As many of us know, all lesbians conform to a specific set of rules and regulations on everything from dress to sexual activity to emotions, rules that were not taught in secondary school. In the interest of helping America's youth - and the editors of aforementioned tabloid gossip magazines - we've decided to make those rules public. Take them out of the closet, if you will.

Dress Code (Unless The Lesbian Is The Femme)

• Appropriate footwear: Birkenstocks, Airwalks, chucks, Doc Martens or sports sandals. Socks are never optional.
• Make-up: not allowed.
• Undergarments: Bras are frowned upon.
• Appropriate tops: flannel, more flannel, folksy prints and Polar fleece.
• Appropriate bottoms: jeans, cords, jean shorts or walking shorts.
• "Hygiene": Shaving of armpits or legs is frowned upon.
• Accessories may include: Nalgene bottles; carabiners; keys at your belt; fanny packs; femme lesbians who only dress girly for the attention or to get a real man.

Lifestyle Attributes

• Appropriate automobiles: Saabs, pickup trucks, Subaru Outbacks, Jeep Wranglers, Xterras, Mini Coopers and Volvos.
• Pop cultural influences: Melissa Etheridge; Ani DiFranco; Indigo Girls; and The L Word. No exceptions.
• Pets: At least one cat, and preferably more.
• Food: Vegetarians preferred
• Colleges/alma maters: Smith; Bryn Mawr; Mount Holyoke; and Wellesley.
• Partner choices: Recruiting straight women preferred.
• Career choices: P.E. teacher; basketball player; softball player; and professional golfer.

Psychology

• History: Must have been abused.
• Oedipal Complex: Hatred of fathers, except when they over-identify with them.
• Childhood Obsessions: Monkeys as pets.
• Adult Obsessions: Hating men.
• Penis Envy: Yes.
• Child lust: No.

Sex & Relationships

• Onset of lesbianism: College — until graduation, in some cases.
• Conversion: Lesbians can be converted with one internal application of human penis.
• Madonna/Whore Complex: Many are technically virgins, because they've never gotten down with a dude.
• Roles: Every lesbian relationship has a butch and a femme.
• Timing: Lesbians move in together on the second date.
• Sex: Once two lesbians move in together, they will never have sex again.
• Break Ups: Bunny boiling provides the maximum drama all lesbians require.

Earlier: The L-Word
How To Recruit Ladies For The Lesbian "Lifestyle"

The clip on the left is an anti-pot PSA in which a girl gets soooooo high on Saturday night that she doesn't remember taking naked pictures on someone's camera phone, which eventually gets passed around. The moral? Smoking marijuana will make you act slutty, and in this hyper-connected age, everyone will find out how slutty you are.

Here's another technology-based PSA. If you're a girl, you'd better be careful about spending time on the internet and networking sites, because everyone you see on the street will know who you are!

Seriously though, girls: should stay off the internet, because it'll only lead to people calling you an ugly slut.

Girls should stay away from cell phones, too, because they only bring about "textual harassment" from boys.

Also, the worst thing about doing crystal meth is that you won't look like a Barbie anymore.

Parents, your daughters will have sex. Don't let them!

Because they might turn into prostitutes!

Also, if your daughter parties, she might get assaulted, and it will be your fault, and hers.

We must protect females from slippery floors!

Sometimes it seems like things haven't changed that much.

Today, HuffPo blogger/self-help book author/owner of the far-from-poorly- displayed breasts seen here, Karen Salmansohn, appeared on the Today show (below) and blogged about cleavage in the workplace.

Cleavage at the office: Inappropriate?

Her initial point is that all us ladies "know" when we're showing off too much cleavage. To a degree, yes, she's right. I know what shirts are office-appropriate and which are decidedly not, based on a cursory examination in the mirror. However, it has also come to my attention that, as a rather short person, what my boobs look like from where my eyes sit and from where the eyes of a much taller man sit are two starkly different things. Having seen pictures from certain angles, I can guarantee that I had no idea when I left the house that there was not only some cleavage but actual curvature showing (which is probably the office-appropriate line in my profession). So, despite Karen's assertion, you really don't always know (and, you may never know unless someone tells you).

In addition, she says that covering them up as much as possible while still being feminine is the best option, which sounds good on the surface. However, it's a little harder in practice. Let's try, say, turtlenecks? Wearing a turtleneck doesn't do anything to minimize one's ability to notice my breasts, believe me, plus everyone then thinks I have a hickey. High-necked shirts tend to make me look prissy and/or frumpy and, if they hang straight down from my breasts (rather than angling in), I look heavier and/or pregnant. I'm short, so there's not a lot of space between my collar bone and my cleavage, making it difficult, at best, to buy something in the middle. I have tried every single minimizing strategy with little success (besides buying one of the horrific contraptions that bind them down and keep them from moving) and the end results were: everyone still knew I had big knockers, more people thought I was uncomfortable with them, some people overestimated my weight, and I hated every piece of clothing I owned because I felt like I was trying to hide my body, rather than clothe it. Plus, how many times have you heard a more masculinely-attired or covered-up woman get called a "dyke" or something similar? It's a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't scenario, and everybody knows that.

Even worse, Karen also cites "research" that those of us rather decidedly "blessed" with big ones automatically get taken less seriously by men. And, to this, my response is, um, assholes? The size of my breasts are not at all a determinant of my level of intelligence or my ability to do my job. The fat cells in my chest have no bearing whatsoever on my intellectual capabilities, I promise, though they may well affect my archery skills and ability to pitch in baseball games.

So, I guess I wonder: when we're running around castigating and judging other women (or men) for the appropriateness of their bodies (whether that be weight, or breast size, clothing choices or hairstyles) and scheduling TV segments and writing blog posts about how women ought to dress to fit preconceived notions about what one's sexuality (or race, or clothing choices) says about one's intelligence, can we maybe try having one person on who says that it's time to start talking about why we have these preconceived notions and how to stop? I mean, rather than just discussing what people can do to satisfy better those preconceived notions? Kthxbai.