1. Nobody thinks about what it means anymore.

Though the title of this post may have produced a funny mental image, it was probably involved some asshole with a popped collar. Contemporary usage of the term has elided the fact than actual douchebag is a bag. Full of douche. That you put in your vagina. I've only seen douche once — when I was a kid, in the attic of my friend's family's store, in some sort of ancient gift basket along with a 1970s romance novel. Likewise, I've only read the word used literally in one place — the extremely fucked-up noir novel The Killer Inside Me. The movie version of said fucked-up novel is about to come out, and how much do you want to bet they don't include the "douchebag" line? Actually, I don't want to bet. I do want you to send me examples of actual baggy douche-filled douchebags referred to in print (ads don't count). Because the true douchebag has been forgotten, and that's sad.

2. Everybody's saying it now.

As Slate's Troy Patterson points out, "douchebag" and its variants have now appeared at two opposite poles of American culture — The City and the New York Times. The Times's Edward Wyatt offered this hilariously passive-voiced formulation:

On many nights this fall, it has been possible to tune in to broadcast network television during prime time and hear a character call someone else a 'douche.'

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a word that shows up in a Times trend piece must be in want of a replacement. Plus, Hot Chicks With Douchebags has gone from blog to book to show. Can the video game be far behind?

3. Gawker actually declared it dead last year.

In December of 2008, Gawker posted a reader's plea that read, in part,

it's been completely played out. the number of times i hear it now applied to any circumstance other than what i believe to have been its true intention is getting annoying. furthermore, i feel the douche's themselves have co-opted the word and use it against hipsters and the like. people who aren't particularly witty, or even funny, began throwing around the word douche (in my opinion denigrating the original beauty of what it represented). i think it'd be a great idea to take control of your creation and have a very formal retirement for the word

You know how in high school you would make up something really funny, and then everyone would laugh, but then some lame person would try to use it in a lame way, and everyone would get tired of it, and then they'd blame you for coming up with something lame? I guess what I'm trying to say is, stop trying to make douchebag happen.

4. Douchebag parodies have appeared.

It's actually even worse than the Gawker reader lets on. Not only has the word been co-opted by "douche's themselves," fake douchebags are now making silly parody videos. And charts. These parodies may be amusing, but what they reveal is that "douchebag," once a thrillingly multifaceted insult, has calcified into a type. Douchebags wear Ed Hardy shirts. They pop their collars. They may differ by region, but even these differences are strictly codified. "Douchebag" used to be both simple and versatile, a way to describe someone whose disregard for other people, combined with outsized self-regard, was so extreme as to be hilarious. Now it's a culture, with its own stereotypes and its own quasi-ethnic jokes. That video's just for laughs, but mark my words, true "douchebag" reclamation is on its way.

Some might argue that we need a new word to do the work "douchebag" once did. I do like "assclown." But while mocking the unjustifiably egotistical will never truly die, I wonder if specifically shaming douches and their ilk is kind of an '00s thing. Maybe in the new decade we should turn our attention to a less ludicrous but more insidious figure, the guy who acts sensitive and evolved as a way of concealing deep-seated misogyny or misanthropy. Or maybe we should just give up and be nice to each other. The world's going to end in two years anyway.

Image via MSN.

Douchebags Gone Wild [Slate]

Related: More Than Ever, You Can Say That On Television [NYT]
The Gray Lady And Her Sad, Shared, Empty Bag Of "Douche" [Gawker]
Farewell, Douchebag [Gawker]

"Fuck you!" she exclaimed as she tried to walk around him.
"No," he returned smugly. "I'll fuck you." And biked away triumphantly before she could respond.

You get used to tuning out the day-day indignities of cat-calls and come-ons every woman experiences in her day-to-day life. This week alone, two friends mentioned "compliments" of "niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice aassssssssss titties" and "hey, I love ya boobs" and in my neighborhood there's a phenomenon of a lone guy hissing "sexxxxy" just as you pass him. This kind of insult is demeaning, depressing, indiscriminate, and quotidian.

But then, every so often, you'll hear something so bizarre, so odd, so memorable, that it sticks with you. Whether the dude in question is more creative, or merely deranged, they somehow produce insults that make an impression.

Take the time I was standing in line at the Walgreens with a toothpaste in my hand. The fratty guy behind me said loudly into the phone, "yeah, there's this girl ahead of me in line, buying toothpaste. She could be cute, but she's running around in this weird little muumuu. I'd really like to see her in some tight jeans and a halter top."

These are the guys whose words end up in the Ass-Hat Hall of Fame (working title), guys who have felt compelled to share their thoughts with the world and whose thoughts are so appalling that they deserve a larger audience. And now I want to hear yours. Send in your most absurd such experiences. And then I want to hear what you said to them. I'm sure you can do better than "That's funny, because I'd really like to see you dressed like a date-rapist whose mom buys his clothes - but, oh, wait, I already got my wish!" But hey, it was off the cuff.

According to the spokeswoman of vaguely-European descent, you'll feel ready for "l'amour" after using the "FDA cleared" WaterWorks. The device, pictured below, is used by filling the bag with body temperature tap water and fully inserting the stainless steel end into the vagina, as shown in this animation from the company website.

According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, most American doctors do not recommend douching, and douching will not get rid of bad vaginal odor. But according to the company website, WaterWorks isn't like douching at all because it only uses low-pressure tap water. The "science" section explains:

The combination of a stainless steel soap bar and tap water is used by chefs as the most effective way to eliminate odors such as garlic, onions and fish from the hands of food preparers. WaterWorks uses the same principle to reduce or eliminate vaginal odor.

If you hurry, you can get yours for the special introductory price of $29.95... plus shipping and handling, of course.

WaterWorks Natural Vaginal Therapy [Via La Figa]
Douching FAQ [U.S. Department of Health And Human Services]

Earlier: A Look Back At "That Not So Fresh Feeling"

• A Saudi man has reportedly divorced his wife by text message. Under Saudi law, a man may divorce his wife if he says (or, I guess, texts) "I divorce you" three times. • A seven-year-old girl with with a Y chromosome but not other signs of "maleness" usually associated with the genetic abnormality (shriveled testes, ambiguous gonads) is providing scientists with new clues about the "master switch" of gender. • A couple from Seattle have discovered the newest trend in the wedding industry: outsourcing vows. • Washington State passed a bill yesterday that protects transgender people under the current hate crime legislation. • A report from the Equality and Human Rights Commission reveals this "shocking" fact about the pay gap in London: women working in finance make 55% less a year than their male counterparts. • Actress Virginia Madsen is currently working on a documentary about women ski jumpers and their campaign to be allowed to compete in the 2010 Winter Olympics. • Sociological Images has posted a very interesting video on female sex tourism, followed by a discussion of the way we think about the role of the "victim" in sex. • Researchers at St Andrews have found that people do judge you by the color of your skin, and that certain (pale) skin tones are still associated with illness. • Despite certain high-profile celebrity adoptions, Americas are actually adopting fewer foreign children than we did five years ago. • This Easter, a new line of nonedible Peeps branded products (think china and stuffed animals) will appear in stores. No word yet on whether they will also explode in the microwave. •  Click here to watch a depressing video about the sale and use of skin-bleaching products in Jamaica. Skin-bleaching was once practiced only by women, but has now spread to men and children. • Oh dear: "Teen pregnancy boosts girls' risk of getting fat," reads a headline on Reuters. • After being groped by a stranger on the subway, a quick-thinking woman snapped a cellphone picture of her attacker, which eventually led to his arrest. • Another lawsuit against the "Hot Chicks with Douchebags" people has been dropped. • 

There's the one where the dude is can't take his eyes off a woman, and that woman is not the one he is with. Or the one where the guy uses some "passive-aggressive misdirection" on his ladyfriend. Or the one where the woman annoyingly nags the guy who is just trying to eat his giant, calorie laden sandwich. In this video, Sarah Haskins totally skewers Carl's Jr. while scoring points for epic use of the word "douche."

Sarah Haskins In Target Women: Carl's Jr. [Current]

Earlier: Sarah Haskins Learns Valuable Lessons From Busty Blonde: Barbie
Sarah Haskins Overwhelmed By Oscars "Ex-Plosion"
Sarah Haskins Calls Out Jez Commenters
New Year, New You: Sarah Haskins Teaches You How To Diet
Sarah Haskins Wishes You Happy Period Control
Diamonds Are Not Sarah Haskins' Best Friend
Sarah Haskins Worries That Ann Curry's Life Is In Danger
Car Commercials Drive Sarah Haskins Crazy
Sarah Haskins Takes On The Disney Princesses
Sarah Haskins: Fiber Is Secret Code For Making You Poop
Condoms, Cleaning Supplies & Crap: A Q&A With Sarah Haskins

• Can depression ever be good for you? Some scientists are arguing that depression serves an evolutionary function, and that medication may keep sufferers from achieving their full potential. • A new study found that teenagers whose mothers drank while they were in the womb are more likely to find the smell of alcohol appealing than their peers with teetotaler moms. • Doctors urged the Obama administration on Wednesday to make a major research commitment to curing and preventing prostate cancer, including a screening technique they call the "man-o-gram." • A pro-vaccine doctor and author of the book Autism's False Prophets has been receiving death threats from angry parents for his uncompromising stance on vaccination. • Stephanie Sheffler, a 16-year-old novelist and one of 11 children, is currently hard at work on her second novel and has plans to write a series of historical fiction books. • An Austrian woman was found on a remote farm where she spent the last 40 years working as a slave. • Slovakian model Katarina Van Derham has been chosen (with a little help from Maxim readers) as the new St. Pauli Girl. Uh, congrats? •  The U.N. is currently investigating 217 allegations of sexual abuse against its peacekeepers in Eastern Congo. • A single snowmobiler has been blamed for the death of 57 ducks. It appears that after skidding into several mallards on an iced-over river, the snowmobiler turned around and made several more passes at the surviving birds. • A 19-year-old girl was arrested in Wisconsin after running drunkenly through IHOP with her pants around her ankles. • 

In movies, a male protagonist is often gifted with the magical power of seeing directly into the soul of a woman with whom he's had virtually no contact. In the real world, however, when a guy purports to do this, words like "stalking" and "armchair psychoanalysis" come to mind. Which, of course, brings us to "Doug" and "Kate," who met in a 2-month training seminar. Doug, naturally, saw his soulmate in her breasts eyes, and asked her out repeatedly, finally inviting her to what she thought was a group event and what turned out to be a one-on-one of cheezy romantic gestures and overplanned scenarios. When she then declined further invitations, he showed up one night unannounced, begging for her to be his girlfriend, and then whining for sex. She turned him down on both counts, but then got her own, personalized psychological profile for free!

Dear Kate,

This is the only email you'll get from me unless you wish otherwise. My intent is not to harass you. I want to say some things.

First, I'd like us to stay in touch. I would like this to be "au revoir" and not "adieu." You've given me no signs you want this, but then communication is not your strong suit, either. I don't know what you think. I do know I enjoy your company and consider you "my kind" of person. This is a rarity and something I value. While I have friends, nearly all my close ones scattered with the four winds a few years ago. Now at grad schools across the country, they make it back home infrequently. Most of my co-workers, meanwhile, I have not forged close ties with. There is a disconnect between me and most people. So I extend the hand of friendship to satisfy a need for close relationships with people. That is my motivation, if you want to know it. You're returning soon, same as me. It would be nice to hang out. That annual hike I told you about will happen Wednesday or Thursday. I know you would love it,and I think you would like my friends as well. Let me know what you want.

Regardless, our afternoon will remain a fond memory, and I wish you all the best. I hope things do work out for the best. Professionally I foresee doors opening for you. You certainly made the right moves on this trip. Whether you will achieve fulfillment across the board is less sure to me. Yes, yes, you claim you’re happy, and perhaps you are. But the more I think about that one peculiar choice you made that sets you apart from, oh, the vast majority of humanity, the more I don’t buy your characterization of it. It bothers me, so I'll share my thoughts on this as well. It may be more self-indulgent for me than beneficial for you, and more personal than you want to get, but so be it.

It strikes me that your having dated jerks in the past is not the issue. Obviously such relationships are bad. More pertinent are the nice guys you claim to have dated but with whom it also didn't work. At the time of our discussion, I was thinking, "My God, what did they do to her?" I asked about that, but you wouldn't go there. Now I see other possibilities. Someone as intelligent and strong as you, Kate, seems unlikely to be unable to overcome the hurt others have caused. No, you should be able to triumph over that sort of thing. You should be able to tackle this problem as you would any other—instead of throwing in the towel, as you in effect have done. But it occurs to me that everyone among us is vulnerable to our own insecurities, our own weaknesses, our own deeply ingrained habits of thinking, feeling, and acting that can be the hardest circumstances to change of all. In short, I suspect that rather than your boyfriends being the "bad element" of your past relationships, in some way you were. You were the one constant factor. I can conceive of nothing more likely to cause you to despair. If in each relationship either you were the one rejected or you saw some aspect of your nature as otherwise the cause of things not working, nothing could more sap your resolve to get over it and try again. This, if true, really is sad, the word you used to describe how people feel when you tell them of your choice. The psychological consequences of such internal conflict would be the painful of all. If this is the case, I would just like to say I understand something of what you may be wrestling with. For what that is worth.

Maybe my hunch is wrong. Either way, for reasons of your own you have rejected what many rank most highly among the things that make life worth living. I am tempted now to give you arguments why your chosen alternative will not be sustainable in the long-run, but I will spare you. I recognize there is no point. I'll stop now. Reply if you want to.

Yours fondly,
Doug

It occurs to me that frequently in these columns, there is a moment where, finally alone and generally late into the night of a long day, I find myself reduced to tears by some list of knocks and slights. Perhaps this only means I need a new device; I don’t think of myself as such a sad sack figure as all that. But this week, actually the night after my spirit-crushing turn as a volunteer clotheshorse for a designer who most definitely could have afforded to pay me, my sadness metastasized not into tears, but into a rage-inflected political platform that just might transform my industry.

Well, OK, first I cried. Then I thought: models should unionize to work for better conditions and rates of pay.

It’s a common misconception that modeling is easy, safe and highly lucrative — the reality is that the girls with the million-dollar campaigns are so rare I wouldn’t believe they actually existed if I didn’t see them at night clubs during fashion week. Most models I know are lucky if they are working at all; between agency commissions (70% in Paris, 50% in Milan, 20% in New York), travel expenses, and rent in the various pricey cities in which we are required to live, your eventual wages come so garnished I’ve known plenty of models who can’t always afford food. Even the girls who are lucky enough to work every day are doing well if they break even, and can sneak off to Germany or Los Angeles or Hong Kong and make a quick buck shooting catalog jobs every once in a while.

And safe? Once I was staying with a girl from Seattle in a shitty one-bedroom (total number of models: six! Minimum in rent our agency would’ve made from the shitty one-bedroom that month, assuming a consistent model population: $5400!). We were both on option for the same editorial (daily rate: $150 and lunch). She got the job.

She returned home nine hours later, hair and body painted silver. The magazine was doing a “green” issue; this eco-conscious theme was enacted in, variously, shots in which the poor Seattle girl had a tulip plant placed in her mouth, shots in which she had to lie on top of a scratchy 8 ft. hedgerow while the photographer shot from a crane, and shots in which she closed her eyes and shards of broken glass were applied to her face. They put dirt in her mouth and glass on her eyelids and painted her silver from head to toe. My roommate showered twice and vomited once that night.

Models have incredibly short-lived careers, and our collective youth, third-world origins, and the instability of the market we work in makes our bargaining positions, individually, weak. For every 15-year-old wunderkind who stalks 40 runways a season and books $100,000 perfume campaigns for college money, there are at least a hundred girls who turn 25 with a few grand in bank at best, realize their careers are over, and that they never graduated high school.

It’s also no wonder given how close many models are to insolvency that there are areas where modeling shades into prostitution; modeling sort of prepares you — trains you, even — to see your income in your own body. And also to hang around with plenty of creepy, older, rich dudes. A + B can = C. The BBC did an exposé in 2000 that caught Milanese businessmen on hidden camera trying to buy sex from models as young as 13 in night clubs, and uncovered evidence of agency bookers acting as procurers and drug dealers. In the furor that ensued, Gérard Marie and Xavier Moreau, two top executives at the Elite agency, lost their jobs. The industry promised a clean-up. There was talk of “standards,” of girls younger than 17 being accompanied by chaperones at all times, of blacklisting clients who used or promoted drugs.

Gérard Marie — who was filmed soliciting a reporter who he thought was a model for sex — is currently back at the helm of Elite Paris. I do not know if the man who explained his desire to sleep with underaged models thusly: “We are men, we have our needs” has reformed. I do know that such episodes of revolving-door contrition and forgiveness fill me with disgust, and that one of the biggest tasks of any models’ union would be to keep its membership safe.

A union would also offer, obviously, the benefits of collective bargaining. The overwhelming counterweight of the fashion business class’s wealth give models an unacceptably weak negotiating position. A union could help insure models’ best long-term interests are served by their jobs — a union could argue for retirement benefits, and, in the USA, health insurance coverage. A union could mandate that sufficient time be given for models under 16 to attend school, without setting back their careers. A union could also serve as a voice for models’ interests in the ongoing debate over what is perhaps our biggest immediate health issue — the slightly-underweight physique we are required to maintain. A union could protest and shame under- and non-paying clients, a union could mandate that appropriate food be available at every job, and a union could ensure that conditions on the job site always meet safety standards, so nobody has to pose covered in broken glass or eat dirt ever again.

The obvious counterpoint to modeling is, of course, acting. The Screen Actors’ Guild does an admirable job of representing the interests of a workforce that is dispersed over a vast geography, and which enjoys short-term contract-based employment, when it gets employment at all. It’s ironic that one of the reasons commercial modeling — catalogs, television ads and their ilk — is so rewarding when compared with high-fashion modeling — magazine editorials, runway, etc — is because of SAG’s vigilance; commercial castings in Los Angeles are not infrequently stated union jobs. And even the ones that are non-union are pretty highly paid. I have friends who are only able to work full-time in Paris because they have commercials still airing in the U.S., and receive the appropriate checks quarterly.

Individually, we are weak, and wealthy white men manage to make an awful lot of cash off our bodies and labor. Collectively, we could hold the industry we work in to a higher standard, and perhaps even change the nature of fashion itself. I imagine the union would have an awful lot to say, for instance, about those clients who put “NO ETHNICS” on their casting notices, and those agencies who fail to notice, or care, that certain of their charges have eating disorders.

Of course there are plenty of reasons to doubt any of this will come to pass. The economy is especially dreadful right now; any moves to unionize would be viewed as a threat by the class that controls the fashion capital. Besides, every year there’s a new raft of 14-year-olds from countries with economies far shittier than ours, and these 14-year-olds are all six feet tall and very, very hungry. And, through no fault of their own, they exercise a huge deflationary force on the modeling labor market. But it occurred to me, as I was working that presentation for that designer who amuses herself by collecting Picasso, that the reason she was paying the security guards at the event and not me was because the security guards have a union. And I don’t.

I want to at least try my best to change that.

E-mail Tatiana at Tatiana.Anymodel@gmail.com

Earlier: Welcome To America, Models! Tatiana Can't Wait For The Extra Competition. It Was Almost Getting Too Easy.

Related:

Model Bosses Quit After BBC Exposé [BBC]
Girls Interrupted [NY Mag]

A picture's worth 1,000 words. Check out some of these ladies' reactions shots.

Earlier: Paul Janka Did Not Rape Me Last Night

So as not to flaunt her own salary, Lori Weiss, a 29-year-old lawyer in Manhattan, has found herself clipping price tags off expensive clothes she buys on shopping binges, or hiding shopping bags in the closet just so men she was dating would not see them lying around and feel threatened by her spending power.

Anyway, in his inimitable way, Don brought up many good points:

In a sense, Lauren's sales pitches are like the come-ons of a great politician, which is why I have begun to wonder whether Lauren may have more in common with figures such as Ronald Reagan and Teddy Roosevelt than with any other designer. Like them, he has built his success on a belief that the world is pretty good as it is, but that he can make it better still; all we need to do is trust him and follow along.

Anyway, now is the part where we exhort you to read that paragraph over again, preferably aloud to someone, so you can bask in its absurdity before reminding yourself you're reading the work of a staffer at the New Yorker, who is by virtue of that fact smarter than you, which is why he is capable of such keen insights as

When you walk into the Polo Ralph Lauren shop on Place de la Madeleine, in Paris, you don't think of the United States as the country that invaded Iraq. You think of it as the country that made it possible for everyone to be rich

Ralph Lauren realized that you don't have to be a Republican to enjoy dressing like one.

Earlier: Ralph Lauren Is Really Fucking Rich

[Los Angeles, July 12. Image via Splash]

The three guys sitting at the bar at Town Hall in Georgetown swear it's a true story: A friend of theirs called a buddy in the middle of a sexual conquest, placing his cell phone out of view. When the voice mail picked up, it recorded him asking his lady, "You like that Republican cock?"

Then the bearded one in the middle busts out with this: "Do you like anal sex?" I squint. I'm confused. "Do you do anal?" he repeats, head bobbing with excitement. The litany continues. Do I want to take it in the ass? Have I ever taken it in the ass? My silence is taken as an affirmative and he announces that this interview will go no further unless he receives a hand job. I retreat into a hole carved out during similar sessions in high school and head for the door.

RE: optimal number for a woman Posted By: higher the better on 10-23-2006 1:39 pm I prefer high #'s. It usually means they really like to have sex, and that they are very good at it. And the idea that you might be exposing yourself to a serious disease is thrilling and really gets my blood flowing.

RE: optimal number for a woman Posted By: SF on 10-23-2006 1:58 pm I think one sexual partner for every 2-3 years is acceptable for a girl from a good family. Sex just isn't something girls should be doing if they are interested in marrying me.

Getting tainted by older men Posted By: Roger Chillingworth on 07-02-2007 9:16 am I'm concerned with a lot of the younger ladies in DC who are hooking up with and dating older guys. Whenever I first start seeing a girl I go through a checklist of what is acceptable, and having dated a guy who is 10+ years older than her is a tremendous red flag. I hope some of these younger girls realize the scarlet letter they are attaching to themselves by engaging in this scandalous behavior.

RE: Getting tainted by older men Posted By: Steve Pimpington on 07-02-2007 9:21 am I agree wholeheartedly. Nothing says "I blow guys for money" like dating some old rich dude. And the scarlet letter they are attaching to themselves is "W." For "whore."

RE: change of pace Posted By: Boat Shoes on 10-20-2006 2:49 pm Everytime I'm in Adams Morgan, I take on at least 3-4 Ethiopans. Skinny little bastards are feisty.

'The group as a whole promotes the elite materialism, old money, Ivy League sort of entitlement kind of a thing,' she says. She ditched her profile and quit LNS. 'It was nice because there's so much negativity on there,' she says.

"There is no such thing as a toned size 10! I'm sorry. If you are bigger than a 4 n you need to lose some weight. How women can go around being confident as a 10, I have no clue. I just can't see them wanting to have sex with lights on, or having a guy see them walk around the room undressed."

Far be it from us to deprive the rich of their luxury, but we bet that if Tom Ford donated the 95% markup he'll be making on those sausage casings to a special fund, we could help him find something even more useful to do with the money than simply line his own coffers. Like buy every citizen of Bangladesh a set of those awesome MUJI cardboard speakers we've been reading so much about!

Tom Ford, Post-Gucci, Takes A Vested Interest In Menswear [WashingtonPost]
Can The Tom Ford Magic Translate To Menswear? [Wall Street Journal]

Related: Tom Ford Also Licensing His Name To Estee Lauder For Beauty Product Line [International Herald Tribune]