My Body" by Trin-I-Tee 5:7

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Plot: Guy in car tries to get fresh. Cheek-kissing? Leg touching? Close dancing? You have got to be kidding her! Trin-I-Tee smacks him down, lyrically.

Relevant Lyrics:

Who do you think I am? I don't play these games
Not goin' out like that, let me explain
Tryin' to save myself, don't pressure me
My spirit leads me to celibacy

—

4. Abstinence-y Track: "Ain't No Safe Way" by Michael Sweet

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Plot: A straight-laced Christian boy is nearly led to sin by a hot chick at a drive-in theater. Luckily, the very sight of a condom sends him into a frenzy of disgust, accompanied by Michael Sweet's devilishly chaste guitar licks.

Relevant Lyrics:

Ain't no safe way anymore
You got people with one, two, three and four
Abstinence rules, playin' is for fools
The one who abstains is the one who's cool
There's no safe way

—

Abstinence-y Track: "Virginity" by TG4

Plot: The girls of TG4 are in a sex education class. They end up teaching their classmates a thing or two about not getting educated in that subject.

Relevant Lyrics:

Can't imagine what it feels like
My friends say it's alright
But then they go and do it all night
But I prefer the married life.

Know any other epic abstinence tracks? File your own additions to the chastity playlist in the comments.

Photo by George Eastman House

An Egyptian scholar has called for the death penalty for people caught importing a new "female virginity-faking device" into the country. The product, a condom which simulates vaginal bleeding, is seen as a "cheap and simple alternative to hymen repair surgery" for a woman who must "feign virginity on her wedding night" in order to avoid the social repercussions of premarital sex. The condom, produced in China, is currently being sold in Syria for $15 a pop. So, how does it work?

Ten years ago, the design (or a very similar one) was patented in the United States by Shahram Shawn Omrani of Passaje, N.J. The product, called the "Condom Simulating Virginity," consists of a flexible, open-ended sheath (like your regular Trojan), but is outfitted with an additional burstable pouch "containing a red colored fluid simulating blood." The pouch is constructed from a weaker material than the condom itself so that the blood compartment "ruptures during sexual intercourse, while the sheath remains intact." Unlike your standard translucent condom, this prophylactic is meant to be made from a dark material to help conceal the red liquid stored inside. If all goes according to plan, the man straps on the condom before sex, the woman appears to bleed during intercourse, and nobody is the wiser.

According to the patent application, the condom was designed to serve cultures where "virginity is demanded of a bride." Writes Omrani, "it is possible that a prospective bride is no longer a virgin, and hence risks being undesirable or subject to scorn and disapproval should her status become known after a marriage. In extreme cases, some cultures even sanction killing of a non-virgin bride. The applicant is unaware of apparatus which will simulate discharge of blood which ordinarily accompanies first sexual intercourse undertaken by a virgin woman, this being the effect of the present invention."

I'm troubled that a product like the "Condom Simulating Virginity," which should never even exist, appears to be in high demand in some corners of the world. I'm saddened that female virginity is still considered a requirement for marriage in some cultures. I'm frustrated that the presence of an intact hymen (which can break under a variety of conditions, including rape) is considered proof of that virginity, and bleeding (not everybody bleeds) is considered proof of an intact hymen. Mostly, though, I'm concerned that the condom is not going to work.

The virginity condom theory has a few serious holes in it. Though condoms are said to have originated in Egypt, the use of any condom—much less a blood-filled virginity condom—is still stigmatized in the country. What if the man does not want to use a condom on his wedding night? What if he doesn't want to use a strange, dark-colored condom on his wedding night? What if the condom breaks too early, or doesn't break? What if he realizes that the condom he is rolling on his penis is outfitted with a pouch of liquid? What if he realizes that the condom, which is designed to rupture, has strangely broken?

It's already clear that for some Egyptian women, the consequences of premarital sex are high. Now that the virginity-simulating device has been relatively popularized in the country, I'm afraid we'll hear more about the consequences reserved for women forced to fake it.

The weird part about this whole thing isn't that the brothel was called "Heaven's Gate"; or that he was mysteriously driven there by a taxi driver named "Silky"; or that Bradlee didn't even figure out what he was paying for until "she started to take off her clothes"; or that he was "glad it happened"; or that he immediately told his mother; or that his mother then dragged him back to the brothel to pick up his prostitute and test her for HIV because Sally Quinn "worries way too much, if you ask me."

No, the weird part is that this hilarious little Carribean prostitution adventure is Bradlee's way of introducing a much more serious topic: "Girls." Bradlee closes out the chapter by wondering why he's been unlucky with the ladies:

More than anything, I want a girlfriend. I think one of the reasons I have a hard time taking it to the next level with girls is because I had no contact with girls for much of my adolescence. Sometimes I think that I’m a loser, that I’ll never find a girlfriend, that I’ll be a nobody for the rest of my life.

I seem to have the worst luck with women no matter how hard I try. I feel they’re picking up some vibe from me that says I can’t handle a relationship, or I’m not mature enough to be in a relationship. Whatever it is, I am apparently doing something wrong. I’ve taken and followed all of the advice my friends and my parents have given me about dating, but it hasn’t quite worked out for me yet.

I have trouble with reading cues and I can never tell if girls like me sexually. If you’re having an intimate friendly conversation and a woman is smiling and you’re making her laugh, then you think that maybe it’s possible to take it to the next level. But, typically, the day after that kind of thing would happen with a girl, I wouldn’t hear back from her.

It goes on and on. Hmm, okay, perhaps Bradlee should first try skipping the prostitute story, and also, actually, any story where Sally Quinn completely freaks out. He might also pare down the six excrutiating paragraghs detailing why, specifically, women have never liked him down to, I don't know, zero.

Or maybe I'm wrong: Maybe the "my mom's crazy, I fucked a prostitute, women don't understand me" tactic has worked out: Bradlee's Web site says he's currently in a relationship.

* Hot on the heels of G. Keith Harris: Another guy claiming to have inauguration tickets wants you to be his date. This 46-year-old writes, "I got the call today from a Senator that I have a relationship with for over 10 years that told me I made “The A List”. So far at my table is Ben Affleck and Mary J and I will know more as the time nears."

* Local GLBT groups are planning their own inaugural ball at the Mayflower Hotel, Metro Weekly reports.

*  Slate's Dear Prudence doles out advice on dads who cross-dress. Hide it:

If your husband lounges around at home every night in a bustier, palazzo pants, and a wig, then I'm voting for repression. It's time for your husband to limit his dressing up to times when he's not with the baby. As your child gets older and mobile, your husband will have to take more steps to separate his fetish from your family life. Perhaps he will need to check into a motel occasionally when he just can't stifle the need to dress up as Madonna.

* File under "busted": Did Elizabeth Frisinger really accidentally text her dad on the occasion of losing her virginity? Follow-up: Did her friend really leak her photo and iphone screen capture to a radio station? Do you really text anyone on the occasion of losing your virginity? Doesn't Lizzy's dad seem kind of cool, under the circumstances? He texts!

Photo via trialsanderrors.