Before I start, I want to tell an unrelated anecdote, which dates from the early 60s. Apparently my grandmother Sadie 1.0 went, with her sister, to visit a third sister in Yonkers. But as they approached the house, in heels and sun-dresses, their nephew Johnny, then 13, appeared on the porch. "Whores! Whores! Get out of here, whores!" he screamed. So, they ran away. There has never been any explanation of this bit of family lore, save that Johnny was "an angry boy" who later went on to a successful career in sales, so.

In case you hadn't guessed, Whore! the magazine is all about reclamation.

Whore! magazine is dedicated to celebrating the current and historical qualities of women who have defined a role for themselves outside the status quo. Through written word, art, design, fashion, and music, Whore! magazine will create a dialogue about what women are as opposed to what traditional society has dictated they should be. Whore! will also explore issues largely untouched by mass media, while reclaiming a derogatory word that has long been used to censure those who would desire, express, resist, or simply take a different path. We intend to recognize those women, both modern and historical, who strive for experience rather than conventional "goodness," and continue to fight an age-old battle against expectation.

And from the Editor's letter:

Desire has driven civilization. Historically, many women have earned the title of whore for daring to engage in such masculine pursuits as getting an education, providing medical care to the underprivileged, leading an army, or just going out in public in a very dashing tuxedo. "Fags," "dykes," and "queers" have also been a part of this history, dancing with the whores and just as often condemned. While their battles still rage, in many places they've succeeded in claiming their identity and owning the words that were once used to demean them.

Issue 1 includes "Gay porn and the women who dig it," "A history of vibrators," "A step-by-step guide to automotive empowerment," "the trials of hipster stripping" and a smattering of historical whores (!) There's also fashion and beauty ("Trashy Clothes for Classy Ho's.") The aesthetic is sharp and sophisticated. From the magazine's blog, it looks like there are some good, smart writers and thinkers on board. The emphasis on outreach and women's issues is terrific. But it seems Whore! is still figuring out just what it'll be - more Bitch (which, by this standard, sounds practically quaint!) earnest Ms., irreverent Bust or flippant Jane. (And it must be said, in my reader's opinion there are one or two ill-judged Anais Nin moments which I trust will come out in the wash.) Then there's the Whore! gear - in which you can aid in the term's reclamation by sporting the epithet over your vadge, pregnant belly, or French Roast as the case may be.

Is there room out there for a smart, politically engaged women's mag? You betcha, as someone who's one of those two things might say. Historically, it's been hard for woman-centric publications to balance the cerebral and the aesthetic, and we say good luck to anyone who tries - especially in this economy. My primary concern is that, reclamation or no, I'll never be able to see the cover without thinking Regina George - which is the one sort of empowerment not in short supply. Nevertheless, we await Issue 1 with interest.

Whore!

[Sydney, June 2. Image via Getty]

Sydney sex workers 'Ivy' (C) and 'Mish' (R) celebrate International Whores Day in Sydney on June 2, 2009. Sex workers angry at the cost of advertising in local papers staged a protest outside the New South Wales parliament. International Whores day, held on the second of June, commemorates the day in 1975 when a group of sex workers staged a sit-in at a church in Lyon, France to protest discrimination against sex workers AFP PHOTO / Greg WOOD (Photo credit should read GREG WOOD/AFP/Getty Images)

Thus spake Heather:

America loves a whore. We're a nation of whores, after all  just try holding down a job in this great land of ours without compromising your values and shortchanging your best ideas. We grow up hearing "Be yourself!" and "Follow your dreams!" but the marketplace tramples all over such fanciful rainbows-and-unicorns notions of identity and self-respect with its big, dirty, hobnailed boots. Thus are plucky, original human beings transformed into polite, agreeable team players, anxious to waste a lifetime kowtowing to the lowest common denominator.

Once you sell a big part of your soul for a hot slice of the American dream (something about grassy lawns, enormous mortgages and life insurance policies you can't afford), you've set the stage for a lifetime of doing stupid, demeaning shit just to make your nut. When you recognize that your "success" in life has cemented you on a path of unending compromise, getting paid to get screwed up the ass by a stranger really doesn't seem like that much of a stretch.

Goddammit, I swear, I've never met the woman. But, I did head off to college in an overstuff minivan of stuff, eager to study German and English lit, which eventually turned into a German lit major, a Sociology major and a History minor and no clue what to do with my life to make actual money but, see, I liked what I was learning. And then suddenly it was senior year and my work-study job as an assistance systems administrator wasn't going to pay the bills or fulfill me intellectually or make me too much money in the real world, so I decided to go to grad school! For, um, international policy! I was going to do something in National Security!

Only, really, it was totally as vague as all that, and I turned down a good program at the University of Chicago because the weather was sunny in D.C.on the day I visited and I thought I'd get distracted on my path to a Very Serious Job by their sparkly intellectual classes in social policy and without realizing it, I'd already sold out. I went to Georgetown, instead, lured by reputation and trapped by the fact that no grad school will let you transfer your credits. I traded in a Foreign Policy concentration for a self-designed one in International Business and Public Policy after getting turned down for an increasingly large number of internships in national security and I always ended up taking ones for lobbying firms because they paid and I needed the money and I wasn't willing to sacrifice my creature comforts (fresh mozzarella and tomato salads) for Ramen noodles and I sold out that much more. I convinced myself that learning to be a people person was its own intellectual pursuit and honed my skills at parties and in meetings, learning to strike the right postures even if I always sucked at stroking the right egos. My twenties passed in a blur of unserious jobs and Serious Relationships and bills and bad roommate and eventually the mortgage and the 401Ks and assigning my sister as the beneficiary on my company life insurance policies because she needed the money as she pursued her actual dreams and I grew to hate my life. I was whoring my brain to the highest bidder  to pay for the things I thought I ought to have and ought to want and be the grown-up I'd always so desperately wanted to be  and my brain, well, she was getting loose and sloppy and uncaring.

So I quit. And now I sit at home in my pajamas and write crap on the Internet all day, so I guess I'm still whoring out my brain but at least I can do it in bare feet. Maybe I should get Showtime after all  maybe Diary could teach me to fake being happier about being a whore.

I Like To Watch [Salon]

P.S. No animals were drugged in the making of this video.

Earlier: Dr. Ruth Personally Advises Us On Period Sex

I'm pissed because people so frequently try to take women down a peg by attacking their sexuality, automatically throwing out names like "whore" and "slut." And that shit happens to me, even though I own my promiscuity. It's even more hurtful when it comes from other women.

Sexual double standards are still annoyingly prevalent, and tearing them down has been my personal crusade as a feminist. Accepting insults cast upon my sex life would be undoing everything I've set out to accomplish. I hate when people say that I fuck so much because I have a low self-esteem, or that I'm lonely, or that I just want attention. In fact, in my first ever post on my personal blog, I stated that the only void I'm trying to fill is the one between my legs. And I know that I'm not the only one. There are tons of other women out there just like me (you're probably reading this right now!), who engage in casual sex purely for the physical merits of it. And I think that we all find comfort or solidarity in sharing our stories with each other, because as women, that's how we do: Bitches love talking.

I feel defeated sometimes knowing that people aren't able to fathom that women don't need a reason to have sex other than just wanting to fuck. It's like, if we aren't in a relationship or prostituting, then there must something wrong with us. By saying that sex is only useful to single women as a commodity devalues our existence.

What's more is that I've never tried to be sexy in my writing. If anything, I like to explore the more unpleasant aspects of sex, because they're more interesting to me (like herpes or queefing). And you know, I don't have any delusions about being completely altruistic. I get plenty of benefits from writing about sex, like this job, for example.

I know I can tend to be all TMI, but I think that's because I place a lot of emphasis on I, and if people think that's TM, then TS. That's much more of a reflection on them than me. I've noticed that the shit I tend to write is like a literary Rorschach test.

And I'm probably preaching to the choir here, since this isn't a common problem I encounter on Jezebel (which actually proves my point that I'm not the only unabashed slut out there). But from here on out, I'm putting my foot down. I'm not taking any shit anymore, because like it or not, it's not gonna keep me from spreading my legs, my anecdotes, or my opinions. Real talk.

Earlier: Queefs: What's The Etiquette For Dealing With Air Up There?
Contrary To Popular Belief, Herpes Is So Whatevs
Last Night I Boned An AVN Award Nominee

It's from that Congressional hearing of all those fatcat CEOs who made huge $$$$ while the subprime mortgage market melted down leading thousands of Americans to lose their homes, the very sort of fatcat CEOs Spitzer has made a career skewering. One of them, Angelo Mozilo, the CEO of Countrywide Financial, who got some sort of nine trillion dollar severance package, was called down to answer questions about why he asked the company to pay taxes on his wife's travel on the corporate jet. "It was an emotional time for me," he said. Awwwwww, and he wanted his wife to follow him around on his jet? I thought executives used hot journalists for those purposes. Anyway, so maybe all men are bad in some way. But they don't all cheat on their wives necessarily!

Spitzer Linked To Prostitution Ring [CNN]

When I start to feel defensive, my attitude is sort of like, if people are calling me a whore, "Well, what's wrong with being a whore?" You know? I mean, I think girls who are sex workers  and men, all sex workers  they see another side of humanity and sexuality. People who've never worked in the sex industry  people who've never done it  don't know the half of it.

Hmmm. Well. I used to be a phone sex operator, and I wrote a lot at the time about how it helped me understand the world better; but like, aside from the fact that "circumcision fantasy" is actually, like, a thing, I think the main takeaway was more succinctly expressed by the song "Eleanor Rigby." But I used to think Heidi Fleiss was actually kind of deep from all her time spent sex working; but on the other hand dudes are always talking crap about how strippers always assume all men are like the ones who patron strip clubs. So I asked my friend Loren, who used to be a stripper:

it seems terribly naive to think that the men who use sex services are some entirely different animal from the ones who don't. i mean, where do you draw the line between buying a porno mag and buying a blow job? most guys engage in some kind of sex trade at some point in their life at the same time, i suppose it's baldly true that not all of them do. but the question is, could all of them be convinced to? probably.

D.C. Sex Diarist Bares All [Zen Monkeys]