And now it's time for a breakdown

Never gonna get it, never gonna get it, never gonna get it, never gonna get it ...

Ah. En Vogue. Anyway. No, this post isn't about En Vogue, or music or even my undying love to dance like Emmett Honeycutt from "Queer as Folk." No, this is a breakdown of some enlightening stories (and some not-so-enlightening) for the lovely readers of LWM.

Huckabee can stick it.

Not many queers rushing to the altar?

Cher, with help from daughter, will help you out of that closet.

Old, but good: Student told to cover up those crazy women symbols thingy.

No resolutions? Steal these. Or not.

Let me know if you have a good story to add...

Circle like a dog

The Need were something else. They were two queer kids (Radio Sloan and Rachel Carns) who made rad, sort of creepy queercore music with organ and some serious West Coast aesthetics. And now they're gone!

You can still listen though, if you'd like. How's about three tracks from their eponymous 1997 album? I know you wanna listen, if only to add another amazing two-person band to your growing list of amazing two-person bands. If you have such a list. And uh, if you're me, you have a really, really long list of two-person bands that you adore. Just sayin'.

More queer-ish porn!

Oh, gosh, I know, huh? I can feel our tens of visitors cringing when I make things less work-friendly by writing about this stuff, but what can you do? I like Teh Pornz.

I recently discovered Red Handed Porn by way of a friend. And: whew! Hot!

It's, um, non-partnered porn, for the most part, which means that there are a ton of videos of a lot of queer (and non-queer!) folks getting themselves off for the camera. If that's your bag, then have at it ... so to speak.

There are transfolks, queer femmes, queer bois, queer boys AND, as an added bonus of hotness, it's actually updated multiple times a week. Holla! Give 'em yer money!

Now I have to put all these records away ... and it's gonna take me forever

Carrie Brownstein posted her (facetious?) attempt at vlog a few weeks ago. It's the funniest attempt at a vlog ever; I'm still kind of giggling.

Which brings me to this: shouldn't Tres Bien and I have a vlog? Wait, no ... I'm the least photogenic person EVER. Scratch that.

Who doesn't love Crystal Waters?

So, on Tuesday, "100 % Pure Love" by Crystal Waters popped into my head while at work. I seeqpodded it and found a few versions, including a delicious remix. And listened to that song, the remix, "Destination Unknown," "Relax" and well, just about anything else that came up in the search by Waters.

The obsession swelled a bit (and by bit I mean a lot) and The Wifey started joking that I'm going to turn into a gay man because of all the dance/trance I've been listening to. And although she's not queer (damn) she supports the community if only by providing effin' awesome songs to sway those hips to. And, she's from around here!

'Lots of sex'

Lesbian Turkish oil wrestling.

Pot brownies.

More sex.

I can hardly wait to watch the L Word's Season Five. My god. I'm not a crazy obsessed I'm-going-to-pound-down-Ilene-Chaiken's-door type of a fan, but c'mon Ilene: Deliver the goods.

Airline closet

A few days ago, I saw a commercial for American Airlines. Only this commercial was a bit, well, gay. The Web site flashed (for like a milisecond) aa.com/rainbow and sure enough, I found the proposed GLBT-friendly site that promises "popular and welcoming" destinations, just for the queer set.

And apparently, AA isn't the only one touting the yellow brick road to Miami/Provincetown idea: Southwest has also put on the ruby red slippers and started down toward the Emerald City, as well as Delta and a few others. This has left Washington Post writer Emil Steiner a bit testy and while I appreciate Big Time Airlines paying researchers and marketing execs the big bucks to find out just where two dykes want to hang out for two weeks, it seems a bit presumptuous that the destinations are places where I already know (or could find out easily where) queer kids go/hang out/etc.

I only wish this didn't look like someone hanging the rainbow carrot in front of my face and asking for my money.

Yeah gender: The "you're the boy, so you pay" edition

First: I'm more than fine with Paying For Things (tm). If I had my way, I'd do it all of the time; however, I don't get my way all of the time. And thus: Indian food was on Punk Rock Femme yesterday.

Rather, dinner was supposed to be on PRF yesterday. I must've been working my dude game proper, because the waitstaff dropped the check on me. I mean, right on me. The waiter could not have been more obvious about giving it to me. She essentially tucked it under my left elbow, despite the fact that there was a wide gulf of open table sitting between me and PRF. The check could have gone, you know, right into that gulf, into the empty "who will pick up this check?" space.

But no. My wearing of the hat and having of the short hair and whatever else I was doing to indicate check-picking-up ability meant that I got it. And PRF and I looked at each other. We giggled. She took the check, dropped some insane amount of cash down and bounced for a few minutes.

Here is what transpired while she was gone:

Waitdude: Sir?
Me: Uh ...
Waitdude: Miss ...?
Me: Uh ...
Waitdude: Are ones okay for the change?
Me: I ... it's not my cash, so ...
Waitdude: [hands me the change] Many ones!
Me: [puts change on other side of table]
Waitchick: All set?
Me: I'm not getting it, I don't know.

Luckily, PRF came back in time to deal with it before I had to fight off the waitchick with a spoon.

So, just a note: in Northern Virginia, if you look like the dude, you get to pay. It's 1957 up in this state!

Hire me

I somehow stumbled upon Velvetpark -- Dyke Culture in Bloom. It's a publishing company in NYC that started in 2002 and their back story is pretty interesting. The site has stories, news updates, ongoings in NYC, and a ton of other tabs I'll leave up to you to find. While I didn't see any outright nudity (damn, damn, damn) there is some stuff that I'm pretty sure your boss wouldn't want to walk up behind you and see, so surf with care, Supa Queers! and Merry Xmas!

Legal beagle

So, I wasn't going to post about this because:

1. It's about older-than-me couples
2. I didn't really relate to any of them
3. I saw a mullet and got scared off

However, after explaining to The Wifey about it, and thinking about it more, I decided to go ahead a write about it. The ACLU put together videos about 10 couples who in some way or another have been affected by not being about to get married, and in turn, use the rights that married peeps get. Keep an open mind and marvel that Dick and Bob have been together for more than 50 years. It's crazy to think how difficult it would have been to come out back then -- no models, no out celebrities, no books, no liberalism. Crazy.

Down by law

The New Gay is currently rocking a rad post by Robert. Hardcore + queer folks = fantastic post.

In 1993, I first heard Fugazi via a dubbed copy of “Repeater” given to me by one of my closest friends. In 1993, I failed my driver’s license exam twice, and then shortly after drove to Pittsburgh to see my first hardcore punk show (Avail at Carnegie Mellon University). In 1993, I purchased my first pair of olive green old school style Vans. I owned those shoes for six years before they gave out while I was mowing the lawn. It was also in 1993 that I came to terms internally with my attraction to guys. These moments were interrelated, if not inseparable parts of my adolescence. While many of my gay contemporaries were embracing Madonna, George Michael, rave DJs, and other entertainment icons as cultural crutches for dealing with their sexuality, I never felt their music or lives resonated with how I felt about being gay, or even on a simpler level, being a teenager.

For the record, my version of the "olive green old school style Vans" was a pair of oxblood 8-eyelet Docs that I wore (sporadically) from 1994 until about 3 years ago, when I had to staple the sole to the upper. At that point, they went into the storage box o' memories. Those boots kicked a lot of ass, saw a lot of shows, and had completely smooth (and dangerous!) soles by the time they went into the box.

I miss 'em.

Dani loses, femmes start packing bags for Florida

I'm a little late to the game with this, but Dani finally struck out on ASALWTT. She wore some guyliner, sported a rad vest/tie combo and got all teary-eyed, but it was all for naught. Somewhere in Florida at this very moment, I'm sure a group of femme girls are plotting an arson with the hope that Dani will show up to put out the fire.

Here's a fun activity: check out this article about Dani from the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. It's pretty brief, but the use of words like "bisexual" and "firefighter" means that there's surefire wingnuttery in the comments section.

Check 'em out in all o' their mouth-breathing glory:

It truly is amazing how far this country has slid into a moral abiss when a lesbian firefighter tries to win the sexual affection of a bisexual nymphomanic purely on the hedonistic desire for self-pleasure. I know most of it is just acting for the sake of cheap entertainment, but I must wonder what these shows say about our society as a whole.

HE/SHE/IT IS UGLY!!!!!!PUT IT IN A "LOCK BOX"

This is disgusting, I am putting it right out in the open, Iff this quarky firefighter shows up on the scene where I am a victim, dont let it give me mouth to mouth.I would rather pass on.

She is not a women. She is androgynous. Check her DNA.

I would be embarassed to even call myself a member of this FireFighter Batallion due to Miss or Mister Cambell(whatever she is)........and I know this is having a negative effect! Just ask the 300 pound DFB fighter that was walking around Publix(hillsboro/powerline) on Monday getting heckled worse then the Miami Dolphins!!! I personally wanted to spit on this guy, for them allowing a disgrace like this to be a part of their Batallion!

FEAKS LIKE DANI BELONG IN THE CIRCUS, NOT OUT SAVING LIVES!!!!!

ps.....UMM DIDN'T TILA USED TO BE A MAN, CAUSE THAT JAWLINE AND ADAMS APPLE IS NOOOOOOOO WOMAN'S!!!!!!

I love the internet!

Your holiday plans should include dirty lesbo electro

DC9 is having a TAINT-tacular New Year's party with a performance by Lesbians on Ecstasy.

It's an early NYE bash (12-30), but seeing these weirdos play will make it all better:

My imagination is way too powerful

Punk Rock Femme and I had a conversation tonight about the Denise ("Zazu!") and Sully/Boston Teens sketches from SNL. Funny stuff, right? I mean, Rachel Dratch is so funny and was criminally underutilized on that show ...

But anyway, I had to refresh my memory, so I found one (One! These videos are rare like a unicorn, dudes!) sketch on MySpaceTV. About 30 seconds into the sketch, this thing started happening to me where I was kind of seeing Sully and Zazu as, uhm, a butch-femme couple. Right. Well, I gave you fair warning and told you that it was weird.

This is all part of an advanced technique that I'll call Imagination Christmas. It's what you have to do when you never see anyone who looks like you in films, on television or anywhere but your worn copy of Female Masculinity. It's also what happens when you almost never see couples who represent the relationships that you want in those same places.

I learned the art of Imagination Christmas from a girl I used to date. We went out to a bar with a femme friend of hers, and they spent the first 30 minutes we were there working their flirtation game on the (straight. male.) bartender. And then, miraculously, free drinks! For them. I still had to pay.

Conversation followed:

Me: Are you flirting with him? I mean, I'm standing right here ...
Her: Yeah, but I'm pretending that he's a hot butch.
Me: Ok, but I'm standing right here!
Her: Well, there aren't enough butches in this city, so we have to use our imaginations.

And thus, Imagination Christmas was born! Later, The Girl Who Invented Imagination Christmas used her superpower to play a wicked game of pretend while making out with straight guys. Then she used it to actually start sleeping with them. Right now, I would say that she's using it to go a happy place where she's the radical documentary filmmaker that she wanted to be instead of, you know, being married to a dude, having two kids and living in rural Texas.

Imagination Christmas is a powerful thing! Use it wisely, Padawan.

Buy some gay-ass clothing, save the world

In honor of the impending premiere of The L Word, I give you Rigged Outfitters ("As seen on The L Word").

Check 'em out for a few reasons:

1.) Because you live for The L Word and must have clothing similar to that which once graced the bodies of your favorite TLW kids.

2.) Hot butch models with bedroom eyes. Hot. I mean, I'm not responsible for anything you do or feel after you see them, that's how hot they are.

3.) Hot femme models. Thank you.

4.) Because a lot of the clothes are just plain rad. We should always be grateful for clothing that's produced by/for queers, especially when it's not covered in rainbow flags and pictures of kittens.

5.) I just bought The Italian Stallion a t-shirt from RO for her birthday, and it totally got her laid.

That last reason should be enough for y'all, no?

T is for

Tasty. Tease. Trendy. And, T-shirts. And this one is an interesting one. Read the back story and hit me back in comments. I want to hear what other peeps think of this. Full story here.

You make my Cadillac-lac bling in the back

Whether you like it or not, Yo Majesty will make you dance. There are snarky queer lyrics dropped in over old-school hip-hip/electro beats that haven't sounded this good since 1985 and that makes me say this: Mmm, homohop. If, by the second half of "Club Action", you're not dying to see YM live to the tune of 3 shots of Patron ... well, then I'm pretty sure you don't like hip-hop at all.

All I ask is that you shake yo' asses responsibly. And go to YM's MySpace to listen to "Lo Riders N Hydraulics" because I couldn't include it on the player.

Bonus videos!:

Minn for the Win(n)!

A smattering of Minneapolis and St. Paul churches are stopping to perform civil marriage ceremonies as long as gay marriage is illegal.

As someone who grew up living in Minnesota, (brrr, yes, it's cold, it does snow often and a lot, we do ice-fish on frozen lakes and snowmobile, yes, cold, brrr) I was happy to see churches pulling this sort of nifty thing. *Home state pride*

Worst Headline of The Day

From ABC News: "If There Was a Gay-Straight Switch, Would You Switch?" Everyone and I mean everyone has been writing about the bisexual fruit flies.

"When researchers strengthened neural synapses in the brain, the male flies were attracted, rather than repulsed, by the smell of other male flies.

"We put the males together, and they did to each other what they do when they're interested in a female: They approach her, sing her a song, lick her ... and mount her," researcher David Featherstone told ABCNEWS.com."

I'm: shocked that the headline is of a "would you switch" variety and also laughing that fruit flies sing. And scared that the crazed ex-gay groups are going to try to get their hands on the Magic Potion that "fixes tendencies." Gah.

The Queerest Gift Guide 2007 Part 2

I know I said I would be back with Part 2 the week after I posted Part 1, but a girl had to do some major shopping of her own. I apologize and bring you the bottom half. Heh.

For all you local yokels, you must, must, must visit Pulp in D.C. if you haven't already. It's one of my favorite queer-friendly/queer-lovin' shops eva eva and if you can't make it there, you can shop by e-mailing or calling the local numba, but I highly recommend shopping inline.

If you haven't heard of I Heart Brooklyn Girls calendars, or want something a bit more, um, black and white and older, you can see if the On The Lips calendar suits you.

Who hasn't seen "Desert Hearts"? The Wifey and I watched it about two months ago and I was actually surprised I like it. Now, does anyone know why the above mentioned version has just the two women when this version has the duder off to the side and the other chick to the right? Methinks it looks better with two ladies, but I *think* I may be biased.

And who doesn't want a hottie on a pocket case? I like 'em all.

Justice League

Feministing has an awesome post written by Sara Kelley, who's an intern at NOW-NYC and also working on completing her bachelor's degree in sociology and peace and justice studies. I don't know what exactly justice studies are, but it sounds heroic. (Perhaps tentimesfast will educate me on what those entail, she did take all the cool 'mo courses in college. HOLLA!)

Anyway. She writes a fierce essay on how important it is to be socially aware and know what's going on around the world, or at least in your own state, in regards to LGBTQQ issues and tells her coming out story (albeit it scary and anger-inducing) to boot.

A gem from her:

"Too often, ignorance leads to intolerance, and offensive attitudes can be shrugged off by those who claim, “they didn’t know.” My school knows that gay marriage is still illegal. I want my school and other institutions like it to know what heterosexist means, to recognize the effects of the community’s attitudes towards LGBTQQ students like me, and to be aware of the various issues we face. We’ve got to move past ignorance into knowledge, and hopefully, then, we can arrive at tolerance."

As if we needed another reason to hate Don Imus

The Boston Herald brings us another Don Imus "I stick my foot in my effing mouth. Again" story. He starts to get the tip of his gnarly toes in by asking why WTKK afternoon drive guy Jay Severin why he doesn't like Huckabee:

"Why don’t you like Huckabee, because you’re gay or what?” Imus inquired.

Seriously, why is this guy still allowed to be on-air?

If I wanted hair metal, I'd do what now?

Inspired by the "Hair Metal Made Me Gay" post on Our Chart, I've been poking around my early teens, pre-punk, pre-riot grrrl phase for songs that remind me of hairspray and wanting to make out with dudes.

Hey, maybe hair metal really did make me gay! It was a really short hop from this awful stuff to actual metal to punk to Kathleen Hanna to making out with girls.

Thanks, hair metal bands! I think.

Whitesnake - "Here I Go Again"



Cinderella - "Don't Know What You Got" (Dear God, the singer was the prettiest lady EVER)



Skid Row - "18 and Life" - "Your crime is time and it's 18 and life to gooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo, yeahhhhhhh-uhhhh-yeahhhhhhhhh"



Warrant - "Cherry Pie" - Oh, Jani Lane, I had the biggest crush on you. I'm just sayin'.



Winger - "Seventeen" - Fucking. Dirty.



Poison - "Talk Dirty to Me"



Lita Ford - "Kiss Me Deadly" - Right, so I could've picked "If I Close My Eyes Forever" but what the hell? Lita had big hair, yeah?



I haven't heard any of these songs in a million years and yet: I remember every. single. word. Wow.

In which we take the time machine back to high school

Liz Phair.

Wait, hold on: Liz Phair, circa 1993's Exile in Guyville. That's better.

Somewhere in a box that's sitting in storage is my copy of Exile on motherfucking cassette. I played it so much that the type on the cassette disappeared. I checked out the liner notes (read: half-nekked photos of Liz Phair) so much that part of the insert broke at a fold and got lost to history.

God, I loved me some Liz Phair.

At the time when I bought Exile, I was having this mad identity crisis where I was pretty sure I was a big 'mo. But, you know, small town and all, so I was keeping that crisis in check by messing around with boys and girls simultaneously and getting super confused over why I couldn't keep a boyfriend/girlfriend for more than three seconds. "Fuck and Run"? Anthem. "Shatter" ("I know that I don't always realize how sleazy it is/ Messing with these guys/ But something about just being with you/ Slapped me right in the face, nearly broke me in two")? Anthem.

Everything about Exile was perfect, is perfect. Even now, I can listen to it and sort of marvel at every single track; get amazed at the raw, boyish voice or the lyrics that are still kind of filthy 14 years later. Phair's later albums? Eh, not so much, although Whip-Smart was a soundtrack for a ton of collegiate fuckery for me.

Tonight, I've been hitting Exile pretty hard and have been thinking about how the early-to-mid '90s version of Liz Phair set the standard for me for solo female musicians.

I would have given my left arm to see this in 1995:



I would give my right arm to see something that self-conscious, geeky and perfect now.

Questionable Content does gay in a hipster way

Questionable Content is a rad web comic by Jeph Jacques, the dude behind Indie Tits. Read it, get involved, get obsessed.

Maybe I should reverse that: I think that QC (maybe) came first, but I stumbled across QC after reading Indie Tits for a while. Small birds who make a mockery of indie scenesters are birds after my heart, after all.

QC is updated Monday-Friday, which makes for a good read for anyone who's trapped in an office for most of the week. I try to read a few times a week and work my way back ... and I guess I'm still not caught up 'cause Thursday's comic caught me by surprise.

Yay for lesbian characters in web toons! Apparently there are several queer characters in QC, which: word. Makes my work life far more entertaining when I feel like I'm putting one over on the man while I'm procrastinating.

One of these things is exactly like the other

Weirdness: Stereogum's Indie Rock Hotties of 2007 list features both Tegan AND Sara Quin.

Sara Quin? Number 17. Tegan Quin? Number 9. I guess the whole identical twin factor doesn't keep people from playing favorites.

Fun news for the nerd worshiper: Laura Veirs comes in at number 31. Recognize! Nice to see that there are other people out there besides me who'd like to play footsie and do Geometry with the lovely Ms. Veirs.

Wonder Queer powers, activate! Form of ...

Exciting online survey for the gays!*

It's for the Anti-Violence Project, and they'd like you to give them some info**:

We are looking for as many people who live in or attend school in Virginia and identify somewhere along the LGBTQ spectrum to take our survey. Everyone meeting those eligibility requirements should take the survey regardless of their personal experience with violence. While there are questions pertaining to individual experiences there are also very important questions specifically geared towards assessing the LGBTQ communities' attitudes towards violence and related concerns such as law enforcement and seeking help. Every survey provides a valuable tool that will be helpful in developing future programmatic efforts of the Anti-Violence Project. For more information about the AVP visit www.equalityvirginia.org/avp or read our blog at http://avp-virginia.blogspot.com/.

Go and take the survey. Help our queer orgs do their thing!

*That was lame. I'm sorry.
**VA homos only.

The truth about something or other, but it's not sex

I'm watching The Truth About Female Desire right now. If the intro is to be believed, then I am in for some kind of campy '70s sitcom about SECKS. There are lots of female symbols floating around, horn music, and various doin'-it-related words rolling about behind photos of the cast members. One of the words? Clitoris. It's really the only one you need to know.

The music is so gawdawful and porny.

The voiceover promises a wide variety of sexual orientations (including "swingers"!) in the group of 8 women who make up the study group. Remains to be seen, but all of the participants are young, thin, and feminine. It's like The Real World, even down to a pimped out apartment, but In The Interest Of Science.

Next: drunken conversations about sex! The introduction of the study team from the Kinsey Institute! The shocking revelation that sexuality studies don't really care too much about women's sexuality! Or even women!

Speaking of women, we have:

- Amy: 23, straight, busted grill, haver of dirty public bus sex.

(And this is intercut with an experiment involving mapping the clitoris with a cool, underwater camera. Surprise: sometimes it's a really tough thing to find.)

- Hannah: 25, straight, sneaky masturbator.

(And here the doctor who is performing the experiment refers to the clitoris as "the part." Nice!)

Blahblahblah, swelling, clitoris, swelling, image maps. Penis drawings. Blahblahblah.

Lots of stupid, probably drunken conversations about heterosex. There is an annoying American women who is annoying and American. Aging vaginas. "Vulva." Plaster casts of vajayjays done by a super-cute, punk rock sculptor.

- Julie: 23, straight, constantly horny but incredibly boring.

- Carlene: 38, straight, married, 5 billion children.

Porn! Women like it! Or not! Carlene? Realllllly likes porn.

Revelation: women are sometimes bisexual. The producers had to get the participants drunk to get them to admit this. Also, Kinsey scaling!

- Kaz: 22, lesbo with shocking lip piercing.

Second revelation: sometimes women get turned on by things that don't match their sexual orientation. Or their species. Just sayin'.

Carlene: kind of a whore.

Blahblahblah, fertility, attraction to men, blahblah, spotting attractiveness of men by touching, that thing about testosterone and finger length.

- Charlie: 26, straight. Surprise.

- Emma: 26, straight. Yawn.

Masculinity, testosterone, symmetry. Kaz shows a preference for masculine features, and we go into some kind of effed up bullshit about gender. The word "femme" shows up.

Inhibition! Fantasy! Dirty porno music! Alcohol: it makes the ladies into whores.

- Andrea: 28, and I'm gonna guess heterosexual.

Drugs! Pheromones! Sexual depressants! Evil trickery regarding the placebo effect.

Submission fantasies ... gah.

Annnnnd: part 4, orgasms. The lesbian has the best description EVER. G-Spot! Ejaculation! Hollllllaaaaaa!

--

Well, there you go. 4 hours of a rigid documentary about sex condensed into a nice wall of text. If you've ever had sex with women, or thought about having sex with women a lot, or have read a book about women who have sex, or ARE a woman: total waste of 4 hours of your life.

10xfast: watchin' the bad documentaries so you don't have to do it yourself!

A flight and a crash

That I am awake at all to type this post is nothing short of a miracle.

I met someone recently -- I'll go ahead and call her Punk Rock Femme since I never get creative with my bloggy nicknames for people -- and we have the ol' Incompatible Schedule Problem (tm). I keep a schedule that basically makes me a character in a shitty Anne Rice novel; PRF keeps a normal schedule that normal people have when they have normal person jobs.

I'm a gamer though when it comes to PRF. She's awesome like that. How awesome? Let's just say that I wouldn't keep the hours I've been keeping for the last week in order to attend a Rainer Maria reunion show. My mad lust for Rainer is widely documented so yeah, this girl? Pretty rad.

At any rate, consider this a warning post. At some point, my new, virtually sleep-free schedule is gonna make me crack right in half. When the day comes (and it's coming soon!) that you read a post from me that's, like, 16 paragraphs of gibberish topped off with a random photo of wolves fighting, then you'll know that I've reached the breaking point. I'll sleep for a week after that and be GOOD TO GO, people.

Until then, I believe that I have a smacktacular documentary to review ...

Happily Ever After

If you're anything like me, you're ecstatic when you come across a women-owned/run sex toy shop you haven't seen or heard of on the Web, for many, many reasons:

1. D.C. seems to lack in the women-centric kick-ass sex shop category.
2. Online, you can look, look, look at all the nifty vibrators as long as you want.
3. Picking out gift packs can take a long time, and I get antsy when salesclerk -- however friendly, innovative and educated they might be -- are drifting in and out of my space with those eager beaver eyes.
4. Picking out a special surprise may take visiting one, two or thirteen different sites. With Firefox, I can tabulate each sex shop site and compare prices! (I sound like my mother, only use "sale item" in the place of "sex shop site.")
5. Finding out that there is a site out there that offers vegan-friendly tasty tattoos? Priceless.

Early to Bed is a Chicago-based shop and they offer everything for the beginner to the pro. They even have a blog! Some love from Ladies Who Munch to the Early to Bed Blog!

Now, who wants to throw a lesbian-orientated sex toy party? Takers?

The Truth About What Straight Women Want

I'm currently downloading a documentary called The Truth About Female Desire. It showed up on television in the UK in 2005, and it's now available for download via the wonderful world of torrents.

Here's the description:

In a major science event led by John Bancroft, six single girls share a dormitory at Brunel University, London, where scientists from the Kinsey Institute perform sexual experiments on them to determine the true nature of female desire.

It's now 100 years since Freud first speculated about female sexuality but with the new technology available today we are closer to working out what makes female sexuality so mysterious. Over the course of a week, a group of real life Carrie Bradshaws, Samanthas, Charlottes and Mirandas will have the adventure of a lifetime as they take part in a series of cutting edge experiments to work out what makes their libidos tick.

Ooh, Daddy! Female desire! References to Sex and the City! Some kind of mystery! Small sample sizes! Crazy brief testing period! This will be gooooooood.

Unfortunately, there's also this:

Fact will be separated from fiction as the scientists discover whether there is really a g-spot, why women are attracted to certain men, whether it is possible to tell whether a man is going to be good in bed and what the real turn ons and turn off are from a female perspective.

Oh. Men. Great. So, it's more like The Truth About Female Desire If You Consider Female Desire To Be Pretty Much Heterosexual. Also, Lesbians? Haven't Heard Of 'Em. They Probably Don't Even Watch Sex and the City Anyway.

I fully intend to watch and report back, since I'm helpless in the face of any kind of documentary. The download speeds I'm getting on the torrent are hellishly slow, so it might take a while. I'm a trooper though.

(Via Boing Boing.)

Queerworm: The Organ - "Brother"

I'm all about sharing my musical earworms, mostly 'cause I take a lot of sadistic pleasure in passing along the torture of "Oh Jesus, I can't get this out of my head ..." to other people.

Tonight I have The Organ's "Brother" stuck on infinite repeat in my head, and it's now yours. Instead of an mp3, you get the added bonus of seeing the lovely ladies of The Organ in full YouTube-y glory. For such a gloomy, Joy Division-esque band, they are certainly incredibly fucking attractive. Why just listen when you can look and listen?

Also of note: this video features the least amount of movement ever. They might as well be smokin' hot statues. For the sake of the image in my head, I hope that their live performances were just as shoegaze-y and awkward.

Oh, before I drop the video, I have to mention this habit that I picked up from a friend of mine. Lately, he's been replacing the words to songs with whatever is in his head, or whatever he's looking at/thinking about at the time. It sounds sort of autistic, but it's pretty funny and contagious.

So, while I was watching the video, I kept replacing this bit:

We have got to take cover, brother

with this:

We have got to just stand here, not moving our arms

and this:

We have got to look miserable, we sound like Joy Division

Did I say I was posting the video now? One more thing: The Organ are all sorts of broken up, having gone off to wherever mopey (but wonderful!) queer bands go when they die. I think that, if you miss them, you should fill that void with Swan Island. They're very similar to The Organ, and I'll bet that they move their arms on stage when they perform.

Perhaps I just couldn't smell the pheromones

Something intriguing and scary: University of Illinois at Chicago researchers have isolated a gene that makes fruitflies bisexual. I'm all for science but if they can figure out a way to "turn it on or off" they may try to prevent it entirely:

"Researchers tested this idea by adding a drug to the flies' apple juice. The drug weakened the synapses. So within a few hours, flies with the GB mutation stopped engaging in homosexual behavior.
Conversely, researchers gave heterosexual male flies a drug that strengthened their synapses. Sure enough, these male flies soon were courting males as well as females.
"It was amazing," Featherstone said. "I never thought we'd be able to do that sort of thing, because sexual orientation is supposed to be hard-wired. This fundamentally changes how we think about this behavior.' "

I miss SIMS

So, while trying to figure out the rules for (and if it totally sucks) the L Word board game (that's right, folks, the BOARD GAME) the Wifey and I came across this: The L Word in Second Life.

You can build an avatar and live vicariously through your character in a strange little L Word "life." And according to the site, the LWSL boasts 900,000 players. Whoa, what? There's a schedule on the side where you can go to Aerobics, grab coffee at The Planet and end your day with a dance party and pillow talk. Now, I love me some L Word, -- theyjustneedtokilloffJenny -- but this is almost too much. But then again, I started this post off talking about playing the L Word board game, so who's the strange one now? ; )

Fun with server logs

So, we've been running Google Analytics here at the secret location of the LWM headquarters for nearly a month, which is plenty of time for us to boggle at the things that lead people here.

My favorites so far:

1.) "hot butch"

Yes! Yes, I am! Hey, at least one person stayed for almost 5 minutes after they landed here with that search term. I'm not sure what they were looking for, but hey: why not?

2.) "tied up ladies"

We ... don't have any?

3.) "ladies tied up"

Still don't have any of those. You know who looks really great when she's tied up though? Madison Young. I'm just sayin'.

4.) "tentimesfast myspace"

Good luck with that!

5.) "official nancy drew" "tied up"

Well, gosh, now all of that "tied up" stuff makes sense, huh?

6.) "dyke duck" gift guide

Tres Bien writes a wicked gift guide, guys!

E-ladyparts-music

Folks who are familiar with the lady-type anatomy: I'm going to ask you a question now. Does this look like anything to you?



This is what I saw when I logged into EMusic tonight to snag a few albums before my monthly allotment of 50 billion tracks expired.

I get it, right? iPod + headphones. HOWEVER, I'm seeing a resemblance to some rad reproductive organs going on there. Does ... anyone else see that or have I kind of lost my mind?

Hey, here's a fun thing that happened to me. I had this fleeting moment of panic where I thought that maybe I didn't know what I was talking about, so I decided to hit Google Images to source stuff. As it turns out, I absolutely know what I'm talking about and also? Fucking horrifying, graphic results in the search. I'm pretty sure that I never want anyone I'm with to have a kid now.

Google Images: Thanks for making me stay child-free forever!

Queer-ish music time with The Third Sex

The Third Sex made a couple of albums' worth of hot, hot queer punk rock and then, I'm guessing, dropped off the face of the earth. Who can say? There's not exactly a wealth of information on random mid-to-late '90s queer punk ladies around the internets, so I'm just doing my part here.

All I know is that I saw them at Hampshire College once back in the day and most of my friends went into panty-dropping mode over Peyton, who was the bassist/guitarist/vocalist for TTS.

So, courtesy of me and my show nostalgia, have some TTS. It's dirty, squeal-y, messy and wonderful. "Roy" is just a little bit priceless!

Hi: A little warning in that SpotDJ doesn't seem to want to connect tonight. If this persists, I'll just upload the tracks elsewhere.

Really ... really?

Remember "And Tango Makes Three"? The children's book about two male penguins taking care of an orphaned penguin baby at the Central Park Zoo? The uproar it caused? Well, Concerned Parents can take aim at a new one: There's controversy over school curriculum that teaches children about ALL families, including gay one:

"The 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments Wednesday in a lawsuit filed by parents who sued after their son brought home a book from kindergarten that depicted different kinds of families, including a gay family."

What I love most about stories like these is that certain parents are so overwhelmingly concerned that they decide to take it up in the courts and yet, we still have mothers out there posing as MySpace pals who send mean messages. I'm willing to bet it's the same type of parents who do both: More concerned with a story about princes who fall in love than with the world around them -- politically and socially. No, we better not have little Jimmy read trash like this when he can get the real truth from the Rush Limbaughs and Ann Coulters of the world. Ugh.

This word needs to DIE

Sara Whitman on the HuffPost has written an op-ed about the "comeback" of the "f" word.

Not that one, that I say too frequently, the other way more ugly and ignorant one. I hate that word. I will verbally attack you if you use that word around me. I still am in utter shock that people still say that word. Now I'm surly. ...

Oh, I'll march on your nation's capitol

Not the biggest fan of much on Logo, including "The Big Gay Sketch Show," but when I saw this on feministing.com, I couldn't resist posting about it. Especially since tentimesfast laughed harder than I did.

I give you Lesbian Phone Sex. Delightful!

Is gay the new straight? Part deux

I blogged in November about Gregory Rodriguez's LA Times op-ed revealing his findings about society. It caused quite a stir and the LA Times has published a response by Don Kilhefner, "Gay -- the new straight -- I don't think so!"

Kilhefner read the Gary Gates report that Rodriguez sourced and breaks it down, fatal flaw by fatal flaw. He throws around "gay enspiritment" and "gay assimilation" and while it made my head spin a bit, it's much more founded in historical happenstance than Gate's report. If anything, it's something to read while you're eating your hummus sandwich and no-fat, not-fried chips. And, you can get in some queer history too. Not bad for a snowy Wednesday.

Lesbians are funny ... ahehh

Ah, I love it when worlds collide. Taped yesterday, but airing today, "Ellen" guest Jenna Bush phones home.

"It's Ellen and I want to say 'hi' to Daddy."

Weird, funny and much better than having Ellen cry (and cry) over the dog again. Sheesh.

4 things: the "I'm sorry I haven't posted" edition

I have a really good excuse, as usual. But, 4 things, right?

1.) Here's the part where I make the excuse. I'll hint at it, ok? The reason why I've been a terrible slacker starts with "f" and ends with "me" and rhymes with "femme." OH FUCK I SAID IT OUT LOUD.

Damn.

2.) I'm getting an iPhone! As soon as I get over the feeling of self-loathing I'll have for pulling a fucking iPhone out of my pocket. Which might be never.

3.) It's between The Blow and Casiotone for the Painfully Alone for the "Band That Makes 10xfast Wicked Giddy" award. Electronica makes me so, so, so happy.

4.) Dani? Still around on ASALWTT, despite the effing ridiculous WNBA suit.

I'll be back to a regular posting schedule as soon as I stop thinking about one thing all of the time.

Tres Bien? Feel free to just punch me later today, ok? 'Cause I'm gettin' silly!

'Gimp Black Widow'

This story has the script for "Law and Order" written all over it. Sigh.

Thanks Washington Blade.

AfterEllen makes a mean PSA

Say, how about a little visibility for queer women on television?

(I had to change the width a bit, so if it looks insane ... I have nobody to blame but myself.)

Lesbian video from AfterEllen.com

Lesbian video from AfterEllen.com

Procrastination

I procrastinate, drag my feet, whatever you wanna call it, I do it. Eventually, that is.

And today, what's keeping me from focusing on work, catching up on correspondence and ironing the HUGE pile of clean clothes on my floor (well, they were clean weeks ago) is this story asking where all the lesbian feminists went. Feministing first posted something about, moderately, in the Weekly Feminist Reader and now I can't stop theorizing where the lesbian feminists went.

Mostly, because, I'm still wondering where all the lesbians AND/OR feminists are, so it's difficult to think that there's a group of the hybrids of 'em out there. But, you should check that story out. Everything else can wait for now.

Much love for The Boiling Point blog

It's not often that I find a Web cartoonist that I "get," enjoy reading and has a small educational purpose. On top of ranting and raving!

Through feministing.com, I found The Boiling Point blog, which promises "rants, raves and pictorial propaganda from Mikhaela B. Reid" and delivers such a promise. Check out the LGBT and the feminism sections. And who doesn't love jokes about toxic toys these days?