The Blog

It's 12:30 p.m. outside of the downtown offices of the former Washington Blade, which served as D.C.'s gay newspaper of record from 1969 until this morning. Just hours ago, the staff of the Blade learned that its parent company, Window Media, had filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, that the Blade was closed effective immediately, and that the paper's two dozen employees were all out of work.

Now, two guys in purple shirts are methodically removing stacks of boxes out of the office, located on the fifth floor of the National Press Club building. What's inside? "Just personal belongings," one says, as he heads to the elevator. Everybody has until 3:30 p.m. to clear out.

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Chris Brown appeared on the Wendy Williams Show on Friday, where he spoke about his anger management classes, explained how his posture has been misconstrued by the media, and basked in the excessive fawning of Williams’ female audience.

The whole interview was weird. Williams opens the segment by describing Brown's history of abuse in strangely passive language: “Our first guest has faced a firestorm of criticism for the past several months after a widely publicized domestic violence incident, which occurred with his former girlfriend, Rihanna.” But the low point of the interview comes at the end, when William asks Brown if he’s dating anyone. Brown responds, “Of course. I love women.” And the crowd goes wild.

I hate “I love women.”

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Daily Telegraph advice columnist Lesley Garner is faced with quite the conundrum this week: A situation so horrible that it could only possibly be made worse by . . . the recommendations of Daily Telegraph advice columnist Lesley Garner!

The situation: "Eva," a married woman, is raped by her boss on a business trip. She becomes pregnant. She decides to get an abortion. Her husband is supportive of the abortion, but not of Eva—-"He drove me to a clinic for a consultation and waited outside in the car because he 'didn't want to hear me talk about conception dates,'" she writes. Eva later decides not to go through with the abortion. Her husband leaves her. She raises a beautiful baby boy on her own. Now, seven years later, she wants to reconnect with her ex. But there is a complication: "What happened on that trip wasn't quite rape but I wasn't exactly willing either. The man was my boss and he was very drunk and forceful. I tried to push him away without upsetting him, but he was too strong and I didn't fight him."

You know the guy who "accidentally" rapes women? The acquaintance who "misreads" the situation and "goes too far"? The longtime friend who genuinely thought you had consented and is shocked when you tell him that, no, it was rape? Well, we're not going to take that guy's bullshit anymore. Thomas over at the Yes Means Yes! blog has crunched the numbers on "undetected" acquaintance rapists to figure out who this "accidental rapist" actually is.

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The holiday season is fast approaching, which means it's time to roll out more products to help our little girls feel very bad about their bodies. Over the years, toy makers have boldly invented new mechanisms for making money off of the body consciousness of young girls. Below, inventors push girls to look simultaneously curvier (grow boobs already!), skinnier (but make sure to lose your baby weight!), sexily reproductive (be six years old AND skinny AND pregnant!) and matronly (breastfeed babies with the boobs you don't have!). A treasure chest of body-shaming toys:

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As it turns out, I'm not the only one hoping that the widespread media coverage of date rape drugging will die down a bit. A fraternity on the University of Arizona campus has been accused of sabotaging 10,000 campus newspapers in order to cover up a small item in which a woman alleged having been drugged and possibly sexually assaulted at one of the frat's parties.

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Irish Times writer Kathryn Holmquist has some rotten sex advice for girls: sometimes it's “too late to say no.” Holmquist tells girls that by having one too many drinks, kissing too deeply, or stepping into a man's car, they begin to surrender their right to deny sex. Holmquist's premise—that respecting "no" depends on the circumstance—is offensive. But it raises a more advanced question: Why are women required to say “no” in the first place?

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AshleyMadison.com, an online dating site that facilitates extramarital affairs in the interest of preserving traditional marriages, has never been too popular among moral conservatives. Earlier this year, Deroy Murdock argued on the conservative site Human Events that Ashley Madison has edged out gay marriage as the number one threat to traditional matrimony. Now cluck-clucking conservatives won’t have to choose between the cheaters and the gays: Ashley Madison has begun marketing itself as a place where the married can pursue their same-sex attractions, too.

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Earlier this week, a reader wrote in with an interesting conundrum: How do you politely explain to a friend that their chosen Halloween costume could be racist? The reader lays out the issue:

Obviously, there is a market for costumes that are based on racial discriminations. But I am guessing that the majority of people who purchase these types of costumes are not doing so out of blatant racism, but more out of ignorance that the costume is offensive, or that they are perpetuating a stereotype.

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This week, a study in the British Journal of Criminology announced that “date rape drugs” are “largely an urban myth,” as “there is a stark contrast between heightened perceptions of risk associated with drug-facilitated sexual assault and a lack of evidence that this is a wide-spread threat.” Several sites for women met the news with skepticism. Feministing suggested that the study may have engaged in victim-blaming. The Frisky warned that the study “needs to be viewed with caution. I don’t think we want women to start leaving their drinks unattended, just because the chances of getting roofied are slimmer than they may have thought.” TresSugar hailed the report as “depressing.”

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