<![CDATA[Jezebel: lesbian]]> http://tags.gawker.com/assets/base/img/thumbs140x140/jezebel.com.png <![CDATA[Jezebel: lesbian]]> http://jezebel.com/tag/lesbian http://jezebel.com/tag/lesbian <![CDATA[Pride Around The World]]> This weekend, LGBT Pride parades and festivals took place across the world. Ahead, a collection of images from celebrations in several countries.



Bangalore, June 28.


Bangalore, June 28.


Berlin, June 27.


Jerusalem, June 25.


Barcelona, June 28.


Bangalore, June 28.


Istanbul, June 28.


Bangalore, June 28.


Jerusalem, June 25.


New Delhi, June 28.


Paris, June 27.


New Delhi, June 28.


Paris, June 27.


New Delhi, June 28.


San Salvador, June 27.


San Salvador, June 27.


Paris, June 27.


San Salvador, June 27.


San Salvador, June 27.


Istanbul, June 28.


Bangalore, June 28.


Paris, June 27.


San Salvador, June 27.


San Salvador, June 27.


Istanbul, June 28.


New York City, June 28.


New York, June 28.


New York, June 28.

[All Images Via Getty.]

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<![CDATA[You Say Glitch, We Say Fail: Amazon Responds To De-Ranking Debacle]]> Amazon claims its de-ranking of gay, feminist, and otherwise vile and degrading material is justa "glitch" — but many books are still rankless, and many people (including us) are still pissed.

For those of you who spent Easter Sunday with your families instead of the Internet (and what is wrong with you?), the scandal began to break when writer Mark Probst posted that he found that his book The Filly, a teen gay romance, had been stripped of its sales rank by Amazon. This de-ranking can have serious effects for a book and its author — some de-ranked books don't even show up in searches. An Amazon customer service rep explained that "we exclude "adult" material from appearing in some searches and best seller lists. Since these lists are generated using sales ranks, adult materials must also be excluded from that feature." Users then began to hunt for books that Amazon considered "adult," and came up with some pretty weird results, including Heather Has Two Mommies, Ellen DeGeneres: A Biography, and James Baldwin's Giovanni's Room. Now, according to Publisher's Weekly, Amazon claims the de-ranking does not represent new policy and is in fact a mistake they're working to fix. Oopsie!

Not buying this explanation is, oh, the whole Internet. Salon's Broadsheet asks why Probst got the "adult material" explanation if this was just a mistake, and why another author, Craig Seymour, noticed that his book was de-ranked back in February. Dear Author notices that all the de-ranked books have certain category tags in common (like "gay," "lesbian," or "sex"), and wonders if either a hacker or a clumsily-implemented Amazon filter simply stripped rank based on the tags. Livejournal blogger tehdely speculates that a group of vigilante users may have gotten a number of books tagged as adult simply by repeatedly complaining about them, in a grassroots effort he dubs "Bantown." This is certainly possible — we wouldn't put it past an Amazon customer service rep to glance at a book's category and dash off an email calling it "adult," without checking how it got that way.

In fact, someone calling himself "brutal honesty" is now claiming that he used a relatively simple hack, and a team of helpers, to mass-report gay and lesbian books as "inappropriate," all because he was mad that Craigslist wouldn't let him advertise for "chicks to do heroin with." Once the books in question received enough complaints, Amazon would de-rank them. His tactics sound plausible, but his anonymous claim could well be a hoax (and at least one livejournal user says it is). And of course, Amazon would still have to cooperate by stripping sales rankings from "inappropriate" books, so even a brutal-honesty hack wouldn't leave them blameless.

So is Amazon really fixing the problem? Sort of. Take that notorious "adult" title Heather Has Two Mommies. Last night, when I typed the search term "two mommies" (at 11:14 PM Central Time, according to my chat history), I got (and here I quote myself) "random stuff, including a different book about lesbian moms." Searching for "heather has two mommies" got me some out-of-print and/or unavailable versions of the book — it looked like Amazon just didn't carry it. This morning, Heather is back, along with its sales rank. Still unranked, as of 10:10 AM Central Time, are Ellen Degeneres: A Biography, James Baldwin's Giovanni's Room, Full Frontal Feminism, and Helen Gurley Brown's Sex and the Single Girl.

Many of these books, it's worth noting, still don't show up in a front-page search (a front-page search for Ellen's book at 10:16 AM, for instance, yielded this as its first hit, as opposed to the standard edition of the book) — for the less-committed Amazon customer, it's like they don't exist. Whether or not Amazon intended to keep us from buying evil gay propaganda, the debacle does reveal something disturbing about our reliance on online bookstores. At least in books-and-mortar stores you have to actually burn the books to keep them away from people — on Amazon, you can just make them invisible.

On the flipside, though, the interwebs give defenders of literature and gay rights new tools, like, say, Amazon user tags. Firedoglake's La Figa reports that Amazon visitors are fighting back, adding user-generated tags like "bdsm" and "big homo propaganda" to "non-adult" books like A Parent's Guide to Preventing Homosexuality. And when I visited the page for Ellen Degeneres: A Biography at 10:26 AM, it had just one user-generated tag: "amazonfail."


Amazon Says Glitch to Blame for "New" Adult Policy
[Publisher's Weekly]
Amazon Follies [Mark R. Probst]
Why did gay books disappear from Amazon? [Broadsheet]
On Amazon Failure, Meta-Trolls, and Bantown [tehdely]
This Is Not A Glitch, #amazonfail [Lilith Saintcrow]
Amazon Using Category MetaData to Filter Rankings [Dear Author]
Cheney and Lesbians!?: Tag Teaming Amazon in Response to Sales Ranking Censorship [La Figa]

Earlier: Why Is Amazon Removing The Sales Rankings From Gay, Lesbian Books?
Amazon Stripped Sales Rank Listings Updated
Amazon Fail: The Pictures Say It All

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<![CDATA[Pssst: The Girl's Guide To Lesbian Cliches & Stereotypes]]> With all the predictable stereotypes foisted on unsuspecting readers of stories about Lindsay Lohan and Samantha Ronson split, we asked you what the go-to lesbian stereotypes are these days, and, boy, did you guys deliver.

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"

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<![CDATA[Lesbian Couple "Makes History" Again By Breaking Up]]> Hillary and Julie Goodridge, a lesbian couple who became gay icons in their fight for same-sex marriage, are divorcing.

Julie and Hillary first made headlines when they became one of the seven same-sex couples who filed a lawsuit, Goodridge v. the Massachusetts Dept. of Health, that ultimately led to Massachusetts' 2004 legalization of gay marriage. The two women became the public face of the landmark case and were one of the first to marry on the day same-sex marriages became legal.

The couple announced they were separating in 2006. The divorce case, filed last week in Suffolk Probate and Family Court, is characterized as "not unexpected." While they'll be one of the first same-sex marriages to take the divorce route, why all the press? Couples divorce all the time. After all, these women wanted to marry because they were like any other couple; they are divorcing for the same reason. Because a right has been hard-won does not confer a Responsibility to be Role Models forever. On the contrary, it should ultimately bring some sense of normalcy. And in a sense, perhaps in taking this most ordinary of sad steps, they're doing as much for their cause as ever. We wish both women and their daughter the best of good things.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29000211/">Couple Who Led Gay Marriage Fight To Divorce [MSNBC]
Mass. Couple Who Led Gay Marriage Fight To Divorce [AP]

Related: Weddings/Celebrations; Hillary Goodridge, Julie Goodridge [New York Times]

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<![CDATA[Alleged Gang Rapists Arrested]]> Four men were arrested this week on suspicion of gang-raping a gay woman in the San Francisco area last month. The group consisted of two men and two male teens, including Josue Gonzalez, pictured. [AP]

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<![CDATA[Divorced Mother Not Allowed To Have Lesbian Partner And Children Sleep Over At The Same Time]]> A divorced mother in Tennessee has been told by a family court that her lesbian partner is not allowed to sleep over on the same nights that her children come to stay at her house.

Angel Chandler's partner, who has been with Ms. Chandler for nearly 10 years, was given a "paramour" restriction by the family court, despite the fact that a court-ordered psychiatric evaluation deemed Ms. Chandler's partner to be "a positive influence on her children." According to Jeanne Sager of Strollerderby, "The ACLU has stepped into the fray, filing a brief this week that urges the court to remove the paramour restriction, calling it unconstitutional for interfering with Chandler's abilities to raise her children as she sees fit."

For now, Chandler and her partner are getting around the ruling by living side-by-side in a duplex, though the sad fact remains that the State of Tennessee seems to be making a point here as to what they consider to be "family"— Chandler's ex-husband, Joseph Barker, remarried 5 years ago; there are no restrictions on him or his new wife.

Court Bans Divorced Mom's Partner From Sleeping Over[Strollerderby]

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<![CDATA[Gay Harmony]]> eHarmony will begin providing same-sex matches for gays and lesbians. The site had been heavily criticized for not catering to people seeking same-sex relationships and the decision to change policy came after a New Jersey man filed a complaint in 2005. Under the terms of the settlement, eHarmony can create a new or differently named web site for same-sex singles. Good news for the gays, but probably bad news for Chemistry.com, which ran a whole ad campaign by appealing to prude-y eHarmony's rejects. [LA Times, Never Blog]

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<![CDATA[ Priyanka Chopra, a former Miss World and...]]> Priyanka Chopra, a former Miss World and a popular Bollywood actress, recently starred in Dostana, a Bollywood film about a gay relationship. When asked by a drooling reporter if she would ever consider taking on a lesbian role, the actress replied, "Why not? I would toy with the idea of playing a lesbian character if the role was well written and the script was rock solid. I'm all for equality and gay rights anyway." [Times Of India]

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<![CDATA[ABC & Grey's Anatomy Shut Down Lezebel Storyline]]> Even though I don't watch Grey's Anatomy, I'm intrigued by the story behind the recent firing of Brooke Smith, who played Dr. Hahn, the love interest of Dr. Callie Torres. Monday, Entertainment Weekly's Michael Ausiello reported that Smith didn't get the boot because creator/writer Shonda Rimes wanted her to leave, but because the network, ABC, wanted her gone. In an interview, Smith told Ausiello: "I really hoped we were going to show what happens when two women fall in love and that they were going to treat it like any heterosexual couple on TV. And so I was surprised and disappointed when they just suddenly told me that they couldn't write for my character anymore." Shonda Rhimes has offered this statement:

"Brooke Smith was obviously not fired for playing a lesbian. Clearly it's not an issue as we have a lesbian character on the show – Calliope Torres. Sara Ramirez is an incredible comedic and dramatic actress and we wanted to be able to play up her magic. Unfortunately, we did not find that the magic and chemistry with Brooke's character would sustain in the long run. The impact of the Callie/Erica relationship will be felt and played out in a story for Callie. I believe it belittles the relationship to simply replace Erica with 'another lesbian.' If you'll remember, Cristina mourned the loss of Burke for a full season."

TV critics are being extremely vocal about this issue. EW's Michael Slezak writes, "Brooke Smith's Grey's Anatomy ouster is not right and not okay… Was it the lesbianism they objected to, or the fact that Dr. Hahn didn't bake muffins or decorate lockers or act generally flighty-flaky-cutesy or hook up with hot male colleagues to help her sort out her sexual orientation? Yeah, you could say I'm outraged." Melissa Silverstein from the Women & Hollywood blog says, "I loved the storyline for so many reasons, especially because neither Smith nor Ramirez were stick thin." And Mary McNamara of the LA Times offers this theory:

"I suspect what irked whoever made the call… [was] not that they were both women — good heavens, how dull — but that they were, how shall we say, average size. With hips, you know, and actual breasts. Not two girly waifs exchanging a stolen kiss or a grope in the women's room stall over a line of coke, not an androgynous club kid putting her best moves on some sitcom heroine. But two women of substance, physically and psychologically, falling in love and talking about it way too much, the way women tend to do."

Women & Hollywood's Silverstein also points out that the timing is suspect: "Remember the term from West Wing 'taking out the trash?' That's when they dump news on a day when nobody will notice. Me thinks ABC did some trash dumping last night." And it is interesting that today is the day California voters vote on Proposition 8, which seeks to outlaw gay marriage in the state. It's tough when you don't know what the network execs — or even Shonda Rhimes — are really thinking, but doesn't it seem like Grey's Anatomy missed out on an opportunity to make some truly groundbreaking television?

Exclusive: 'Grey's Anatomy' Discharges Dr. Hahn, Brooke Smith's 'Grey's Anatomy' Ouster Is Not Right And Not Okay [EW]
Critic's Notebook: Brooke Smith's Firing Is Bad For 'Grey's Anatomy,' And The World [LA Times]
ABC Freaks Out About Gay Grey's Storyline [Women & Hollywood]
'Grey's Anatomy' Has Change Of Heart About Dr. Hahn [USA Today]

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<![CDATA[ A group of first-graders in San Francisco...]]> A group of first-graders in San Francisco have been drawn into the battle over same-sex marriage after taking a field trip to see their teacher's wedding. 18 students from the Creative Arts Charter School went to City Hall to toss rose petals and blow bubbles on their teacher, Erin Carder, and her wife Kerri McCoy, and now the trip is being used by the Yes on 8 campaign to support its claim that unless unless Prop. 8 passes, children will be forced to learn about same-sex marriage. "This is overt indoctrination of children who are too young to have an understanding of its purpose," says Chip White of the Yes on 8 effort. The school's interim director Liz Jaroflow says the trip was "a teachable moment" and points out that same-sex marriage is currently legal: "As far as I'm concerned, it's not controversial for me. It's certainly an issue I would be willing to put my job on the line for." [SF Chronicle]

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<![CDATA["Nothing Was Ever Accomplished By Hiding In A Dark Corner": Remembering Del Martin]]> If ever there was an icon for the union of the personal and the political, it was lesbian activist Del Martin, who died yesterday at 87. Martin and her partner Phyllis Lyon cofounded the Daughters of Bilitis, the first lesbian rights organization in the US, and they also married each other twice, once during San Francisco's "Winter of Love" in 2004, and again on June 16 of this year in the first legal gay marriage in California. Of California's legalization of gay marriage, executive director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights Kate Kendall said, "It would not be happening if it were not for Del and Phyllis." Which turns out to be true of many advances in LGBT rights dating all the way back to the 1950s, and of a fifty-five-year partnership now receiving much-deserved public honor.

It's kind of hard to find an LGBT cause — or women's cause, for that matter — in which Del Martin wasn't a pioneer. In addition to the Daughters of Bilitis, which hosted public forums, provided support to individual women, and published a magazine called The Ladder, Martin also helped found the Lesbian Mother's Union and America's first gay political club, the Alice B. Toklas Democratic Club. She campaigned to get the American Psychological Association to remove homsexuality from its list of mental illnesses, and she co-founded several advocacy groups for battered women. She also wrote the 1976 book Battered Wives, which the Midwest Book Review calls "the first (and still the best) general introduction to the problem of abuse." In its first chapter, Martin wrote,

The isolation of the battered wife is the result of our society's almost tangible contempt for female victims of violence. Until very recently, rape victims were believed to be guilty of precipitating the crime against them until proven innocent in a court of law. The rapist had been tantalized, led on, teased, played with until — who could blame him, the argument went — he lost control and forcibly took his temptress. Thanks to efforts growing out of the women's movement, these attitudes are being slowly chipped away. Hopefully, all rapists will soon be looked upon as sex offenders rather than victims of seductive women.

Martin's words still ring disturbingly true today, and rapists are still sometimes viewed as "victims of seductive women" — a powerful argument for the need to respect and remember Martin's legacy.

She also wrote that "nothing was ever accomplished by hiding in a dark corner," and asked, "why not discard the hermitage for the heritage that awaits any red-blooded American woman who dares to claim it?" This heritage continues in the hundreds of lesbian couples who married after Martin, and in Phyllis Lyon, who says of her partner's death, "I am devastated, but I take some solace in knowing we were able to enjoy the ultimate rite of love and commitment before she passed." The two had been together since 1953. In a 2003 interview, Lyon said, "If we had a secret, we would have written a book and made a million dollars. We love each other, we have similar interests. Our lives were very similar even before we met." Finishing her partner's sentence as was reportedly her wont, Martin added "And we're both losing our memories at the same time." Martin was a groundbreaking advocate for lesbians, for abuse victims, and for women as a whole — here's hoping we never lose our memories of her.

Del Martin, 87; Longtime Leader In Gay Rights Movement [LA Times]
Del Martin, Lesbian Activist, Dies at 87 [NY Times]
Lesbian Pioneer Dies Months After California Wedding [Reuters]

Related: Lesbian Pioneers Wed At San Francisco City Hall [CNN]
Del Martin And Phyllis Lyon: Partners in Love and Activism [Noe Valley Voice]
Battered Wives [Google]

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<![CDATA[Woman Denied Entry For 'Lesbian' T-Shirt • High School Bans Cheerleader Uniforms On Campus]]> A woman in California who was wearing a t-shirt with the words "lesbian.com" was told that she could not enter a government building by a (privately hired) security guard who said the shirt was "offensive." • A Seattle-area grandmother found herself trouble when she registered her pup to vote to demonstrate how easy it is to commit voter fraud. The charges against her were dropped on Monday. • The first woman in Kentucky's history has been accused of bigamy.

• A cat has survived being walled in under a bathtub for 7 weeks in Berlin after the feline crept under a bathtub that was being installed. • More stories of survival: A tortoise narrowly escaped being buried under 50 tons of trash at a landfill after his owners accidentallly threw him in the garbage. • Lunatica Desuna has complied a gallery of the different depictions of the Mona Lisa by famous artists like Andy Warhol, Keith Herring, and Marcel Duchamp. • Jeremy Paxman, a TV-presenter on the BBC network, whines that "the worst thing you can be [in the television industry] is a middle-class white male". • A 21-year-old mother undergoing treatment for cervical cancer has been denied Ondansetron, an anti-sickness drug, because it is supposedly too expensive. • Women at the National Theater in London are getting a chance to shine behind the scenes as art directors, designers, and playwrights by giving over the largest stage to a living female playwright's play, a first for the theater • Child rape is rising in Afghanistan's northern provinces (as the government's control begins to be lost to insurgents). • A 47-year-old man in Scarborough, Ontario has claimed to have seen a vision of the Virgin Mary in his neighbor's tree. • More than 1/3rd of women between the ages of 18-44 have admitted to sharing prescription drugs in a recent study. • Wooser, Tibet's most famous female writer and blogger, has been arrested by police after being accused of photographing military installations. • Cheerleaders in Monroe, Ohio have been banned from wearing their cheerleading uniforms to school because the short skirts violate a new district-wide dress code on skirt length. •

[Image via Cafe Press]

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<![CDATA[2nd-Grader Suspended For Anti-'N' Word T-Shirt • Lesbian Barred From Seeing Dying Partner]]> A second-grader in NY was suspended after she wore a shirt with the slogan: "N the 'N' Word" and "It's time!" because the principal felt the shirt was "overly inflammatory." • Apparently there is a disease out there called "uncombable hair syndrome" which is basically the human version of Barbie hair. • Loss of chub in cheeks makes people look older. Look for cheek injections in the December issue of Elle this year! • A lesbian woman has sued a Miami hospital after they refused to let her see her dying partner and a worker told her that she was in an "anti-gay city and state." • Liz Tuccillo, a writer from Sex and the City and co-author of He's Just Not That Into You is still single, thinks finding a boyfriend is miraculous, and refuses to date online. • Candace Parker of the LA Sparks is the second woman to dunk in a WNBA game, which is apparently a pretty big deal. (More Leftovers after the jump)

• An unsanctioned Gay Pride Parade (the first in Cuba) that was organized by Florida's Unity Coalition was cancelled when two of the leaders were arrested, only one other person was set to march for the event. • JK Rowling's complaint that her privacy was violated when her home was pictured in newspapers has been rejected by the PCC. • Spain's parliament has given Great Apes (or chimps, gorillas, orangutans, and bonobos) the "human rights" of freedom and a right to life. • Bond girl names "Moneypenny" and "Honeychild" were actually inspired by British farm names. • 36 Swedish couples have registered to get married in "drive-thru" weddings at a gathering of auto enthusiasts, the gathering will have a '50s and '60s Las Vegas-type theme. • Specially trained dogs in Sweden and Hungary can detect ovarian cancer just by a scent. • The Doody family in England have been crowned The Faggot Family for their love of faggots, a British dish. • A national survey in England has found that 1 in 5 homosexuals have been victims of some sort of homophobic aggression over the past 3 years. • Ten ways to have Green sex: use solar-powered sex toys! Wear heat-sensitive panties! • Some British lawyers say that text messaging is the number one sign of infidelity in many divorces they handle. • More U.S. states are considering a law that requires doctors to perform ultrasounds on women who wish to have abortions. • YouTube tells us that there is a new trend of "boob punching" out there. Uh, ow. • Men's groups (yes, that's right) in India are pulling together to get rid of "pro-women" laws that protect women from domestic violence because it is against the belief that a person is "innocent until proven guilty" and only identifies the victims as female and the males as the abusers.

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<![CDATA[Dear Cindy McCain, We Love You Just The Way You Are Made Up]]> Dear Cindy, we are sorry. We did not mean to belittle your pain over being called a vagina sixteen years ago. We were just sort of distracted. Distracted by the fact that John used the word "trollop," which, in the context of a rebuttal to a subtle jab about how fucking old he was, was kind of unintentionally hilarious. And by your makeup, and additionally, your steely expressions and rigid hairdos, which sometimes appear as their own sort of counterparts to the torture your husband endured in Vietnam. After the jump, Megan and I are going to go back and explore that famous McCain marital spat of 1992 for the true meaning of calling someone the c-word, but only after we explore the famous Andrew Sullivan-Chris Hitchens L-word spat, and briefly discuss how seven-year-olds are behind the latest Obama endorsements, John Cleese could be behind the next epic Obama race speech, the Washington Post is officially the best paper in America; too bad journalism is dead. Enjoy!

MEGAN: I'm pretty sure it's just going to rain the entire month of April.
moe: I'm pretty sure I don't want to have anything to do with this job today.
moe: It's not raining here though.
MEGAN: Well, whatever we get you get, I think, so just give it a few hours. If it doesn't work, I'll drive up there and then it will definitely rain.
moe: Anyway I think we have to talk about John McCain calling his wife a cunt.
moe: Yeah, AGAIN.
MEGAN: Yeah, kinda.
moe: I would rather talk about Chris Hitchens calling Andrew Sullivan a lesbian.
MEGAN: Well, we should parse that for the second.
moe: Okay, commenters: by the news roundup post I am REALLY incapable of anything but reflexive absurdist counterintuitiveness.
MEGAN: Does a man no one in their right mind would want to fuck calling a gay man a lesbian make that an insult? Because, frankly, given the choice of the two of them and my carpet getting munched, it's Sully FTW.
MEGAN: And I've met both of them.
moe: And everyone knows John McCain is a dick, and everyone knows he has a huge temper, and his utterance, while one that I'm sure stung at the time and surprised onlookers, was very much in keeping with that reputation. And being sixteen years ago, and existing as it did as one of millions of moments that make up a marriage, I ...just...did not think it was that big a deal. I mean, it shows his vicious, nasty side, yeah. Am I further offended because the word he used was "cunt"? Not really. He has anger issues. He's insecure. I've seen worse and been called worse. It's fucked up, but seriously, when you talk as much as John McCain, you run out of four letter words. I dunno, I was just utterly ...whatever.
moe: I am insensitive, what can I say.
MEGAN: No, I mean, I guess I agree with part of that. Plus, when combined with trollop? The man was in the Navy, swears like a sailor and OBVIOUSLY he can't deal with losing his hair because he's rocking the combover to this day.
moe: The coldness and the naked insecurity of it was kind of interesting. But the word "cunt"?
moe: Right, also, "trollop"
moe: By "trollop" you're just laughing.
moe: "Cunt" seemed like an afterthought.
MEGAN: That said, if anyone I was dating did that, he wouldn't just have trouble raising his arms above half mast.
MEGAN: Trollop would be fine, though. Cunt would make me seethe.
MEGAN: But I'm sensitive. A guy I was dating in the fall "jokingly" called me a whore in a text message and I went into full-on blind rage.
moe: It's like, "oh crap, my antiquated put-down makes me look older than my thinning hair...fuck you, you...CUNT"
MEGAN: In fact, I wrote a post about it
MEGAN: And cunt won.
MEGAN: As the word a dude should never call you.
MEGAN: But, also, I'm sensitive about my makeup application skills, I think I've mentioned. So between the cunt and the makeup insult, I would probably have cried.
moe: Yeah well...I don't generally date verbal abusers. Though I actually don't think anyone at this point could call me a whore in any way that wasn't ironic. Also, I don't think anyone I have dated has ever been that mad at me, except when we haven't really been dating, which is kind of sad in its own way.
MEGAN: The emotion I most often feel at the end or after a relationship is annoyance. Like, I just get annoyed instead of mad, and that doesn't tend to provoke anger.
moe: Yeah, I dunno. I feel bad, now, calling attention to her misuse of foundation. I do not feel bad, however, using the word "tranny." I dunno. God I have cramps. Okay: so the real crime of that exchange is that if there is truth to the perception that Cindy is some sort of trophy Stepford wife, and John McCain, war hero etc. etc. was just sick of his Stepford wife ragging on him for being an old geezer, and also sick of any number of other things that happened that day, which is, I guess, probably the truth, then yeah, it's a statement that would sting. But...

MEGAN: She did have a lot of foundation on, and for no reason that I could tell. She seems to have otherwise-lovely skin.
moe: Sixteen years later they're still together and she's gone through a lot and she's proud of her country and she wears too much makeup. It's terrible that society does to our women, sure. But sometimes we do it ourselves! Or have a professional do it. I professional applied my makeup the last time I was in a wedding. It was cringe-inducing, so I had to wipe it off and start over.
moe: I hated that woman.
MEGAN: That happened to one of my friends! It was like 1/4 of an inch thick! Her mother talked her into it. I don't like her mother.
moe: Here's the story of how in Israel "makeup artist" is just another code for "mossad"

MEGAN: She was just taking out her own insecurities on you.
MEGAN: Wait, just like John McCain.
MEGAN: I love when I can work something like that back in.
moe: You're good with the segues. I'm trying to figure out a way to work in all those weird online psychological tests Nick Kristof has been pushing.
MEGAN: Oh, yeah, those have been around for ages. We're all racist.
MEGAN: Basically.
MEGAN: We all clutch our purses like Barry's grandma.
moe: I actually couldn't even figure out how to work the first one. And then the second one said I implicitly showed a predisposition for Obama followed by Hillary followed by McCain.
moe: It took me 20 minutes of clicking and feeling like a retard to figure this out.
moe: Sometimes when you know something implicitly
moe: You should just leave it at that.
MEGAN: So, we implicitly like attractive people, have issues with our moms but still love them and mistrust scary old people? Sounds about right.

MEGAN: I'm sure you saw this, but it's now official that young people want old people to vote for Obama because the New York Times wrote about the trend.
moe: Oh, no see, but they advanced the trend: now it's grandchildren influencing these endorsements! Wisconsin governor Jim Doyle finally capitulated to a seven-year-old.

The two adult sons of Governor Doyle, 62, both black and both adopted, spoke to him with fervor about Mr. Obama's vision of a multiracial country. Then Mr. Doyle's young grandson piled on.

"He's a complete Barackomaniac," Mr. Doyle said in a phone interview. "When I asked him why, he said, 'I think he's really going to work hard for us.' I thought, that's it through the eyes of a 7-year-old. 'He'll work hard,' and 'for us.' "


MEGAN: I don't really discuss politics with my grandparents.
moe: But this is the bottom line, from the mom of an Obama volunteer:
"I'm glad they're interested in something other than their own self-interest and partying."
Um... I have you not heard of the springternship program?
MEGAN: I mean, if you raised your freaking kids right, shouldn't that be a gimme?
MEGAN: That they would be interested in something other than themselves and immediate gratification?
moe: Are you serious? How are parents supposed to compete with all the deleterious forces governing society these days? They have mortgages to pay.

MEGAN: Well, you know, when they can pay them these days.
moe: Hey speaking of, Tina Brown thinks the election is like a reality show and that Clinton will end up the survivor. Wait, and speaking of Brits, most of them seem to like Obama. John Cleese wants to get a job writing his speeches! And also speaking of Brits, we still haven't talked about Sullivan/Hitchens.
MEGAN: I'm still confused about the icky straight man calling the HIV-infected former barebacking through personal ads gay man a "lesbian."
9:35 AM
moe: Here's the clip.
MEGAN: Wait, what the hell?

MEGAN: I thought the whole POINT of being a lesbian-in-a-bad-way was that you were meaner and more forward than us girlie-girl straight girls.
MEGAN: But it just means you are forgetful?
MEGAN: Or a whiner?
MEGAN: Christopher Hitchens: Still drinking.
moe: Maybe we should petition him to make "bonerkiller" his new miscellaneous put-down. And I know this is only tangentially related to anything, but this piece on how Jeremiah Wright and Barack Obama's cousin Dick Cheney were born the same year was pretty cool, and I meant to link to it, and then I didn't because...Moe Tkacik: Still drinking.
MEGAN: I have to say, I still love articles that point out that Bush and Cheney never served in Vietnam
MEGAN: Also, good for Jeremiah Wright.

moe: Oh god, now weigh in on two things while I go find a more flattering mea culpa picture of Cindy McCain. The Washington Post is officially the best paper in America, and yes, journalism is dead.
MEGAN: I love how CBS is going to cut actual news operations in order to keep paying Katie Couric who nobody likes anyway to anchor a newscast filled with content provided by others.
9:50 AM
MEGAN: Also, the Weingarten story that won? Amazing. There's a little Asian man who plays a Chinese violin in the subway who no one notices but his music is beautiful and haunting and I always give him money and everyone else walks by. Chinese violins are, like, impossible to keep tuned and notoriously difficult to master, and it would make my morning to hear him even when I hated my job.
moe: One thing that's great about the Post is that, you know, they all know how to report stuff there, so if enough people land on good shit one year...a bunch of people you've never heard of can all win Pulitzers! And I say you've never heard of them only in the sense that they've never been personalities, like, on Gawker. And they don't write for the "Most Emailed List" because...the Most Emailed List isn't on the homepage! Sigh...if only "quality journalism" could make any $$$
moe: And yeah, I liked that story a lot. I like most things he does, though.
MEGAN: Oh, and if you haven't read the violinist story Gene won for, it's here.
MEGAN: Yeah, his features are always really good. He gets through the editing process with his voice intact.
moe: Well he is the editor. He used to be Dave Barry's editor at the Miami Herald. I don't think I know that from reading Dave Barry but. Here's something stupid Gene did that I linked to yesterday that no one commented on but you should check it out sometime bc it's funny.
MEGAN: No, if you haunt his chats, he's actually edited! He refers to his editor as Tom the Butcher.
MEGAN: I remember reading that!
moe: Man, I wish Tom would butcher me a little bit.

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<![CDATA[Did Ellen Page Officially Come Out As A Lezebel On SNL?]]> There's been some back-fence internet talk lately of like, "Ooh, I think Ellen Page is gay." 1.) As though that's like a scandal or a big deal or something; and 2.) Duh! Page sorta made fun of the whole thing last night in a skit on SNL where she plays a "straight" girl who went to a Melissa Etheridge concert and loved the whole experience. The bit doesn't end with a sarcastic joke, but with a hug and acceptance from Andy Samberg (who plays her boyfriend), and then flashes to the SNL bumper shot of Page in a leather jacket.

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<![CDATA[Kiss me baby, six more times.]]>

Never one to do things by halves, Britney is not just a lesbian, she is an uber-lesbian to the power of six. According to that beacon of truth, In Touch Magazine.

In Touch has spoken to real life 'insiders' - you know, the kind of people who once knew someone who caught a ride once with a guy who dated someone who met Britney for five minutes ten years ago - who reveal the shocking truth!

"Sometimes it was three girls, and sometimes there were more like six.

"I heard about her being with girls at least 20 times while they were married."

Another source [that would be the grandmother of the girl who used to work with a woman whose third cousin twice-removed was a make-up artist on a video shoot four years ago] claimed:

"Discreetly, she would ask Kevin to come and join them but he would always deny her. He was just into having sex with her."

Yah. Uh-huh. Because we really really really believe that Kevin Federline is a bastion of upstanding right-thinkingness who would like, totally turn down a seven-lesbian orgy. Oh yes.

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