The XX Factor: What women really think.

Sensitive Vampires Are Worse for Girls Than the Bloodsucking Kind

Or so argues Grady Hendrix in Slate today. Hendrix hates emo-boy vampires, with their all-swoon, no-suck brand of human relations. Latoya Peterson argued here in Double X that Twilight and True Blood are bad for women because they're all about pigeonholing female characters into a virgin/slut binary ... (Read more in Double X.)

One More Way TV Will Save The World

What is television good for? Curbing population growth, of course! Ghulam Nabi Azad, India’s Health and Family Welfare Minister, wants to bring electricity to the most rural parts of his country, in hopes that it will slow down the baby making... (Read more in Double X.)

A Bachelor Goes Limp

Last night, on the latest episode of The Bachelorette, the inevitable happened: One of the contestants—lovelorn, earnest, ready-to-drop-on-one-knee Ed—was given an opportunity to have sex with a girl he is “crazy about” in a hotel room, tricked out with roses, body oil, and ... a crew, cameras, and millions watching at home. He failed to get hard. How has this not happened before? ... (Read more in Double X.)

Questionable Dataset of the Day

The "Myth" of Female Ejaculation

Recently, British film censors cut a movie scene where a woman appeared to ejaculate, because they believed the fluid must be urine, and British obscenity laws forbid urinating on fellow actors. But female ejaculation is a well documented medical phenomenon, according to this history of female ejaculation in the New Scientist, and only resisted by the medical establishment because, well, women can't be equal in everything... (To read the rest of this post, visit our new website DoubleX.com!)

Women Not So Picky About Men After All?

Return of the Beautiful Uglies

It must be the season of the listicle. Too lazy to write an article, or, heck, even create a charticle, print and online writers turn to the list in an attempt to draw as many list-loving readers as possible. The latest comes from the folks at Nerve.com, who have seen fit to list: "The Twenty Sexiest Ugly People." Fair enough. I've long been enamored with the "beautiful uglies," or what the French refer to as jolie laide: "the aesthetic pleasures of the visually off kilter: a bump on the nose, eyes that are set too closely together, a jagged smear of a mouth."

Nerve's collection of the seemingly hideously sexy—or is that sexily hideous?—includes... (To read the rest of this post, visit our new website DoubleX.com!)

The Erotic House of Peter Saville

In case you haven't heard, magazines are dying right and left. Who knows which one will be next? One day, that may be the sound of Anna Wintour's head rolling across the floor. Not unlike the adult movie industry, which thought it was so ahead of the curve, technologically-speaking, that it neglected to jump on the Internet bandwagon until its product had gotten away from them and it was far, far too late, magazines and newspapers have failed to exploit the Web to their advantage. Now, they're suffering for it.

Bondage Gear, Straight From Karachi

Web TV Now Officially Better Than Regular TV

Has anyone else checked out the second season of the Sundance Channel's Green Porno series? Starring Isabella Rossellini, it's an amusingly surreal look at the secret sex lives of animals. If you thought human sex was weird, we've got nothing on wild things. The first season was great, but the second season is even better. This time around, Rossellini dresses up as a six-foot-penised whale, a self-replicating starfish, and a sexless limpet. If you haven't detected a theme thus far, the episodes focus on how creatures do it under the sea. Besides being beautiful to look at, Green Porno is educational. Without it, I never would have known that during the mating process, the deep, dark, sea-dwelling male anglerfish becomes its female counterpart's "own personal sperm bank." (Warning: The webisodes are not exactly safe for watching while at work.)

To Porn or Not To Porn?

Samantha, I, too, saw the Washington Post story on how an adult-movie screening on the University of Maryland campus was canceled after Senator Harris suggested a budget amendment could strip the public university of nearly $500 million in funding. Sure, Harris' hysteria over porn on campus is silly at best—I don't know how truly "dangerous" pornography is to the culture at large—but what struck me as inappropriate is how an adult-production company is generating free publicity for its movie by trotting it out before its target demographic and pretending the experience is educational by coupling the screenings with safe-sex speakers or academics droning on about "gender and sexuality."

You say: "Still, the public viewing would at least get people in a room together, talking about sex and maybe—hopefully—even dipping into the sort of difficult, analytical discussion of sexuality and exploitation that colleges should promote." Personally, I doubt it. Porn rarely leads to analytical discussions of anything, much less sex. Instead, it looks to me like the colleges are getting snookered by publicists who have found their perfect mark in porn-happy academics.

Hilariously, the Planned Parenthood speaker who would have spoken on safe-sex practices would be doing so in the context of a movie in which none of the adult performers were using condoms. Way to set an example. In the end, porn is little more than smoke and mirrors.

Meghan McCain Uses the Daily Beast in Bold Attempt to Get Laid

Meghan McCain. Bless her heart. From the side ponytail to the fake catfight, she had us all fooled. We thought she was a dingbat. In reality, she's clever like a fox. Writing a column for the Daily Beast? Everyone scratched their heads. She's so ... vapid. So ... devoid of ideas. Was there something we were missing? After her weak attempt to draw Ann Coulter into a "debate" that even Coulter wouldn't stoop to partake in, McCain has finally made her writerly mission clear. She's looking to get laid!

This week's installment reads like a masturbatory reverie in homage to (gasp!) our youngest (swoon!) congressman, Aaron Schock (insert "shocker" joke). Mr. Illinois is Mini-McCain's "GOP's House Hottie"! ZOMG, Megs, I am, like, so with you on this one! Frankly, the Schockster had me at that photo of him greased up by the pool, browner than fried pig fat, basking in the shade of a faceless young woman's hot pink ta-tas, but Meghan closed the deal with her 1,500-word essay on how he's, like, totally smart, and also supergreat, which is, like, superawesome for the GOP!!! Yay! Schock in 2012. Or whatever.

According to McCain, who only figured out who Schock is because those half-naked shots of him appeared on TMZ, Schock is, well, interesting. As she puts it: "Schock’s rapid rise to the national level is, if nothing else, interesting, especially given the serious soul-searching the Republican Party is experiencing." So, he's interesting because he's ... interesting? I am intrigued.

Apparently, McCain likes Schock because: a) he's young, and her dad was old and that was bad, so Schock being young is good, b) he's not a radical, just like Meghan!, which is good, because the Republican Party needs all the help it can get at this point, c) he totally understands the power of the Internet (see: half-naked photos), which can be bad, but which can also be good, or, as Schock opines of the American people with an eloquence that suggests McCain may have found her intellectual match: "They watch pop culture, but they are also voters." Obvs.

Clearly, I hadn't given Meghan McCain enough credit. It never occurred to me to use my platform here on The XX Factor to get laid by some guy in Congress. I'll have to work on that. 

Beyond Toe-Tapping

A lockable door was known as a brandy latch, but the door itself was called a trade curtain. A nanti bog was one that was ineffective for cruising. Nochy and sparkle bogs described public toilets that were cruised at night or in the daylight respectively. A bog that had its lights broken to provide some security of darkness at night was called a nochy bog.

"Sparkle bog" sounds like it ought to be the name of a literary magazine. Bogspeak has since evolved into textese (n2 str8 act blks), and the Internet has encouraged the emergence of a written language alongside the older oral locutions.

Clinton/Lewinsky Scandal To Become HBO Movie

Just when you thought it was safe to channel surf, it turns out HBO is making a movie out of the Bill Clinton/Monica Lewinsky scandal of yesteryear. The title? The Special Relationship. Special, indeed. The casting is just plain odd. Dennis Quaid is Wild Bill. Hillary Clinton? Julianne Moore. Apparently, the film focuses less on Slick Willy's hijinks and more on the president's relationship with Tony Blair (played by Michael Sheen), which devolved purportedly due to the sex scandal. Peter Morgan, who scored with Frost/Nixon, wrote the screenplay and is set to direct. Supposedly, Quaid beat out some actual A-listers for the role—Russell Crowe, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Alec Baldwin, Tim Robbins. I wonder if he truly eclipsed them or if the actors were steered away from taking the part of a man tasked with running the country who couldn't keep his hands off the help. Who'll play Lewinsky? Mia Kirshner? Megan Fox? Jessica Simpson? Nope. "Morgan has decided to use only archive footage of her culled from TV news bulletins and video of her closed-door testimony to Congress." Well, maybe the real Lewinsky will sell a few handbags out of it.

A Tale of Two Spitzers

The Observer has an admiring piece on Eliot Spitzer's phoenix-like public image "resurrection." First came the Slate column. This week, there's a Newsweek byline, an interview, and a Nation nomination for treasury secretary. "[H]e says what he thinks!" Slate editor David Plotz crows. "[I]t's back-to-square-one time, and Mr. Spitzer seems to be bringing all of his Sisyphean strength to bear on the project," the Observer admires. "At rare moments, I’ll do my best to add to the public conversation," Spitzer demurs. What struck me as interesting was less this latest installment of a fallen politician's return from a sex scandal (yawn) but the contrast with the media's portrayal of his wife, Silda. The March issue of Vogue makes it more than clear how we're expected to see Mrs. Spitzer a year later: as a victim. "The survivor," the headline slapped next to her reads. I guess, in the end, it's all pretty typical. The public's initial stance of scorn at Spitzer's sexual transgression was just that—a show, designed by a public that wishes to perceive itself as above the very behaviors that its members partake in regularly. Meanwhile, Silda gets stuck in the victim rut, where America will keep her, if it has its way. If we had to perceive her any other way, we'd have to ask ourselves if we would do the same thing that she did—and, if we did so, if we were right in doing so.

The Enduring Attraction of Sarah Palin

The Fairfield Weekly has an interesting piece on the public's enduring fascination with Sarah Palin: "The Porn Identity." It opens in a strip club where adult film star Lisa Ann, who played Palin in Hustler's XXX-homage to the once aspiring VP, "Who's Nailin' Paylin: Adventures of a Hockey MILF," takes the stage dressed as Palin to perform a striptease. Acccording to Hustler Video, "Who's Nailin' Paylin" is one of their all-time best-sellers, proving so popular they're producing a follow-up this spring, "Hollywood's Nailin' Paylin," which "will parody Palin's imagined new career as book author and talk-show host and, of course, put her in bed with a bunch of spoofed celebrities." Hustler says there's just something about Sarah:

"There aren't many franchises in the adult world. It's a one-trick pony," [Hustler Director of Operations Jeff] Thill says. "It's really different with her. She's not really in the news right now and yet we can't keep the title in stock. Assuming the second one goes well, we'll continue on forever if we can get away with it."

In an interview, the Weekly asked her impersonator about Palin's sexual mystique. The woman who's walked a mile in stripper shoes as Palin responded: "It's a distraction from politics. I hope people wouldn't be swayed either way by sex appeal. People vote for all the wrong reasons anyway, but if we throw sex appeal into the mix we'll have [a disaster]." But is she right? Months after Palin's disastrous run, we're still intrigued. She's the anti-Hillary who won't go away, and judging by her stickiness, I can't help but wonder if Palin has some strange hope in her rumored possible run for the presidency in 2012. Maybe Palin's sublimated-yet-paraded brand of sexuality is the key to her success—and the farthest thing from a disaster.

Have the Obamas Spawned a Sex Frenzy?

Seriously, I write about sex, so I know I'm not the best one to ask. But it seems like ever since—well, I want to say ever since the Obamas got elected, it's all sex all the time. At least in the media. Usually, there are periods of time when you'll see more sex-related stories than others. In the spring. If there's a political sex scandal. If another low-ranking celebrity spawns another low-budget sex tape. After election night, I noticed there was a slow but discernible increase in the number of sex-related "news" stories. Sure, there were the obvious ones—the "aren't the Obamas sexy" ones (click here for the latest from the meme that wouldn't die)—and then there were the recession ones—call girls are dropping their rates! housewives are selling sex toys to make extra money! recession sex: here's how to have it!—but I expected at some point for all the sex stories to stop. But they haven't. They keep, well, coming. So, did the Obamas spawn this mini-sex revolution—or was it all that hope—or is it just me?

Guys Aren't Complicated

Scared Straight Johns

Jessica, I, too, read the Los Angeles Times piece on "john school," the traffic-schoollike program for men who seek out prostitutes. As the article states, programs like this one are nothing new; they've been doing it in San Francisco for years. And, at least according to the article, it sounds as if it's an at least moderately effective way to discourage johns from seeking out working girls in the future. Typically, arrested johns pay a fine, do or not do a few days in jail, and are done with it. In this case, johns who fulfill the course requirements (they must be first-time offenders, have to take an HIV test, are required to fork over $600) can choose to attend john school, for which they will score a "free pass—of sorts." The solicitation charge is held over the john's head for a year after completing the course, and if he doesn't repeat offend, his case is closed. According to one study, since the San Francisco program was created over a decade ago, recidivism rates have dropped by 30 percent. Why? Well, perhaps it's because, at least in the case of the Los Angeles john school, looking at pictures of the penile consequences of sexually transmitted diseases, listening to the hard-core testimonies of real street workers, and learning how johns can get set up and robbed instead of laid doesn't really inspire johns to go out and repeated offend. What john schools lack, though, is any kind of deep-seated interest in why men seeking out prostitutes. As I've mentioned previously, I solicited stories from men about why they pay for sex as part of an online project called Letters from Johns. Without understanding the complicated realities of johns' psychologies, the system fails those caught up in it.

OctoMom To Become PornoMom?

TMZ reports the San Fernando Valley-based adult production company Vivid Entertainment has offered Nadya Suleman $1 million to star in an adult movie. Taken at face value, this story is all kinds of wrong. How the story of a freak-mother has twisted itself into a tale of a would-be MILF? OctoMILF? is beyond the scope of my limited brain capacity. Whatever those parties involved or not involved have in mind, I know I do not want to see it. What the story does testify to truly is that the adult movie industry is suffering mightily during this recession if these are the lengths it has to go to to get attention these days. Once upon a time, XXX was outre. After a while, it went mainstream. Now, I guess it's just passe. For some reason, the conflation of OctoMom and pornography brings to my mind the ancient Japanese tradition of tentacle erotica and The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife, in which a woman finds herself in the erotic embrace of an octopus. I suppose these United States really have been pornified, when starring in an adult movie is the punch line to the new American Dream.