Presidential Debates: Live Tweets

 
If you missed our live tweets of the Presidential Debates, we're putting it all in one place on Storify. (We will be updating the post after each upcoming debate.)

• Presidential Debate - October 3, 2012


• Vice Presidential Debate - October 11, 2012

Related posts:

• RNC2012: The Live Tweets
• DNC2012: The Live Tweets 
• DNC 2012 Day One: Our Favorite Speeches 
• The GOP Tells Women to "Break Up" With President Obama
• Mitt Romney Attempts to Scare Women and Baby Girls Into Supporting Him 

The AFA's Misguided Freakout Over Mix It Up Day

It's been awhile since we checked in on the American Family Association - the One Million Moms are just boring at this point and it's not quite time for the AFA's bogus War on Christmas campaign - so I just went to their website to see what they've been up to. The most recent action alert is about an event called Mix It Up Day that is apparently a very bad thing:

Homosexual 'Mix It Up' day - Is your child's school on the list?

Radical Southern Poverty Law Center behind gay indoctrination program

On, Tuesday, October 30, over two thousand schools across the nation will be observing "Mix It Up" (MIU) day. MIT is a nationwide push to promote the homosexual lifestyle in public schools. A strong focus is directed specifically to elementary and junior high grades.

MIU is a project of the fanatical pro-homosexual group, Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). This is the same organization that launched hateful and malicious rhetoric toward the Family Research Council just prior to the August shooting of a security guard by a SPLC sympathizer. See if your school is on the list.

AFA is joining other family-oriented groups in urging parents to keep their children at home that day if their local school is sponsoring the "Mix It Up" project. The Southern Poverty Law Center is using this project to bully-push its gay agenda, and at the same time, intimidate and silence students who have a Biblical view of homosexuality.

Wow, if the AFA is this worked up about it, Mix It Up day must be pretty extreme, right? It's so awful that they had to invent the totally unnecessary and goofy term "bully-push" to describe it. I'm picturing SPLC brainwashing teams roaming school hallways and sponsored gay orgies at recess. So I went to the SPLC website to get the details. Brace yourselves, people...

Just what is Mix It Up at Lunch Day?

A national campaign launched by Teaching Tolerance a decade ago, Mix It Up at Lunch Day encourages students to identify, question and cross social boundaries.

In our surveys, students have identified the cafeteria as the place where divisions are most clearly drawn. So on one day – October 30 this school year – we ask students to move out of their comfort zones and connect with someone new over lunch. It’s a simple act with profound implications. Studies have shown that interactions across group lines can help reduce prejudice. When students interact with those who are different from them, biases and misperceptions can fall away.

...OMG you guys. Encouraging kids to eat lunch with different kids than the kids that they usually eat lunch with for one day?! Surely such a thing will undo everything their parents have ever taught them and "indoctrinate" them with the horrible idea that it might be cool to hang out with different people sometimes.

It's also worth noting that there's nothing at all in the description of Mix It Up day that's about LGBT students in particular (or any other specific group). This event isn't about forcing straight and gay students to hang out together against their will, and it's certainly not about "intimidating and silencing" anyone. It's just about encouraging kids to get out of their comfort zones and "cross social boundaries" for one day in the hopes that doing that will help students to have just a little bit more understanding or respect or tolerance towards each other. In the SPLC's response to the AFA's protest, they point out that each school sets it own agenda and theme for Mix It Up day - there's no official "gay indoctrination program" involved. The AFA have turned this into a gay panic action alert situation based on absolutely nothing, probably because they know that's the easiest way to get their followers fired up.

I find it so disturbing that the members of the AFA would rather keep their children home from school than let them have the option of spending one lunch period hanging out with kids who are different from them in any way. I feel like the only thing missing from this sad and pathetic action alert is the actual phrase "stick to your own kind". Hopefully a lot of kids across the country do choose to "mix it up" and the event has a positive impact so that ignorant and bigoted views like the AFA's can continue to fade away as quickly as possible.

Is Mila Kunis An Evil Slut?

So I like the Museum of Sex on facebook, and today they posted the cover of the latest issue of Esquire and asked if everyone agreed with Esquire's pick of Mila Kunis as this year's Sexiest Woman Alive.

Now obviously the whole Sexiest Woman/Man Alive thing is silly. Did last year's Sexiest Woman die, or become measurably less sexy somehow in only one year? And of course there was a lot of discussion and disagreement in the comments about whether Mila deserves this year's "honor" or not, but one comment in particular caught our eye:

 
Evil and slutty, you say? Fascinating. Seriously, we have so many questions for our new friend Matthew about this. Does he think that Mila looks evil and slutty all the time, or only in this cover shot? (Maybe it's the eyeliner.) And is he saying that women who look evil and slutty are inherently not hot at all, or just that it disqualifies you from Sexiest Woman Alive status? We're thinking of contacting him for an interview so we can get clarification on this McCalvin Theory of Evil Sluttiness, which is clearly very well thought out and scientific. We'll keep you posted.

10 Things About CatalystCon

We recently attended the inaugural CatalystCon conference in Long Beach, CA. Our event recaps are always really long because we always have a lot of feelings (so you might wanna go grab a snack now, before you start reading). However this time we're happy to report that we have a lot of great feelings about CatalystCon!

Disclaimer: We are friends with the CatalystCon creator/organizer and served as staff for the event, so we may be totally biased in our review. However, this is not a sponsored post and all of our opinions are (as always) 100% true.  We're typically very hard to please and don't just give away praise easily. We rarely rave about anything, so when we say that we have nothing but praise for CatalystCon, you can trust that that really means something.

1. The Backstory 

The creator of CatalystCon, Dee Dennis, co-organized the MOMENTUM Conference in Washington, D.C. the past two years. We attended both MOMENTUM conferences and really liked them, so we were excited when Dee decided to bring CatalystCon to the west coast and were more than happy to help with whatever she needed. We actually helped her sort through session submissions over bellinis and nutella one weekend (the only way to work as far as we're concerned), and from that moment on we were official CatalystCon "staff". Dee is so passionate about what she does, and we had a chance to see firsthand how much hard work she put into making CatalystCon a success, so we're really happy that we got the chance to be a part of it.

2. The Hotel

The conference took place at the Hilton Long Beach & Executive Meeting Center in Long Beach, California. After having stayed at the Hilton New York just last month for BlogHer12 and being... well... less than satisfied... we weren't sure what to expect from the CatalystCon hotel. We have to say we were pleasantly surprised. The Long Beach Hilton totally kicked the New York Hilton's ass! The hotel staff even made sure that every bartender in the place knew how to make a proper French martini.

Bartender: "She said she's not coming back next year if we don't make it perfectly."

The restaurant food was good, but nothing to write home about, but the bar had Corona and the breakfast buffet had bacon, which is all we really require. And although the bar was somewhat understaffed some nights, the bartenders were really nice and tried their best. One of them even gave those of us waiting in line for drinks permission to say the word "dildo" as much as we wanted, and although none of us were actually discussing dildos at that moment we still appreciated the courtesy.

The hotel pool was actually kinda hilarious - the shallow end was 2.5 feet deep, and the "deep" end was three feet. Swim with caution! No diving!

Lilith: Okay, you were on the swim team, let's see some backstroke or butterfly or something.

Jezebel: I can't, I'll scrape my arms on the bottom of the pool.

3. The Sessions

There were so many great sessions at CatalystCon that one of the most common "complaints" we've been hearing is that it was too hard to choose what to attend. At one point jessica drake tweeted that she wished she could clone herself. (And we agree... jessica drake should totally clone herself.) Because we were staff, we didn't get to attend sessions at every time period, but we did get to as many as we could and they were all excellent. And we heard amazing feedback (in person, on Twitter and via the CatalystCon attendee surveys that we've been helping Dee compile) on a lot of other sessions that we're totally bummed to have missed. Also, both of the Keynote Plenaries were amazing!

The Opening Keynote: Sparking Communication in Sexuality, Activism and Acceptance

Panelists: Lynn Comella (moderator), Megan Andelloux, Maggie Mayhem, Marty Klein, and Francisco Ramirez

Summary: Battles over sex education, reproductive rights, gay marriage, obscenity, pornography and other forms of adult entertainment and expression have played a central role in the 2012 election season. Sex is always a political issue, but it becomes even more so in challenging economic times, both dividing and uniting individuals. The Opening Keynote panel at CatalystCon tackles these issues head on as speakers address ongoing debates over sexuality at the local, national and global levels. What are the stakes and how can we spark change in productive and meaningful ways?

Best Quotes: "The most pressing matter in sex is that we're not talking about it" - Maggie Mayhem

"I started going to barbecues just to reach out: 'You know what would go well with this carne asada? Reproductive rights!'" - Francisco Ramirez

(You can find more quotes and comments about this keynote here)

Sex Education: Out of the Classroom, Into the Streets!

Speakers: Carol Queen, Dr. Robert Morgan Lawrence, jessica drake, Ava Mir-Ausziehen, Sex Nerd Sandra Daugherty

Summary: We can’t count on school, church or family to teach people what they’ll need to know about sexuality, especially pleasure-based sex, queer sex, fetish and fantasy, even safer sex. Basically, formal sex education fails many of us! But all kinds of sexperts, experts, sex professionals and sex enthusiasts are pitching in to help; this panel will explore some of the many ways diverse sex education is being conducted today. From podcasts to websites, adult ed classes in sex shops to alternative centers, there are many, many ways to gain new perspectives and erotic skills.

Best Quotes: "I'm not trying to teach people to have sex like a porn star" - jessica drake

"Someone I didn't like very much shamed me for being nerdy about my knowledge about condoms" - Sex Nerd Sandra Daugherty

(You can find more quotes and comments about this session here)

How To Be An Ally to Sex Workers in Theory and Practice

Speakers: Dee Dennis, Sabrina Morgan, Tizz Wall

Summary: Are you interested in learning how to be an ally–or a better ally–to sex workers, but frustrated with the lack of a clear path of action? Do you want to build stronger bridges between sex workers and allies? We’ll cover practical ways you can be a stronger ally to sex workers, how to build alliances with intersecting, marginalized, and mainstream communities (as an ally or as a sex worker), as well as how to write about sex work topics with sensitivity and class. You’ll learn what methods work best to make your space, event, or publication a more welcoming place for sex workers. We’ll also discuss the internal barriers that keep many of us from fully stepping up as allies, including the ways in which feminism and sex work intersect–and how those seeming conflicts can make both movements stronger.

Best Quote: "What better time to be an ally? Well, how about 24/7?" - Dee Dennis

(You can find more quotes and comments about this session here)

Media Risks: Who Wins?

Speakers: Dusty Marie, Sherri Saulis, Gram Ponante, Brian Gross, Adella (moderator)

Summary: 2012 has brought a phenomenal amount of media exposure to aspects of sexuality that are usually almost never touched, even by the most liberal of mainstream media outlets. This year alone, the astronomical sales of the book 50 Shades of Grey brought the discussion of kink in the bedroom to the pages of major daily and weekly publications across the US, and around the world. We have found that the media will try to sensationalize anything sex-related to boost their ratings. What is their purpose? Have the media finally seen the light, or is it just an attempt to increase rating, and revenue? Will we ever find a day in our country when the topic of sexuality won’t be seen as shocking, but as part of the lexicon of society? Join seasoned media gurus as they discuss how to use the mainstream media to your advantage, how best to minimize those risks involved with dealing with mainstream media, managing the aftermath, when you should say no and much more.

Best Quote: "Diane Sawyer is not going to do a story about how porn improves your sex life." - Adella

(You can find more quotes and comments about this session here)

The Closing Keynote: Defending Pornography: United States v. John Stagliano 

Panelists: John Stagliano, Constance Penley and Allan Gelbard, Esq.

Summary: Our current political climate brings challenges in defending adult material against both obscenity and intellectual property violations. What can we learn from the most recent legal battles in order to raise successful ones in the future both in the courts and the court of public opinion? Join esteemed panelists Allan Gelbard Esq, John Stagliano and Constance Penley, PhD as they share the first hand knowledge they acquired while successfully defending against United States v John Stagliano as well as other important cases.

Best Quotes: "People are entitled to their own opinions but they are not entitled to their own facts" - Allen Gelbard, Esq.

"Almost everything you do or say or make could be found to be patently offensive somewhere" - Constance Penley

(You can find more quotes and comments about this keynote here)

4. The Sponsors

There were a lot of awesome sponsors at CatalystCon and we are so grateful to each and every one of them for having the good sense to support this conference. We feel like we have to give special shout outs to a few of the sponsors that we had particularly good experiences with. (For the record: this isn't coming from us as official ccon staff, it's coming from us as... well, us).

We're grateful to Tantus for not only sponsoring CatalystCon but also for sponsoring Ducky Doolittle's Dirty Bingo, which was tons of fun. (More on that below.) Tantus' Metis Black also spoke on a panel to rave reviews. And as always it was nice to see the lovely ladies from Wet again.

It was especially great to see Wicked Pictures (and Wicked Sensual Care) there and not just because they brought the awesome jessica drake with them. 

We loved the ad that Wicked designed for the CatalystCon program. From an advertising perspective it was absolutely perfect.They recognized who their audience was at the conference, gave useful information and hit all three of their major points they wanted to hit (their sex ed videos, their traditional erotic films, and their "big name" at the conference that weekend jessica drake). We've seen a lot of really bad advertisements over the years - both in print and in video. So it's always nice to see a company completely understand who their market is and how to reach them in the right way.

We won't name any names, but there was at least one ad in the program that we felt was a total failure. It was confusing, didn't explain their company/product and wasn't designed with the audience of CatalystCon in mind (or maybe it was, who knows, but it didn't reach them that's for sure). We know a lot of people felt the same way. So it was great to see Wicked do it right.

We hate to pick favorites when there were so many awesome sponsors at CatalystCon, but we really do have to say something extra special about ANEROS. They were possibly our favorite sponsor at any conference we've been to ever. (Those are strong words, considering that you all know how we feel about Jimmy Dean at BlogHer. And yes, we realize how fucking bizarre it is to put Aneros and Jimmy Dean in the same conversation, but that's just how we roll.) Of course, you may have already realized how we feel about Aneros after our "EVI Slutopia" post the other day about the new product that they launched at the conference. (If you haven't read that post yet, go do it now and then come back here. Seriously, we'll wait. Everybody needs to meet Evi.) We were also recently quoted in an article about how much we love them as a company:

"We attend a lot of conferences and have interacted with a lot of sponsors, and we've never been as impressed as we were with Aneros at CatalystCon. The fact they chose CatalystCon for the Evi launch says a lot about them as a company and their dedication to sex positivity and sex education…We've never seen any sponsor treat the conference organizer so well or be so genuinely nice, helpful, and professional and just overall fucking awesome to everyone."

Not only is the Evi a seriously cool product, but the people behind Aneros are just really incredible. We spent a lot of time at CatalystCon hanging out with CT and Malay from Aneros (who are both totally fun) and we have to say we were truly impressed by how much they seemed to really "get it". Aneros has already signed on to sponsor CatalystCon East, which we're super psyched about.

5. The People

So many amazing people came together for CatalystCon. People from all walks of life and all different arenas of sexuality... from sex educators and sexologists to adult film actors and sex workers to writers, advocates and activists.We couldn't possibly name everyone that we met or were impressed with (this recap is getting long enough already) so here is just a sampling of some of the people who really made an impact on us that weekend, in no particular order.

• jessica drake - jessica impressed just about everyone that she encountered at the conference. For proof, just check out our Love Letter to her on Storify. 

• Lynn Comella - We're always happy to see Lynn and we totally want her to moderate a panel at our fantasy conference "CabanaCon" (where we all just sit around a pool with cocktails).

• Carol Queen - Carol Queen is a bonafide sex ed "rockstar". When Dee was working on the press releases for CatalystCon she asked our opinion on which "big names" to use to promote the conference, we said she should just write "Carol Queen, Carol Queen, and Carol Queen".

• Dr. Robert Morgan Lawrence -Fuck Brangelina, Carol Queen and Dr. Robert Morgan Lawrence are a real power couple.  Robert spoke several times at the conference and literally blew away everybody - even the AV guy who just happened to be in the room for one of his sessions raved to us about how smart and funny and interesting he was.

• Francisco Ramirez - We absolutely love Francisco, and not just because he's a fellow New Yorker. When we heard that he might not make it to CatalystCon due to illness we were extremely upset, but he was able to speak at the opening keynote as planned (although unfortunately his Sunday session had to be cancelled). 

• Adella - Adella runs Fine Ass Marketing and she rocks. Even though she wasn't the official publicist for CatalystCon, she still helped Dee out and even let Dee have all the sponsor swag for the swag bags shipped to her home! We first met her when we went with Dee to help pick up the boxes and we've decided that Dee was totally right when she referred to her as "the best kick ass publicist you'll ever meet."

• Rachel Kramer Bussel - We had a great conversation with Rachel after the opening plenary about 50 Shades of Grey and whether it might be a "gateway drug" to get people to explore all of the way better erotica that's out there. (Stay tuned for a post about that in our 50 Shades series, which will definitely include some of the erotica collections that Rachel has edited.)

• Ducky DooLittle - Ducky hosted Dirty Bingo and the "Girl Gasms" class that was part of the Evi by ANEROS launch, and she rocked both of them. She's super knowledgeable and funny and really knows how to connect with people, educate them, and still show everyone a good time.

• Davis of Sexquire - We get ourselves into so much trouble, it's only a matter of time before we have to hire Davis to be our legal representation!

• Tizz Wall - We met Tizz for the first time after her session on how to be an ally to sex workers. The session was fantastic and so was she, so we're really glad we got a chance to chat with her one on one. (Or technically it was two on one...whatever, she's awesome.)

• Therese Shechter - We're big fans of Therese and the film she's working on, so it was great to see her again. More on her and her doc "How to Lose Your Virginity" below.

• Cunning Minx - We've loved Minx since we first met her a few years ago at BlogHer and realized that we had found one of our "our people" in the crowd of mommy bloggers. It's always great to see her.

• Megan Andelloux - The first session we attended at the first Momentum conference we attended was one of Megan's, and we immediately knew we were at the perfect conference for us. Now it's pretty typical to hear us saying stuff like this: "I can't remember exactly what the name of the session is, but it's Megan Andelloux...just go. You won't be disappointed." Or as Silver Dreams put it, "I swear, I would listen to this woman talk about moldy bread and find it fascinating."

• Ariana Rodriguez - Ariana hung out with us on Saturday - first she did an interview with Dee for XBIZ (Have you read it the article? You should, it was awesome) which was probably hard to do with the girl gang being obnoxious in the background. Then she joined us all for Dirty Bingo... it wasn't until after Bingo was over that we thought "oh boy I hope that was all off the record".

• Monica Jean - Monica from Stockroom hung out with us late on Saturday night and we thought for sure that she hated us because we were sooo loud and obnoxious and didn't shut up and didn't make any sense. The next day we gave her our standard apology and laughed and said "no, you guys were great! You remind me of me and my roommate"... so we just have to assume that her roommate is also awesome.

• Mo Beasley - We met Mo for the first time at CatalystCon and his positive energy was infectious. (And you know that must be the truth because when do we ever use phrases like that?) He was also super nice about the fact that we had to have his badge reprinted (oops). We can't wait to go and check out one of his UrbanErotika shows in NYC.

• Robin Mandell - Robin is a total sweetheart who was immediately adopted into the CatalystCon "girl gang" staff. Her session on sex and disabilities got rave reviews, and she also repped for Scarleteen all weekend while we worked to raise money for them with the official conference fundraiser.

• Maria Falzone - Maria is like our long lost cousin or something. She's loud and in your face and over the top in the best possible way. We've seen her "Sex Rules" show several times now and it absolutely never gets old or any less funny.

• Everyone else - We met about a zillion more cool people and we just are too brain fried (still!) to possibly list them all. So if we forgot you - sorry! You know we love you. 

And if you still need more evidence that everyone at CatalystCon was awesome...the raffle raised over $1000 for Scarleteen over the weekend!

6. The Girl Gang

Dee put together a small staff of people to help her run the conference, and we were all fucking awesome if we do say so ourselves. First to arrive was Robin Love, followed by us, Miss Darling, and Silver Dreams. Once we were finally all together and hanging out in Dee's suite (aka "HQ"), we joked that there were enough of us to make up a girl gang, and so that became our nickname for the rest of the weekend.

The Girl Gang ended up having the perfect mix of talents - Robin handled all of the tech stuff and kept us on schedule, Miss Darling handled everything from sex worker outreach to hair and makeup, Silver Dreams kept us focused and kept Dee stress free (massages were involved), and we...well, we're us. Even though we were each so different in some ways, we really all worked together so perfectly. In fact, we still miss the girl gang!

Although none of us really got any sleep the whole time we were in Long Beach, there was something about putting us all in a room together that re-energized us and gave us the strength to keep powering on. (Or maybe it was the sugar rush from all of the Nutella that we ate.) This was probably most clear when we stumbled downstairs for breakfast on Monday morning. We were all so exhausted and quiet the entire elevator ride down, but once we all got at a table together again we revved back up and became our usual hyper, loud, obnoxious selves. Finally, CT from Aneros asked us "don't you ever get tired?"  We realized that although yes, we were extremely tired, when we came together we multiplied in energy and power. The Girl Gang is like... Voltron. (Or Captain Planet if you prefer that analogy.) We're awesome enough as individuals, but when we join together we form a giant super robot powerful enough to defend the galaxy from evil. Or something.

For even more Girl Gang goodness, you can check out the Storify we put together with some of our favorite #girlgang tweets from the weekend. Yes, we're kinda addicted to Storify right now, and we're kinda obsessed with the awesomeness of our own Girl Gang. Deal with it.

Miss Darling doing Dee's hair in the Girl Gang suite

7. The Parties and Special Events

Opening Night
 
Even though every minute with Dee and the girl gang was like a party, there a lot of fun special events at CatalystCon. The conference started with an Opening Reception that was so great that people actually snuck in. (Read more about that below, you won't even believe it.) First Reid Mihalko did his Social Lubrication activity - think "speed flirting" - and then the one and only Maria Falzone made the whole room laugh with her hilarious SEX RULES show. Like we said before, watching Maria perform never gets old for us.

Dee knows what the attendees really want, so there was a pasta station and bar right outside the ballroom during the entire reception, opening activities, and opening keynote. Then some of us continued drinking afterwards so... yeah, let's just say that a lot of drinking happened over the weekend.

"How to Lose Your Virginity"

We've been supporters of this documentary for awhile so we were really happy to see filmmaker Therese Shechter at CatalystCon hosting a preview screening and Q&A about the doc.

About the film: Virginity loss is a personal milestone in almost every woman’s life, but this process of becoming sexual is defined by myths and dogma, fetishized in our popular culture, and linked to morality and self worth. “How to Lose Your Virginity” deconstructs this virginity construct and advocates for a more nuanced and complex discussion of female sexuality in our culture.

(Quotes and comments from the screening can be found here)

"GirlGasms" Sex Education Workshop with Ducky Doolittle/EVI by ANEROS Launch

On Saturday, the lovely and talented Ducky Doolittle hosted a sex education workshop on kegel fitness and the female orgasm. The workshop was sponsored by Aneros and was also the lauch of the Evi, their new product for women. The class was hilarious and informative at the same time and everyone was totally excited about the Evi. They did a giveaway and miraculously every member of the Girl Gang that was present won one...except for Lilith, but the Aneros crew gave her one anyway later on so she wouldn't feel left out, because they are awesome. Since Robin Love was in charge of handing out the raffle tickets, we joked that she had managed to rig the contest. (Of course, that wasn't possible - she handed out the tickets, but she didn't draw them... but it was still a hilarious coincidence.) We're still hearing great feedback from people about what a cool event and product launch this was.

Dirty Bingo with Ducky Doolittle

Later that evening we went to Dirty Bingo also hosted by Ducky Doolittle - it was a Super Ducky Saturday. For those of you who have never gone to one of Ducky's Dirty Bingo events, you're missing out. You probably don't even know what "Chicken baby!" means, which means you kinda haven't lived. Since Dee is sort of famous (infamous?) for wearing cute pajamas out in public, we all decided to get comfy and enjoy bingo in our PJs too. At Bingo, Robin was in charge of giving out the raffle tickets again and yet again the Girl Gang table kept getting picked for fun games, trivia, and prizes. 

Jezebel: Great job rigging the raffle tickets again Robin!

The official Girl Gang table at Dirty Bingo with Evi by Aneros good luck charm

After Bingo was over we all stayed at the table and kept drinking and laughing until the hotel staff came to clean up the room and move the tables. (Basically the equivalent of closing down the bar.) We can't even remember exactly what was so funny - we were drinking a lot - but we know we laughed so hard that our sides hurt and our voices turned hoarse.
 

8. The Random Moments

Wherever we go, we have a ton of "only the ESC" kind of experiences... but at CatalystCon, we think we may have had more than ever. That might be due to the fact that the rest of our Girl Gang was just as crazy and hilarious as we are... or the fact that we all went several days with very little sleep and lots of alcohol and Nutella.

The awesomeness started even before the conference did because we arrived in Long Beach on Wednesday to help Dee prepare. The first laugh of the week started at the Long Beach airport. Have you ever been? It's... adorable. We're from New York, so we're used to airports that look like... you know, airports. When we fly into JFK or LaGuardia and it's loud and smelly and crowded and dirty, we know that we're home. So arriving in Long Beach was a trip for us. 

Jezebel: I've never seen an outdoor baggage claim with a concession stand before.

Dee was waiting to pick us up in the baggage claim...area. Can we just tell you one of many reasons why Dee Dennis is our favorite conference organizer of all time? Because who else would ask us for a "grocery list" before we got there, so she could stock her mini-fridge with Corona and limes for us?! Dee's hotel room was connected to a big suite that she dubbed "HQ" and we all had keys to it. The rest of the girl gang all had rooms on that floor, so we were never too far away. One of the things we miss the most after being back is being able to just walk down the hall to hang out with Dee and the girl gang whenever we wanted.

Bellinis in the HQ Suite

We've already requested that the Aneros team join us on our "official" hotel floor at the next CatalystCon.

Jezebel: Dee, CT totally wants to be on the Girl Gang hotel floor next time.

CT: Yeah, I'll just get some earplugs.

Even before the conference officially started it was already the best conference we'd ever been to, because we had such a good time hanging out in HQ with Dee and the girl gang. We barely slept that whole week, so a lot of the conversations are sort of... fuzzy. But the one thing we can remember for sure is that it was always hilarious and tons of fun. We stayed up super late every night, even though we were all exhausted. Even when we said "oh we'll get to bed early this time" we never did. (Lilith literally fell asleep on the floor of HQ every single night... but only for a minute or two, we swear.) We were all so loud and we literally never shut up for even a second, so to everyone staying on our floor who wasn't a part of the gang and probably wanted to kill us the entire time, our apologies.

In fact, we probably should extend an apology to anyone who interacted with us during CatalystCon. We don't usually give people the full ESC experience right away; we try to ease new people in gradually. But the conference was such a crazy whirlwind of excitement and alcohol and sleep deprivation that a lot of people got the total ESC effect all at once. Plus, like we said above, when we merged with the rest of the Girl Gang, it was like ESC to the extreme, which has to be a lot for anyone to take. So we're sorry to anyone we may have traumatized.

Shortly before leaving for CatalystCon, Lilith did a full STD screening (like any good slut should do). The first morning that we were in Long Beach, her phone rang at 6:00 am. It was her doctor, which totally freaked her out because having your doctor call you at 6 in the morning automatically makes you worry that something showed up on the tests. But it was good news - all the tests were negative.

Lilith: Sorry if I woke you. But I don't have any STDs!

Jezebel: That's nice. I'm going back to sleep.

On Friday night, we worked the registration desk, giving attendees their badges and swag bags. One couple - we'll be nice and not name them - we'll just call them Mr. and Mrs. Gate Crasher - showed up and said they weren't registered but wanted to stop by and check it out. We gave them a program to look at but let them know that they couldn't enter the conference area without badges. (We offered to register them on site and get them badges, but they declined.) Eventually they said they would come back the next day and register then, and they left. About a half hour later, we noticed the woman wandering around the conference area, so Lilith went over to her to let her know that she needed to have a badge to be there. It took about twenty more minutes to get a straight answer from her.

Here's a sampling of the conversation:

Lilith: Hi, I'm sorry, you need a badge to be beyond this point.

Mrs. GC: Ohhh. Okay. [doesn't leave]

Lilith: So you can't stay here without a badge.

Mrs. GC: Ohhh. Okay. Okay. It's fine. [still doesn't leave]

Lilith: So I'm afraid you're going to have to either get a badge or leave.

Mrs. GC: Yes. It's fine.

Lilith: Um, so if you're not registered, you need to leave.

Mrs. GC: Ohhh. Okay. We're registered.

Lilith: Oh... okay. I thought your husband had said earlier that you weren't registered.

Mrs. GC: Ohhh. Okay. Yes. It's fine.

Lilith: Do you have a badge?

Mrs. GC: Yes. Yes.

Lilith: So, you're going to need to put it on.

Mrs. GC: Ohhh. Okay. It's fine.

It went on like that for a while until finally she said that her husband must have the badges up in the room. Lilith told her she was going to need to go up to the room and get them from him in order to stay here. We don't know why she bothered to try to give us that song and dance, because we all knew that she wasn't registered. They had just told us a few minutes ago that they weren't registered. But we figured we'd humor her and let her save face. So we watched her walk to the elevators and then we went back to the registration desk.

A little while later we looked up and there she was again! How she was able to sneak by us without us noticing, we'll never know. Maybe she climbed out a window and tiptoed across the ledge to the other side of the hotel, who knows. Lilith went back up to her and the crazy conversation continued...

Lilith: Oh, you're back. Were you able to get your badge from your husband?

Mrs. GC: Yes.

Lilith: So... do you have it?

Mrs. GC: Yes. Yes.

Lilith: You need to be wearing it.

Mrs. GC: Ohh. Okay. Okay.

Lilith: So... can you put it on?

Mrs. GC: Yes. It's fine.

Lilith: Um... okay. Look, I'm sorry, but you really can't be back here without a badge.

Mrs. GC: Ohh. Okay.

Lilith: I thought you said earlier that you weren't registered.

Mrs. GC: Ohh. Okay. It's fine.

Lilith: But you need to be registered. This is a private event.

Mrs. GC: Ohh, no we're registered. It's fine.

(Are you banging your head on the desk yet?) Finally, she claimed that she was registered for Saturday and Sunday, but not for Friday evening. Lilith told her that we'd be happy to upgrade her registration to include tonight for $25 if she'd like. So Lilith walked her back to the registration desk again.

SilverDreams: Weren't you just here a few minutes ago and you said you weren't registered?

Mrs. GC: Oh. Me? What? Oh. No.

SilverDreams: Let me rephrase: YOU were JUST HERE a few minutes ago and you SAID you were NOT registered.

Lilith: She said she thinks she's registered for tomorrow.

Then we checked the badge list for the name she gave me. Obviously it wasn't there. She kept giving us different names, "well, maybe it's under this name... maybe it's under that name... maybe it's under my stage name." We're pretty sure she was just naming literally any names that she could think of and hoping that she would get lucky with one of them. "It might be under Susan...or um, Clarence...Daisy? Maybe it's under Matthew...Tiffany...Smith?"

SilverDreams: She's not registered, they were just here. 

Lilith: I know, but I'm going to keep looking up every name she tells me until she gives up.

Then finally she said, "Well, we registered downstairs."  As in, downstairs in the hotel lobby. I'm sure we've all had that experience where you check into a hotel and they offer you free passes to a sexuality conference along with your room key.

Lilith: Downstairs?

Mrs. GC: Yes. Is that not the same thing?

Lilith: You mean with the hotel? Um... that's different. This is a private conference, it's not part of the hotel registration.

Mrs. GC: Ohh. Okay. [still doesn't leave]

Lilith: I'm sorry, but you're going to have to leave this area.

Mrs. GC: Ohh. Ohh. Okay... [pause] ...but I'm supposed to meet my husband here.

Lilith: That's fine. You can sit right there [pointing towards a sofa just outside the registration area] and wait for your husband.

Mrs. GC: Ohh. Okay. I'm just going to get a drink at the bar first. [Gesturing to the bar within the conference area]

Lilith: [Sigh] Alright.

We watched her as she stood "near" the end of the bar line... slowly drifting backwards, farther way, avoiding eye contact with us. Finally someone else told her to leave again and Lilith went into the ballroom to look for her husband and spotted him right away. (Naturally we were utterly shocked that he wasn't "up in the room" the entire time like his wife said he was.) Lilith told him that no one was allowed back there without a badge and he said "oh okay, no problem, I'm just going to say goodbye." Lilith stood there and waited while he said his goodbyes. Then he came back and said "You're being extremely rude. I'm not doing anything wrong. I'm just trying to say goodbye to my friends and you're standing here like I'm doing something wrong." Of course we agree that it was very rude of Lilith to try to stop him from crashing a conference that he had no intention of paying for. He finished his goodbyes, collected his wife's pocketbook off the table and left. As they exited, he said "we'll be back tomorrow." Spoiler alert: They never came back.

After reenacting the entire "Ohh. Okay. It's fine. Yes." conversation for Dee, complete with voices and body language, she thought Lilith's impression of Mrs. GC was so funny that she made her reenact it for the entire girl gang and other friends about a hundred times. After a while, we were all just randomly saying "Ohh. Okay. It's fine. Yes. Yes. Maybe it's under my stage name" so much that we couldn't control it anymore and it would slip out accidentally. By Monday Lilith had almost completely lost her voice - this was primarily due to the all the laughing and yelling we did all weekend, not to mention the fact that we each got about 2 hours of sleep per night, but we're convinced that doing the voice of Mrs. GC contributed to it.

Seriously, if we were not still semi-anonymous on here we would totally post a video of Lilith doing the Mrs. GC impersonation. (Maybe we'll create a podcast or something.) It's much more hilarious than it seems in this blog entry. Which is very hilarious, we're sure.

Thanks to Dr. Shira Tarrant, CatalystCon had a bunch of awesome student volunteers helping out at the conference. We liked to call them "interns" for some reason. Our hands-down favorite volunteer was Britney. Her name wasn't really Britney, but we mistakenly called her "Britney" for a full day and she never gave us any attitude about it. She was so great that she even stayed late on Sunday to help us pack up afterwards and we "rewarded" her by giving her a bunch of female condoms and lube and notepads that we had left over from the swag bags to give out at her college, and by making her listen to our stupid, loud craziness all night. We have decided that Not-Britney needs to be at every CatalystCon West for as long as she continues to live in the Long Beach area.

Not-Britney wasn't the only person we renamed at ccon. When the AV guy arrived on Friday, Robin said to him "Oh, are you sound?" and he said yes. So from that point forward, his name was "Sound". Finally, we found out that his actual name was Justin, but we still liked calling him Sound (or Sound-Justin or AV Justin).

At one point on Sunday, he was sitting near the registration desk with the Girl Gang talking to Jezebel about football when someone mentioned jessica drake.

Jezebel: Do you know who jessica drake is?

Sound-Justin: Um...well...

Jezebel: Don't even try to pretend, I could tell by the look on your face as soon as her name came up.

Sound-Justin: She's really here?

Jezebel: Yes, she's really here. I met her and talked to her and everything.

Sound-Justin: Is she as beautiful in person as she is in her movies?

Aw. We made sure that he got to go home with a copy of the jessica drake DVD that Wicked was giving out in the Exhibitors Room.

We all thought Not-Britney and Sound-Justin were both so young and adorable, that they'd make a great couple (since we're pretty sure jessica drake is unavailable). If either of you are reading this - get in touch!


So, some of you who hung out with us at CatalystCon may have overheard us talking about how a certain CEO is kind of hot. It's true - he is, but for those of you who did hear us we feel like we should clarify the reason why this was such an...um, hot topic of conversation all week. In the weeks before CatalystCon, Dee had talked to us about him and his company a lot - how she was so impressed with them, how excited she was that they had chosen to be at CatalystCon, and how she was looking forward to introducing us to them. At one point she mentioned in passing, "you guys will love the CEO, he's really nice and smart... and he's hot too."

Lilith: Um... no offense Dee, but I think we probably have different definitions of "hot" than you do.

After we finally did meet him, the conversation went something like this...

Lilith: Okay, wow, I apologize. You were totally right.

Dee: I told you so.

Jezebel: We'll never doubt you again.

She wouldn't let Lilith live it down and teased her for the rest of the weekend. It became kind of a recurring joke among the Girl Gang that we all thought he was hot. It's probably one of those 'you had to be there' jokes, but that's never stopped us before.

So... um...unnamed CEO, if you're reading this, we'd like to issue a formal apology for semi-secretly and totally jokingly objectifying you all weekend. We know that you're also very nice and very smart and very successful and overall an awesome person on the inside too. And for the record he's also the only guy cool enough to be considered an honorary member of the Girl Gang, although we're not sure how thrilled he is about that right about now.

Something you may not know about the ESC is that we kind of share of a brain. And that brain has serious issues. We think we have seriously begun to freak Dee out by the times that we finish each other's sentences or share little "moments" that are too ridiculous to comprehend. Sometimes we just point at each other and no words are exchanged at all. One stupid example: Dee was talking to us about... something (we forget) and she innocently used the term "spice up your life". Lilith turned to Jezebel and said... nothing. She didn't need to.

Lilith: ......

Jezebel: Colors of the world...

Lilith: Spice up your life!

Jezebel: Every boy and every girl...

Dee: What the hell are you talking about?

Lilith: The Spice Girls.

Dee: Why?

Jezebel: Because you said "spice up your life". Duh.

Dee thought we were nuts... but after that kind of thing happened about ten more times over the span of the week, she started to realize the full extent of the ESC's psychic connection. Well, psychic connection and shared knowledge of obscure pop culture references.

We had a blast hanging out with Robin Mandell of Scarleteen over the weekend. Even though she wasn't actually staff, we made her an official member of the Girl Gang anyway. There was sometimes some confusion over which Robin we were talking about (between Robin Mandell and Robin Love)... so we just called whichever one wasn't in the room "other Robin".

Except for the night of Dirty Bingo... that night we called Robin Love "drunk Robin". We kept talking about ordering in food, but then... never did it. We didn't really think about it until we realized that Robin had been drinking on an empty stomach. The joke was that she basically had a grape and a bottle of vodka for dinner - it wasn't really that bad, but dinner probably would have been a good idea for all of us that night. But even after a few too many drinks, she was still totally on top of the schedule.

Robin: "It's time to go to Bingo now. Now. NOW NOW NOW!"

But one thing she wasn't completely on top of was the other Robin. Those of you who know Robin M. personally know that she is blind, so during the conference the girl gang helped her out occasionally by walking with her when she needed a little guidance. (Really mostly just an excuse for us to hang out with her as much as possible.) When Robin got to Dirty Bingo that night, Robin Love escorted her to a seat in  the front of the room...and then came back to the table without her.

Dee: Who is Robin sitting next to? Does she know that woman?

Robin: I don't know.

Dee: So then why is she sitting all the way over there instead of with us?

Robin: That's where she was sitting before.

Dee: Before...? You mean, at the session today... hours ago... in a different room?

Don't worry, we went back to Robin M. and asked her if she wanted to join us and she was happy to... but we all had a big laugh about it. And Drunk Robin was tons of fun in our opinion.

Apparently, we weren't the only ones who went a little crazy the later it got. One night we decided to order room service in the HQ suite. It was the late night menu so our choices were limited, but they had a turkey and cheese sandwich that Lilith decided to order. Dee made the call...

Dee: ... and a turkey and cheese sandwich with nothing on it.

Woman on the phone: You mean... not even turkey or cheese?

Dee: What? No, I want a turkey and cheese sandwich... with nothing on it. No mayo, no tomato....

Lilith: Yeah, I just want two slices of bread.

The CatalystCon fun continued even after the conference was officially over. Dee piled a bunch of us into one car to go to the airport on Monday and we laughed the whole ride there. We were on the same flight home as Dee, but she was in first class (lucky bitch) and we were stuck back in coach, so we didn't board at the same time. As we passed through first class to get to our seats we both exclaimed, "Oh my god! It's Dee Dennis! The world famous organizer of CatalystCon!" Then we did it again after we excited the plane and found her at the baggage claim. "Oh my god! It's Dee Dennis! Can we have your autograph?" When we finally had to go our separate ways, it was really hard to say goodbye.

9. Other Recaps and Coverage

So many great blog posts and articles have been written about CatalystCon and every day we find more. In our recaps we usually have a section to list some of favorites, but since it's been hard to narrow them down (and more appear every day) we thought we'd just direct you to the Press pages of CatalystCon.com, where we've been helping Dee compile all the awesome CatalystCon coverage we've been able to find. (We can't wait to add our own recap to that list!)

• Press Clippings - articles and blogs about CatalystCon (if you have written about the conference or found a great article about it, please send a link) 

• Live Coverage - the best tweets from CatalystCon curated via Storify 

• Also: CatalystCon: A Love Letter - in addition to the official Storify coverage, we also put together a little "love letter" to capture all of the praise that everyone had for the conference in general.

10. CatalystCon East!

Luckily we don't have to wait a full year to experience the awesomeness that is CatalystCon again. Dee and the Girl Gang will be reuniting in March in Washington, D.C. for CatalystCon East! Registration information can be found here. Early bird prices are available until Jan 15, 2013. The Call for Speakers has already been announced - if you're interested in submitting a proposal for a session, the deadline is November 1, 2012. See you there!

EVI Slutopia

This past weekend we were lucky enough to be a part of the CatalystCon conference on sexuality, activism, and acceptance that took place in Long Beach, CA. (Our standard ridiculously long conference recap is coming soon.) The conference was organized by Dee Dennis, known as the Lady Gaga of sex positive conference organizers...okay, she's only known as that to us, but that's really all that matters. We were members of Dee's conference staff, unofficially but proudly known as the Girl Gang.

What's that curvy sexy red thing in front of our sign? We're glad you asked. It's the brand new EVI by Aneros, which made its debut (her debut? we're not sure how EVI chooses to identify) at CatalystCon. Here, have some press release action:

Long Beach, CA – CatalystCon announces that Aneros will debut their first female product during the conference.

CatalystCon creator Dee Dennis is thrilled that Aneros has chosen to debut EVI at CatalystCon because it reflects a shared commitment to sex education and to CatalystCon’s goals of sparking new conversations about sexuality and igniting change.”We are excited and proud to introduce our first female product at CatalystCon,” said CT Schenk, CEO at Aneros. “We chose this conference over the mundane trade shows because our focus is on the message rather than distribution, and CatalystCon was the perfect venue.”

In addition to debuting EVI at CatalystCon, Aneros will be hosting a special sex education class with a focus on kegel exercise and the female orgasm on Saturday of the conference at 5:30pm.  Aneros will be having several giveaways of their product and all attendees are invited.

We had a chance to hang out with CT during Catalyst, so we can tell you that he's one of those rare people who actually means what he says in sound bite press release quotes. And since we're not in the habit of praising...um, anyone ever, you know that if we're saying that, it must be true.

Anyway, the EVI doesn't just look cool, it is really cool. Here's how it works: "Anatomically designed, the velvet soft EVI requires no vibration and guarantees users a sensual, hands free experience like no other. Once comfortably inserted, an easy Kegel workout is all that is needed to get EVI rocking your world. Both the G-Spot and clitoris are perfectly stimulated in a toe curling rhythm. Break free from the mundane world of generic vibrating toys and immerse yourself in EVI's vast garden of pleasure." And yes, we totally could have paraphrased all of that instead of quoting it directly, but we couldn't pass up the opportunity to have the phrase "vast garden of pleasure" on our blog.

They're not kidding about that "velvet soft" thing either. We had a communal EVI for the staff that we all couldn't stop playing with. (And by "communal" we mean that it belonged to Dee but we all kept stealing it from her. And by "playing with" we mean literally playing with it, not using it for its intended purpose. The Girl Gang is close but we're not that close.) We found that it made a lovely centerpiece on the dining table in our staff suite. Eventually we just started taking it everywhere with us and discovered that it also functions as a good luck charm. The picture above is from when we took it to Dirty Bingo with us and our table ended up winning like three times. Had to be the EVI. Another night we took EVI down to the hotel bar with us, which sparked a hilarious discussion among everyone hanging out at the bar about what people thought it looked like, with responses ranging from a duck to a Swedish ergonomic chair to the Starship Enterprise.

As part of the EVI launch at CatalystCon, Aneros hosted a class on Kegels and the Art of the Orgasm with the lovely Ducky Doolittle.  Ducky was fantastic and the class was not just informative but also fun and funny and personal and generally awesome. There was also a raffle where a bunch of lucky people won EVIs of their own. We don't know if it was just a crazy coincidence or our good luck charm at work again, but almost everyone on the CatalystCon staff ended up winning. We suspect that our fellow Girl Gang member Robin Love, who was in charge of the raffle tickets, may have rigged it for us. (Just kidding, she totally didn't. Or did she? No really though, she didn't. We think.)  

There was at least one person who liked Ducky's class even more than we did. Not long after it ended we spotted this empty EVI box in the bathroom across from the room where the class was held:

Someone just couldn't wait to try out their EVI!

On our last morning we packed up to come home, which meant finding space in our luggage for our new EVIs. At one point Jezebel went to get stuff out of the bathroom while Lilith was trying to fit the box into her suitcase.

Lilith: I can't get my EVI in! It won't fit!
Jezebel: Well, just relax your body...do you need help?
Lilith: Very funny.
Jezebel: I'm putting mine in my carry on, I don't want the TSA agents to be tempted.
Lilith: I don't really need to bring home that extra pair of shoes do I? The EVI is more important.
Jezebel: You can always buy new shoes.

Overall we were just super impressed not only with the EVI itself, but with Aneros as a company and a conference sponsor. If you've read any of our other conference recaps you know that we have a lot of experience in dealing with sponsors and we're never afraid to criticize all of the stuff that we see that we don't like. So when we have an opportunity like this to say good things about a really cool and unique product from a great company, of course we're all over it.

To check out EVI for yourself, go to Aneros.com/Evi. You can also like her on Facebook. And please refer to us as EVI Slutopia until further notice.

*Disclosure: We received EVIs while we were at CatalystCon, and we're members of the CatalystCon staff, but this is NOT a sponsored post. We weren't asked to write it and we're not being paid to say any of this. All opinions are (as always) 100% our own.

Mitt Romney Attempts to Scare Women and Baby Girls Into Supporting Him

Following the smashing success of his "Break Up With President Obama" ad, Mitt Romney has a new ad out aimed at baby girls and the women voters who love them, and it's a real gem. Check it out:


 

Dear Daughter: Welcome to America. Your share of Obama's debt is over $50,000, and it grows every day. Obama's policies are making it harder on women. The poverty rate for women? The highest in 17 years. More women are unemployed under President Obama. More than five and a half million women can't find work. That's what Obama's policies have done for women. Welcome, daughter. 
 
First of all, the voiceover lady's tone makes it sound like she's talking to us about "feminine itching" or something, not the future of our country. And this ad reads like it was supposed to be a 60 second spot instead, with the second half featuring some hopeful sounding music playing over scenes of Mitt Romney personally marrying every single one of us to ensure our secure financial futures. Instead it's just one giant buzzkill about how all of the children of America are totally fucked because Barack Obama ruined everything. Inspiring!

There's not so much as a hint of any policy proposals or ideas or suggestions or even empty promises about what Mittens is going to do better for us, but perhaps they were afraid that including too much "information" in the ad would overload our ladybrains. So of course that leaves unanswered the question of why any woman would be better off economically in a Romney administration when you consider the fact that Mitt refuses to even take a position on the issue of equal pay for women or the Paycheck Fairness Act (and his running mate voted against the Ledbetter Act), and he wants to make it harder for women to access affordable contraception (which helps us plan our families or lack thereof better and is therefore a financially good thing for us) and health care services in general. I guess the 'bad things will happen to babies and you don't want that, do you ladies?' message is supposed to suffice.

Also, we need to come together and take a moment to discuss the extreme creepiness of the "I'm Mitt Romney and I approved this message" at the end. I've heard it before on his other ads and it's time to address it so that we can all begin to heal. It sounds to me like they did about 57 takes trying to get one where Mitt sounded presidential or at least somewhat human, and finally just gave up and settled for one where he sounds like Edward Cullen staring in your bedroom window all night because he just loves you that much.

So yeah, vote for Mitt Romney or babies will have to file for bankruptcy because of Barack Obama. Or something.

Pro Tip: Don't Use 9/11 As A Hook For Your PR Pitch

We get a lot of random PR pitch emails all the time. Occasionally they're interesting, but most of them aren't right for our blog. Some of them are way off base, like the pitches we get that are directed at 50 Shades of Grey fans. But we've never seen anything quite like the one that we got today.

Subject: Feel Good Story for 9/11

,-

Just a quick note if you wanted a departure from all the grimness of the day for your site.

Comedian Steve Hofstetter, whose birthday is today, decided to use the day for something serious. He made a video discouraging his 8 million social media people from birthday wishes, instead asking for donations to a cancer org that helped his wife during a difficult time.

It's a short video, and I admit I welled up at the end.
http://www.meredone.com/look-what-my-husband-got-me-for-his-birthday/

Thank you!

Barry Mackey
Senior Account Executive
Next Round Entertainment

So are we overreacting or is this just majorly thoughtless and inappropriate? We don't really have a problem with the video itself, but aside from Hofstetter mentioning at the beginning that September 11th is his birthday, it has nothing to do with 9/11. It's about a fundraiser for a breast cancer organization. It's a nice story, but it's not a "feel good story for 9/11", and it seems really bizarre to us to market it that way.

We also have a problem with the opening line of the email. (We'll just ignore the fact that the email opens with ",-" because Barry forgot to fill in our names or any other generic greeting.) We're both New Yorkers and one of us was in Manhattan on 9/11, so no fucking stupid PR pitch is going to provide us with "a departure from all the grimness of the day", nor would we assume that it would accomplish that for our readers. And then to go on and praise Hofstetter's decision to "use the day for something serious" - as opposed to how everyone else uses 9/11 for fun and games? We get that he's referring to Hofstetter's birthday and not 9/11 itself, but it just comes off sounding tone deaf and insensitive.

Don't use 9/11 to promote yourself. Even if it happens to be your birthday and even if you think it's for a good cause. Just don't do it.

The GOP Tells Women to "Break Up" With President Obama

The Republican National Committee has a new ad out called "The Breakup" in which a woman tells someone that their relationship isn't working out. We won't ruin the shocking twist ending for you:



Listen, this just isn't working. It's been four years. You've changed. Your spending is out of control, you're constantly on the golf course, and you're always out with Hollywood celebrities. You think I didn't see you with Sarah Jessica Parker and George Clooney? Your jobs council says you haven't even showed up in six months. You're just not the person I thought you were. It's not me, it's you. I think we should just be friends.


Yes, she's breaking up with a cardboard cutout of President Obama. (And in a nice homage to the end of the Bush administration, she leaves and sticks cardboard Obama with the bill.) Why does this feel to me like those articles in Cosmo where they try to encourage women to watch football by saying that the players are hot and wear tight pants, because everyone knows that women don't really like or understand sports, right? Like the GOP assumes that women aren't reached by regular campaign ads that discuss actual issues, so let's do a girly ad for them where we engage their ladybrains by likening President Obama to a bad boyfriend. And be sure to name drop Sarah Jessica Parker and George Clooney, because they're on the list that the women's outreach consultant gave us of celebrities that all women like.

The star of this ad is, of course, not a disappointed former Obama supporter. It's Bettina Inclan, RNC Director of Hispanic Outreach - and considering that the cardboard Obama out-acted her in this ad I guess it's a good thing she has a day job. It's also pretty hilarious that they would even try the "Hollywood celebrities" line of attack at all - last time I checked it wasn't the DNC and the Obama campaign that turned over the first speaking slot in the prime time 10pm hour before their candidate's acceptance speech to Clint Eastwood so that he could ramble incoherently and argue with an invisible president in an empty chair.

To me, this ad fits right in with the patronizing and pandering tone of the Republican convention and the Romney campaign in general where women voters are concerned - the endless praising of moms in RNC speeches with little or no discussion of equal pay or other issues that matter to women, Paul Ryan referring to the issue of access to birth control as a "distraction", the RNC Woman Up Pavilion that offered hair and makeup touch-ups and pink Romney t-shirts, Ann Romney going from yelling "I love women!" in the middle of her RNC speech to saying the following week that women "need to wake up" and realize that Mitt "will be there for you", and so on.

The end of the ad encourages people to go to BreakUpWithObama.com to share their own reasons for breaking up with President Obama. (And as evidence of how much more on point the Obama campaign's game is, if you accidentally type BreakingUpWithObama.com instead, it redirects to a a page on BarackObama.com.) Instead we think we'll leave a message explaining that we won't be breaking up with Obama, and we also won't have to break up with Mitt Romney or any other Republican...because we don't "date" condescending sexist candidates who don't respect us in the first place.