issue 67 by debbie stoller

CARRIE BROWNSTEIN + FRED ARMISEN | TWILIGHT’S CATHERINE HARDWICKE | SNOOKI 4EVER

Portia de Rossi ﬁnally comfortable in her own skin

LYKKE LI & DIPLO (in bed... but not together)

SEX BLOGGERS EXPOSED!

weAsex OUR SEX ISSUE REVEALS THE SHOCKING TRUTH!

THAT’S WHAT SHE SAID the results of our ﬁrst-ever sex survey!

TOP

adulteresses of all time DIY DEPRESSION REMEDIES STICK IT IN how to tap your own maple syrup

FE B / MAR 2011 – V OLUME 67

FEATURES [FEB/MAR ’11]

Contents

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: DAEMIAN SMITH AND CHRISTINE SUAREZ; ANDREW ECCLES; TED MCGRATH

44 44

BLONDE AMBITION Portia de Rossi proves that

THE NAKED TRUTH Bloggers who exposed their

HAIR TODAY, GONE TOMORROW The history

self-acceptance is the sexiest accessory of all. By Priya Jain

LET’S TALK ABOUT SEX! We asked and you

sex lives on the Internet talk about playing with ﬁre and getting burned. By Emily McCombs

answered! The results of BUST ’s ﬁrst reader sex survey—revealed!

LIKE A VIRGIN Uncovering the Christian

of women and their relationship to shaving, laid bare. By Johanna Gohmann

INTO THE WOODS Director Catherine Hardwicke leaves Twilight behind and unleashes a new tale of young lust with Red Riding Hood. By Jenni Miller

PILLOW TALK Scandinavian songstress Lykke Li wears it well (in bed). Photographed by Daemian Smith and Christine Suarez, styling by Grace Koo

crusade to keep girls’ mitts off their naughty bits. By Blaire Briody

WOMEN BEHAVING BADLY A raucous roundup of the Top 10 Adulteresses of All Time. By Becky Ferreira

ON THE COVER: PORTIA DE ROSSI PHOTOGRAPHED AT GARY’S LOFT IN N.Y.C. BY ANDREW ECCLES; STYLING: EMILY BARNES; HAIR: MITCH BARRY AT BRYAN BANTRY; MAKEUP: MATIN AT ARTISTS BY TIMOTHY PRIANO; TOP: STELLA MCCARTNEY; JEANS: PORTIA’S OWN. THIS PAGE: DRESS: GARY GRAHAM.

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CONTENTS

Regulars

6 8

Editor’s Letter Dear BUST

Broadcast Carrie Brownstein and Fred Armisen are a match made in comedy heaven; a male rowing tradition gets a female infusion; documentary darling Shelby Knox grows up and kicks ass; and more. 12 She-bonics Nicki Minaj, Chloë Moretz, Christina Ricci, and Naomi Campbell have secrets to tell. By Whitney Dwire 16 Pop Quiz Sex advice sounds extra nice when it comes from Dr. Ruth! By Emily Rems 17 Boy du Jour Getting to know Diplo. By Sabrina Ford 20 Hot Dates Chase the winter blues away with a Feb/March getaway. By Libby Zay

Real Life Harvesting maple syrup in your own backyard; in the kitchen with Kelly Carámbula; ﬁghting seasonal depression naturally; and more. 24 Old School Aunt Susie’s tuna-noodle casserole. By Emily Farris 27 Buy or DIY Stop being polite and start getting real with a mobile. By Callie Watts

Looks Style secrets from Philly’s ofﬁcial fashion ambassador; a ﬁne line from Boxing Kitten; a cape to DIY for; and more. 38 BUST Test Kitchen. Our interns have fun with body wash, moisturizer, and anti-frizz serum. 40 Good Stuff Boudoir picks for swingin’ chicks. By Stephanie J

Columns 14 Pop Tart Why we can’t get enough of that kooky Snooki. By Wendy McClure 15 Museum of Femoribilia Glasses-wearing gals made a spectacle of themselves. By Lynn Peril 22 News From a Broad The picture for women in Haitian tent cities isn’t pretty. By Kara Buller 26 Nickel and Dined A souper duper winter warmer. By Isa Chandra Moskowitz 32 Mother Superior Freezing through snowball season. By Ayun Halliday 42 Around the World in 80 Girls Let’s explore Quito, Ecuador! By Libby Zay 111 X Games Spin It Like a Sissy. By Deb Amlen

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The BUST Guide 85 Music Reviews; plus, Everett True’s First Ladies of Rock. 90 Movies Desert Flower’s Blue Valentine made it into the Tabloid. 93 Books Reviews; plus, Cherry Vanilla gives us a taste of her new memoir. 91 Party Pics Shots from our spectacular Craftacular! 106 BUSTshop 112 The Last Laugh Tammy Pierce busts a move. By Esther Pearl Watson

FROM TOP: GABRIELLE REVERE; PHOTO COURTESY OF IFC; ALIYA NAUMOFF

101 Sex Files Rating new condoms from best to bust, and more. 102 Questions for the Queen Dr. Carol Queen answers your vagina’s burning questions. 104 One-Handed Read The Ring Master. By Sonja Todd

EDITOR’S LETTER

sexy is as sexy does WELL, WE DID it again. That’s right, we managed to create another Sex Issue without resorting to putting a picture of a half-naked lady being all sexy on the cover. Not that we have anything against ladies being all sexy—we’ve been known to get all sexy ourselves on occasion. It’s just that we’re mighty sick of sex always being equated with that particular image. Because while “a sexy lady” may be what plenty of straight dudes (and, I suppose, quite a few lesbians) think of when they think “sex,” for many of us, that’s not the case—or at least, it needn’t be. Unfortunately, the two have been so intermixed that lots of us gals have been brainwashed into thinking that in order to be sexual, we need to be sexy. After all, how many pop starlets have you heard say, when asked about their overly sexualized image, that they dress that way because they are “comfortable with their sexuality”? As if sexuality and dressing sexy are one and the same. The fact is, they aren’t, and this issue’s cover gal, Portia de Rossi, is proof of that. No one would deny that, in her role on Ally McBeal, de Rossi was sexy as sexy can be, particularly in one infamous scene in which she strips to her underwear in order to seduce her boss. However, as our interview reveals, it was at that point that she felt decidedly unsexy and had already begun her downward spiral into anorexia. Not only that, but she was also a closeted lesbian. Comfortable with her sexuality? Not at all. Sexy? Absolutely. So yeah—this here issue is all about sex, but not all about being sexy. And we’ve explored the topic from a number of different angles. First, there’s your very private and personal sex lives, which—surprise!—we’ve exposed for everyone to see. Just feast your eyes on the results of our first-ever reader sex survey, and take a peek into the bedrooms of your fellow BUSTies. Knowing that your answers were anonymous, many of you were more than willing to share all the intimate details (and embarrassments) of your naked encounters with us. There are some women, however, who take that one step further—they share the intimate details of their sex lives, and past lives as sex workers, with the whole world on their personal blogs. For many of them, though, the result has been more than just a bunch of spam comments. They’ve been criticized, fired, and threatened with having their children taken away. Obviously, women writing openly and honestly about sex is still something of a Pandora’s box. Yes, I said Pandora’s box. Get it? Speaking of which, have you ever wondered why there’s so much pressure these days to take all the hair off your bits? And why did women ever start removing their body hair in the first place? We wondered just that, and our story on this subject doesn’t beat around the bush. Heh-heh. I said beat. And bush. But that reminds me of another story in this issue: about a woman who believes that we ladies need to keep our heads out of the gutter and our hands out of our pants. She’s helping other women, through her Christian group Dirty Girls Ministries, to refrain not just from engaging in sex before marriage but also from masturbating, watching porn, or having any kind of sexual thoughts at all, really. I think she’d have a real challenge convincing the women who made our list of the Top 10 Adulteresses of All Time. From Aphrodite to Princess Di, we’ve got ‘em covered, even though they didn’t keep themselves that way so much. Another woman who seems to have no issue with women and girls having sexy thoughts—who encourages them, actually—is director Catherine Hardwicke. The mastermind behind the horny teen saga Twilight is back with the fairy-tale thriller Red Riding Hood, and she has a lot to say about honestly rendering young female sexuality on film. Finally, we brought some sexy back with our fashion story, which features Swedish singer Lykke Li modeling some lovely looks to lounge about in. All that, plus plenty of news, DIY ideas, recipes, reviews, and more to keep you stimulated even when you’re outside the bedroom.

ISSUE 67, FEB/MAR 2011

FOR WOMEN WITH SOMETHING TO GET OFF THEIR CHESTS

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Debbie Stoller CREATIVE DIRECTOR Laurie Henzel MANAGING EDITOR Emily Rems SENIOR EDITOR Lisa Butterworth SENIOR DESIGNER Erin Wengrovius CUSTOMER SERVICE + CRAFTY LADY Callie Watts BOOKS EDITOR Priya Jain ASSOCIATE MUSIC EDITOR Kelly McClure CONTRIBUTING EDITOR Molly Simms

PUBLISHERS Laurie Henzel & Debbie Stoller DIRECTOR OF ADVERTISING + MARKETING Emily Andrews, 212.675.1707 x112, ads@bust.com SALES AND MARKETING MANAGER Susan Juvet, 212.675.1707 x104, susan@bust.com BOOKKEEPER Amy Moore, accounting@bust.com EDITORIAL INTERNS: Helen Dally, Larissa Dzengar, Molly Labell, Katie Oldaker, Gabi Pawelec, Lauren Rubin, Mary Strope, Katie Zanin MARKETING INTERN: Kathryn Cole VIDEO INTERN: Lynn Thomas FOR SUBSCRIPTIONS Please email subscriptions@bust.com or call 866.220.6010 FOR BOOBTIQUE ORDERS Please email orders@bust.com WWW.BUST.COM ©2011 BUST, Inc. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the permission of the publisher. The articles and advertising appearing within this publication reﬂect the opinions and attitudes of their respective authors and not necessarily those of the publisher or editors. Canada Post: Publications Mail Agreement #40612608 Canada returns to be sent to Bleuchip International, P.O. Box 25542, London, ON N6C 6B2

xoxoxox

Debbie BUST Magazine is printed on recycled paper. 6 / BUST // FEB/MAR

DEAR BUST DEC/JAN WAS MUSIC TO YOUR EARS! As with anything in life, a proliﬁc art, culture, and music magazine like yours can be taken for granted. I hardly read your music content anymore, because I asst sumed at my jaded age of 32, all the best bands were from 1992 to 1996. But in your fantastic Dec/Jan ’11 issue, I read everything! I bought the Agent Ribbons and Warpaint CDs, and I really love both bands. Thank you! Sarah Kanorwala, Houston, TX I want to thank Everett True for the Agent Ribbons interview in the Dec/ Jan ’11 issue (“Secret Agent Band”). I’ve been buying and collecting BUST since Issue Four and am well aware of what the magazine represents. With your positive slant on feminism, your ongoing mission to make fashion fun, and your adoption of the DIY approach to the max, I honestly can’t think of a band that exempliﬁes the spirit and values of BUST more than Agent Ribbons. Now that they’ve managed to become a small part of your history, I fully expect to see Natalie and Lauren on the cover someday! Wayne Chapman, Sacramento, CA

GAGA FOR GRAHAM Holy moly. I just received your Dec/Jan ’11 issue, and I had to plunk out a few lines of deep appreciation for your fashion story featuring Ashley Graham (“Kiss Me Deadly”). She’s a dream, she’s luscious, she’s perfect. If only more magazines would feature real-sized women, the world would be a better, sexier, more confident place. Chrissy Dano Johnson, Knoxville, TN I loved your film-noir photo shoot of Ashley Graham! Not only is it great to see a gorgeous model who doesn’t look like the usual wanton, skeletal hipster, but I also love the makeup and lighting. Some of the photography students I work with are experimenting with film noir–style photos, so I’m keeping this issue around the studio as a reference for good ideas on how to put a modern twist on old-school lighting. Thanks for the inspiration! Alice Teeple, State College, PA

My love letter to BUST is long overdue. I discovered your magazine in 2003, during my junior year of high school, and it has been a major force in shaping my attitudes and values. I was moved to write to you now because of the cover photo of Soﬁa Coppola on the Dec/ 8 / BUST // FEB/MAR

Jan ’11 issue. She’s wearing hardly any makeup, and neither her hair nor her body has been airbrushed into submission. She looks real and she looks beautiful, and most important, she looks happy with herself. Add to that the photo shoot of Ashley Graham and I am inspired to love myself as I am, something that I still struggle to feel even though I am devoted to the concept intellectually. I just wish BUST were on more magazine racks, saying to young women, “There’s another way!” Rebecca Meyer, Boston, MA

DARE TO DIVERSIFY Oh, BUST. It’s getting harder and harder to not agree with my friends who say you’re a white woman’s feminist magazine. You feature Willow Smith’s lyrics on the binding, yet the only stories in the Dec/Jan ’11 issue that detail the perspectives of women of color are of the Horriﬁc Treatment of Girls in Africa variety. I look forward to your smart features and eclectic views. But when your magazine blatantly ignores women of color, it’s impossible to remain a supporter. It seems BUST has forgotten that there are all kinds of women out there with something to get off their chests. Hannah O. Eko, via email BUST responds: Thank you for taking the time to write to us, Hannah. Your concerns are absolutely legitimate, especially in regard to the Dec/Jan ’11 issue. Due to some unfortunate scheduling issues, three interview subjects of color who were scheduled to appear in that issue were unable to do so, and the result was a much less diverse pool of viewpoints than we would have liked. In general, however, we agree that we could be doing a better job of getting a greater cross-section of women in our pages, and we pledge to try harder to do so.

FLY GIRL Thanks for your Halloween costume ideas in the Oct/Nov ’10 issue! The Birds is one of my favorite horror movies, and when I saw BUST’s take on Tippi, I knew I needed to haul ass to the craft store posthaste. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find blackbirds or seagulls. So I bought the only birds on the block—adorable, fat, colorful songbirds designed to perch on wreaths and floral displays. To play off the hilariousness of them, I made little speech bubbles and sewed them onto the dress next to the songbirds so it would be clear that despite their cuteness, they were natural killers. The birds warn of their bloodthirstiness with signs that say, “I am an adorable death machine” and “Don’t let my colorful plumage fool you, I’m quite menacing.” Many people weren’t sure who I was at first, but once I told them I was Tippi Hedren reimagined with birds from Snow White, my costume was a huge hit! Lucé Tomlin-Brenner, Washington, D.C.

Get it off your chest! Send feedback to: Letters, BUST Magazine, 18 West 27th Street, 9th Floor, New York, NY 10001. Email: letters@bust.com. Include your name, city, state, and email address. Letters may be edited for length and clarity.

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CONTRIBUTORS

Blaire Briody, who wrote “Like a Virgin,” is an editor and writer for The Fiscal Times, and her writing has appeared in The New York Times, Cosmopolitan, Popular Science, and on TheFrisky. com, among others. She grew up in the mountains of Northern California and studied useless things including math before deciding to become a journalist. Her reportage has taken her everywhere from job-hunting with excons in Queens to zip-lining in the Caribbean. She lives in Bushwick, Brooklyn, and likes watching drug deals go down outside her window. You can read her work at www.blairebriody.com. Andrew Eccles, who photographed Portia de Rossi for our cover story, has been a professional photographer in New York since 1987, shooting celebrities, models, athletes, musicians, and dancers for countless editorial and advertising clients. His images have graced hundreds of magazine covers worldwide, including Time, Life, Rolling Stone, GQ, Esquire, Newsweek, and Vanity Fair. Corporate clients including Buena Vista Films, MGM, 20th Century Fox, Sony Music, and Atlantic Records call upon Eccles for movie posters, advertising, publicity, and CD-cover packaging. You can see more of his work at www.andreweccles.com. Becky Ferreira, who wrote “Women Behaving Badly,” is a Canadian writer and comedian based in New York. She is the host of the monthly science-themed comedy show “Rocket Talk” and a contributor to TheAwl.com, The L Magazine, Glamour, and several other stellar publications. As evidenced by this photo, Ferreira is a purebred raptor. If you are interested in strange pronouncements about dinosaurs and aliens, she recommends her Twitter page, Twitter.com/beckyferreira, or you can check out her Web site, www.beckyferreira.com. Rachel Harris, who illustrated “Women Behaving Badly,” is an illustrator and graphic designer. She lives in New Haven, CT, and works out of her lovely but awkward spare room, complete with dark-wood paneling and a pirate-esque chandelier. She received her BFA from Washington University in St. Louis, MO, in 2008 and will draw for anyone willing to hire her. Harris’ clients include The New York Times, The Village Voice, Time Out New York, Chicago Magazine, The Boston Globe, and of course, BUST. You can see more of her work at www.rachel-harris.com. 10 / BUST // FEB/MAR

Broadcast NEWS

all hail portlandia!

+VIEWS

FRED ARMISEN AND CARRIE BROWNSTEIN POKE FUN AT AMERICA’S MOST NEUROTIC CITY

A YUPPIE COUPLE harassing their waitress about the origins of a locally raised, grain-fed, heritage chicken. A punkrock cyclist who goes loco on anyone threatening to infringe on the bike lane. Some urbanites will recognize these characters as regular parts of their day. And now Fred Armisen, 44, and Carrie Brownstein, 36, are lampooning these types as emblems of the ridiculous side of ultraliberalism on their new Lorne Michaels–produced IFC comedy series, Portlandia, which premiered January 21. Armisen, best known as a cast member on Saturday Night Live, and Brownstein, a former member of the iconic girl band Sleater-Kinney, ﬁrst became a comedy team in 2005, when the friends started making Internet comedy shorts under the moniker ThunderAnt. “She always made me laugh. I had this instant thing with her,” says Armisen of Brownstein. “Doing ThunderAnt was an excuse to work with her. As soon as we started, I knew she was really funny.” A spin-off of that project, Portlandia showcases the duo playing a host of ﬁctional yupsters living in Portland, OR. And for anyone who’s ever wanted to smack a food-coop cashier, this show is long overdue. »

PHOTOGRAPHED BY KAROLINA WOJTASIK

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broadcast

Armisen and Brownstein in their sketch Feminist Bookstore

Portlanders won’t have to worry about mean-spirited cracks at their city, since the residents of Portlandia are mocked with love—even the insufferably perky, crafty couple who stencil bird silhouettes on everything. “It just seems like these days—and Carrie made this observation—there’s birds on everything. It’s, like, shorthand for art,” says Armisen. “And I realized, ‘Oh my God, I already do own stuff that has birds on it!’ Sometimes I’m under the mistaken notion that I’m cooler than cool people. And then I realize I’m just a sucker like everybody else.” [MOLLY SIMMS]

GIMME SOME SKINS! The U.S. adaptation of the critically acclaimed U.K. teen sex drama Skins has ﬁnally hit the boob tube, and it is without a doubt the raunchiest, most inappropriate new show of the year. Full of drama, drugs, teen girls taking control of their sexuality, and all orientations getting it on, the show premiered January 17 on MTV and will air every Monday at 10 p.m. until March, so check it out (www.skins.tv). [HELEN DALLY]

she-bonics OUT OF THE MOUTHS OF BABES

[COMPILED BY WHITNEY DWIRE]

“I write my own raps. I go in the studio by myself. There are some female rappers who can’t go in the studio unless they have a ghostwriter sitting right next to them. I’m the complete opposite. I’ll go in and ghostwrite for someone else.” Nicki Minaj in Complex “I’ve seen the full version of Let Me In because I’m the main character in it. That’s why my mom made an exception and allowed me to watch an R-rated ﬁlm.” Chloë Moretz in H “I wasn’t very…marketable back then [in my teens]. I always said crazy shit. I was living in New York, and I was uncomfortable and angry. I was going clubbing all the time, partying with Chloë Sevigny and the cool kids. I woke up one day when I was 19, and it was like I hadn’t seen the sun forever. So I moved to L.A., where it was OK to be responsible, so that I’d stop acting like a crazy maniac.” Christina Ricci in BlackBook “When I was younger, there were certain designers who hadn’t used models of color in their shows, and Christy [Turlington] and Linda [Evangelista] said to them, ‘If you don’t take Naomi, then you don’t get us.’ My friends and comrades stuck up for me—and that doesn’t happen in fashion. I will never forget that. I don’t forget what people do. No matter how many years go by, I always remember.” Naomi Campbell in Interview

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PHOTO COURTESY OF IFC

Though the show is set in Portland, the pair says it could easily be based in any number of urban areas. “Brooklyn, Austin, Boulder—those are all cities that have a kinship with Portland,” says Brownstein. “It’s not necessarily that Portland is funnier, but Portland is a self-conscious city. As much as it’s smug, it’s also very neurotic.” That neurosis is on full display in one memorable sketch, in which Armisen and Brownstein play a couple who break into hysterics upon seeing a dog tied to a pole outside a restaurant. They order “meatballs braised with tomato…leave off the rosemary” for the pooch, then berate its owner: “Who puts their dog on a pole like a stripper? Who does that?!” “Our characters are either making up these arbitrary, insane rules, or they’re being ﬂummoxed by them, all under the guise of progressiveness,” says Brownstein. “It’s very well-meaning, but it’s often so confounding.” BUST readers will also giggle with recognition at the duo’s portrayal of feminist-bookstore owners—women in pilly sweaters who don’t approve of pointing at anything (“Can you put that away, please? Every time you point, I see a penis”). “We shoot it at a real feminist bookstore, one I agree with and support,” Brownstein says. “The women who work there are awesome, and they laugh at it just as much as we do. Fred and I have always existed in progressive, artistic, self-consciously awkward milieus, and we’re making fun of ourselves and people like us.”

broadcast POP TART [BY WENDY MCCLURE]

the good, the bad, and the snooki CONFESSING MY LOVE FOR JERSEY SHORE THINGS ARE ODDLY subdued in the celebrity-media universe these days: Lindsay’s in recovery, Britney’s a soccer mom, and Lady Gaga’s just that nice girl with the meat dress. Nobody is breaking down, freaking out, or shaving her head, and that’s certain-

was a blast. It had all the cheap, grimy fun of a parking-lot carnival, where the occasional barfy moment is just par for the course. The cast became stars after that season—jet-setting and showing up at redcarpet events. Much of the mainstream

Snooki’s fame is not for us to understand. It is for us to savor, like the fried pickles she eats during Season 2. ly a relief. But sometimes, I have to confess, I need someone who can show me what a glorious train wreck the world is, and that person is Snooki. Shut up, I love Jersey Shore. I never expected to like it. I know there are plenty of reality shows that offer an excuse to gawk at fake-tanned creeps—women with shiny cleavage, and guys sporting inﬂated biceps and luxury-brand T-shirts— but I never understood the appeal. Then I caught a Jersey Shore marathon and was hooked. The ﬁrst season, in which the cast lived, loved, and hot-tubbed in Seaside,

14 / BUST // FEB/MAR

media, however, seemed to ﬁnd the celebrity of the Jersey Shore kids a sign of cultural decline. A New York Times proﬁle of Snooki described her personal style as “atrocious” and sniffed that she was too dumb to explain her own mass appeal. But the Times doesn’t get it: Snooki’s fame is not for us to understand. It is for us to savor, like the fried pickles she eats during Season 2. Part of the show's charm is that the series has no objective whatsoever for its cast members. The Jersey kids don’t compete for modeling contracts or the greasy affections of Bret Michaels. In-

stead, they spend all their time trying to look good and party hard—in other words, they live the ideal superstar lifestyle. Jersey Shore stars like JWoww, Snooki, and The Situation give us everything we want from a celebrity: outﬁts to make fun of, freakishly overdone tans, boob jobs, and muscles. They fake it till they make it, and then they fake it some more. Our culture loves to perpetuate the myth that famous people just happen to have these unreal bodies that require only a few yoga poses to maintain. Whereas Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino brags about his abs exactly like someone who spends half his waking life working on them. People who read Us Weekly to see what Julia Roberts wears to the supermarket have no business turning up their noses at Jersey Shore, where “T-shirt time” (aka dressing to go clubbing) and “gym, tan, laundry” are important plot points. And Snooki’s hairdo and huge slippers don’t look any more insane than Lady Gaga’s awards-show getups (and are just as deliberate). Why should we take one more seriously than the other? In their way, the Jersey Shore cast is much better equipped for modern celebrity than your typical teen-pop prodigy—we already assume there are sex tapes, nude photos, and arrests, so such indiscretions aren't newsworthy. The most humiliating revelation about The Situation was not that he was a male stripper but that he once wore a dorky sweater for a family photo. Now there’s a star for our times. Not everything about Jersey Shore is wonderful, though. It is not, shall we say, an enlightened show: there’s no hiding the misogyny, sexual double-standards, and bullying that goes on among the cast. Much was made of Snooki getting punched during Season 1, but we conveniently forget that if the same thing happened to Lindsay Lohan, TMZ would call it a scoop. It’s easier to feel outrage at a 60-minute episode than at the rest of the universe. When it comes down to it, we treat the famous much the same way the Jersey Shore kids treat each other: they talk shit, write anonymous notes, pick each other apart, and then—group hug! Somehow, through all the ugliness, the crazy love endures. Hooray for Season 3, bitches!

ILLUSTRATED BY ELLIOT ELAM

HAIR: YOICHI TOMIZAWA @ SEE MANAGEMENT; STYLING: JULIE MATOS @ FORD ARTISTS

framed! HOW BESPECTACLED LASSES GOT STEREOTYPED FOR THEIR GLASSES IF YOU’VE CONSUMED any pop culture at all, you’ll immediately recognize this stock character: the brainy girl in dark horn-rimmed glasses. There’s Enid from Ghost World and Velma from Scooby-Doo, to name two prominent examples. Worn by girls like Enid and Velma, glasses telegraphed “smart,” “socially inept,” or a mixture of both. Though four-eyed brainy gals were a staple of 20th-century sitcoms, the stereotype has been around much longer than you might think. »

PHOTOGRAPHED BY GABRIELLE REVERE

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broadcast A century ago, Velma and Enid would have been called bluestockings. Now mostly restricted to romance novels and feminist bookstores, “bluestocking” was once an epithet “invariably bestowed upon all women who have read much and who are able to think and act for themselves,” explained a young wife in an 1850 issue of Harper’s New Monthly Magazine. The term has a convoluted history, dating back to the literary salons of late-18thcentury London. After a gentleman casually attired in blue worsted-wool stockings was the hit of his friend’s salon, that group became known as bluestockings. According to The Cambridge History of English and American Literature, the word was soon “ﬁxed in playful stigma” to its female members in particular and soon applied to all literary women. The members of that salon may have recognized that the moniker was applied jokingly, but an encyclopedia entry from 1851 described the bluestocking as “a pedantic female” who sacriﬁced “the characteristic ex-

The badmouthing of girls in glasses gained credence with decades of repetition before Dorothy Parker put the icing on the cake in 1925, with her pithy little quote “Men seldom make passes at girls who wear glasses.” Little wonder that in the days before

contact lenses, glasses were often described as a social and fashion disaster for women. Beauty columnist Sylvia Blythe called them “a handicap” in 1939. And two decades later, a teen magazine soothed nearsighted girls worried about being labeled “a brain-buster or a wallﬂower” with the advice that properly chosen glasses were in fact a “glamorous new accessory.” It was a nice try but probably unconvincing to those who had grown up with Parker’s couplet ringing in their ears. “I am 16 years old and I have never been kissed,” wrote a young girl to advice columnist Abigail Van Buren in 1965. “I am not bad-looking, but I wear glasses. I am beginning to wonder if maybe that isn’t my trouble.” Abby counseled her to concentrate less on her glasses and more on her personality—but the letter writer probably got a pair of contact lenses at the ﬁrst possible moment. Today, of course, her hipster daughter likely wears her mom’s nerd-chic horn-rims with ironic style. Somewhere, a bluestocking is proud.

a. Germany c. Poland

a. The Lower East Side b. Astoria, Queens c. Washington Heights d. Williamsburg, Brooklyn

cellences of her sex to learning.” She could also be identiﬁed by her glasses. Steel or horn-rimmed but always plain and pragmatic, glasses marked both the women’s-college grind (a pejorative term for the overly studious) and the spinsterish co-ed who competed against rather than coquetted with male students. In 1883, the University of California’s yearbook included a parody of Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra that deﬁned the type: I sing of the co-ed so lovely and fair The kind that one often descries She is somewhat strong-minded, and short is her hair And she wears glasses over her eyes.

b. Austria d. The Netherlands

2. The only child of Orthodox Jewish parents, Ruth was sent to live at a Swiss orphanage at age 10, shortly before her parents ______. a. divorced b. emigrated to America without her c. went bankrupt d. died in a Nazi concentration camp

POP QUIZ

3. As a teenager, Ruth emigrated to the British Mandate of Palestine (now Israel), where she joined the army despite being only this tall. a. four feet one b. four feet seven c. ﬁve feet one d. ﬁve feet three

WE LOVE DR. RUTH FOR TELLING US THE TRUTH! [BY EMILY REMS] PIONEERING SEX THERAPIST Dr. Ruth Westheimer became an American icon in the 1980s when her radio and TV advice shows rocked the airwaves with their frank, funny candor. Think you know how Ruth kept millions of us on track in the sack? Then take the quiz! 1. Ruth was born Karola Ruth Siegel on June 4, 1928, in what country?

4. Trained as a sharpshooter, Ruth was seriously wounded during what war in 1948? a. World War II b. The Israeli War of Independence c. The Six-Day War d. The Yom Kippur War 5. In 1950, Ruth went to France to study and teach psychology at the Sorbonne before moving in 1956 to what New York neighborhood where she still lives today?

6. Ruth is ﬂuent in which four languages? a. English, German, French, and Hebrew b. English, German, Italian, and Yiddish c. English, Polish, German, and Hebrew d. English, Dutch, Polish, and Yiddish 7. Though Ruth’s debut radio show, Sexually Speaking, began in 1980 as a 15-minute taped segment during this undesirable time slot on WYNY-FM, it soon became a syndicated hit and jumped to TV. a. 4 a.m. on Tuesdays b. 6 a.m. on Saturdays c. Midnight on Sundays d. 1 a.m. on Wednesdays 8. Ruth has been married ___ times and has two children. b. three c. four d. ﬁve a. two 9. Now 82, Ruth can be seen teaching puppets how to read long words on what PBS series? a. Word Girl b. Sesame Street c. Reading Rainbow d. Between the Lions 10. What is Ruth’s famous tag line? a. “Let’s get it on!” b. “Get some!” c. “Let’s talk about sex!” d. “Ask me anything!”

Answer Key: 1. a, 2. d, 3. b, 4. b, 5. c, 6. a, 7. c, 8. b, 9. d, 10. b 16 / BUST // FEB/MAR

BOY DU JOUR

hey, mr. dj

GROOMING: LISA AHARON; STYLING: IAN BRADLEY

ON THE GO WITH MUSIC MAESTRO DIPLO CLEARLY, DIPLO DIDN’T get the memo that the music industry is dying. After first gaining mainstream recognition in 2005 for his production work on then-girlfriend M.I.A.’s debut album, Arular, the 32-yearold has since founded a record label, produced a documentary, became a bona fide DJ Hero (he’s featured in the popular video game’s second installment), and has morphed into today’s godfather of the remix. Sorry, Diddy. Undeniably, the boy’s got “swagga,” a term he helped popularize with the M.I.A. hit “Paper Planes” that he produced with renowned U.K. songwriter Switch. The song was a Top 5 hit, was nominated for a Record of the Year Grammy in 2008, and was featured in the films Pineapple Express and Slumdog Millionaire. Not bad for a kid from Mississippi who got his start DJing while a student at Temple University in Philly. “All I thought about was DJing and selling mix tapes,” he says of his beginnings as the life of every campus party. “I never really had some big plan on how to take over the music industry. I didn’t expect to sell records.” »

PHOTOGRAPHED BY ALIYA NAUMOFF

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broadcast But Diplo (born Wesley Pentz) is doing just that. When I catch up with him for our interview at the Ace Hotel in N.Y.C., he’s in the midst of wrapping up promotion for his expertly curated new dubstep compilation, Blow Your Head, for his label Mad Decent. He’s somewhat of a hero to fans of this bass-driven genre that blends reggae, garage, and techno and he’s been quite busy lately. When he wasn’t out promoting this burgeoning sound, he could be found posing for an Alexander Wang ad campaign for which his Hollywood good looks surely came in handy. “Every year gets crazier, but this is the ﬁrst year I am really focused on everything,” he says of his breakneck schedule. “I have a lot going on.” Not only a champion of dubstep, Diplo also uses his label to release works by

a diverse group of kindred-spirit artists, including comedian and former MTV star Andy Milonakis and Pakistani punk band Popo. And now, after years of creating hits for others, he’s set to put out two more of his own albums this spring. The ﬁrst is a new release from Major Lazer— the dancehall project he began in 2009 with Switch—that will be a series of collaborations with various artists. The second will be a solo album, a follow-up to his 2004 debut, Florida. “I’ve done a lot of remixes for people so that they could owe me a vocal,” says Diplo of his hopes to cash in on some of those IOUs for his solo album. “Some of the people who owe me vocals are Sia, Maroon 5, and Gwen Stefani. It’s gonna be a mix of soul singers, indie-rock people, everyone.” As if that weren’t enough, he also has

two TV projects in the works: an animated Major Lazer series for the Cartoon Network’s “Adult Swim” programming block and an adventure series for the Travel Channel that the globetrotter promises “will go where Bourdain hasn’t.” This year Diplo will also continue work on his favorite collaboration to date: the newborn son he had with his “awesome” girlfriend in October. “It just basically sleeps and poops all day. I haven’t really ﬁgured out what I’m supposed to do with a kid yet,” says the new dad, who still occasionally slips and calls his baby boy “it.” Ironically, the man recognized as a tastemaker by many a music snob may have met his harshest critic in his own son. “He really doesn’t like Major Lazer,” Diplo says. “He’s more into rock music. I’m kinda mad. Maybe we can ﬁx that.” [SABRINA FORD]

whatever rows your boat

Nan McElroy [at the back of the ﬁrst boat] cruises Venice's canals with her rowing pals

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VISITORS TO VENICE, Italy, inevitably fall more in love with the city with each waterfront sip of prosecco. But American ex-pat Nan McElroy, 52, has carved out a niche in the ancient city by becoming one of the few women to practice voga alla veneta, a centuries-old rowing tradition made famous by the city’s colorful gondoliers. “When you row, you slow down enough to see what’s really going on in Venice,” McElroy says. “You appreciate it more.” Veneta rowers stand up to steer their shallow boats through Venice’s canals, and the incredible strength this requires makes it almost exclusively a male occupation. But one night at a party in 2005, a friend offered McElroy a chance to try his rowboat. “It was after midnight; the water was pitch black,” she recalls. “I wasn’t good, but I got a rhythm, and I was hooked. I remember crawling into bed thinking, This is the best night of my life.” But of the 20 or so rowing clubs in Venice, few had female members, much less foreign ones, and joining their ranks was challenging. “You’re entering a whole culture,” she says. “It means so much to these people, and they watch every move you make.” Eventually, however, the cantankerous guys at the Cannareggio rowing club got used to McElroy, and she soon found more women who wanted to join. Today, about 30 female rowers belong, and the club is proud to have them, too. For the past two years, it’s held an all-female regatta, which McElroy won this year. “Venice was built for rowed boats,” she says. “And without intending to, we changed the culture.” [EVE TROEH]

PHOTOGRAPHY: VIVA

NAN MCELROY DIPS HER OAR INTO A MALE ROWING TRADITION

broadcast

hot dates

THINGS TO SEE, PEOPLE TO DO

CATCHING UP WITH WORLD-CLASS CHOREOGRAPHER SONYA TAYEH WITH HER MOHAWK and copious tattoos, choreographer Sonya Tayeh might seem intimidating. But the most daunting thing about this down-toearth 33-year-old is the enormous talent that made her a household name when she became a popular guest judge and choreographer on the hit Fox show So You Think You Can Dance in 2008. While the show defines her dances as jazz, she prefers to describe her style as “combat jazz,” explaining that even when her compositions are love stories, they’re full of fighting and aggression. Indeed, Tayeh’s work is like nothing you’ve ever seen before— full of quirks and staccato movements able to provoke visceral reactions in TV audiences who may know nothing about the art form. One of her most memorable televised numbers was set to the wonderfully gothic Mirah song “The Garden.” It was a performance one of the show’s judges hailed for its “dark energy,” while another added, “If you lined up 12 choreographers and asked us which one did that, there’d be no doubt it was Sonya.” Tayeh counts inspirations as diverse as cartoon villains and superheroes and the strong bond between the late singer Jeff Buckley and his mother as her influences. And the latter are very much on her mind lately, as she recently choreographed a sold-out run of The Last Goodbye, a musical retelling of Romeo and Juliet focused around Buckley’s music that was produced by his mother. “Sometimes I feel like I’m in a vortex of dance,” she tells me over the phone from her home in L.A., where she’s preparing to choreograph a Miley Cyrus concert for MTV Europe. “I’m so immersed in it.” The child of Middle Eastern immigrants who settled in Detroit, Tayeh was raised in a religious Islamic household. But despite the conservatism such strict spiritual adherence implies, her mother, Arham, never discouraged Tayeh’s creative path. Rather, Tayeh recalls being a “happy, fearless” child who always felt loved and supported in her endeavors. “My mother is one of the most amazing people I’ve ever known,” she says. “[She taught me that] when I want to do something, as long as I can do it with integrity, I should do it.” [LEAH WELBORN]

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February 14 ANTI–VALENTINE’S DAY RIOT GRRRL COVER BAND SHOW Looking for something to do on Valentine’s Day that doesn’t involve cheesy cards and heartshaped boxes? How about singing along with tunes made famous by riot grrrls and girl-fronted groups at a great big cover-band show? For the Birds, a New York City– based feminist collective, is putting together an evening that will make you fall in love with your favorite songs all over again. Visit www.forthebirdscollective.org for all the details.

Through March 14 “COUNTER SPACE” Taglined “Design and the Modern Kitchen,” this exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art in N.Y.C. explores how mealtime technological innovations have shaped the cultural significance of the most popular room in the house. Completely composed of items from MoMa’s own collection, the show traces the history of the modern kitchen through design artifacts, film stills, and art pieces dubbed “Kitchen Sink Dramas.” To find out what else is cookin’, visit www.moma.org. March 24 – 27 L.A. WOMEN’S THEATRE FESTIVAL The Los Angeles Women’s Theatre Festival has been putting on all-female shows since 1994. And this year, over 250 performance artists, singers, dancers, comedians, poets, and storytellers will come together for the event, including a series of solo performers who will take the stage each day of the festival to explore a daily theme. To learn about these one-woman shows and more, visit www.lawtf.com. [COMPILED BY LIBBY ZAY]

PHOTOGRAPHY: JUSTIN DANIEL

all the right moves

February 3 – 6 FROM AUCTION BLOCK TO HIP HOP This witty play by David Lamb, which is being showcased at the Adrienne Arsht Center in Miami, tells the story of a record-industry mogul who relies on stereotypes about women of color to make his money. Three ghosts from turning points in African-American history visit him: one from the beginning days of slavery, another experiencing apartheid, and the last going into the Obama presidency. Eventually, he comes to a crossroads and is forced to choose between ﬁghting back or buying into a system that degrades women. Enlighten yourself with all the details at www.arshtcenter.org.

the school of hard knox

PHOTOGRAPHY: TONJA HINDMAN HAGY

SHELBY KNOX CONTINUES HER FIGHT FOR COMPREHENSIVESEX-ED RIGHTS AT THE TENDER age of 24, feminist activist Shelby Knox already has a decade of experience as a comprehensive-sex-ed advocate under her belt. That’s because she began fighting for truth in the classroom at an age when most of us are still trying to figure out what sex is all about. In 2001, Knox was a 15-year-old devout Christian high-school student in Lubbock, TX—a town with some of the highest teen-pregnancy and STD rates in the nation—who had pledged to remain a virgin until marriage as a result of her school’s abstinenceonly sex-ed program. But when a friend got pregnant after being convinced by her boyfriend that she couldn’t conceive if it was her first time, Knox took it upon herself to push for more comprehensive sex education in her community. First, she became certified by the Red Cross to give accurate sex advice, and then she went up against her local school board to change the status quo. Struck by Knox’s tenacity, filmmakers Marion Lipschutz and Rose Rosenblatt documented her battle against the school board; their footage became The Education of Shelby Knox, the surprise hit of the 2005 Sundance film festival. “I honestly looked around and said to myself, ‘The parents need to do this. The state needs to do this.’ But neither of them would,” says Knox of her political awakening. “That was when I became an activist. My activism was born out of anger.” Though Knox ultimately lost her fight against the Lubbock school board, her work as a feminist organizer was just getting started. She moved to N.Y.C. after college to work for the Sadie Nash Leadership Project, an activism program for young women, and was asked to housesit for

feminist icon Gloria Steinem. As luck would have it, Steinem returned home early, and though Knox was too intimidated to speak to her at ﬁrst, Steinem broke the ice, and an amazing mentorship relationship—that included a stint as housemates—was born. “Gloria said, ‘I just saw this movie about you,’” recalls Knox. “Then she said, ‘Evidently, most of the [feminist] movement knows about you, and I’m the last one to know. So why are you not talking to me?’” Steinem treated Knox like an equal, empowering her with the conﬁdence to speak to anyone. This proved especially useful when Knox, at 20, became the youngest person ever to testify before the House Committee on Oversight and Government

Reform during the first congressional hearing on abstinence-only sex education. Knox says she believes sex ed in Lubbock has improved overall since she was 15, but it still has a long way to go. That’s why she’s traveling back to her hometown in February to give a keynote address on intergenerational feminism at the town’s annual conference on the advancement of women. She will be hosting a panel there on sex education before moving on to Oklahoma State University in March to serve as its activist-in-residence. “It’s a school-by-school battle,” says Knox, and she’s perfectly poised to keep fighting it. To find out where she’ll be appearing next, visit www.shelbyknox.com. [JENNIFER CHEN]

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broadcast NEWS FROM A BROAD [BY KARA BULLER] your midwife had to have a written practice agreement (WPA) signed by a supervising M.D. Nationwide, OB/GYNs loathe signing these forms because of fears over liability, so only one hospital in Manhattan, St. Vincent’s, had doctors willing to do it. When that hospital closed its doors in May, however, it left no legal option for women wanting to home-birth. That’s when activists started rallying, and in an impressive show of force, they successfully lobbied to change the law. On July 30, 2010, New York State passed the Midwifery Modernization Act, which removes the requirement for a WPA. Home birth remains a controversial topic, but it’s nice to know that N.Y.C. mamas have the right to choose the kiddie pool once again.

PHONING IT IN Controversial repro-rights hotline goes live in Pakistan

post-earthquake heartache HAITIAN WOMEN STILL FEELING THE AFTERSHOCKS AFTER AN EARTHQUAKE devastated Haiti on January 12, 2010, 1.5 million people were left homeless, forcing roughly 15 percent of Haiti’s population into slapdash temporary camps where they remain today. The women living in these abysmal tent villages have since reported that gang rapes

human-rights organization MADRE, one of the groups ﬁling the petition, says that if passed, the document will indeed have teeth because it can be court-enforced in Haiti. Kudos to MADRE and all the other organizations ﬁghting to address this horrifying humanitarian crisis.

Haitian women are organizing night patrols and distributing rape whistles to protect each other. and random beatings are becoming rampant. In response, a coalition of concerned humanitarian groups has ﬁled a petition with the Organization of American States. These activists hope to force the sluggish Haitian government to provide basics like security staff and improved lighting in the camps. But so far, Haitian women have had to resort to grass-roots efforts, such as organizing night patrols and distributing rape whistles to protect each other, while they wait for help to arrive. The good news? A lawyer with the international women’s

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HOME DELIVERY RETURNS TO MANHATTAN And we’re not talking about The New York Times If you want to give birth in a kiddie pool in the living room of your Manhattan apartment while your midwife lights beeswax candles all around you, you can now do it legally again. There was a disturbing threemonth period in N.Y.C. last summer when women seeking to home-birth were forced to go underground. Under former New York State law, in order to deliver at home,

Since colonial times, abortion has been illegal in Pakistan unless the life of the mother is at risk. And an estimated 4,500 Pakistani women die annually from unsafe, illegal abortions. Hoping to change this grim picture, Pakistani feminist groups, along with Dutch women’s-rights group Women on Waves, set up a hotline to provide reproductive-health consultations to the women of Pakistan. The hotline created a stir because it advises the use of Misoprostol, one of two drugs used in the U.S. for nonsurgical abortions. Pakistani doctors are allowed to administer Misoprostol for abortions necessitated by a health threat to the mother and to stop hemorrhaging after birth. So they have this drug readily available, but it is technically illegal to use when a woman wants an abortion for reasons that are not permitted (including rape, incest, fetal impairment, and economic and social concerns). There are also gray areas in the abortion laws that a doctor could use to legally administer the drug, and this is why the hotline encourages callers to seek it out. Named Sahailee, which is Urdu for “female friend,” the hotline has received opposition from conservative doctors and outright threats from religious conservatives. Aww, see? The American South and the Muslim world can see eye to eye on something. They both love to make threats of violence in response to women’s rights.

ILLUSTRATED BY BRITTANY HOLLOWAY-BROWN

Real Life CRAFTS+ COOKING+HOME

i’d tap that

+HEALTH

HOW TO FORAGE FOR YOUR OWN MAPLE SYRUP

PROP STYLING: STEPHANIE HANES; FOOD STYLING: LAUREN LAPENNA

I LOVE THE smooth drizzle of maple syrup over hot pancakes, especially on cold winter mornings. I also have a thing for urban foraging—ﬁnding edibles in unlikely places, like public parks and people’s backyards. Last year I decided to combine these interests to see if I could make my own syrup by tapping my Brooklyn neighbor’s sugar-maple tree for sap to cook down, just like they do in Vermont. When the weather was right—sugar-maple trees up and down the East Coast and as far west as Oklahoma and Texas are bursting with sap when temperatures hit 40-plus degrees during the day, then dip to freezing at night—I took my tools over and, with my neighbor’s permission, transformed his maple tree into a sugar-making factory. The whole process was easier than I’d imagined: all I needed, aside from the tree, were supplies from my local hardware store and several hours in my kitchen to turn hometapped sap into delicious amber syrup. Don’t have access to a tree of your own? Ask your neighbors if you can tap theirs. Then invite them over for brunch so they can sample the taste of sweet syrup-making success. »

PHOTOGRAPHED BY SARAH ANNE WARD

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real life MATERIALS

DIRECTIONS

TREE-TAPPING SUPPLIES Power drill; 3⁄8" drill bit; hammer; two 3 – 5-gallon galvanized steel buckets (with tops or aluminum foil to cover); 3"-long, 3⁄8"-diameter pipe (aluminum or steel only; copper will harm the tree) or a traditional tree tap; about 5' of ¾"-diameter PVC tubing—long enough to extend from the tap to a grounded bucket (unnecessary if using a traditional tree tap that your bucket hangs from).

TO TAP A SUGAR-MAPLE TREE: 1. Identify a mature sugar-maple tree at least 10" in diameter or with a 31" circumference (anything smaller is too young to tap and could damage the tree). You’ll want a healthy tree with lots of branches and leaf coverage. If you’re unfamiliar with the tree’s look, Google “sugar maple” or “Acer saccharum” for images. Sugar maples are most easily identiﬁable by their leaves, which the Canadian ﬂag’s symbol was modeled after.

EQUIPMENT FOR SYRUP-MAKING Wide, shallow pan or pot for boiling; candy thermometer; funnel; cheesecloth (to remove sediment; optional), mason jars.

2. Determine the tapping point on the tree: southern-facing points are better in colder temperatures (early in the season) when the added warmth of southern exposure stimulates sap flow. Cooler northern-facing points are useful later in the season, when temperatures above 50 degrees signal the tree to quell production. 3. At about shoulder height, drill slightly upward about 1"-1½" in so that gravity can do its work, allowing the sap to flow without harming the sugar maple. Gently hammer in 3⁄8" diameter pipe/ tap; sap should immediately flow in quiet drips. Slip PVC tubing onto pipe/tap, and run the opposite end into the bucket, or simply hook the bucket if using a traditional tree tap. 4. The length of time it takes to fill a bucket with sap depends upon the tree and the temperature. There’s more sap production when the temps are right—just

over 40 degrees—and less as the weather gets closer to 50 degrees, so check it daily. When the bucket is full, replace it with a reserve bucket. Three gallons of sap makes just over a cup of syrup, so keep switching out those buckets until you have enough sap to make your desired amount of syrup. TO PREPARE MAPLE SYRUP: 1. Fill a wide, shallow pot half-full with sap, leaving room so that the eventual boil will not overﬂow. 2. Cook over high heat until liquid is at a rolling boil. An outdoor cooking space over burning wood is ideal for sugaring—boiling sap down to syrup—but you can do it on your kitchen stove as well; just be sure to use fans and vents if you are indoors, to prevent excessive moisture. 4. Closely monitor cooking temperature with your candy thermometer, especially when it gets close to 219 degrees Fahrenheit (it will have started boiling around 160 degrees); syrup is done when it hits that temperature—or when the sap is a deep, golden color, the thickness of good balsamic vinegar, and about a quarter-inch of liquid remains in your pot. (Note: this can take several hours depending upon the consistency and sugar quantity of the sap.) 5. Pour syrup into a mason jar. Filter through cheesecloth or leave unadulterated for superauthentic goodness. Your syrup will keep for about six months in the refrigerator. [AVA CHIN, WWW.AVACHIN.COM]

OLD SCHOOL

aunt susie’s tuna-noodle casserole IN THE MIDWEST, knowing how to make a proper tuna-noodle casserole is as important as owning a decent pair of snow boots. And everyone has her own signature touch. My favorite comes from my aunt Susie, a feminist who never told me to stay out of the kitchen but instead taught me that in between all my jobs, I needed to be able to make myself a warm meal. But Aunt Susie’s casserole isn’t my favorite just because she’s a badass single mom who worked as a waitress, a teacher, and a business owner while raising her daughter to be a successful lawyer. It’s also because of her secret ingredient: Salsa Con Queso Cheez Whiz. Though I use frozen sweet peas instead of canned and a whole onion instead of half, Aunt Susie’s Tuna-Noodle Casserole is great just as she intended it. To make her version, preheat your oven to 375 degrees, and on the stovetop, cook a bag of egg noodles as directed on the package. After you drain the noodles, put them into a 9" x 13" Pyrex or other baking dish, and mix in a drained can of white albacore tuna. Add a can of cream of mushroom soup, a can of peas (drained), half a white onion, ﬁnely chopped, and half a jar of Salsa Con Queso Cheez Whiz. Mix everything together, and put it in the oven, uncovered, for about 30 minutes, or until it’s bubbly. Then take it out, and cover the top with a few handfuls of French-fried onions or potato chips. Put it back in the oven for about 5 minutes, or until the topping is nice and brown. Let sit for 5 minutes, and enjoy. [EMILY FARRIS]

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Got an amazing family recipe? Send it, along with a photo of the recipe’s originator, to lisab@bust.com.

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real life

NICKEL AND DINED [BY ISA CHANDRA MOSKOWITZ] INGREDIENTS Serves 8, $1.20 per serving ½ cup cashew pieces 2 Tbsp. olive oil 1 large leek (about a pound), white and light-green parts thinly sliced 1 small onion, diced small 2 lbs. potatoes (around 4), peeled and cut into 1-inch chunks Several dashes fresh black pepper 1 tsp. salt 1 Tbsp. fresh thyme leaves, ﬁnely chopped (plus extra for garnish) 4 cups vegetable broth

cream of the crop POTATO-LEEK SOUP THESE GRAY WINTER months demand comfort food, but the perfect dishes aren’t only about warmth and ﬂavor (though they don’t hurt)—they’re also about texture. I crave creaminess in the winter—the kind of food I can curl up with on the couch and feel soothed by with every spoonful. Potato-leek soup ﬁts the bill to a T. Since I’m vegan, I don’t use cream (duh), but I have a secret weapon: cashews! When soaked and pureed, they become every bit as creamy as a dairy product. Even if you’re not vegan, there are still a number of reasons to choose cashews as a cream base, start-

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ing with your wallet. The amount of cashews needed for this recipe comes out to about 75 cents. (Tip: If you go for cashew pieces at the bulk bins rather than whole nuts, you’ll shave about 2 dollars off the price per pound—very convenient, as the pieces work better when using cashews to make cream.) Plus, unlike heavy cream, cashews have a long shelf life. Not to mention they contain the good fats our bodies need as well as trace minerals like zinc. It’s a total win! The following recipe is very minimal. I feel that no twists are needed when serving a classic like potato-leek soup; it’s perfect as is.

To soften up the cashews for pureeing, place them in a bowl and submerge with water; soak overnight. If you forget to prep the day before, soak them for at least an hour. When ready to use, drain them well and proceed with the recipe. Leeks can be really sneaky about hiding dirt, so make sure to wash them after you’ve sliced them to get rid of any soil that may be camping out in the rings. Heat the olive oil in a 4-quart pot over medium heat. Add the leeks and onion, and sprinkle with a dash of salt. Sauté for about 10 minutes, until leeks are completely softened. In the meantime, make the cashew cream. Place soaked, drained cashews in a food processor. Add 1½ cups water and blend like crazy, until smooth. This can take up to 5 minutes. Check the consistency every once in a while by rubbing the mixture between your ﬁngers; you’ll know it’s ready when it doesn’t feel gritty. A little texture is ﬁne; it just shouldn’t feel like sand. Back to the soup: add potatoes, black pepper, salt, and vegetable broth. Cover and bring to a boil. Once boiling, reduce heat to a simmer. Cook for about 15 minutes, until potatoes are very tender. Turn the heat off, and use a potato masher to mash potatoes until they are creamy. Stir in the cashew cream. Season with salt and pepper to taste, and serve! This also keeps very well for several days when refrigerated in a tightly sealed container, so feel free to save some for later. It thickens a lot as it cools; reheat with a little extra water to thin it out.

PHOTOGRAPHED BY SARAH ANNE WARD

PROP STYLING: STEPHANIE HANES; FOOD STYLING: LAUREN LAPENNA

DIRECTIONS

BUY OR DIY

bird on a wire PRETTY UP YOUR SPACE WITH A MARVELOUS MOBILE

PROP STYLING: STEPHANIE HANES; MOBILE DESIGN: ERIN WENGROVIUS

NOT ONLY ARE hanging mobiles lovely to look at, but according to the principles of feng shui, they also help keep a room’s energy circulating, and who doesn’t need a little boost in that department? Tackle the balancing act on your own with this DIY project, or turn the page for our pre-made picks. Download the quail pattern at www.bust.com/downloads, and print it on a piece of white paper. Cut along the solid lines to make pattern pieces for the different-colored elements of the quail. Using an assortment of brightly colored heavy card stock, trace the body of the bird 5 times. Trace each other piece of the pattern 10 times, making 5 colored sets (1 piece for each side of the quail body). Use a hole-punch to make a set of eye and plume circles for each bird (10 sets total). Use rubber cement to glue each set of pieces in place on both sides of every bird. Using wire snips, cut 4 pieces of 18-gauge galvanized-steel wire: one 8", one 7", and two 6". »

PHOTOGRAPHED BY SARAH ANNE WARD

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BUY OR DIY

Use pliers to make a small loop at the ends of each piece. Lay your birds out in the pattern you want them to hang. To keep the mobile balanced, you want to build from the bottom up. Using pliers, make a small bend like an upside-down U in the middle of one of the 6" wires, making sure the loops on the ends remain curled up. In the same manner, make a bend in the second 6" wire piece, 2" from one end. Thread a needle with 5" of lightcolored thread, and poke it through the designated mark on one of the quails you want to hang on the bottom; knot thread to secure. Tie the other end to one loop of the ﬁrst (6") wire you bent. Repeat with the second bird you want to hang on the bottom; tie to the wire’s second loop. Cut a 3" length of thread; tie it to the bend in the wire’s center. Tie the other end of the thread to the loop on the short side of the second bent wire. Cut a 5" piece of thread, and secure it to another quail’s neck as before. Tie the other end to the second loop. Tie a 3" piece of thread to the bend in the wire. Hold the mobile up to make sure it is balanced and the wire arms can spin freely without touching. Do this after completing each following step; you may need to adjust the spacing of the wire bends as you go. Make a bend in the 7" wire piece, 2" from one end. Tie the other end of the 3" piece of thread attached to the bend in the second 6" wire piece to the loop on the short side. Cut a 5" piece of thread and secure it to another quail’s neck as before, tying the thread’s other end to the loop on the wire’s long side. Tie a 3" string to the bend. Make a bend in the 8" wire piece 2" from the end, and secure the end of the 3" string to the loop on the short side. Using a 5" piece of thread, secure the last quail in the same manner to the long side of the 8" wire piece. To hang your mobile, cut a piece of thread to your desired length, and tie to the 8" wire’s bend. Hold up one ﬁnal time to check the balance and spacing. Use a dab of clear nail polish to reinforce the knots on the wires, and hang. [CALLIE WATTS]

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well hung IF YOU AREN’T UP FOR MAKING A MOBILE, GRAB ONE OF THESE PRE-MADE HANGER-ON-ERS

FULL-CONTACT KINETICS If you don’t get this for the derby girl in your life, you’ll be cruisin’ for a bruisin’. Handmade with acrylic, this mobile’s sure to have all the jammers sprinting to get their hands on it ($33, saltyandsweet.etsy.com).

BRANCHING OUT When feathering your nest, there is little time to rest. Hang this handmade beech wood– and-fabric sculpture where you like to relax, and watch it sway to take the stress away ($152, babyjives.etsy.com).

THE LIFE AQUATIC Darling, it’s better down where it’s wetter, so pay homage to the creatures under the sea with this mobile created by New Zealand design company Nuzilla ($74, www.endemicworld.com).

FLOW WITH ME Keep your home’s energy moving by hanging this handmade natural dazzler in a corner. Made of Oregon driftwood, gemstones, and crystals, it’s feng shui all the way, baby ($50, woodinthewind.etsy.com).

PHOTOGRAPHY: CHRISTINE BLACKBURNE

real life

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real life 1. 2.

In the Kitchen with…

kelly carámbula THE FOOD BLOGGER GIVES US A PEEK IN HER PANTRY “EVERYONE SHOULD BE able to cook, and it shouldn’t be intimidating,” says Kelly Carámbula. For the past three years, the 30-year-old has been documenting her kitchen experiments on her wildly popular blog, EatMakeRead.com. Of course her site features beautiful photos and delicious recipes, but it’s her conversational writing style, infectious enthusiasm—new vegetables at the farmers’ market! creative cocktails!—and the fact that she also shares her cooking mishaps (like the time she tried to salvage a beet-dumplings dish and ended up with hot-pink spaghetti) that make it so dang good. Carámbula loves the sense of community that comes with writing and talking about food, as well as making and eating it. She found it so inspiring that she and her husband, Aaron, launched Remedy Quarterly, a magazine about all things food. The journal features articles that run the gamut from an interview with author and pastry chef David Leibovitz to Carambula’s mom’s recipe for Ribbon Jell-O. For Carámbula, food is the great connector. “Everybody has a story about food. It doesn’t matter who you are, how rich or poor you are, you can remember something about food.” [LISA BUTTERWORTH]

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QUICK KITCHEN TIPS: “Memorize an easy cocktail recipe so you can whip one up on a moment’s notice. My current fave is a Maple Leaf: mix 2 oz. rye, ½ oz. maple syrup, and the juice of ½ lemon in a cocktail shaker and pour. Garnish with lemon peel.” “Always have garlic, cumin, and freshly grated nutmeg on hand. They can add fantastic ﬂavors to all sorts of everyday dishes.” “When peeling veggies, save yourself from nicks by keeping them steady with a corn-on-the-cob holder instead of your ﬁngers.”

1. Carámbula sips a morning cup of joe at her kitchen table. 2. She’s got a thing for cookbooks, especially vintage ones. Carámbula ﬁnds most of her scores at www.omnivorebooks.com. 3. Her kitchen’s counter culture. 4. Cheddar-chive scones are one of Carámbula’s favorite staples. You can ﬁnd the recipe on her blog. 5. Where the magic happens.

PHOTOGRAPHED BY SAMANTHA CASOLARI

A FEW THINGS YOU’LL FIND IN CARAMBULA’S KITCHEN:

B LU E S CLU E S DRUG-FREE TIPS FOR FIGHTING DEPRESSION

Simply Organic

Ronnybrook Milk

$24.95, www.chroniclebooks. com “The seasonal recipes are really easy, and everything I’ve made from it has been awesomely delicious.”

$3, N.Y.C.–area greenmarkets “I really believe in supporting local food producers, whether its farmers or dairy people or getting fresh ﬂowers from a local farm.”

DOES YOUR MOOD drag during the long winter months? It might not just be the post-holiday letdown. If you’re a woman, you’re more likely to be hit by seasonal affective disorder (SAD), a depression that strikes people with typically normal mental health during the winter. Low energy, overeating, carbohydrate cravings, difﬁculty concentrating, and general hopelessness are some of the sucky symptoms, but luckily there are proven natural ways to combat the winter blues. SUNNY DISPOSITION The sun’s rays improve your mood by resetting the body’s internal clock and helping you produce vitamin D, which will keep your immune system healthy and help you ﬁght SAD. So plan a vacation to a southern, sunny spot, or fake it by investing a couple of hundred bucks in a therapeutic light box. Tight on cash? Getting out into nature as often as possible will help elevate your mood, even on cloudy days.

ILLUSTRATION: ERIN WENGROVIUS

CUT IT OUT Caffeine, alcohol, and sugar deplete your body’s natural energy reserves over time. Go on a detox, slowly weaning yourself off these mood killers.

Rittenhouse Rye

Polka-dot Oven Mitt

$19.99, www.shoppersvineyard.com “This whiskey has a nice, smooth ﬂavor. Its affordable price is a bonus!”

AU$12, www.tinos.com.au "Polka dots make me happy, so I like to use them to decorate whenever possible."

Hellerware Dinner Set $60, www.dwr.com “Hellerware has a timeless modernity that I absolutely love.”

EAT ’EM UP Whole grains like brown rice, millet, and quinoa are rich in the B vitamins that soothe and bolster the nervous system. Plus, they provide outstanding nutrition and long-lasting energy. Root veggies like potatoes, steamed beets, and butternut squash will help you get that sweet flavor without relying on refined sugars. Essential fatty acids, like omega-3 oils, found in freshly ground flax and hemp seeds, help protect the brain and have been used in nutritional depression therapies. Consider adding one tablespoon of hemp seeds or two tablespoons of flax seeds a day to your diet. MOVE ’N’ SNOOZE Exercise can elevate your brain’s lovely mood-enhancing chemicals—even dancing around your living room or lifting weights for 15 to 30 minutes a day makes a difference. Go to bed and wake up earlier (like 9 p.m. to 5 a.m.) to improve your circadian rhythm, which helps stabilize your mood, and gets you more exposure to uplifting natural sunlight. [ALEXANDRA JAMIESON, WWW.NUTRITIONFOREMPOWEREDWOMEN.COM]

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real life MOTHER SUPERIOR [BY AYUN HALLIDAY]

cold case MAMA TRIES TO WARM UP TO THE SNOW

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less of an impression on me. The neighborhood kids and I would sled for hours in those dark days before the invention of polar fleece. One of these winters, I’m going to buy some, or at least figure out the kids’ shoe sizes in order to equip them with snow boots that fit before the blizzard hits.

Milo wakes up, sees snow, and my ass is as good as frozen. Perhaps I’ll even get a telephone lineman suit for myself. That could help me remember to make sure everyone, including myself, pees before leaving. In my experience, a full-ish bladder keeps neither temperature nor spirits up when one is huddled on a bench, longing for Milo to announce that he wants to go home. There’s nothing stopping me from frisking about in the snow myself. Elevating the old heart rate would create the illusion of warmth and possibly induce feelings of euphoria. But so would lying under a blan-

blizzard he’s been waiting for since September. He’s not hoping for a school closing as much as the opportunity to build several dozen little snowmen and a snow podium from which to address them. “What will you say?” I ask, charmed and sentimental in the way of one whose youngest child is in his last year of elementary school. “Oh, I’ll talk about how television has changed our lives in so many wonderful ways,” he singsongs, already savoring the reaction he knows this will elicit. “I’ll build one out of snow and sit in front of it all day.”

ILLUSTRATION: AYUN HALLIDAY

MY CHILDREN DON’T share my sense of obligation when it comes to warm, sunny weekends. I feel it’s our civic duty to be outside, making the most of them, not blowing a balmy, late-October Saturday bumming around in our pajamas, begging for computer time. The squirrels harvesting edible morsels from the gutters and garbage cans know the freezing, barren months are coming. Don’t my offspring? Now that winter’s here, the boy who spent the past nine months grousing that he can’t see what’s so great about fresh air is itching to get out in it. I’d turn him out in the yard if only we had one. The onus on adult supervision is one drawback to raising kids in New York City apartments, at least as far as this millennium goes. They can’t just run around on their own, like Harriet the Spy. Well, Inky can. She’s a teenager, after all. Ten-year-old Milo is a different story. He wakes up, sees snow, and my ass is as good as frozen. Payback for all those 72-degree afternoons I forced him out to the playground, I guess. There was a time when wind chill made

ket, book in one hand, mug in the other, the radiator clanking merrily nearby. That’s how it goes when my husband, Greg, is the element-braving parent. I feel only the slightest twinge when he shows me photos of Milo standing on a boulder-size snowball, ﬂakes still pelting down around him. How I would’ve loved to roll up such a snowball at 10. We got a lot of white stuff in my hometown of Indianapolis, but it never seemed to be the packable kind. I do have fond memories of traipsing home alone in it, looking up at the stars, two things Milo cannot do. Sometimes my dad would drive me to sled on Butler Hill, the biggest our city had to offer. ’Twas there I saw a boy a few years older than I snag his nostril on a Flexible Flyer’s metal runner. Yes, I could possibly warm to some sledding, but Milo’s ready to move on after a few coasts downhill. For one thing, he’s no longer blind to the suckiness of the blue plastic saucers I plucked from the curb eons ago, their handles improvised from bandannas and jump ropes. Fortunately, he doesn’t really expect me to squander money on something we’ll use two or three times a year. This ain’t Vermont. It’s New York Fuckin’ City, and for every miserable, 22-degree afternoon your mother logs doing something you want to do, you’re going to spend ﬁve in the Museum of Modern Art, doing something she wants you to. I hope it’s worth it. It probably will be, provided we get the

Looks FASHION

Fashion Nation

+BOOTY

rakia reynolds

HAIR AND MAKEUP: SPARKLE HILL; STYLIST: MAREN REESE

PR-FIRM OWNER, PHILADELPHIA, PA Tell us about this outfit. The peach vintage hat and cropped jacket are from the Franklin Square Boutique in Philly’s Olde City; the hat was about $40, the jacket was $74. The lamé tank is from Decades Vintage in Philly; it cost around $50. I bought the lamé balloon skirt five years ago from the set of a TV show I was helping to develop; it only cost me $20. The lime-green tights are DKNY; they were $28. The sparkly shoes are Betsey Johnson from her N.Y.C. store. They cost about $220. I wear them everywhere. I would even wear them with sweatpants! [laughs] What’s up with the octopus earring? It’s from a boutique called Topstitch [in Philly]. I’m known for wearing one big earring; I split one of my earlobes a few years ago, so now I usually wear a fun clip-on on that ear and a big earring in the other. [The octopus] is like me. I have so much going on in my life: running my PR firm, being Philly’s official fashion ambassador, being a writer, a wife, a mother...sometimes I feel like I have eight arms! Who or what inspires you? I’m really inspired by the feminine way women dressed up for church back in the ’30s and ’40s. They always wore hats, and the hats they wore told a lot about who they were. They really made an effort to get dressed up. People don’t do that so much anymore. How would you describe your style? If you don’t see me with sparkly stuff on—lamé, sequins, glitter—something is wrong. Any stylish advice you’d like to share? If you are a creative person, then dress that way. Let your clothing speak to who you are. People often say to me, “Only you can wear that.” You can too! It’s all about confidence. [TRICIA ROYAL]

PHOTOGRAPHED BY ANNA THIESSEN

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looks

FASHIONISTA

Lake looks lovely in a Boxing Kitten bolero

pattern recognition BOXING KITTEN TAKES A WALK ON THE WILD SIDE A BACHELOR’S DEGREE in African-American studies may not be the most conventional jumping-off point for a career in fashion, but for Maya Amina Lake, designer of Brooklynbased line Boxing Kitten, it was an easy leap. After staging a fashion show to coincide with her senior essay examining the role of women’s fashion as a form of political expression during the Civil Rights Movement, the 27-year-old Lake recognized an opportunity to combine her passion for black history with her fearless sense of ﬂair. “I decided I wanted to create pieces using African fabric and prints but modernize them and present them in silhouettes familiar to that time,” she says.

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Drawing inspiration from the Black Power movement, groundbreaking entertainer Josephine Baker, and the badass babes of Russ Meyer’s Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!, Lake has made Boxing Kitten at once cheekily retro and vividly current. Crafted from unapologetically eye-catching fabrics and peppered with cool cutouts, flirty ruffles, and sweetheart necklines, Lake’s clothes aren’t designed with the world’s wallflowers in mind. When asked to describe the Boxing Kitten girl, Lake grins and says, “She’s not afraid of being the center of attention, of standing out and being bold. She’s her own person. And she’s kind of wild.” [SIRI THORSON]

LAKE PHOTOGRAPHED BY ALISON MICHAEL ORENSTEIN

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looks

BOOTY CALL [BY CALLIE WATTS]

ACE OF BASS Get ready for an eargasm: not only do these supercomfy headphones bump the bass without losing clarity, but the foam cushions also keep the experience intimate. These babies come with a microphone cable, too, making them the perfect match for iPhone enthusiasts ($199.99, www.v-moda.com).

LIP-TEASE Heat things up with these lenticular lip glosses; just tilt the tube to take the hottie’s clothes off. You get the front and back view, plus a lovely crème brûlée–scented shimmer for your lips. Get hot, bothered, and beautiﬁed ($19, www.urbandecay.com).

I SEE A PATTERN HERE

A COTTONTAIL IN COATTAILS Who is this bunny’s hare dresser? This handmade 10-inch ceramic sculpture is so dashing, he should be called Rabbit Redford ($30, therunnybunny.etsy.com).

CUM ON NOW Every lady should own a dainty spankerchief for sticky situations. When cleaning up a handmade mess, this hand-embroidered Tidy Cloth, intended speciﬁcally for wiping up in the bedroom, is the best ($34.75, tidycloth.etsy.com). 36 / BUST // FEB/MAR

PHOTOGRAPHY: CHRISTINE BLACKBURNE

Designed by Annika Rimala—the mastermind behind Finnish textile company Marimekko’s bold and vibrant prints—these collaboration Converse All Stars are rated NC-17 for use of extreme graphics ($80, www.converse.com).

cloak and swagger KILL THE CHILL BY WHIPPING UP THIS WARM WINTER CAPE IT’S THE SEASON for cape expectations, and this handmade version is sure to deliver. So break out your sewing machine and get to work.

MODEL: KEL AT SUPREME, MAKEUP: MIN MIN MA FOR SEE MANAGEMENT/MAC, STYLIST: MEGAN LESSER, PANTS: NANETTE LEPORE, GLOVES: LACRASIA , SHOES: DEENA & OZZY

MATERIALS Printer paper (8½" x 11") 3 yards heavy wool-blend fabric for cape exterior 3 yards thin fleece for lining Fabric scissors Straight pins 5 snap closures 4 decorative buttons Slide belt buckle DIRECTIONS Start by downloading the pattern at www. bust.com/downloads. Print out the first test page at 100%, making sure that the sample line is the correct measurement. If it’s not, check your printer settings and try again. Print out all the pages of the pattern, and remove the edges by cutting along the gray dotted line. Following the key printed on the papers, lay the pieces out on the floor, and tape them together along all sides. Cut the pattern pieces out along the solid black lines. You should have five pattern pieces: one back panel (A), one right-front panel (B), one left-front panel (C), one center panel (D), and one collar piece (E). Fold the main fabric in half, right sides together, and pin the pattern pieces as shown in the diagram on the pattern print-out. Cut out. To make the pattern for the lining, cut along the dark-gray line that’s 2" from the bottom of each panel pattern piece. Fold the lining fabric in half, right sides together, pin the pattern as before (leaving out collar piece), and cut. »

PHOTOGRAPHED BY GABRIELLE REVERE

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looks Sew darts into the back-panel piece by marking two triangles on the wrong side of the fabric to match the ones on the pattern. Fold the fabric with the right sides together along the solid line so that the dotted lines meet. Pin in place, sew along dotted line, and press toward center of back. Repeat on other side for second dart. Pin right-front panel (B) to back panel (A), matching notches. Sew these pieces together from the neck down to the ﬁrst notch, leaving a ¼" seam. Sew left-front panel (C) to back panel (A) the same way. Pin center panel (D) to right-front panel (C) with right sides facing and matching notches, then sew together leaving ¼" seam. Sew a 1½" hem along the bottom and a ¼" hem along the remaining raw sides of the left, right, and center panels. Sew the lining pieces the same way using a ½" seam allowance. Sew a 1½" hem on the bottom and a ½" hem on the remaining edges. Press all seams as you go. Pin the cape and lining together, right sides facing, so the top and sides match (the bottom edges are not supposed to line up). Pin the matching edges together, and sew—do

not sew the bottom edge. Turn right side out through the bottom. For the collar, lay fabric pieces (E) together, right sides facing. Sew the sides and top using a ¼" seam allowance, leaving the bottom open; fold the bottom up ¼" along the bottom, and press. Flip right side out and iron ﬂat. Pin the collar over the top of the cape so that the lining/main fabric is ¼" inside the collar fabric, and sew down. To add a ﬁnished look, sew a ¼" stitch around all the main fabric edges, including the bottom; do not run a stitch on the top and sides of the collar, however. Attach 1 snap closure to the collar: sew the stud piece on the inside collar, centered ¾" from the edge; decide how tight you want your collar to close, then sew the socket piece of the snap closure to the center of the collar’s other edge, outside. Sew the stud piece of another snap to the inside edge of the cape, right below the collar line (about 1¾" below the stud piece on the collar). Sew

the remaining 3 stud pieces in a line below this one, along the cape’s inner edge, each 3" apart. Sew the corresponding socket pieces of the snap closures to the outside of the cape’s other side, so that the center of each piece is about 1" from the edge. Make sure the stud and socket pieces line up properly before you secure. To cover the snap-closure stitching visible on the cape’s exterior, sew a decorative button over each stitched area. To make a belt for the cape, cut a strip of your main heavy fabric 6" wide and 58" long. Fold in half length-wise, right sides facing, so that it’s 3" wide. Sew the raw edges together using a 5⁄8" seam allowance, leaving a 1" hole in the middle of the bottom edge. Turn right side out, and stitch the hole closed. Attach a slide belt buckle (a buckle without a prong) by looping 1" of the belt’s end over the center bar of the buckle, and secure with a whipstitch. To wear, wrap the belt around your waist underneath the cape’s back panel, securing it in the front over the cape’s center panel. [HEATHER LOOP AND CALLIE WATTS]

test kitchen THEIR PRODUCTS, OUR INTERNS KATIE

Pharmacopia Everyday Body Wash in Jasmine, $11.50, www.pharmacopia.net

This wonderful aloe shower gel left me feeling (and smelling) refreshingly clean. But when I like something, I like to use a lot of it. I only wish this body wash were even more concentrated so it didn’t run out so quickly.

Shea, cocoa, and mango butters all in one? Yes, please! This made my skin feel hydrated and soft all day, though I kept reapplying it to my hands because I loved the scent and texture so much.

This all-natural lotion is perfect for winter. My skin gets really dry when it’s cold out, and this totally creamed me up. Plus, you can use it on your locks for a moisturizing, overnight dry-hair treatment.

I’m not especially fond of lotion, but I am fond of cake. This moisturizer smelled like lemon-almond frosting, and it was difﬁcult to refrain from seeing if it tasted that way too. It made my skin soft and quite possibly edible.

I have enough hair to make three wigs from, so winter is synonymous with frizz; this serum was a gift from the goddesses. One tiny drop was like armor for my dry locks, keeping them shiny and soft through the season’s windiest days.

Beware if you have thin hair! This serum was just too heavy for my ﬁne, curly locks, even with severe winter dryness. It does smell absolutely delicious, though, so you could always just rub some on as perfume.

My hair tends to stay pretty unfrizzy, but when it rained the other day, I took the opportunity to whip this stuff out. It left my locks feeling a little greasy, but at least I smelled like pomegranate heaven.

Organix Pomegranate Green Tea Anti-Frizz Serum, $6.99, available at drugstores

HELEN This product is ideal for sensitive skin, since it’s made from gentle plantbased and certiﬁed-organic ingredients. The gel lathered up a bit thicker than I like and left an oily ﬁlm, but it makes for an excellent shaving gel.

The Bubble Roome Triple Butter Cream in Almond & Bergamot, $23, www.upurea.com

LARISSA Gentle and luxurious, this body wash certainly added a fancy vacation-in-Paris feel to my shower, and its consistency was dense enough that I needed only a small drop for my whole body (a good way to stretch a buck!).

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HAIR: BRIAN FISHER; MAKEUP: AMY SCHIAPPA; STYLING: CHIP K.

We collaborated with our stylists as models, our neighbors tg170 for clothing & our friends for inspiration. for more info check out our blog: www.fringeny.com/fringesocial/

248 BROOME ST. NYC 10002 212-674-8383 www.fringeny.com

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GOOD STUFF 3. 2.

4. 1.

5. 6. 7.

10.

boudoir beauty SENSUAL STYLE FOR THE BEDROOM BETTY [BY STEPHANIE J] 1. HOLYGRAPIE EAU DE TOILETTE BY COMME DES GARCONS, $125, WWW.BEAUTYHABIT.COM. 2. ROUND MINT NIPPLE TASSELS BY OPHELIA FANCY, £28, WWW.OPHELIAFANCY.COM. 3. RIBBON CANDLES IN MYRRH AND LAVENDER BY LOVELY LOVELY, £15 EACH, WWW.LOVELYLOVELY.CO.UK. 4. EYELASHES BY MAKE UP FOR EVER, $15, WWW.SEPHORA.COM. 5. VINTAGE GIRL DERRIERE PRINT BY JANE HELLER, $30, JANEHELLER.ETSY.COM. 6. LILY BLOOMER KNICKERS BY LOULOU LOVES YOU, £50, WWW.LOULOULOVESYOU.COM. 7. RED VELVET LIPSTICK BY PAUL & JOE, $38, WWW.B-GLOWING.COM. 8. BIG BOW CAT SLEEP EYE MASK BY NAOMI LINGERIE, $19, NAOMILINGERIE.ETSY.COM. 9. BOUDOIR FIFI CLUTCH BY BAGATELLES AND CO., $60, BAGATELLESANDCO.ETSY.COM. 10. POT ROUGE BLUSH IN BABY PINK BY 100% PURE, $15, WWW.FUTURENATURAL.COM.

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looks

AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 GIRLS [#48] The Basílica towers over Quito

Sunday cyclers

Set your sights on the Centro Histórico

quito, ecuador STRADDLE THE EQUATOR IN THIS SOUTH AMERICAN CAPITAL [BY LIBBY ZAY]

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QUITO, WHICH SITS two miles high on the slopes of the Andes, is a city of high-rises, nestled between a pair of mountain ranges. A perfect ﬁrst stop for travelers on the South America circuit, Ecuador’s capital is colorful and jam-packed, full of personality but easy on the wallet. And the weather couldn’t be better; since the “City of the Eternal Spring” sits right on the equator, you can expect sunny, 70-degree days all year round. From dancing the night away at modern, thumping discothèques to spending afternoons in quiet cafés tucked into colonial buildings, your Quito todo list will be a mile long. Though it’s a little touristy, the bustling La Mariscal area—known as La Zona to locals who love it and jokingly referred to as Gringolandia by those who don’t—is a good place to acquaint yourself with Quito’s busy vibe. The neon-bathed Plaza Foch (Foch and Reina Victoria) is the central square and serves as an evening meeting spot for folks heading out to dine, drink, and dance. Every night of the week is lively in La Mariscal, but on Wednesdays the partygoers spill out into the streets from every bar and club. Start your night by listening to last year’s Top 40 hits at Bungalow

6 (Calama and Diego de Almagro), which is open solely to women from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. Sip free Cuba libres—rum and cokes with a splash of lime juice—as you watch men corral outside, impatiently waiting to rush in. Dip out before the ﬂoodgates part and head to La Aguijón (Calama E735 and Reina Victoria), a warehouse-like salsa club swarming with Quito’s young and cool. If you’re looking for a more laid-back evening, La Estacion (Diego de Almagro N24-19 and Wilson) serves cheap pizza accompanied by live acoustic acts. Or grab dinner around the corner at El Maple (Foch and Diego de Almagro). This vegetarian eatery offers up one of the tastiest meals in town: a meatless version of a traditional Ecuador meal, including soy steak, white corn, potato fritters, and veggie chorizo. If you prefer to sample the real deal, try Cactus (Jeronimo Carrion and Amazonas), a hole-in-the-wall gem that also serves another Ecuadorian delicacy, roasted guinea pig. The service is slow, so sit back and enjoy being serenaded by the live pan-ﬂute players. To mingle with the city’s coolest locals, hit up La Naranja Mecánica (JL Tamayo and General Veintimilla). The bar’s name means “a

PHOTOGRAPHED BY ANDRES MENA AND LIBBY ZAY

Makin’ moves at the Mercado Artesanal

Ocho y Medio movie-goers

Quito’s street scene

Catch a ﬂick at Ocho y Medio

Good eats at El Maple

clockwork orange,” so it’s no surprise that you’ll find fuzzy walls and furniture made out of mannequins inside this hipster haven. For a taste of the city’s favorite pastime, head to nearby Seseribó (Veintimilla 352 and 12 de Octubre); the oldest and most popular salsa club in the city pumps out infectious beats all night long. If you’re clueless when it comes to dancing, stop by on Saturday at 8:30 p.m. for a free lesson. Head a few blocks east and find yourself in La Floresta, a pleasant artsy neighborhood with a handful of bars and eateries. The best of the bunch is El Pobre Diablo (Isabel La Católica N24-274 and Galavis), a candle-lit restaurant and jazz club that hosts live bands nearly every night of the week. Also in the neighborhood is Ocho y Medio (Valladolid N24-353 and Vizcaya), Quito’s independent movie theater that screens a carefully chosen selection of films from around the world. Guápulo is another bohemian neighborhood worth exploring. Just a short taxi ride from La Floresta, it’s home to a cluster of graffiti-covered bars and cafés situated on a narrow street that winds

Inside the Basílica

down a steep hill. The patio at Pizzeria Ananké (Camino de Orellana 781) is the best place to take in the view of one of the most richly decorated churches in the country and the surrounding valley below. The pizza is cheap and tasty, and if it’s a chilly night, you can challenge your palate with Quito’s strange beverage specialty: hot chocolate mixed with cheese (it tastes as weird as it sounds). When you’re ready to call it a night, head to Hostal Arco Del Sol (Juan Rodriguez 7-36 and Reina Victoria). With a sundrenched common room, free breakfast, and a friendly landlord, it’s easy to make it your home away from home. In the morning, get ready to wander the cobblestone streets of Centro Histórico, the original colonial center of the city. Head to the Basílica de Voto Nacional gothic church, where after ascending a series of stairs and rickety ladders, you’ll take in sweeping views of the city. If you’re into biking, visit Centro Histórico on a Sunday, when several main streets are closed to car trafﬁc and ﬁlled with cyclists. Rent a bike in Parque El Ejido, the nearby park, then make

The author on the equator

your way to La Ronda, one of the oldest streets in Quito. At night, the narrow lane is packed with vendors selling canelazo, a spiced-rum-and-cinnamon drink. When it comes time for picking up souvenirs, head to the Mercado Artesanal (Juan Leon Mera and Jorge Washington), an enormous warehouse that features stalls piled high with local handicrafts, such as hammocks, knit hats, and alpaca blankets. There are plenty of unique jewelry and ﬁgurines up for grabs, too; keep an eye out for anything made out of tagua, a vegetable that when dried out and carved looks just like ivory. Then take a break at Fonfone Café (Mariscal Foch and Amazonas), a tiny, family-owned coffee shop where the homemade snacks and straightfrom-Ecuador espresso will have you feeling recharged in no time. For something heartier, grab a tasty burrito down the street at Rodríguez (Mariscal Foch E5-43 and Reina Victoria). A cold glass bottle of Coca-Cola and a healthy dose of reggaeton will be sure to bring you back to life. From its epic views to its quirky cuisine, Quito will steal your corazón.

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44 / BUST // FEB/MAR TOP: STELLA MCCARTNEY; JEANS: PORTIA'S OWN

When Portia de Rossi got her big break on Ally McBeal in 1998, she was the picture of idealized feminine beauty. But her perfect image hid an obsession that almost killed her. Here, the actress opens up about her memoir and her marriage, and reveals, “I now love being a sexual person”

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DON’T KNOW how you’re going to put me on the cover of your Sex Issue,” says Portia de Rossi, laughing. “I really don’t.” We’re talking on the phone, but I can picture the 38-year-old actress on the other end of the line, and the image of her saying this is absurd. Because—and let’s get this out of the way now—Portia de Rossi is gorgeous. I mean, she is unquestionably lovely, whether you are gay or straight or into blondes or brunettes. Yes, she is also a talented performer and really nice and very smart. And yes, these qualities are more important than her looks. But it is also true that she is beautiful. This is a fact that’s hard to forget even when you’re on the phone with her, talking about her impressively well-written anorexia memoir. Listening to her, knowing full well that body dysmorphia is not tied to objective reality, it is still really hard not to wonder, How did this person almost kill herself out of some mistaken belief that she wasn’t good enough? As de Rossi writes in Unbearable Lightness: A Story of Loss and Gain, there was a time in the late ’90s when she felt that, in order to be attractive, she had to restrict herself to 300 calories a day and exercise almost constantly. This was before her roles on Arrested Development and Better Off Ted made her a beloved comic TV actress. It was also before she came out as a lesbian and married talkshow host Ellen DeGeneres. This was the Ally McBeal era, when de Rossi was in her mid-20s, closeted, and terrified that someone might figure out that she was, as she writes, “an ordinary, average, fat piece of shit.” De Rossi, née Amanda Rogers, grew up in Geelong, Australia, and from an early age, she proved what a dangerous cocktail could be made by mixing crippling insecurity and grim determination. She began modeling at 12, and almost

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immediately, the cycle of dieting, binging, and purging began. At 15, she made up the name Portia de Rossi because it sounded exotic, and at 19, she left law school to take a role in the 1994 film Sirens. She discovered that she loved acting and soon was living in Los Angeles. By the time she landed the role of Nell Porter, the ice-queen lawyer on the series Ally McBeal in 1998, de Rossi had gotten married and divorced and realized that she was gay. And the pressure of being suddenly in the spotlight sent her spiraling. She rigged a fan to a treadmill so she could run during her lunch hour without ruining her makeup. She ate her dinner, a 60-calorie portion of tuna, with chopsticks so it would last longer. And after a night of “binging” on six ounces of yogurt, she writes, “it crosses my mind to vocalize my thoughts of self-loathing, because speaking the thoughts that fuel the sobs would have to burn more calories than just thinking the thoughts.” At her lowest point, she weighed 82 pounds. Happily, de Rossi recovered before she caused any permanent damage, and she found out that she’s more than good enough—both for her career and for her life. This is why she is the perfect cover girl for BUST’s Sex Issue, despite her protestations. She embodies the idea that real pleasure, sexual and otherwise, comes with honesty, and that the road to that honesty is often paved with insecurity—no matter who you are. It was evening when we talked, and fittingly, de Rossi was just sitting down to dinner. “I love your magazine!” she says, as soon as we get on the phone. As if we needed another reason to love her. I’m excited to talk about your book. What has the reaction been so far? The reaction has been positive, my feelings about it have been very positive, and I’ve received overwhelming support from

my family and Ellen and my friends. It’s such a strange thing for me to get all of this goodness out of something that was really, really bad, you know? It really is like a second coming-out for me. What made you decide to go through with this coming-out? I’ve gotten to a place in my life where I see the value of honesty and the value of sharing your experiences—not only to help others but also to rid yourself of all the guilt and shame and negativity that surrounded whatever experience you were having. I saw that when I came out as a lesbian, and I’ve just been living my life in a more honest and open way, so this was a natural extension of that. Even though it was a very private struggle, it is more universal in that I really struggled with self-acceptance. Speaking of universal struggle, there does seem to be a continuum of behavior that connects anorexics with more “normal” women. There are things you describe in your book that I have done, that lots of women have done. You know, lying in bed and feeling self-loathing and grabbing the fat on your stomach. Absolutely. Most women have problems with body image because of what we’re force-fed in the media about how we’re supposed to look. There’s so much emphasis placed on our bodies in a cultural sense that it’s not surprising that women would grab an inch of fat and starve themselves for a couple of days to try to look thinner. If you have ever been on a diet, you have experienced a form of disordered eating, because you’re eating when you’re not hungry and you’re not eating when you are hungry, so it’s not that different. It’s just the degree that’s different. I wanted people to understand what is going on in the mind of someone who’s

“It’s really only now that I feel like I’m no longer hiding anything. I really have literally nothing to lose.”

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so sick and make the disorder a little bit more understandable and relatable. It just seems like a whole lot of crazy from an outside perspective, but when I was in it, I felt like I was doing the best thing for my life and my career. You do write about starving yourself as if it were the professional thing to do, as if it were part of your work ethic. Right, it was. Because I started modeling at 12, I always had it in the back of my mind that in order to feel like I was giving it everything I had, I had to get to a certain weight. I felt like an athlete training for a competition. And it was a very strange time. It was 1998, and actors all of a sudden were on magazine covers and getting beauty campaigns, and it seemed like if I wanted to compete as an actress, I had to act more like a model, which was to starve. You also created this really deep level of artifice for yourself, from your name, to your sexuality, to your weight, to your accent. Did it ever seem completely untenable?

It always did. It always felt like I was at the breaking point. What I didn’t realize, though, was how bad it was not being able to be honest about who I was. I thought I was doing what I needed to do. When I changed my name as a little kid, I felt like I had to make sure no one found out that I changed it. And then I didn’t want people to know that I permed my hair. I wanted people to think it was naturally curly. It was one thing after another that I felt could potentially expose me for the very average, ordinary person that I was. It’s really only now that I feel like I’m no longer hiding anything. I really have literally nothing to lose now, which is why I think I could write a book like this.

I wanted to ask you about the famous scene on Ally McBeal, when your character tried to seduce her boss by stripping down to her underwear. You write that it was a turning point for you. Yeah, well, that’s the thing with television. You never know what’s going to be written for your character or how you’re going to feel about it. The show was a huge break for me, and of course I wasn’t going to make waves. I wasn’t going to question anything that David Kelley had written for my character. But I was definitely shocked and disappointed that I’d gone from this really professional, hardwork-

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You were quite young then, but if you could go back, would you quit or think about protecting yourself differently?

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I don’t think so. The way that I should have protected myself was not to place so much emphasis on what I looked like. I just got really caught up in this idea that I was hired because of what I looked like instead of the way that I portrayed a character. I kind of forgot to act, at some point. And I was old enough to know better. It wasn’t like I was 15 and easily manipulated—I was 25. It was definitely where I was at that point in my life, and I don’t think it could have been avoided.

You wrote that, when you were recovering, you were ashamed for calling yourself a feminist when you had based your self-esteem on your looks. What does being a feminist in Hollywood mean to you now? What does being a feminist mean now, period? I don’t think the younger generation is even aware that there was a huge fight for equal rights for women, which is ironic, because we still haven’t achieved equal rights. We’re still being paid less than men in practically every profession

DRESS: MEGHAN

ing woman to someone who just strips down to her underwear begging her boss to sleep with her. I mean, as a feminist, it was revolting to me. And it damaged me, I think, because I realized I had no control. I just felt very cheapened by it. The only thing at that moment I really could control was what I looked like.

“If people assume that you’re gay but you don’t publicly admit to it, it seems like there really is something to be ashamed of.” other than prostitution and modeling. But it just became so unpopular to call yourself a feminist. It became synonymous with being ugly, being a man-hater. Do you think that’s still true, though? There’s quite a bit of feminist media today, and even in popular culture, you see more different types of women and more roles for women on TV. It’s changed a bit since the late ’90s. Yes, it has—a little bit. But when you think about the images out there of the ideal woman, it’s not better. It’s worse. I feel like women have two images available for us. One is a rail-thin 14-year-old model who has not even developed into a woman, and then there’s a Victoria’s Secret model, who is in the porn realm of plastic surgery and fake breasts. We’re still dealing with the virgin and the whore. As you know, this is our Sex Issue, so this seems like a good time to talk about how your eating disorder intersected with your fear of your sexuality. Was that something you realized only in hindsight, or was it explicit at the time? I don’t know. I had two major things going on in my life. One was that I realized I was gay after a brief marriage to a man. And I had just started this big career that was all-important. It felt like [my eating disorder] was driven more by the desire to succeed as an actress, but it also meant hiding my sexuality. I felt like I was hiding it from the public, but what I was really doing was just starving it away. I didn’t want to feel like a sexual being. I didn’t want to think about sex. I didn’t want to think about people being sexually attracted to me. All of it was too difficult to deal with.

I have to say—you were talking about idealized female forms, but I’ve always thought of you as an example of idealized female beauty. Well, I mean, clearly I didn’t. And that was a problem, because I didn’t want to play, like, the provocative temptress. I don’t like that character, and it’s really not because of my sexuality, it’s more because I’m not an exhibitionist in a sexual sense. For me, sex is very private. I’m a little prudish, and I’m a little oldfashioned in that sense. I now love being a sexual person, but I don’t like to show it on the outside. I don’t lead with sexuality, and I don’t like it when other people do, men or women. It’s just not part of my makeup. How is married life going? I love being married. I’ve never been happier in my whole life. It feels completely different than just being a couple. Being married feels like having a real partnership. We make decisions together, and I think we’ve both become less selfish. Before, I would think about what was good for me, and now I think about how decisions will affect us as a couple. I can’t say enough good things about it. And I don’t know why it’s so different. But it just is. It was fun seeing Ellen pop up early in your book, before you knew her, as your “worst-case scenario.” Yeah, that was hilarious. My mother would freak out about me dating women. If I called her and said I’d been out on a date, she’d start panicking and saying, “What if they find out? What if they find out who you are?” So I’d say, “Mom, relax, I’m not dating Ellen DeGeneres, for God’s sake.” It was really funny because when I finally called her and said, “Mom, guess who I’m dating—Ellen De-

Generes,” it was that worst-case-scenario moment for her. I guess it was for me, also, because I had been kind of creeping out of the closet, but I’d never come out in the media and confirmed that I was, in fact, gay. I just lived my life openly and whoever knew, knew. But I’ve since realized that that’s even more damaging, because if people assume that you’re gay but you don’t publicly admit to it, it seems like there really is something to be ashamed of. When you made your relationship with Ellen public, the reaction was really positive, right? It was amazing. I couldn’t believe it. We were lucky, however, because it was the same weekend that Brad and Angelina got together. That was a big weekend! It was a big weekend for brand-new couples. But I was amazed. I don’t know what I was expecting, but we seemed to be really embraced by the media, and I think it’s because Ellen is such a loved and trusted public figure. People really adore her and want her to be happy, and I think they saw real love between us. Considering that gay marriage is a very controversial topic, it still amazes me that we’ve had such a great run in the media as one of the most prominent married gay couples in the country. We’re surely an example of the fact that it’s not a dangerous thing, you know? We’re just busy loving and supporting each other and being married, and that’s it. Well, that sounds terribly threatening. It’s terribly threatening! The whole country is going to collapse because of our love. B

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We wanted to know what’s really going on in BUST readers’ bedrooms, so we did the only logical thing: we asked. And nearly 2,000 of you, ranging in age from 18 to over 50 (with the majority being 26 to 34), answered. You divulged the details of your sex lives and gave us a peek into what you like, what you don’t, what you’ve done, and whom you’ve done it with. From masturbation to period sex, here are the deets on your most intimate doings. 50 / BUST // FEB/MAR

What is your sexual orientation?

How often do you masturbate? When I’m in a relationship When I’m single

Every day

Once or twice a week

Once or twice a month

Hetero – 71% Bi – 20% Gay – 6%

Hardly ever

Other – 3% I don’t

How old were you when you lost your virginity?

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

still got it 4% 13 – 14 10% 15 – 17 40%

32% of you have been caught masturbating.

18 – 20 33% 21 – 25 12% 26 – 30 1%

How old were you when you masturbated for the ﬁrst time? never have 1%

“I got interrupted by a window repairman at my apartment building. I thought he was breaking in, and I threw my vibrator at him. That was embarrassing.” “If a guy doesn’t completely get me off, I usually do it myself after he goes to sleep. Turns out I’m not always so subtle about it.”

under 10 28% 10 – 12 23%

“I haven’t been caught, but it’s one of my favorite fantasies.”

13 – 15 23% 16 – 18 14% 19 – 24 10% 25 – 30 1%

How old were you when you had your ﬁrst orgasm? never have 4% under 10 16% 10 – 12 12% 13 – 15 20% 16 – 18 23% 19 – 24 22%

“I was too young to know it wasn’t OK to hump the carpet when we had dinner guests. Sigh.” “My mom caught me while I was watching girl-on-girl porn in high school on my dad’s black box that had free pay-per-view channels. She was quite upset. I think I ruined it for my dad and me, because the black box left the house soon after.” “I was about eight years old, had just discovered masturbation, and was away on a family trip. I was sharing the bed with my four-year-old brother, and he totally called me out. He said, ‘Could you stop that? It’s shaking the bed, and I can’t sleep.’ I was mortiﬁed and tried to play it off like I had an itch.”

25 – 30 3%

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How often do you have sex?

In a relationship

More than once a week

Single ladies About every two weeks

Once a month or so

When it comes to intercourse, 44% of you say it takes about 30 minutes to get the job done, 6% of you like to ﬁnish in 5 minutes, and 8% could bang forever. 78% of you use birth control. Here’s what you choose:

Once in a blue moon

10%

20%

30%

74%

of you have fantasized about someone else while having sex.

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

Your top four ultimate fantasy dream fucks: Johnny Depp

Angelina Jolie Condoms – 38%

Jon Hamm

Pill – 30% Pull-out method – 11%

How do you wear your pubic hair?

IUD – 9%

Alexander Skarsgård

Fertility Awareness Method – 5% Vaginal ring, like NuvaRing – 5%

How do you feel about period sex?

19%

54%

The furrier the better

Groomed bikini lines

Diaphragm – 2%

How many sexual partners have you had? 0 4% 1 – 5 32% 6 – 10 24% Depends on the ﬂow – 42%

12% Landing strip

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13% Completely bare

Depends on the partner – 21% Ew, gross – 14%

11 – 15 14% 16 – 20 9% 21 – 30 8%

Bring on the blood bath – 12%

31 – 100 8%

In a pinch – 11%

over 100 1%

58% 40% 27%

of you can almost always achieve orgasm by adding clit stimulation to good ol’ penis-vagina penetration. of you can be pretty sure to reach the big O when receiving oral. of you can get off from a hand job or penis-vagina penetration alone.

How do you feel about anal sex?

52% of you have had sex with someone you didn’t want to have sex with.

Farts and queefs topped your chart of embarrassing things in the sack. Unexpected period blood and ﬁrst-time squirting made the list as well. But that’s not all:

“I was receiving oral, and I gave the guy a bloody nose.” “My boyfriend went to go down on me and discovered a wad of toilet paper stuck in between my lips. I’m still having a hard time getting over that one.”

HERE’S WHY:

24% felt pressured 24% were too drunk to care

Never had it, never will – 26% Tried it, hated it – 21% It’s tolerable – 21% Kind of love it – 17% Never, but I’d like to try – 14% It’s my fave penetration – 1%

24%

of you have never faked an orgasm.

24% thought it was too awkward to back out 16% have been date raped 12% felt bad for the dude/lady

“My iPod played ‘C is for Cookie’ while I was getting it on.” “I had a boyfriend with long hair. In the throes of passion, his hair got caught on my nose ring, and when he whipped his head back, it ripped out. I gasped in surprise and asked, ‘Did it come out?’ Thinking I was referring to his penis, he yelled, ‘No!’”

Your sure-ﬁre tips for achieving orgasm boiled down to a few main ideas: “Get on top and ride it like it’s a pogo stick!” “Don’t rush in! There’s a lot to be achieved by knocking on the front door for a bit.” “Practice, practice, practice.” “Hitachi Magic Wand. It’s called ‘magic’ for a reason.” “Make noise! Getting a holler and a moan going really turns me on and pushes me over the edge.”

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Virgin

Like a

A support group called Dirty Girls Ministries is on a Christian crusade to help women break free from pornography addiction. But is their target really porn? Or is wiping out female masturbation their true mission?

N A CRISP, clear, November night in a small, plainly decorated room in Lenexa, KS, 26-year-old Crystal Renaud logs on to a free video-chat application. She sits at her desk with her jagged short hair pulled back with a headband and peers over her black-rimmed glasses that reflect the dull blue glare of her computer monitor. Meanwhile, in other homes scattered around the United States, five other women are staring into their webcams as well. As their faces pop up in boxes around Renaud on all their screens, they call to session the 6th week of a 12-week pornography-addiction recovery group for women called No Stones. “Does anyone want to share a story where they felt they had some sort of personality disorder? Or something related?” Renaud asks, before her voice temporarily cuts out and the screen freezes. The group is having technical issues tonight. “For me, I found myself really clinging to certain personality types, those opposite of my dad,” she says when she’s back on. The assignment for this week, she tells the girls, is to write down their sexual history. “I know it’s overwhelming, but don’t be defeated by this,” she says. “There’s hope. This is truth. Even though it’s hard and painful, the truth is what sets you free.” The No Stones recovery group is part of an organization called Dirty Girls Ministries that Renaud launched in 2009 after suffering from her own self-described pornography addiction. She says she wanted to help other women recover from their X-rated fixations by connecting with them online and holding meetings at

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her local church. But her use of the terms porn and addiction may be misleading. Many who participate in the discussion forums on DirtyGirlsMinistries.com, a growing group of more than 100 members, comment online that they masturbate or view porn— which they deﬁne as including erotica and romance novels—twice a week or less. For most of us, that would hardly be considered excessive. But to Renaud, it indicates an epidemic of addiction, one that can be treated only by helping women stay “clean” of masturbation. So in addition to the online ministry, she speaks regularly at various evangelical churches in Kansas and is writing a book, due out in April, to address the issue. “Whether you believe it or not, women are addicted to porn,” Renaud preached in a recent sermon. “You’d be surprised at how many women—women in your own lives—are hiding this deep, dark, and dirty secret.” While many of the women she counsels say they have turned to pornography as a form of escape—from traumas like sexual abuse, inﬁdelity, and even prostitution—Renaud compares their masturbation to alcoholism, saying that “Like drugs and alcohol, so many things that feel good in a short amount of time can end up hurting you.” And she’s not alone in her thinking. With the recent Tea Party takeover of the U.S. House of Representatives, the Christian abstinence movement is poised to gain more congressional support in the coming year. Purity balls and “True Love Waits” commitment ceremonies that encourage teens to maintain physical chastity until marriage have been part of the conservative American landscape

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BY BLAIRE BRIODY // PHOTOGRAPHED BY ROGER HAGADONE

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for years. But Renaud’s burgeoning movement is of a different strain of abstinence advocacy. Her ministry is labeled antipornography, but it also aims to treat masturbation without porn when it involves lustful thinking (and what masturbation doesn’t?). When you peel back the layers, the core of her crusade is against sexual thought—even within marriage—unless those thoughts are about your husband while you are engaging in intercourse with him. The word masturbation originates from the Latin term masturbare, a combination of manus (hand) and stuprare (defile), thus “to defile with the hand.” In the 1830s, influential Presbyterian minister Sylvester Graham lectured boys on the “immense evils” of masturbation and said it caused warts, constipation, insanity, and a host of other maladies, including death. Modernday evangelists have also always quietly tsked-tsked at masturbation, but only recently have more Christians begun speaking out publicly against it. During the midterm-election campaigns in November, a 1990s MTV video resurfaced online of Delaware Senate candidate and abstinence advocate Christine O’Donnell discussing the perils of masturbation and lust. “The Bible says

for women. Christian literature has also begun addressing it as a female affliction in self-help books like Every Young Woman’s Battle: Guarding Your Mind, Heart, and Body in a Sex-Saturated World, a title by Shannon Ethridge and Stephen Arterburn that urges girls to “embrace sexual purity as a preferred lifestyle, not just physically, but mentally, emotionally, and spiritually as well.” For Renaud, this sort of mental “purity” is a state of mind she came to after years of struggle. She grew up outside Minneapolis and moved to Kansas City when she was 10. That same year, she discovered a dirty magazine in her older brother’s bathroom. She had never seen male genitalia before and became increasingly curious, searching for it whenever possible to learn more. When she hit puberty, she says that curiosity turned into compulsion, and she added masturbation to her porn-seeking behavior. Renaud wasn’t attending church at the time, although her family considered themselves Christians, and she says she was reluctant to reach out to the Christian community for fear “they could see [the pornography addiction] on her.” When she was 15, she attended a Christian

The core of Renaud's crusade is against sexual thought— unless those thoughts are about your husband. that lust in your heart is committing adultery, and you can’t masturbate without lust,” O’Donnell says. “If he already knows what pleases him and he can please himself, then why am I in the picture?” she asks, throwing up her hands. Most abstinence advocates still rarely specifically address masturbation publicly and tend to cluster it into the issue of pornography addiction like Renaud does. But leaders within this Christian movement have made it clear that masturbation is most definitely included in their efforts. Craig Gross, the founder of XXXChurch.com, one of the first online communities for Christian porn addicts, says, “Our view of sex is that God designed sex for a man and a woman, not a man and himself. I think a kid walking into marriage with a 10-year addiction to masturbation is more troubled than a kid who lost their virginity on prom night. It’s trading sin for sin.” In the past, Christians have tended to treat pornography as a male problem exclusively, setting up counseling groups for wives to deal with their husbands’ porn addictions. But a focus on females has grown considerably in the past decade. XXXChurch.com added a section for women in late 2004, after reportedly receiving numerous emails from women acknowledging that they, too, suffer from porn addiction. With the slogan “Globalizing God’s Army to Battle Sexual Addiction,” L.I.F.E. Ministries launched in 2001 and soon added services

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summer camp and heard the pastor talking about “a Father in heaven who loves you unconditionally regardless of what you do.” “Knowing what I had been experiencing shame-wise, I was like, ‘Yeah, I want to feel that,’” Renaud says. From then on, she became active in the church and vowed to end her masturbation and porn habits. “I’ve been sober for seven years now,” she says of her masturbation-free life today. That life also includes living with her parents and her small dog, and having an active social life online that involves tweeting and updating her Facebook status multiple times a day. Her other interests are football (especially the Kansas City Chiefs), baking, George W. Bush, Eli Manning, Glee, Dexter, and country music. Renaud’s 26th birthday party in November was a group outing to see the musical Rent. And ironically, one of her favorite television programs is Sex and the City, though she watches the edited version on TBS and admits she felt “more than a bit triggered” while watching the first movie on the big screen. Although some married women participate in Dirty Girls Ministries, Renaud’s crusade is largely one for single women like herself—those struggling to find their place in an increasingly online-focused world where tantalizing secular influences are always available with the click of a mouse. Most of the young women who come to Renaud for help had Internet ac-

PHOTOGRAPHY: LOVE IS GREATER PHOTOGRAPHY

cess at a young age and were “exposed” that way or developed their fixation while visiting chat rooms and having cybersex. While the majority of Dirty Girls’ members are in their 20s and 30s, many teenagers and pre-teen girls have also joined recently, some as young as 11. Technically speaking, most are virgins, but because of their below-the-belt explorations, they report feeling tainted, undesirable, and perverted. The “recovery process” for these girls begins with Renaud asking them to go one week without looking at porn, to determine the severity of their addiction. She then asks them to be “clean” for 90 days, which means no sex, no porn, no masturbation—not even TV shows about sex. Internet tracking software like CovenantEyes and adult-site blockers are also encouraged. “When you stop masturbating or stop looking at porn, your body actually goes through withdrawal,” she says. “It’s intense.” Dirty Girls member AmyChristine Proctor, a self-described addict and flight attendant from Colorado, started masturbating while visiting chat rooms on AOL. Unmarried and a virgin at 30, Proctor has struggled with her sexual identity since puberty, believing her samesex thoughts are a sin. Traveling constantly as a flight attendant, her job is also very isolating. The worst it got was last year, she says, when she was masturbating almost daily, sometimes even twice a day. “I would think about it at work,” she says. “I’m blessed I’m not on a comDirty Girls Ministries puter like at an insurance job or founder Crystal Renaud something where you’d be tempted.” To rehabilitate herself, she became an active member of Dirty Girls Ministries and started driving two hours to attend a 12-step program for sex addicts called Heart to Heart. But she says when she realized the masturbation was stemming from underlying sexual-identity issues, she switched to a program called Where Grace Bounds that deals with “sexual brokenness and homosexuality,” while remaining an active member of the Dirty Girls forums. Although Proctor says she still struggles with relapses, she praises Renaud’s ministry and the work she’s doing, and many members talk about the positive influence the ministry has had on them. The girls who have gone through the rehabilitation process and have become “clean” report feeling free and blissful in their new masturbation and porn-free lives. Many have viewed their masturbation habits as products of emotional burdens or past traumas, and they describe the rehab process as therapeutic. They say they have found support, community, and friendship in Renaud’s group and feel relieved to finally

freely discuss this taboo subject. Renaud likes to tell the story of one member who, in addition to her masturbation and porn consumption, was having multiple affairs in her marriage, and the 90-day cleanse helped rekindle her relationship with her husband. “On Day 60, she was laughing, she was joyful, wearing makeup again,” Renaud recounts. “She was a different person. She was coming alive again. She and her husband were really desiring each other in a way they hadn’t ever done before.” It’s hard to determine just how many Christian 12-step programs exist to address porn and masturbation “addiction,” since many of them shroud their intentions to cleanse lustful thought by billing their offerings as marriage counseling or help for recovery from sex addiction. Marnie Ferree, author of No Stones: Women Redeemed From Sexual Addiction—the book used as a guide in Renaud’s recovery group—runs a 12-step sexual addiction recovery program in the hills of Nashville, TN, called the Bethesda Workshops. It costs $1,400, and in addition to treating sex and porn addiction, the program is also a rehab for “romance” addiction and “relationship” addiction. A romance addict “thrives on the thrill of the chase,” she says, but has a difficult time sustaining a committed relationship. A relationship addict is someone who constantly believes her current partner is “the one” and thus repeatedly creates codependent relationships. Certainly anyone going through the pain of a failed relationship might wish they could embark on a 12-step program to heal. But even according to some Christian sex educators, the line between normal human experimentation and a dangerous addiction can be a simple matter of perspective. “To feel that they’re addicted only means that they enjoy doing it and they don’t want to,” says William R. Stayton, a human-sexuality professor and Baptist minister in Smyrna, GA, who believes masturbation is a healthy way to develop one’s sexual identity. “If someone is taught that [porn and masturbation] are wrong, it only intrigues them more. Sexual addiction is controversial. Often it’s either something they don’t want to do, or they’re feeling guilty about the amount of times. But real sexual addiction is when someone has no control over it. It takes up all their time, and it’s more indicative of obsessive-compulsive disorder than addiction. Things that get blamed for addiction are often just things that people don’t like.” On the other hand, according to biological anthropologist Dr. Helen Fisher, who has studied the human brain when in love,

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the brain scans of an infatuated lover look nearly identical to the brain scans of a cocaine addict. This is because the natural stimulants dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin are released when one is in love to give the brain a similar “high” to that experienced when on coke. Therefore, someone in the throes of infatuation “will go to unhealthy, humiliating, and even physically dangerous lengths to procure their narcotic,” she says. Orgasms and self-stimulation release similar chemicals to the brain and can give you a momentary high. So biologically, it makes sense that this behavior can become compulsive. Yet exercise also releases dopamine, and so does food, shopping, and almost anything else that’s pleasurable. That’s why many doctors refuse to recognize sex addiction as a legitimate clinical diagnosis. Sex therapist and former BUST columnist Dr. Betty Dodson, for example, believes the word addiction belongs only in the substance-abuse category and sees labeling sexual desire as addiction as a form of manipulation. “This is going to mess them up, because now whenever they have any kind of desire to read about sex or look at images of sex, it’s going to be accompanied by guilt,” she says. “And guilt is the most worthless thing on the planet. People are manipulated by it through religion all the time.” Indeed, guilt and shame are common emotions expressed

And even Oprah Winfrey, the standard bearer for mainstream American ethics, has discussed the benefits of female masturbation many times on her talk show. One of Winfrey’s frequent guest experts, Dr. Laura Berman, says encouraging girls to masturbate can help them avoid unhealthy sexual experiences. “You’re teaching them about their own bodies and pleasuring themselves and taking the reins of their own sexuality so that they don’t ever have to depend on a teenage boy to do it for them,” she says. But Renaud isn’t pleased with secular society’s increasing acceptance of porn and masturbation for women. Interestingly enough, she’s fine with teaching young children about the existence of masturbation and porn—as long as they don’t try it. “It’s a very dangerous society that we live in,” she says, “when we’re telling women that it’s OK to look at porn.” Many girls in Renaud’s ministry think that once they get married, they will be free to express their sexuality and enjoy orgasms with a man. This causes some to take the fast track to the altar, only to find that after they’ve married, they still feel the same taboo urges and temptations they did before. “I have broken down in tears and begged God to take away my desire for intimacy, or to let me get married ASAP, so I could have

“It’s a very dangerous society that we live in,” says Renaud, “when we’re telling women that it’s OK to look at porn.” by the women involved in Dirty Girls Ministries. “Once I’ve actually committed the sin (of porn and masturbation), I find myself feeling such sadness, frustration, disappointment, anger, shame,” writes one anonymous user on the Ministries’ forum. “It makes me feel sick and unworthy,” writes another commenter. “I feel completely isolated and am disgusted in myself,” says a third. One girl even reported feeling guilty after simply dreaming about masturbating. By contrast, secular society in recent years has been moving in the other direction when it comes to women and masturbation, openly embracing it as a way for gals to better understand their bodies and enhance their pleasure with a partner. It’s a well-known fact that millions of women struggle with reaching orgasm during sex, so more and more, sex-ed teachers are including masturbation in their curricula. Last year, the U.N. released a report that suggested children learn about masturbation as early as five years old. The National Health Service in Britain recently released a pamphlet for teenagers with the headline “An Orgasm a Day Keeps the Doctor Away,” advocating that regular masturbation is good for cardiovascular health. In Spain, one regional government has just launched a sex-ed campaign with the slogan “Pleasure is in your own hands,” stating that masturbation boosts confidence and self-esteem.

some release!” writes one forum commenter. Another who was haunted by her desires married at 19 in the hopes that pious matrimonial intercourse would rid her of her sinful thoughts— only to ﬁnd that during sex with her husband, she would have the same fantasies that plagued her in her single years. “I cannot cleanse my mind of these images and thoughts,” she says. “The fantasies are engraved into my mind. I try so hard to just focus on my husband only, but my thoughts are so warped.” For the most part, however, the young women who gather around Dirty Girls Ministries are bonding over struggles with modern courtship and their subsequent feelings of loneliness and isolation. Renaud says that at the height of her addiction, she considered having an anonymous encounter with a man. She set up the meeting online, went to the pre-arranged spot, and was waiting for him, but “God met me there instead,” she says. So she left before meeting the stranger. Renaud also didn’t date in high school because she was “unfortunate and wasn’t popular.” And she has never had a boyfriend. “I would love to ﬁnd ‘the one’ and get married and start a family,” she says. “I’m just believing that when that time comes, God will bring him about, and it will happen.” But in the meantime, she hopes more women will break free from their addiction to sexual stimulation and embark, with her, on a 12-step path to salvation. B

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APHRODITE

Lovers, bastards, and boy toys—oh, my! BUST reveals the top 10 adulteresses of all time By Becky Ferreira Illustrated by Rachel Harris

ESSE JAMES, TIGER WOODS, Mark Sanford, John Edwards: dudes have been putting their

highly publicized penises in a lot of extracurricular vaginas lately. As a result, we now have a surplus of cuckqueans—female cuckolds—who’ve been left looking like suckers for believing in fidelity. What’s worse is that none of these affairs was your standard “We grew apart, and I fell for someone with similar priorities” situation. Instead, we discovered that Tiger Woods employs an ardently literal interpretation of Nike’s slogan “Just do it.” Then there’s Jesse James, who met an inked-up neo-Naziess and thought, “Today, I will have sex with her instead of Sandra Bullock.” And of course,

One sunny day in ancient Greece, Cronus cut off his father Uranus’ balls with a sickle and threw them into the ocean. The next wave that hit the beach carried the most gorgeous goddess ever: Aphrodite, goddess of love. Besides revealing that real beauty does not come from within but rather from the shorn testicles of a sky god, Aphrodite’s birth established her as the original dick-hound of Mount Olympus. Totally grossed out by Hephaestus, the disfigured volcano god she was married off to, she started banging war god Ares instead. Hephaestus, annoyed that Aphrodite seemed to be bearing a ton of offspring (including that baby archer jackass) without any help from him, set up a sting not unlike the Ewok rope trap dumb ol’ Chewbacca lumbers into in Return of the Jedi. He ensnared Aphrodite and Ares mid-coitus and brought them to Olympus, where everyone could laugh at them in the boner buff. But really, Hephaestus, who’s the bigger joke—a superhot adulterous couple or the (literally) lame husband who exposes his marital inadequacy for everyone to see? Fun fact: Aphrodite was also directly responsible for the love affair of another fantastic adulteress, Helen of Troy. Spoiler alert: Helen didn’t nab a spot on the countdown even though her extramarital canoodling caused the most legendary war of all time. That’s how exclusive this list is.

there’s the master of them all, John Edwards. Sure, he cheated on his now-deceased cancer-stricken wife and then denied paternity of the love child that ensued. But don’t worry, because he later basically said, “Turns out that baby is totes mine! Oops, lol!” You think these philanderers are bold? We women have a long, rich history of infidelity ourselves, marked by accomplished ladies who have dabbled (or sometimes specialized) in adultery, and believe me, they put these men to shame. To prove it, I’ve compiled a list of 10 women—including goddesses, monarchs, movie stars, and geniuses—who epically cuckolded their husbands and (for the most part) lived to tell about it. These gals took back the night and made it adulterous.

THE VIRGIN MARY Joseph is the world’s most famous cuckold. After all, Mary’s extramarital lover was the creator of heaven and earth and the main character in the best-selling book of all time. To add insult to injury, the bastard baby this affair produced always referred to himself as the son of God, despite the fact that Joseph was the putz who put in all that time and effort raising him to be the kind of kid who saves humanity forever. So was Joseph a biblical hero or just the most epic of all wet noodles? Don’t let the fact that Mary resorted to cheating on him with some weird flaming skytongues sway your decision.

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QUEEN GUINEVERE King Arthur was chosen to wield Excalibur by an unearthly spirit in a lake, became a brilliant herowarrior, and united Britain under his benevolent rule, so you’d think that’d be enough to satisfy his, wife, Queen Guinevere. queen. Nuh-uh! Guinevere had barely met her husband’s chief knight, Lancelot, before she got a big ol’ sword in her stone. Catch my drift? Stone? I definitely mean her vagina! Lancelot was dining at Guinevere’s Round Table (I think I still mean vagina) for years, but Arthur found out about the affair only when both Guinevere and Lancelot missed an important feast (cuz he was in her pants a lot). An epically tragic fall for all of them followed, so I guess the lesson is, if you’re a knight of Camelot, don’t cum a lot with your boss’ wife. Also, don’t make any more Arthurian puns ever, self.

QUEEN ELIZABETH I I know what you’re thinking. You’re all, “Hey! That was the Virgin Queen! She never married, so how could she cheat?” First of all, you’re a nerd, and you watch too much Tudorrelated content on the History Channel. Secondly, remember that Elizabeth’s main deflection when pressured to wed was to proclaim that she was “married to England.” Well, if that’s the case, the nation was cheated on more than a magnetized roulette wheel. When you have an infamous lech for a father and a smokin’-hot babe for a mother, you don’t grow up just to get crowned, you grow up to get down. Elizabeth was courted by her own stepmother’s new husband when she was 13 and had to be sent away after gossip about their “romps” (which included “spanking”) prompted her stepmother to investigate and discover them in an “embrace.” And though Elizabeth is thought to have had a long, committed, drama-filled love affair with Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester—who was, no joke, a knight of the Order of the Garter—we can only wonder how metaphorically she was speaking when, in 1599, she referred to her kingdom as “all my husbands, my good people.” England, to keep this queen happy, you’d be wise to stiffen more than your upper lip.

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CATHERINE I OF RUSSIA Catherine I was the first woman to rule imperial Russia, and as impressive as that is, it becomes even more spectacular when you find out that this legendary empress began life as a pauper. Seriously, she was born into a Lithuanian peasant family, only to be orphaned as a toddler after the plague hit her crummy serf village. But Catherine was beautiful and gregarious, and she just kept charming her way up the social ladder until Peter the Great fell in love with her so hard that he up and divorced his tsarina so they could marry. Her origins were kept a secret for centuries because, well, it’s totally unheard of for some small fry to just waltz in and become queen. I have no idea how they hid the fact that she was illiterate her whole life, but presumably there was some wacky comedy behind it. Though the two were said to be deeply in love, there was no getting around Catherine’s serious babeness, and she had some tempting side offers. Her most passionate affair was with Willem Mons; not only was this guy’s surname a nod to ladies’ genitalia, but the title Catherine bestowed on him— gentleman of the bedchamber—was also about as subtle as a hammer made of bricks. Peter figured it out and had Mons drawn and quartered, then stuck his head in a pickle jar, which he put on Catherine’s bedside table. It was a pretty dickish thing to do, and Catherine didn’t speak to Peter for months, until he fell sick. She rekindled their relationship just in time for him to proclaim her Empress Supreme before he died. Ladies: when in doubt, wait them out.

CATHERINE II OF RUSSIA You know a woman lived a lascivious life when she’s rumored to have died while making love to a stallion. Though this tale is sadly apocryphal (she keeled over from a dumb ol’ stroke, sans horse coitus), it sure signals that Catherine the Great puts the most infamous male leches in history to shame. She had 2 husbands and 11 confirmed lovers, but many historians think her actual bedpost-notch count capped 300. Most of her between-the-sheets mates were younger by several decades, making her the alpha cougar of history (suck it, Courteney Cox). But it gets weirder: her longtime lover Potemkin is said to have selected all her playthings, and Countess Bruce, a close girlfriend of Catherine’s, was prized as a “tester of male capacity.” Each new man had to spend the night with Bruce before being admitted into Catherine’s bed. In short, her boyfriend chose her boy toys and her gal pal test-drove them. The craziest part is that Catherine the Great was also one of the most politically shrewd and legendary rulers in Russian history, which means that if you want to effectively rule Mother Russia, you’d better commission an orgy room next to your office.

ÉMILIE DU CHÂTELET This woman is the absolute best geek goddess you’ve never heard of. Born in Paris in 1706, she was a physics and mathematics genius most famous for popularizing Newton in Europe as well as laying the groundwork for the equation E=mc2 150 years before Einstein got his hands on it. Oh, did I mention she was also beautiful, vivacious, and hilarious? She literally charmed the pants off of several extramarital conquests. The most famous of her lovers was none other than Voltaire, who joked that “she was a great man whose only fault was being a woman.” Her husband was pretty cool with her wild love life, since it allowed him to make connections with all the respected, famous men she was donking. However, her last affair, with the poet Jean Francois de Saint-Lambert, was her undoing: she died bearing his child. Upon hearing the news, Voltaire said, “It is not a mistress I have lost but half of myself.” If you have a heart in your chest, it should have just exploded.

CLARA BOW Clara Bow’s allure was so simultaneously indescribable and undeniable that the 1920s version of TMZ coined the term “It girl” just to categorize her. Whether you define “It” as charisma, charm, or sex appeal, the impish silent-film starlet had it by the metric ton. After a tragic childhood—she grew up in extreme poverty, her mother repeatedly tried to murder her, and her father raped her—she was discovered in a talent contest at 16 and quickly became Hollywood’s best-paid actress, making 57 movies in 11 years. This girl had more chutzpah than all of today’s actresses combined! She also had more suitors than Homer’s Penelope, but unlike that ice queen, Bow indulged, and how. She had a way of making lovers who were originally “the other man” into cuckolds themselves. While dating co-star Gilbert Roland, who would become the first of many fiancés, she had an affair with legendary director Victor Fleming. She moved along to actor Gary Cooper but romantically moonlighted during this relationship too, with vaudeville star Harry Richman. Still unsatisfied, she got down with Bela Lugosi, a married doctor named Earl Pearson, and, according to legend, the entire USC Trojans football squad. Bow eventually married cowboy, actor, and politician Rex Bell at 28 years old and never worked, or cheated, again.

JOSEPHINE BONAPARTE PRINCESS DIANA Napoleon conquered continental Europe, and it still wasn’t enough to keep his wife Josephine from hunting for substitute Bonerpartes. He wrote countless love letters to her during his campaigns, which I’m sure she breathlessly read while letting her lover Hippolyte Charles break through her Maginot Line in Napoleon’s itty-bitty throne. When Napoleon found out about the betrayal, he was infuriated in his adorable shorty-pants way and began several of his own affairs. Josephine discovered him invading her lady-in-waiting shortly before their coronation and threatened to leave him. Ultimately, they did divorce, as Josephine failed to produce a male heir, and Napoleon needed one tout de suite. When he married Marie-Louise of Austria, he publicly stated he was “marrying a womb.” Ouch, Cap’n Nap’n! But at least with that pronouncement, Josephine knew she was truly the love of his life. Indeed, Napoleon’s last words were, “France, the army, the head of the army, Josephine.” A beautiful end to their story after which Napoleon’s attendants commissioned the widdlest coffin in all of Fwance.

Princess Diana was the most charming, graceful, philanthropic, and publicly adored member of the British Royal Family since…oh my Anglican God, forever? In what seemed like a fairy tale at the time, Diana Spencer married Prince Charles of Wales in 1981. She then gave birth to two male heirs who took after their mother and thus became the most handsome things the royal family has ever produced. Not that the bar for looks in the British monarchy is particularly high. Which is why Prince Charles’ affair with Camilla Parker-Bowles was so confusing. Diana tried to reconcile with Charles, but he probably just gave her some repressed British aphorism over tea and crumpets. So she found comfort in her bodyguard Barry Mannakee, until Charles fired him over suspicions that they were having an affair, which is really like the pot calling the kettle a cheater. She then began a long, secret romance with James Hewitt, her riding instructor. Yeah, that’s right, her riding instructor—the joke makes itself. You have to admire her for goin’ out and gettin’ some despite her marital restrictions. Oh, yeah, and you should probably also admire her incredible efforts in the fight against AIDS, banning landmines, and fostering children in need, I suppose. When she died, post-divorce, in a tragic 1997 car accident with her lover Dodi al-Fayed, she was mourned on a hitherto inconceivable scale—an estimated 2.5 billion people watched her funeral on TV. B

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Thanks to the anonymity of the Internet, more women are writing honestly about their sex lives than ever before. But the backlash has never been worse BY EMILY MCCOMBS PHOTOGRAPHED BY ELIZABETH WEINBERG AND JENNIFER SILVERBERG

HEN 31-YEAR-OLD Melissa Petro showed up to her job as an elementary-school teacher one day in late September, she was met by a reporter from the New York Post. Petro was there to teach art to third-graders, but it was her former employment as a stripper and prostitute—which she’d written about openly in online outlets like The Huffington Post and The Rumpus—that interested the tabloid journo. “He had a picture of me and was asking everyone who was coming if they knew me,” she recalls. “He told me many times that it was my last opportunity to speak [on the subject]. All I kept thinking was that it certainly wasn’t.” The piece about Petro ran on the front page the following Monday, under the headline “Bronx Teacher Admits: I’m an Ex-Hooker.” Even though Petro’s stint as

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Melissa Petro in her element

a sex worker ended seven months before she became an educator, it set off a firestorm of controversy that resulted in New York City’s Mayor Bloomberg announcing that “this woman” was being removed from the classroom. Petro hasn’t seen her co-workers or students since. She was reassigned to report to an administrative building, where she was given a desk (but no work to do) until the Department of Education finally charged her with “conduct unbecoming a teacher” in December. She spent the two months of downtime working on her memoir. Petro is one of a number of women who turn to their sexual experiences for writing material, spilling details to the public that many would be afraid to tell their closest friends. These women are sex writers—chronic oversharers inhabiting the pink ghetto of the literary world. And the repercussions are major. Among the five women interviewed for this article, there are five lost jobs (six if you count a voluntary position with the Girl Scouts), two lawsuits, one child-custody battle, three book deals, one Playboy spread, and thousands of condemning words directed at them both online and off. They’ve had their identities outed by snooping media outlets and personal attacks splashed across the pages of tabloids. They’ve been ambushed by photographers hiding in neighbors’ hedges and outside their places of employment, and they’ve had nude photographs of themselves leaked and disseminated across the Internet. And what have they done that so captivated the world? They’ve simply written honestly about their sex lives. Their prose—published on Web sites and anonymous personal blogs as well as in print—isn’t necessarily in the lusty, pant-

PHOTOGRAPHY: ELIZABETH WEINBERG

THE NAKED TRUTH

ing style of Harlequin romance novels, either. Ruminations on the best way to maximize cardio at the gym share page space with creative uses for a double-headed dildo, and you’re just as likely to find thoughts on gender politics and queer theory as descriptions of sweaty sex sessions. “When I have performed at readings and in venues where the topic is the idea of sex or sex workers, I am always reminded how tame and reflective my work is,” says Petro. “I don’t write in a way that is titillating. It’s not gratuitous or inappropriate in any way. If my students read it, there are no words that they would be offended by.” Whether their words lean toward the profane or the profound, one thing all these writers have in common is that they put their livelihoods at risk by letting it all hang out online. Kendra Holliday, a “bisexual, atheist, vegetarian sex goddess,” says she lost her job at a non-profit in April when a Twitter cache glitch caused her full name to show up in a Google search conducted by her employer. This led her employer to her blog, The Beautiful Kind, on which the 38-year-old mother had been anonymously doling out the kinky details of her life alongside sex and relationship advice. Her boss called Holliday into her office and asked her what she could possibly have been thinking by putting the details of her S&M-tinged polyamorous bedroom activities on the Internet. “She could hardly look at me,” says Holliday, who lives in St. Louis, MO, speaking to me by phone while on her way to an “atheist orgy.” “She’d always been such a warm and lovely person, and this was a different side of her. She was more like a dragon. She was just furious.” In October, Holliday “came out” in a six-page profile in the St. Louis–based newspaper Riverfront Times, which revealed her name and was accompanied by a large shot of her perched on her bed in lingerie. Since then, she’s become something of a local celebrity—not necessarily a good thing in the somewhat conservative city. As a result of her decision to attach her real identity to her blog, her ex-husband is suing for custody of their 10-year-old daughter, and many parents at her daughter’s school will no longer let her be around their children. She’s also in danger of losing her home because of her inability to find an employer that’s comfortable with her notoriety. “I’ve been persecuted so many times for my sexuality and being a sexual woman that it doesn’t get me all fired up and angry,” she says. “It just makes me really sad that it happened again.” Holliday still finds humor in her situation, though. Shortly after the article came out, she received a one-line email from a representative of her daughter’s Girl Scout troop, reading: “I’m sure you’ll understand that in light of recent events, you will not be invited to participate in Girl Scout programming, and somebody else will assume the role of Cookie Captain.” With a laugh she says, “I swear I never molested those cookies.” Although she acknowledges that attaching her name to graphic content (including nude photographs) on her site was bound to have consequences, she refuses to accept the idea that she invited everything that has happened to her. “You could say, ‘Well, that’s what you get, Kendra, that’s your fault, that’s why you shouldn’t have done that.’ But I keep thinking to myself, They’re acting like

assholes! It’s unacceptable, and there’s no reason for me to stay in a cage based on their fear and ignorance. I won’t do it.” It’s a perspective that 23-year-old Lena Chen, the precocious former Harvard co-ed behind the blog Sex and the Ivy, agrees with. “I didn’t even anonymize myself,” she says. “How was I supposed to know anyone was gonna read it? It was 2006. Twitter was not even around.” Her honest stories of collegiate sex gained her national attention and helped her segue into a freelance-writing career, but they also garnered an unwelcome backlash. “When you put yourself out there, so to speak, people have a tendency to be like, ‘Well, whatever you get, you had it coming.’ I found it really frustrating [that] when bad stuff happened to me, everyone was basically like, ‘You chose this life for yourself. You dug your own grave.’ It’s like, what? I wrote a blog! People write things that are as provocative all the time—it’s just that they’re on a bookshelf somewhere at Barnes & Noble.” British sex writer Zoe Margolis, 38, agrees that the stigma of writing online about sex is much greater than divulging details in print. Though she’s a published author now, her career began online with her frank, funny blog Girl With a One-Track Mind, about her life as a single, sexually active woman in London. But despite the increased negative feedback received by sex bloggers, she finds the medium to be an obvious option for women who are still plagued by the public’s provincial thinking about bedroom activities. “If a woman doesn’t fit into [society’s] narrow stereotype of female sexuality, and therefore risks being labeled in a derogatory way, she might be hesitant to express her true thoughts and feelings with her friends,” she says. “Instead, women reach out to one another in other safer anonymous contexts—like via the Internet and on blogs—where it is easier to express their viewpoints on sex, without the fear of judgment.” Without anonymity as a barrier, however, all hell breaks loose. As a result of her writing, Chen has experienced quite a bit of “bad stuff,” she says: in addition to her feeling alienated by the tightknit campus community, an ex-boyfriend leaked nude photographs of her to a college gossip blog, and her current boyfriend’s

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Lena Chen puts her feet up

identity was revealed on a notorious forum, launching a letterwriting campaign to the Harvard sociology department, where he is a teaching assistant, accusing him of raping Chen. “A lot of what they took issue with was not my writing but rather my lifestyle,” she says. “They thought that I was ruining myself for the rest of my life and I would never be able to find a husband. Like, a lot of this came down to: what man would ever want you, given that you write this blog and given that you have been very open about the fact that you had a lot of sexual partners? And that was hurtful, partly because there’s a grain of truth. People do think that way.” Margolis encountered similar slut-shaming when the U.K.’s Sunday Times published an article exposing her identity three days after her book was published under the pseudonym Abby Lee in 2006. To this day, she doesn’t know how the tabloid found out her real name. The press hounded Margolis, her parents, friends, neighbors, and colleagues for weeks, offering money to “dish the dirt” on her, causing her to lose her job as an assistant director in the film industry. But what hurt the most was the sexist propaganda complete strangers hurled at her for writing about her sex life. “When the newspaper outed me, I was gobsmacked by the antifemale approach the paper took,” she says. “All I had done on my blog and [in my] book was to write openly about my sex life and the feelings and thoughts that this had raised. But the newspaper felt like they had to chastise me for it, calling me sordid and seedy and shameless, as if there was something negative about my being a sexually active woman.” Although Margolis publicly laughed off the volume of sexist and misogynistic hate mail she received, it privately upset her. It’s a sentiment shared by Jessica Cutler, 32, who lost her job as a staff assistant for a Republican senator on Capitol Hill when she

was exposed as the writer behind the blog Washingtonienne in 2004. She had been anonymously entertaining readers with flippant tales of her active sex life, including having anal sex with a co-worker and accepting money for sex from men, one of whom was a high-level federal employee. After blogging for less than two weeks, her identity was uncovered and publicized by snarky political blog Wonkette. “Losing my anonymity was hard,” she says. “The first time I saw my name associated with Washingtonienne, I was devastated, but I pretended not to be. I didn’t realize that working on the Hill and having a sloppy sex life were mutually exclusive activities. There is hard-core scheisse porn on the Internet, but my blog—which was just words on a screen—was being scrutinized like it was [disturbing-image shock site] Rotten.com.” Schoolteacher Petro recalls feeling similarly upset by people’s visceral reactions to her past when the New York Post article was published. “I couldn’t really see why so many people were so angry at me. It was a terrible feeling. I don’t like it when people are angry at me. That made me feel ashamed. So I really had to focus on the fact that I hadn’t harmed anybody doing what I had done. And if there was any harm being caused, it was that machine, that out-of-control [press] machine that was causing the harm. And I just knew not to feed it.” Margolis, however, decided to take the machine to task when a British newspaper, The Independent, ran a first-person piece she’d written with a headline referring to her as a hooker. Ironically, she had mentioned in the article that she hoped to “dispel stigma and stereotypes” about just such a thing by being a sex blogger. “It was and always has been of huge importance to me to challenge the idea that female sexuality is in any way tied to the sex industry, and because of this, and the fact that the newspaper had implicated me and my writing in this way, it meant I was left with no choice but to sue the newspaper for libel,” she says. The Independent was eventually forced to print an apology stating, “Ms. Margolis is not and never has been ‘a hooker,’” pay damages, and make an official court statement for the permanent public record. For some sex writers, the lines are a bit blurrier. Both Petro and Cutler write about accepting money for sexual services, and Cutler posed for a nude Playboy pictorial in the wake of her scandal. “I’d lost my income,” she says. “I was lucky enough to get an offer from Playboy and a book deal a few weeks later. If I didn’t need the money, I wouldn’t have pursued either opportunity, but I didn’t have anyone paying me not to do those things. So it was not a tough decision to make.” Petro was offered $60,000 (her annual teacher’s salary) to pose for the low-rent porn mag High Society. She turned it down, though she wasn’t surprised by the offer. Courted or not, sexual objectification seems to go hand in hand with being a woman who writes about sex. All of these women have had their appearances and bodies subjected to scrutiny that is rarely seen directed at male writers, even those who deal with explicit personal experiences. (Nobody ever offered Tucker Max—the notorious “dude” writer whose online stories include “Tucker Tries Buttsex” and “The Blowjob Follies”—a nude photo spread, nor have Henry Miller or Norman Mailer ever been vili-

fied.) Of course, there simply doesn’t seem to be as many men writing about their sex lives for the online masses, perhaps because it simply doesn’t bring the same attention that has caused some to accuse young women of writing about sex to achieve success. “I think that’s true,” says Cutler. “But it’s also true that readers and critics pay too much attention to the sexy stuff. My Washingtonienne blog wasn’t just about sex, but that’s all people remember about it.” Chen points out the strangeness of the phenomenon of having her attractiveness openly evaluated because of her choice of topics. “I didn’t expect so many people to be like, ‘You’re not hot enough to write about sex.’ Really? Because, I’m pretty sure when a penis is going inside my vagina, there’s not someone there who’s like, ‘You’re a seven, please separate.’ If you think that only a certain type of person can write about sex and that pretty people must somehow fuck better, you need to deprogram yourself.” At the same time, Chen has taken heat from readers who feel she’s objectifying herself by posting provocative photos, including nudes and an infamous shot that was taken moments after her boyfriend ejaculated on her face. She defends her choices, saying, “I’ve always felt that as long as it’s on my Web site, as long as the photos are taken in the way I want them to be.... For example, my boyfriend is a hobby photographer; he takes most of the photos I have up of me on my blog. And I think it’s nice because obviously, the work that I’m posting is being done by someone who cares about me and loves me and does not objectify me and sees me as a whole human being.”

PHOTOGRAPHY: JENNIFER SILVERBERG

Kendra Holliday cuddles up to a furry friend

“I didn’t expect so many people to be like, ‘You’re not hot enough to write about sex.’ Really? Because, I’m pretty sure when a penis is going inside my vagina, there’s not someone there who’s like, ‘You’re a seven, please separate.’” Holliday also includes graphic images on her blog and provocative features like one where she selects a blog reader to sleep with and then writes about the experience. But ultimately, she feels the most controversial aspect of her work is her refusal to be ashamed of it. “I’m saying you can have a fabulous, interesting multipartner sex life and it’s OK. I’m not living in a ’70s nightclub. I’m completely drug-free, I’m a great mother, and I just have another side of me that I’m not ashamed of. And that pisses people off.” Petro agrees. “I think that if I expressed remorse about my past, it would’ve been palatable. But that I had come to peace and am entirely comfortable with who I am makes other people uncomfortable. It’s not that I avoid the complexities of the issue or of my experience, it’s only that I refuse victimhood.” It’s clear that our culture is deeply offended by women writing honestly about their sexual experiences, and it seems obvious that Petro won’t be the last woman to be outed and publicly shamed for writing about sex. That’s why Holliday, in Missouri, used Facebook to reach out to Petro in New York when news of her reassignment hit the Web. “It’s an epidemic across the nation,” she says of the public shaming female sex writers endure. “I want us to stick together. If we’re all standing alone and now we’re all unemployed, it’s so ridiculous and counterproductive. The more people join up, the more power we have. And we’ll really be able to make a difference.” Though it may be a long time before there’s a shift in society’s thinking that will allow women to write about their sexuality without being shunned, Petro believes it’s possible. “In this age, I think we’re going to find that our private selves are less easily kept private, and then we’ll realize that people live self-determined lives outside of the workplace that might not necessarily jibe with our job titles,” she says. “It’s basically this idea that female sexuality is perceived as incompatible with serious public work or public service. As women become more empowered and comfortable expressing and embracing their sexuality, people are going to have to accept that they are also fit to do serious work in their communities. It’s not something that we’re going to pretend isn’t true anymore.” B

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The surprising truth behind our relationship with the razor, and why you may want to think twice about shaving that stubble BY JOHANNA GOHMANN // ILLUSTRATED BY TED MCGRATH

N 1848, THE English art critic John Ruskin married a lovely woman by the name of Effie Gray. According to historical accounts, when Gray disrobed in front of Ruskin for the first time, on their wedding night, she revealed something he found so repulsive, he was unable to make love to her: pubic hair. Prior to this unveiling, Ruskin’s knowledge of the female form was based largely on the smooth pudenda he’d seen in Greek paintings and sculpture. So when he saw that his nude wife had hair down there, it was simply too much for him. The marriage was annulled six years later, having never been consummated. Were Ruskin alive today, he probably wouldn’t have trouble drumming up empathy for his pubic gross-out. Scores of men nationwide would likely nod in agreement that a gal with a fully grown bush or body hair in general is less than desirable. And modern gals have gotten the message loud and clear. Women today battle body hair like it’s a fungus, and many of us consider hair removal—from our legs to our pubes to our pits and beyond—an absolute must. In fact, according to a 2009 study by online polling company Zoomerang, 96 percent of American women shave their legs, armpits, and bikini line at least once a week. Not only that, but according to a 2008 study by the American Laser Centers, over the course of our lives, women will shave 7,718 times and spend $10,000 on shaving products. Ladies who wax will spend close to $23,000 tearing their hair off. In contemporary culture, hair removal is regarded as a basic part of the female experience, like getting your period or buying a training bra. We’re taught that the first time you pull a pink plastic Bic over your skin, your limbs are transformed from girlish beanpoles into svelte lady legs. Many of us start shaving as preteens and never stop. Some of us haven’t the slightest clue what our underarm hair actually looks like fully grown. And once the legs and pits are mowed clean, we direct our attention to the bikini line, plucking, pruning, and waxing ourselves baby-smooth. But there’s more at play here than simply separating hair from follicle; the practice has a long and fascinating history, one that more recently includes male marketers, women’s magazines, and of course, a healthy dose of sexual politics.

Our descent into depilation goes pretty far back and actually started with our genitalia. Historians believe women in ancient India were clearing away their bushes as far back as 3000 B.C.— they’ve even found copper razors from the period. Same goes for the Greeks. According to Victoria Sherrow, author of Encyclopedia of Hair, “most women in ancient Greece removed their pubic hair, believing that it looked uncivilized.” But it wasn’t just the crotch that was targeted. In ancient Egypt, Cleopatra supposedly had a standing monthly waxing appointment and would meet with a group of handmaidens who coated her in a hair-removal concoction made of sugar, oil, and lime. And in Middle Eastern cultures, hair removal has been going on for centuries. In Lebanon, Turkey, Egypt, and Palestine, it was once part of the pre-wedding ritual. Bridal parties would gather round and rip everything off the bride except her up-do. The forces behind the ancient days of hair removal are varied— religious, cultural, and even, some say, Darwinian. In a 2009 New York Times article, “Why Humans and Their Fur Parted Ways,” scientists hypothesize that our disdain for body hair might have less to do with aesthetics and more to do with evolution. They suggest that humans were naturally drawn to mates with less body hair because it meant fewer parasites, hence, a healthier mate. So when we recoil at the sight of, say, Robin Williams’ back, some ancient mental alarm bell might be sounding in our brains. Which makes one wonder why our modern-day obsession with hair removal is only focused on females. In Kirsten Hansen’s fascinating essay “Hair or Bare?: The History of American Women and Hair Removal, 1914-1934,” she explains that depilation wasn’t practiced in America until the early 1900s: “Hair removal had to be introduced, explained, and marketed to American women in order to become a common practice.” For hundreds of years, American women didn’t care about their body hair. Then around 1910, fashions began to change. Skirts and sleeves became shorter, and women began to show more skin. But we still didn’t care. It wasn’t until the women’s magazines of the day, like Ladies Home Journal and Harper’s Bazaar, began printing ads for hair removers that we began to think otherwise. In 1914, Harper’s Bazaar ran an advertisement for a product called X Bazin. The ad claimed that this depilatory powder had been used “by women of refinement for generations for the removal of objectionable hair.” It featured a drawing of a woman in a sleeveless dress, which itself was a very new fashion. The woman’s arm was stretched gracefully over her head, revealing her silky skin, free from “objectionable” underarm hair. Though we’d been unself-consciously strolling around sans depilation—dealing with stuff like, you know, not dying from cholera, having enough food to last through the winter, and daydreaming about voting—we were suddenly met with a new, more pressing concern: pit hair. It wasn’t only changing fashions and persuasive ads that marked this shift in body hair acceptance, however. It was also right around this time that the women’s suffrage movement was making major headway. Coincidence? I think not. Culturally speaking, body hair

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has long been viewed as a masculine trait. Hair on a man has been equated with strength and virility since biblical times (hello, Samson). Merran Toerien and Sue Wilkinson, authors of Gender and Body Hair: Constructing the Feminine Woman, write that hair on a woman has indicated, during various periods in history, that she was a whore, a witch, or just plain crazy: “During the witch-hunts in France, it was common for suspects to be shaved prior to their torture, the belief being that hairiness came about through consorting with the devil.” In early-20th-century America, however, it was a much more subversive menace. “Constructed as masculine, hair, when visible on a woman’s body, represents a symbolic threat to the gendered social order; to be a hairy woman is partially to traverse the boundary between the feminine and the masculine,” claim Toerien and Wilkinson. “Constructed as masculine, hair has no rightful place on the feminine body.” From this point of view, it’s no surprise that our culture’s assault on female body hair came along just as women were gaining ground in the fight for their rightful place in society. Toerien and Wilkinson put it best: “Hair removal may have developed to help maintain, symbolically, an emphasis on gender difference at a time when other gender markers were being challenged.” About a year after the first X Bazin ad appeared—around the same time that the first suffrage bill was brought before the House of Representatives, in fact—ads also began to pop up for the Milady Décolleté Gillette. Inventor and businessman King Camp Gillette was famous for patenting the first safety razor for men in 1904, but the Milady was the first time a razor had been created and marketed specifically for women. Now ladies had the option of “smoothing” (“shaving” sounded too butch). The jazzy Milady ads read: “Fashion Says—Evening gowns must be sleeveless or made with the merest suggestion of gauzy sleeves of tulle or lace...The Woman of Fashion Says—The underarms must be as smooth as the face.” Can’t you just see the WWI-era Don Draper who came up with that one? As Hansen explains, the companies shilling hair-removal products consistently drew links between hairlessness and feminine beauty: “X Bazin would continue its ad campaign, using words like: ‘unwelcome,’ ‘embarrassing,’ and ‘unsightly.’ In comparison, companies like El Rado, Evans Depilatory, and Neet labeled the hair-free woman ‘attractive,’ ‘womanly,’ ‘sanitary,’ ‘clean,’ and ‘exquisite.’” The viewpoint was unwavering: having body hair was ugly, unlady-

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like, and dirty; being hairless was pretty, feminine, and pure. Though razor and depilatory companies, powered by men, naturally, had mainly been targeting the armpits, in 1918 they got the bright idea to expand their female-hair warfare, and removal products were marketed for the “limbs” and “body” as well. The evolution of the era’s fashions helped them in their crusade to make money off women’s au naturel state, by giving them ammo for instilling insecurities about the way we looked. In the ’20s, hemlines rose from ankles to just over the knee. Companies took this as the perfect cue to focus on our stems, and ads began to showcase women with clean-shaven calves. The fact that bathing suits also began to shrink fanned the flames of the hair-removal market. Women were no longer wading into the water in bloomers and full-length dresses; bathing suits finally bared arms and legs. And if you were going to show your limbs, well, it was clear what you needed to do: hunt down a razor. But it wasn’t only marketers that influenced our attitude toward body hair. Women’s magazines also played a substantial role in shaping our hair-removal habits. During this time, fashion and beauty writers continued to chant a “body hair is a curse” mantra. For example, in a 1941 article, the beauty editor of Harper’s Bazaar wrote, “As to neatness…if we were dean of women, we’d levy a demerit on every hairy leg on campus.” Pop culture helped further the cause. When leggy pin-up stars like Betty Grable and Rita Hayworth came along, they reinforced the hairless ideal with every flash of their slick, shapely gams. Of course, the audiences of such media outlets as magazines and movies were the white, wealthy elite, and it was those affluent women who were the original target of the whole hair-removal campaign. Companies bet that over time, there would be a trickledown effect, causing middle- and lower-class women to eventually copy the practices of the wealthy, and they were right. Throughout the ’20s and ’30s hair removal was a status symbol, practiced only by “refined” and “fashionable” women. Over the decades, shaving or waxing simply became an accepted (and expected) part of a woman’s beauty regime. As Hansen states: “According to industry reports from the early 1980s, between 80 and 90 percent of American women remove hair from their bodies. A century before, this percentile was certainly in the single digits.” Of course, in the ’60s and ’70s, many women said to hell with

this, ditching their razors as a political act. But obviously, not everyone followed suit, as our culture’s love affair with hairlessness has only grown over the decades, moving from our pits to our legs to, eventually, our crotches. A quick peek at a vintage issue of Playboy or any nude photos pre-1980 will reveal a good amount of bush, or as Amy Poehler so eloquently put it in our Oct/Nov ’07 issue, “giant pubic ’fros.” Having hair down there wouldn’t be welcome for long, however. In 1987, seven Brazilian sisters (Jocely, Jonice, Joyce, Janea, Jussara, Juracy, and Judseia Padilha) moved to New York City and opened a salon called J. Sisters, helping to usher in a little something called the Brazilian bikini wax. By the ’90s, the Brazilian was taking off, having been popularized by a mention on Sex and the City and stars like Gwyneth Paltrow who touted the practice. The popularity of the Brazilian might have petered out to become merely a footnote in the history of body-hair removal, however, if it hadn’t been for the invention of the World Wide Web. Along with the Internet came the proliferation of Ye Olde Pornography, and it is porn’s accessibility and crossover into the mainstream that has played a huge role in reinforcing our hairless obsession. Any contemporary porn features vaginas that are waxed or shaved—if a porn star sports pubic hair at all, it’s hardly more than a Charlie Chaplin moustache. By the 2000s, a fully grown, natural bush was considered a dusty relic of yesteryear. As writer Naomi Wolf remarked on porn in 2003: “For the first time in human history, the images’ power and allure have supplanted that of real naked women. Today, real naked women are just bad porn.” In 2004, nearly 1.4 million American women underwent laser hair removal, with many targeting their pubes. The hairless-issexy equation is bizarre for many reasons, an obvious one being that the growth of pubic hair is one of the signs of sexual maturation. Critics of the trend cite its “infantilization” of women, and nowhere was this idea more disturbingly illustrated than in a 2008 MSNBC story about girls—some as young as eight—getting bikini waxes. In the feature, some salons claimed that waxing “virgin” hair was actually a good way to get rid of pubic hair altogether. And what if your kid should one day decide she might actually like a bush? Then what, Mom? Will she have to wait for Miley Cyrus to release a line of designer merkins? In recent years, the allure of hair removal has begun to cross

the gender divide. What started with gay guys has now been embraced by some straight men as well, who proudly wax and shave their chests, pubic hair, or arms. (One need only tune in to an episode of Jersey Shore for proof of this.) The difference, of course, is that men aren’t expected to be clean of hair. When women act against this expectation, they are often ridiculed. If the lady baring hair happens to be in the media, it incites a frenzy of disparagement. When model Natalia Vodianova stepped out at the Harper’s Bazaar “Women of the Year” soiree this past November, she did so without shaving her legs. The media went bananas over her beastliness—you would have thought she was firing tangerines out of her vagina. Similarly, whenever the likes of Drew Barrymore, Mo’Nique, or Julia Roberts—who have all dared to bare hair—carelessly flash unshaven pits, the tabloids reel in horror, magnifying the photos until the hair looks like some sort of sci-fi tarantula, climbing the hills to come devour our young. When one thinks of the time invested in plucking ourselves like chickens, the money sucked from our wallets in the process, and the sexual politics involved, it’s certainly enough to make you want to blast the entire planet’s stock of Skintimate foaming gel out into the stratosphere. And before you book that next wax appointment, you might want to stop and think about this: we have body hair for a reason. That tumbleweed bush of yours serves a very real purpose. Along with acting as a barrier to viruses and other bacteria, it also helps you get laid. Ever heard of indole? It’s a compound that, in addition to being added to many perfumes, is also found at the roots of your pubic hair. This scent serves as one of our primitive sex attractors, with the hair acting as a sort of net to hold onto the smell. It’s unlikely the hair-removal industry will fold anytime soon, especially considering society’s steadfast views of what is masculine and feminine. It’s a multibillion-dollar business, and it’s estimated that the average woman devotes around 58 days of her life to fighting her natural fur. Fifty-eight days—that’s about two months! Should the Apocalypse come, wouldn’t you want those two months back? And yet, there’s little doubt that without an enormous shift in cultural thinking, there are women out there who simply wouldn’t feel right greeting the Four Horsemen with prickly thighs. B

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Into the

WOODS Catherine Hardwicke, the director who made Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson household names, dishes on her wild new flick, Red Riding Hood BY JENNI MILLER // PHOTOGRAPHED BY EMILY SHUR

STYLIST: ILARIA URBINATI @ THE WALL GROUP; MAKEUP AND HAIR: NICOLE HAWKYARD

O DIRECTOR CAPTURES the tumult of teenagedom like Catherine Hardwicke. Her first feature film, 2003’s Thirteen, which she co-wrote with the film’s young star, Nikki Reed, gave parents a chilling glimpse into what it’s really like to come of age in America these days, tongue piercings and all. And the 55-yearold Texan’s next big splash was a tidal wave that no one saw coming. Love it or hate it, Hardwicke’s 2008 vampire phenomenon, Twilight, had pubescent girls, their moms, and even their grandmas storming multiplexes by the millions just for a glimpse of leading man Robert Pattinson’s sparkly abs. Her latest project, Red Riding Hood (debuting in March), is another dark take on young love. In this medieval tale, an evil creature is sniffing around the little village that protagonist Valerie (played by Amanda Seyfried) lives in. After someone is murdered, the townspeople grow increasingly paranoid that secrets, lies, betrayals, and maybe even a werewolf are lurking in their midst. Valerie’s attention is distracted from these matters, however, by a steamy affair she’s having with someone her parents don’t approve of. It’s definitely not the Little Red Riding Hood we grew up with. But in Hardwicke’s capable hands, the film is sure to carve out its own niche as a girl-culture classic. Here, she speaks candidly about teen sex, Twilight, and film-biz testosterone.

The way you portray the sexuality of teenage girls is unlike anything else out there. Your actresses never fall into traps of Disney-fied sexlessness, gratuitous titillation, or slut-shaming. How do you walk that fine line? I just try to imagine what it feels like to be that person, and I trust the actor to be in the moment and to go with the emotions and the feelings and hopefully get transported.

and that’s thrilling. I found that she goes very deep with the character at all times. And the best thing in the world about Amanda is she’s not a diva. If she sees somebody carrying something, she’ll go try to help them carry it, or she’ll buy crazy mugs for everybody on the crew. She’s generous, funny, spontaneous, and she doesn’t complain and isn’t a pain in the ass to work with. So she’s kind of unreal.

Twilight has gotten some backlash from people who say it’s anti-sex or too moralistic because of the Mormon background of Stephenie Meyer, the author who wrote the novel the film is based on. How do you respond to that? I know that was one of the big early criticisms of the first book. But I felt more like it was really concentrating on the longing and the feeling, which was strong and potent. If you didn’t know she was a Mormon, you could just say, “Wow, this writer has created incredibly difficult circumstances for these two people to be together under.” So I just embraced that and went with that. Usually, I try not to step outside and judge but instead be there in the moment, be there with the characters, and just live it and feel it.

Is Red Riding Hood a horror movie? I’ve seen it called a horror movie, but it becomes more of a psychological thriller as the town turns against each other. You start discovering all these secrets and lies, and you’re trying to figure out who the killer is. It’s not super gruesome—I mean, it’s PG-13—but the fear factor is pretty high.

“An actively sexual woman who has desires of her own— that is dangerous.” I am so excited for Red Riding Hood, and I think Amanda Seyfried is great. As an actress, she still seems like she’s a wild child, like she hasn’t been ground down by the system yet. I love Amanda. She blows your mind on so many levels. First of all, as soon as she’s in front of the camera, she’s got one of the most incredible faces. Wait till you see her in this movie. Sometimes she’s Angelina Jolie, sometimes she’s a young Michelle Pfeiffer, sometimes she’s an alien, sometimes she’s an anime character, sometimes she’s 15-year-old Dakota Fanning. She goes through every kind of transformation. And she is fierce and beautiful. And you’re right, she’s a wild child. You don’t know what’s going to happen or come out of her mouth,

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The heart of a lot of fairy tales is budding female sexuality. One of my favorite interpretations of Little Red Riding Hood is The Company of Wolves by Angela Carter. In it, Riding Hood burns all her clothes and gets in bed with the Big Bad Wolf and sleeps between his paws. It’s incredibly daring and beautiful and erotic. That’s definitely part of it, because there is that mystery— getting in touch or discovering your wild side, your animalistic side, your sexuality. Amanda is playing a girl right on the cusp of womanhood, and she’s falling madly in love and trying to navigate that. It’s against her parents’ wishes, and another person loves her madly, and the wolf comes in, and there’s a murder right at the beginning. Let’s talk about the sex in the movie. Again, there’s this line between the titillation factor of watching this beautiful, young woman and also making sex an active choice for her. You’re touching on something that certainly scares men and can draw criticism. An actively sexual woman who has desires of her own—that is dangerous. I think in this case, Amanda brings her own passion and sensibility, and so she and I and of course Shiloh Fernandez, who plays the super hot love interest—we all had to try to find the balance between his desire and her desire. And that was something interesting we navigated in the scenes. When would one person be more active? When would one person be more passive? When do you just let the other person take over? Then when does the other one take over? So we talked about that. You’ve also got Julie Christie in the cast, who’s a total sex symbol from the ’60s, and she’s playing the grandmother! She’s still sexy. When I read the first draft of the script, the grandmother was just a creaky old lady. But I was like, “I’m not doing a movie like that.” This grandmother is going to be…I was calling her Boho Granny. She’s going to be wild and into witchcraft and sexy and living out in the woods like a wild-

child grandmother. And Julie loved that idea, because there’s no way she was going to be an old, creaky grandmother. She’s like, “I am not wearing a nightcap, dear.” And I said, “No kidding.” She has long dreads in the movie. She’s still a sex bomb. Julie Christie’s got that Helen Mirren thing going on. Like, can I please grow up and be you? She’s delightful and funny and super witty and just wild with the things she says. In one scene, there’s this big, huge guard, and she gives him some food to give to Amanda, and then as she’s leaving, the guard just takes a bite of the apple, and without me saying anything—it wasn’t supposed to be this way— she just goes up to him and slaps the apple out of his hand. She’s fearless. Gary Oldman is in it too. Does he get to be sexy also, or is he just a priest? Well, he’s a sexy priest. Back in medieval times, priests weren’t so much like the way they are now. This priest is quite a bit wilder. He has two kids, too. He was married; then I guess he became a priest after that. But there’s a scene where it’s, like, afterhours, and he’s got the priest robe open, and he has his shirt open underneath, and the cross is hanging there, and he’s like a rock star. Like Mick Jagger as a priest. He’s wild. Gary is funny as shit, you know? The stuff that comes out of his mouth—he’s hilarious. He’s so funny and great and crazy, you just worship at his feet. It was a privilege for me to work with him. But you can see when he comes on set, everybody’s game just zooms up a few notches. Everybody’s like, “I want to do a scene with Gary.” Even if you get one line with Gary, it’s just like a bolt of energy. What about the wolf? Is he sexy? Is he scary? I feel like I keep asking you about sexiness, but… But in a way you’re so right. That is kind of what the fairy tale is. This girl, alone in the woods, and the wolf comes up to her. “Where are you going?” And in the fairy tale, she tells the wolf where she’s going. She invites him into her world. So that’s part of the tale, you know? I can’t tell you too much about the wolf because he’s kind of a secret. But of course he’s badass. He or she…. We don’t even know what this creature is. But the creature is badass, scary, and sexy. You can’t go wrong with that. Everyone’s looking for the next Twilight, and right now the big contender seems to be the young-adult novel The Hunger Games, which has a really cool female protagonist. It seems like it would be a perfect vehicle for a female director, but rumors are the film version is going to be directed by a man. Is it frustrating when movies targeted toward teen girls are directed by guys? It seems like something is going to be

lost in translation. I think so. I’ve felt just a little bit disappointed that Summit didn’t try harder to find a female director for the Twilight sequels, because it is frustrating. I mean literally, even after the success of Twilight, there was a very interesting film that had

“The most teenage, girly movies of all time get to be directed by men, no issue, but a woman can’t go and direct something else. There’s still that hilarious divide.” two guys in it, and it was a lot of testosterone, and was a really intense drama, and I said, “Oh, I’m interested in directing that.” And the word came back, “No, they won’t even meet with you because it’s got to be a guy directing it.” I’m like, “Wow, OK.” The most teenage, girly movies of all time get to be directed by men, no issue, but a woman can’t go and direct something else. There’s still that hilarious divide. [Now people are saying], “Oh, yeah, Kathryn Bigelow, she can direct action.” Well, she’s done that on five other movies. How is this suddenly a revelation? It’s like, Guys, wake up. Look at her other films. It’s just kind of crazy. There have been so many “girly movies,” like Sex in the City or this or that, that people have no issues with a man directing. But I couldn’t even get in the door. It seems like having more women directing male-targeted movies would create a more three-dimensional dialogue about gender bias in the movie industry. I would think so. You keep hoping things will change. The person they hired for the particular job I’m thinking of has had, like, three bombs in a row, but he’s a guy. It’s just kind of weird. Hopefully the high-profile status of Kathryn’s last movie can help change that and bust open a couple of doors. We can only pray, you know? B

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PILLOW TALK Swedish siren Lykke Li lounges in the season's most casually chic and sophisticated pieces, and fills us in on life on the road

Photographed by Daemian Smith and Christine Suarez STYLED BY GRACE KOO // HAIR BY AMY FARID AT KATE RYAN INC. FOR BUMBLE & BUMBLE MAKEUP BY TRACY ALFAJORA AT JOE MANAGEMENT PHOTOGRAPHED IN N.Y.C AT LAFAYETTE HOUSE

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JACKET AND TOP BY RAD BY RAD HOURANI, WWW. RADHOURANI.COM.

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DRESS BY SEE BY CHLOE, WWW.CHLOE.COM; HORSEHAIR NECKLACE AND RING BY BLACK SHEEP & PRODIGAL SONS, WWW.BLACKSHEEPANDPRODIGALSONS.COM.

AIRING INCREDIBLE TALENT with an amazing look has been the standard one-two punch for musicians in pop culture since long before 24-year-old Swedish singer Lykke Li was even born, but she’s joined the club with a natural ease. Li’s simple and striking style complements her moody pop, but the outspoken siren is quick to say that while she can stand behind the need for a sense of style, she couldn’t give two shits about fashion. Making a conscious decision to veer away from the sweetly melodic sound of her previous work, Li explores darker territories, both personally and musically, on her newest album, Wounded Rhymes. Here, Li talks to us about how she’s not going to apologize for being sexy and how Keith Richards is her spirit animal, style-wise. If you had to pick an outfit for your album, like if it turned into a person and needed something to wear, what would it be? It would be black gothic clothes that someone had been wearing all night. Maybe like if Keith Richards was wearing all black and he’d been out and about for two weeks. How closely related do you think music and fashion are? I feel allergic to the word fashion. I think expressing yourself through visuals and the way things look, you can’t separate those things, but fashion today is very much about commerce. What are some things you do to maintain a sense of home while on

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the road for such long periods? I’m very adjustable. I don’t always feel comfortable, but I’ll always survive. I try to pack light, because I hate carrying stuff around. So I just have a suitcase with all black stuff, and I’ve been bringing this really expensive candle that I like, which gives me a really nice scent everywhere. It’s a mix of patchouli and something woodsy. Do you identify with woodsy stuff? Like animals, and warriors, and things like that? I’m not so into the animals/forest thing, but I am a survivor. As long as I get to eat the kind of foods I want to eat and sleep, I’ll be fine, but I could sleep anywhere. So yeah, I could see myself as some sort of concrete warrior. The video for “Get Some,” your new album’s first single, has sparked some conversations regarding female artists using sex to sell their music, because it’s sort of sexier than anything we’ve seen from you previously. What do you have to say about that? People are stupid. Like, is that all they know? I think people need to read some books and watch some films. I’m happy to take this fight, because I think it’s so fucking shallow. What’s sexy about it? That I’m showing legs? I mean, Iggy Pop never has a shirt on. It’s not about sex—it’s something primal. It’s about power and being free. If society is oversexualized, then that’s their problem, I have nothing to do with that. I don’t want people to limit me. If I feel like taking my fucking pants off, I’m gonna do that. [KELLY MCCLURE]

ON CHARLOTTE: CAPE BY LINDSEY THORNBURG CLOAKS; NECKLACE BY M. GRAVES JEWELRY; DRESS JACKET BY IAN, WWW.IANRN.COM; SKIRT BY CHEAP MONDAY, BY BESS. ON SEAN: FEATHER CAPE BY LOST ART, WWW.CHEAPMONDAY.COM; NECKLACES BY ALEXIS BITTAR, WWW.LOSTARTNYC.COM; TOP BY 3.1 PHILLIP LIM, WWW.ALEXISBITTAR.COM. 3.1 PHILLIP LIM, N.Y.C., 212-334-1160.

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COAT INC, SHIRT BY BY MM6 BYWWW.MACYS.COM; MAISON DRESSMARGIELA, BY HIPS &WWW. CURVES, WWW. MARTIN HIPSANDCURVES.COM; SHOES MAISONMARTINMARGIELA.COM; BY CHRISTIAN KNUCKLE RING BY ALEXISSIRIANO BITTAR; FOR PAYLESS, WWW.PAYLESS.COM. ADDITIONAL RINGS, LI’S OWN.

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THIS PAGE: HAT BY LOUISE GREEN, WWW.LOUISEGREEN.COM; SUNGLASSES BY CHRISTIAN DIOR, WWW.SAFILO.COM; TRENCH COAT BY EAST5TH, WWW.JCPENNEY.COM; LINGERIE BY ELLE MACPHERSON INTIMATES, WWW.JOURNELLE.COM; THIGH-HIGHS BY WOLFORD, WWW.JCPENNEY.COM; SHOES BY MANOLO BLAHNIK, WWW. BARNEYS.COM; UMBRELLA, STYLIST’S OWN.

“ I don’t want people to limit me. If I feel like taking my fucking pants off, I’m gonna do that. ”

OPPOSITE PAGE: TRENCH COAT BY EAST5TH.

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THIS PAGE: DRESS BY MANDY COON, WWW.MANDYCOON.COM; JACKET BY IAN; RING BY PAMELA LOVE, WWW.PAMELALOVENYC.COM. OPPOSITE PAGE: DRESS BY TESS GIBERSON, WWW.TESSGIBERSON.COM; NECKLACES BY ALEXIS BITTAR; RING BY BEVEL, WWW.BEVELNYC.COM.

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the bust guide

MUSIC

ADELE 21 (Columbia) For her second album, British singer/songwriter Adele claims to have taken cues from old-school country music. Those influences don’t come across quite so obviously, but it’s true that the aptly named 21 (Adele’s age when she wrote these songs) has a notably different sound than her debut, 19. Adele has pretty much abandoned the poppy love songs from her first record for moody slow burners just waiting to provide the soundtrack for a closing montage on a CW drama. “Rolling in the Deep,” a bluesy romp complete with a hand-clapping background chorus, and “Rumor Has It,” a ’60s girl-group homage featuring sassy finger-snaps and kick drumming, are two of the best (and more upbeat) numbers on the album. It often seems like Adele is trying to prove how much she’s matured, and she succeeds on “Someone Like You,” a simple piano ballad about a married ex-lover. But for much of the record, her “adult” sound comes off as a little forced—she is only 22, after all. Luckily, her amazing voice adds intense emotion to songs that might sound lackluster in less capable hands (or vocal chords). [ELIZA THOMPSON]

PHOTO: SEAMUS MURPHY

…AND YOU WILL KNOW US BY THE TRAIL OF DEAD Tao of the Dead (Richter Scale/Superball) Years removed from a dalliance with the major labels and being touted as the next big thing, Austin’s …Trail of Dead once again sound as comfortable with themselves as they did on their landmark Source Tags and Codes. Once ﬁerce, with a ferocity that yielded stages strewn with debris, the band has recently turned their eyes heavenward, focusing on creating castles of serpentine prog-rock rhythm and roaring cascades of gossamer noise. And though it’s true that one would feel entirely appropriate listening to this album while riding a Pegasus, that’s more a result of its sweep and grandeur rather than any overt D&D referencing. In fact, more than anything, the song cathedrals on Tao resemble nothing so much as rock-opera Who records like Tommy and Quadrophenia. Ambitious, yes, but why not? …Trail of

pj harvey LET ENGLAND SHAKE (VAGRANT) I HAVE TO admit, I tend to like my PJ angsty with a splash of scream. But while Let England Shake, her eighth studio album, doesn’t have the painfully personal, raw emotion that deﬁned her early work, it does showcase Harvey’s wonderful intensity with catchy hooks entrenched in her emotive brand of gloomy rock. Here she spins darkly enchanting tales of her homeland, in an old-timey, rolling hills–and–craggy cliffs sort of way, so it comes as no surprise that she recorded the LP in a 19th-century church on England’s coast. Haunting auto-harp lays the foundation for an infectiously toe-tapping melody on the opening title track while she sings with a touch of Siouxsie about Great Britain’s woes. On “The Glorious Land,” a discordant bugle call will make you look out the window to see if the cavalry’s coming, as Harvey employs call-and-response choruses, layering her affected vocals with those of her longtime collaborator, John Parish. “The Words That Maketh Murder” is a rollicking rocker with theatrical ﬂourishes and such an upbeat tempo, it takes a second to realize she’s singing about the atrocities of war—“I’ve seen soldiers fall like lumps of meat/Blown and shot out beyond belief/Arms and legs were in the trees.” Harvey’s voice takes center stage on “England,” wailing dramatically about her love for a withering country, with hints of her signature rasp over pared-down instrumentation and a muted track of her incoherent incantations. When she sings, “I live and die through England,” not only do you believe it, but you also love her more for it. [LISA BUTTERWORTH] // BUST / 85

the guide MUSIC Dead’s already been through the tunnel; this is the sound of them coming out the other side. [TOM FORGET]

APEX MANOR The Year of Magical Drinking (Merge) Apex Manor’s debut album, The Year of Magical Drinking, reeks of Americana—it’s catchy, it’s happy, it’s nostalgic. The upbeat sing-along melodies, penned by Ross Flournoy of now-defunct pop band the Broken West, sound vaguely familiar. In fact, you might catch yourself tapping a toe upon first listen, as if you already know the song. With Flournoy’s Jeff Tweedy– like voice, classic, countrified guitar riffs, and catchy-as-hell choruses, Apex Manor isn’t remarkably unique, but it’s not trying to be. Feel-good tracks like “Under the Gun” and “I Know These Waters Well” could fit seamlessly onto Wilco’s Being There, and that’s a compliment. But the band’s influences don’t stop at Chicago’s alt-rock heroes. The muted organs of “My My Mind,” for example, channel the resigned mel-

ancholy of Sea Change–era Beck. The album’s namesake track, meanwhile, invokes whispery lullabies in the vein of Iron and Wine, and others utilize an irregular, syncopated drumbeat popularized by the National, alongside crunchier, more aggressive guitar licks. [ERIN GRIFFITH]

AUSTRA The Beat and the Pulse (One Big Silence) Austra is a Toronto band that evolved from various ensembles led by Katie Stelmanis, a singer who verges on being religiously talented. And by that I mean a religion should be formed based on the amazingness of her skills. Here she’s joined by drummer Maya Postepski and bassist Dorian Wolf on an EP that’s just a sweet taste of what they have in store for us. What we’ve heard from Stelmanis before is a wide range of vocals, drums, and synths as hot and deep as the Grand Canyon in July and lyrics that take the listener on a journey through mossy, dark forests haunted by who knows

what. What’s different about Austra? There’s no cream in the coffee this time around. Shit’s pitch-black and darker than ever. [KELLY MCCLURE]

BRAIDS Native Speaker (Kanine) Native Speaker, the debut LP from Calgary band Braids, is an ambient hodgepodge of softly tickled piano keys, shimmery digital effects, light drums, and other loosely assembled, largely electronic sound samples. When the components of these seven songs gel, the sound is intricate, brightly epic, mellow Sunday-afternoon music. This casual cohesion sets a few tracks apart, including “Lemonade” and “Lammicken,” a slow-building stunner brought to life by the heartbeat synth driving it. When musical elements meander without fully coming together, the effect is wispy white noise, a pretty sound cloud with no discernable center. In this lightness, tracks become a canvas for singer Raphaelle Standell-Preston to paint her yodel of a voice all over. She

does so with interesting pitch and complex cadence, although it can be a bit trying when she overcontributes. Native Speaker is very new-class indie, so fans of Animal Collective, Here We Go Magic, and Dirty Projectors will likely dig Braids too. [KATIE BAIN]

CHAIN AND THE GANG Music’s Not for Everyone (K) While Ian Svenonius’ teen revolution Nation of Ulysses has largely been relegated to the dreaded “archives of rock,” the man himself has never stopped stirring unrest with his bands. The Make-Up and Weird War expanded his punk palate to include psychedelic mod funk, and the political message mutated into something that welded “tongue in cheek” with “tongue-kissing in public.” The second album from his newest project, Chain and the Gang, pares back the murk to present rebellion in the form of skeletal prison blues, rock, and soul. Mostly a solo project, Music’s Not for Everyone is rickety and ramshackle with rolling

EVERETT TRUE’S FIRST LADIES OF ROCK The best girl bands you’ve never heard of: Special Oly-punk edition! [BY EVERETT TRUE]

MORGAN AND THE ORGAN DONORS Forget Portland. Forget Seattle. Midway (sorta) between the two, Olympia, WA— home to Nirvana, Beat Happening, and Bikini Kill—has always been where it’s at. Sometimes associated with twee, Oly underground bands more commonly have a strong raw-garage/two-string punk heart, as typiﬁed by the genius underground psych groove of Morgan and the Organ Donors. Think: The Seeds, the Sonics, the Frumpies Girls In the Garage: 9 Girls Aloud: 0 www.myspace.com/morganandtheorgandonors 86 / BUST // FEB/MAR

WEIRD TV Punk rock from Olympia, played in pure Oly-style: house parties, no stages, kids hanging off rafters, living for the moment. The Spanish vocals lacerate; drums thrash and crash while feedback screams and seeps raw emotion. The group’s live shows are all about the steam, the sweat, the stamina, and the two-note trebly guitar solos. Their songs are expressions of rage—brutal, belligerent, and beautifully alive.

SON SKULL As one Oly punk-rock fan put it, “To pit Sara Pete of Morgan and the Organ Donors vs. Mary of Son Skull in a vocal or soulful contest, is the equivalent of Mothra and Godzilla—who do you wish for?” This Olympia four-piece is even more distorted and lacerating than Weird TV, if that’s possible. Anger is a rhythm too.

RACKULA This band isn't from Oly, but their music might as well be. Seeing this all-girl four-piece from Hamilton, ON, is like watching the Runaways form from scratch, minus the added Hollywood bullshit. They play straight-down-the-line grunge that sounds like Seattle circa 1988 duking it out with Oly for the best licks and harshest sounds—thunderous, demented, and loud!

Think: Lightning Bolt, Unwound, Katastrophy Wife TV Eye: 7 T.V.O.D.: 2 www.perennialdeath.com

Think: Explode Into Colors, Live Skull, Hell Woman Destroy All Monsters (the ﬁlm): 8 Destroy All Monsters (the band): 4 www.perennialdeath.com

Think: Frightwig, Lunachicks, Mudhoney Rock factor: 10 Cock factor: 0 www.myspace.com/rackulamusic

MUSIC Little Richard pianos and scratches of rockabilly guitar over stabs of keyboards. “Detroit Music” celebrates the downtrodden Motown home’s greatest export with ﬁst-raising hard rock, and “(I’ve Got) Privilege” mocks U.S. foreign policy with sly, greasy funk and mumbling wit. [TOM FORGET]

CUT COPY Zonoscope (Modular) You’re walking down a wintry street—no sunlight, snow pelting your face— nursing a bad case of SAD. Then you press play on your iPod. Suddenly, you’re in Costa Rica! Dancing with cute club kids on the beach while tiny monkeys swing in the trees! And Aussie four-piece Cut Copy made it all possible with their third record, Zonoscope. Sparkling electro-pop melodies bursting with tribal beats evoke that warm feeling of sugar-white sand between your toes. Zonoscope was produced by Ben Allen (Animal Collective, Gnarls Barkley) in Atlanta, and the inﬂuence is evident on “Sun God,” which features thumping house laced with the plush David Bowie–like vocals of Dan Whitford, as well as the blissful build of “This Is All We’ve Got,” which peaks in a tidal wave of dreamy harmonies. So when it comes time to return to reality, don’t be blue—these tunes will stretch in front of you like miles of coastline dotted with cocktail bars. [JEN HAZEN]

THE DECEMBERISTS The King Is Dead (Capitol) The King Is Dead leaves behind the theatricals and musical narratives of its predecessor, 2009’s Hazards of Love, and returns to a more straightforward Americana folk sound. With the assistance of Gillian Welch and R.E.M. guitarist Peter Buck, the band took to a barn outside of their home in Portland, OR, to record, and the location seems to be featured prominently in the music as well as in the descriptive, imagery-laden lyrics the band is known for. Singer Colin Meloy’s distinct vocals meld with Welch’s as they sing about ancient riverbeds and songbirds. “June Hymn” comprises many

of the important components that make great folk songs: it is extremely pretty, musically uncomplicated but lyrically intelligent, and a little sad, as Meloy and Welch harmonize about an impending summer. The King Is Dead nicely steps away from the dramatic novelesque quality of earlier albums without losing the storytelling aspect that makes this band so great. [AURORA MONTGOMERY]

DEVOTCHKA 100 Lovers (Anti) For 100 Lovers, DeVotchKa spent a year in the Arizona desert creating an album that acts like a soundtrack of its own. “The Alley” provides a carnivallike opener, with Mauro Refosco, percussionist from Thom Yorke’s supergroup Atoms for Peace, adding plenty of whirling colors. The film-score feel is present throughout thanks to the band’s employment of trumpets and theremins and sousaphones and violas. DeVotchKa creates an atmosphere filled with what feels like 100 melded influences—as if the gypsy-punk friends of Gogol Bordello, Calexico, and Arcade Fire met the Talking Heads in Eastern Europe somewhere. (“A big drunken tuba party” is how frontman Nick Urata once aptly described the band’s sound.) DeVotchKa’s darkness is a bit subtle, but you’ll find some in the lyrics, like on Byrne-ian “Ruthless,” when Urata sings, “The time has come to step out of the way.” The anthemic, instrumental “Sunshine” plays over the closing credits, bringing 100 Lovers to a fittingly dramatic close. [DYLAN STABLEFORD]

ELIZA DOOLITTLE Eliza Doolittle (Capitol) Meet Eliza, a 22year-old sneaker-loving, curly-haired cutie in short shorts. Hailing from Camden Town in North London, she proudly states that the city is unavoidably a part of her songs. Doolittle’s debut album is overflowing with soul, heavily inspired by her main influences: TLC, Lou Reed, Erykah Badu, and Prince. Tellingly, her first musical purchase was Janet Jackson’s Velvet Rope. Already a fixture in the // BUST / 87

the guide MUSIC U.K. pop scene, she’s been penning tunes since she was 12 and signed a songwriting publishing deal at 16. “A Smokey Room” is so jazzy you can almost hear her scatting; “Rollerblades” is a catchy metaphor for “rolling on, moving on”; and “Skinny Genes” is about that all-too-familiar experience of hating someone’s personality but liking when he ends up in your bed. Cheeky! [LAUREN MOONEY]

THE DUKE SPIRIT Bruiser (Shangri-La) The Duke Spirit’s 2008 LP Neptune was, dare I say, all over the place, as the U.K. rock outfit struggled with defining their sound. The project was ambitious but chock-full of loose ends. Bruiser sounds like a well-formed bow, where elements of ferocity, sass, and a salubrious helping of rock fall into place naturally. Sure, Cherie Currie’s fingerprints are all over it, but Duke’s lead vocalist, Liela Moss, is continuously coming into her own. The album shifts gears midway, going from Duke’s signature guitar-riffed badassness on the slick “Cherry Tree” to something a little more subdued, like the aptly titled “Glorious.” “De Lux,” in slightly the same vein as Florence and the Machine’s “Cosmic Love,” is the turning point, but Moss’ lush vocals provide the balance. This record’s a big contrast to the sequence of uppers and downers they doled out last time around, but no matter how you take it, the Duke Spirit is the drug of choice. [KATHY IANDOLI]

ESBEN AND THE WITCH Violet Cries (Matador) I have a theory that if you’ve ever been a goth, it’s in you, if even just a little bit, forever. The debut album from U.K.-based band Esben and the Witch conﬁrms this— one listen and I was cursing the day I gave my black cape and velvet tights to the Salvation Army. Lead singer Rachel Davies can hit notes from your toes to the top of your hat, and she does so with an icy grace that is both soothing and unsettling. Everyone is freaking out about “Marching Song,” 88 / BUST // FEB/MAR

the album’s ﬁrst single, and I'll hop on that wagon as well. After a spooky, drum-heavy intro, Davies creeps in with, “The blood it is thick with desires to drown.” Oh, man. That would have been scrawled all over my notebook in high school. [KELLY MCCLURE]

{heavy rotation}

ANIKA Anika

IRON AND WINE Kiss Each Other Clean (Warner Bros.) Ever since The Creek Drank the Cradle, Iron and Wine’s beautifully sparse (but no less powerful) 2002 debut, Sam Beam has been captivating listeners with the kind of layered, kaleidoscopic Americana that Tom Waits famously built a career on. With Kiss Each Other Clean, Iron and Wine’s ﬁrst album in more than three years, Beam adds a new wrinkle to the proceedings: ’70s production ﬂourishes. His channeling of ’60s-era folk is present, too—“Rabbit Will Run” evokes non-cheesy Simon & Garfunkel. But alongside the choral pop (Kiss Each Other Clean has more “oohs” and “ahhs” than most doo-wop records) is legitimate funk, albeit the lowgrade variety that otherwise-successful rock bands tried to pull off four decades ago. It’s an impressive evolution, especially when you think about “Such Great Heights,” Iron and Wine’s stripped down Postal Service cover on the Garden State soundtrack. The white-boy funk works so well, you gotta wonder what else Beam’s got hidden in that beard. [DYLAN STABLEFORD]

LA SERA La Sera (Hardly Art) La Sera, the new project and album from Vivian Girls’ Katy Goodman, sounds like a dreamy summertime haze with a blast of late-winter chill. The layered vocals leading each track reference vintage girl groups, but there’s an icy tinge beneath the warm poppiness. Opener “Beating Heart” channels a less dour Nico, building an intensity during its three minutes that lasts for the next 11 tracks. The delicate vocal harmonizing reaches its peak on “You’re Going to Cry,” which

(Stones Throw)

THERE ARE A lot of chicks out there today emulating female musical icons of the ’60s and ’70s while putting a new twist on things. So far, no one’s done it quite like Anika. A Germanborn, U.K.-raised 23-year-old former political journalist, Anika mixes musical styles including German electronica, girl-group pop, post-punk reggae dub, and experimental, while singing over it all in a low, deadpan voice. There’s a detached yet fullon emotional quality imprinted on the entire album, which was produced by Portishead’s Geoff Barrow. It’s reminiscent of not only Nico but also Marianne Faithfull circa Broken English and Grace Jones in her Warm Leatherette/Nightclubbing period. Whether Anika’s covering classics like Yoko Ono’s “Yang Yang,” the Kinks’ “I Go to Sleep,” or Bob Dylan’s “Masters of War,” she transforms these selections with her own unique vision. A musician who sounds like Nico and covers Yoko? What could be cooler than that? [MICHAEL LEVINE] features layers that create a chorus of Katys, while the same effect on “I Promise You” delivers lines of creepy obsession like “I’ll write you a song a day/Until I get you back” that sound all the more fatalistic in their pastel state. This balancing act is all part of the album’s charm, and it’s a haunting experience. [MELYNDA FULLER]

MEN Talk About Body (IAMSOUND) Stumble into any performance by Brooklyn disco-collective MEN, and you’ll instantly notice the mountains of energy emanating from JD Samson (yep, of Le Tigre fame) and cohorts Ginger Brooks Takahashi and

Michael O’Neill. This trio could start a dance party by just, like, walking down the street, and their long-awaited LP Talk About Body pumps that energy straight to your speakers, all thumping bass, candy-coated synth hooks, and sweet moves galore. Hotshit jams like “Who Am I to Feel So Free” and single “Off Our Backs” turn radical politics into sing-along pop anthems, with seriously catchy stuttering guitars and chanted vocals. “Credit Card Babie$” tells a tale of love and money via slinky-melody dub samples. The only problem? Two songs in, you’ll wish you were dancing with JD and company in a sweaty, neon club rather than listening solo in your living room. So amazing—and so party-perfect. [MOLLIE WELLS]

MUSIC PASCAL PINON Pascal Pinon (Morr) Iceland’s Pascal Pinon features 16-yearold twin sisters Jófrídur and Ásthildur. With bandmates Halla and Kristin, they pen simple indie-folk songs that should easily warm fans of CocoRosie, Joanna Newsom, and Björk. Their dreamy and somewhat shy lyrical canvas depicts nature’s effortless beauty and other teenage curiosities through an acoustic guitar-driven soundscape. The girls sing in both English and Icelandic, which makes for an even more impressive ﬁrst-time introduction. You’ll want to snuggle up to the childlike reverie of “Baldursbrár” and “Ósonlagið” and shrug your shoulders to and fro with the pretty layers of bass and accordion on “Kertið Og Húsið Brann.” Waltzing along to the rustic ﬂute sounds of “Undir Heiðum Himni” isn’t such a peculiar idea either. Pascal Pinon’s talents shine through the overall unfussiness of their budding songcraft. Only a few musicians seem to accomplish that these days. [MACKENZIE WILSON]

PINK NOISE Here Is Happiness (Accidental Muzik) This N.Y.C.–by-wayof–Tel Aviv quartet creates atmosphere more than actual music, spinning each track like gold into landscapes that hum with fuzzy guitar and metallic, knife-sharp percussion. Think My Bloody Valentine meets Sonic Youth and PJ Harvey—Here Is Happiness, the prequel EP to the band’s forthcoming full-length, skitters through noise, pop, and chilled-out shoegaze without ever losing its anchor. Opener “The Road” pulses like heavy desert heat, with singer/bassist Sharron Sulami’s voice alternating between a sweet sing-song and throaty whisper. The bell-like guitars on “Redwoods” are shimmery as a NorCal forest, and “Next One Is Real” erupts into an urban jungle, all tough and lovely noisepunk. Even the Monster Bear remix of “Moving In” feels atmospheric: an abandoned spaceship hurtling toward Mars. Here Is Happiness deﬁnitely lives up to its name. And if these songs are anything like the full-length, that happiness won’t end here. [MOLLIE WELLS]

RYE RYE Go! Pop! Bang! (N.E.E.T./ Interscope) It’s been a long time coming for Rye Rye to unleash her electro-ﬁed goodness upon us. We’ve had the privilege of watching Ryeisha evolve from a teenager in the M.I.A. brigade to having a following of her own as she approaches 21. The Baltimore native has collected her stylistic sound bites over the years, and Go! Pop! Bang! is the long-awaited result. Her debut album melds the sound of her hometown’s ass-shaking club scene with nods to D.C. Go-go (“Get Up”) and Euro designer dance (“Hardcore Girls”). M.I.A. greets us on the New Wave–ish “Sunshine,” and we get a feel for what a solid FeMC Rye Rye is on “Better Than You.” While earlier hits “Bang” and “Shake It to the Ground” arrive a little late to the party, they still complement the ﬂow of the album. Rye Rye has grown up right before our ears, and Go! Pop! Bang! was so worth the wait. [KATHY IANDOLI]

TRISTEN Charlatans at the Garden Gate (American Myth) Tristen comes from Nashville, TN, and the Jenny Lewis school of modern, God-fearing country, but she caught up to her contemporaries and surpassed them in one fell swoop. As soon as the vocals kick in on the opener, “Eager for Your Love,” it’s impossible not to listen to this record all the way through. Man, this girl can sing. Her Hope Sandoval–like voice has a sweet, fresh quality and seems to effortlessly pour out. It’s full of soul and insight but without the bitterness or resentment that usually comes with the territory, even while she’s belting out biting lines like “Tame that nasty shrew ’cause she knows what you’re up to/ You gotta keep her thin and hungry so she’s eager for your love.” Steel pedal, acoustic guitar, and soaring organs evoke a vintage feel, providing a nice contrast to the modern-sounding vocals and securing a well-deserved spot in the “one of the best things that’s been done in a long while” category. [ANNA BLUMENTHAL] // BUST / 89

the guide

MOVIES Joyce McKinney captured on celluloid in Tabloid

BLUE VALENTINE Written and directed by Derek Cianfrance (Weinstein Company) Blue Valentine is a true labor of love. Derek Cianfrance finished writing the script in 1998, then spent the next 12 years trying to get his movie made. And the result, an intimate portrait of a marriage at its best and worst, shows that relationships can be really hard work. Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling star as Cindy and Dean, a nurse and a commercial painter who live with their young daughter, Frankie, in small-town Pennsylvania. Blue Valentine is their story, told in two parts. The first is the reality of their marriage, captured in sharp, unforgiving HD video, and the second is the beauty of their courtship, shot on old-fashioned film. In the beginning, we see Cindy and Dean portrayed as loving parents who no longer seem able to show healthy affection for one another. Their interactions are so marked by tension and misunderstanding that they decide to ship Frankie off to Grandpa’s and spend a romantic night at a motel with fantasy-themed rooms. In their windowless “Future Room,” they get drunk, fight, dance, have terrible sex, and are confronted by the worst of one another before they pass out. This narrative is (thankfully) broken up by depictions of how a younger Cindy and Dean fell in love. And these images reinforce the emotional impact of the couple at 90 / BUST // FEB/MAR

Kebede and Hawkins hang out with each other in Desert Flower

their breaking point by demonstrating just how much is at stake. Gosling and Williams give impressive, brave performances (in fact, one scene depicting loving oral sex is so convincing, the ﬁlm originally got an NC-17 rating and producers had to appeal to get an R). And by presenting two people who are unsure, inarticulate, and real, Blue Valentine deﬁes traditional expectations for a romantic movie. There are moments when sitting through it can feel like work, but by the time the credits roll, the labor of love is worth it. [PHOEBE MAGEE]

DESERT FLOWER Directed by Sherry Hormann (National Geographic Entertainment) The tumultuous life story of Somali supermodel and human-rights activist Waris Dirie comes to the big screen in this adaptation of her autobiographical novel of the same name. The film, starring Ethiopian model Liya Kebede as Dirie, is the saga of a girl born in 1965 to a nomadic family in the Somali desert who dared to follow her own dreams. Like the female children of many families who practice Islam in eastern Africa, Dirie was subjected to female genital mutilation as a three-yearold. And Dirie’s process of working through the aftermath of the procedure informs much of the film’s narrative during her rise to stardom. At 13, Dirie is told that she will become the newest wife of a much older man. Terrified, she runs away to

London, where she works as a maid for the family of her uncle, a Somali ambassador. But political turmoil eventually forces him out, and Dirie, illiterate, with no money or friends, is left on the streets. That’s when a goofy shopgirl named Marilyn (played by Made in Dagenham star Sally Hawkins) befriends her. The two end up living together in a boarding house where Dirie gets her first taste of Western culture, from dance clubs to premarital sex. After being spotted by a fashion photographer while mopping floors in a McDonald’s, Dirie begins her modeling career and, with Marilyn, begins to address what happened to her back in Somalia. A scene in which Dirie is portrayed shedding a burqa on the runway to reveal a white sleeveless dress could arguably be seen as culturally insensitive, but Dirie’s command of her narrative and her enduring love for her family and for Africa is what comes through most of all in this immensely engaging film. [ANNA BEAN]

TABLOID Directed by Errol Morris (Moxie Pictures) Errol Morris is a director who specializes in uncovering eccentric true stories that raise more questions than they answer. In his latest stunner, Tabloid, he trains his lens on a woman whose relentless pursuit of love made her front-page news not once, but twice. In her first and most significant brush with notoriety, the film’s sub-

ject, a former Miss Wyoming named Joyce McKinney, was arrested in 1977 for allegedly kidnapping her ex-boyfriend Kirk Anderson while he was doing Mormon missionary work in the U.K. Anderson accused McKinney of kidnapping him, shackling him to a bed, and forcing sex upon him for three days. McKinney maintained that she was merely staging an intervention to rescue her true love from the dangerous cult of Mormonism, that Anderson went with her willingly, and that their time together was nothing more than “three days of fun, food, and sex.” What became known as “The Case of the Manacled Mormon” was tried much more aggressively in the press (which was obsessed with McKinney) than in the courts. So when McKinney eventually jumped bail and escaped back to the U.S. disguised as a member of a traveling mime troupe, British authorities didn’t bother pursuing her. Decades later, however, McKinney found herself in the press once again after becoming the ﬁrst person to successfully have her dog cloned. Once her face hit the airwaves, it was only a matter of time before the journalists who initially hounded her connected the dots. And again, she became their target. A spellbinding story that’s as much about public scrutiny as it is about the woman it proﬁles, Tabloid simultaneously takes us to task for consuming gossip culture and magnetically draws us further into it. [EMILY REMS]

PHOTOS COURTESY OF DAVI RUSSO/THE WEINSTEIN COMPANY; WALTER WEHNER; MOXIE PICTURES

Gosling and Williams having a good time in Blue Valentine

BUST MAGAZINE CRAFTACULAR, WINTER 2010

EVENT PICS Species by the Thousands’ cool pillow

Amy Sedaris shows off her new book, Simple Times: Crafts for Poor People

Unique toys make perfect gifts

Even in the rain, shoppers lined up!

It’s an animal kingdom of crafts!

Always a full house at the BUST Magazine Craftacular!

The BUST Magazine Craftacular, a favorite for holiday gift shopping held in New York City, was bigger and better in 2010! We brought back crowd favorite Amy Sedaris, added an additional ﬂoor with 100 more vendors, and

BUST’s Emily Andrews and her new pal

had 500 goodie bags for the ﬁrst folks through the door! Over 5,000 shoppers came for a funﬁlled day of holiday shopping featuring jewelry, clothing, cards, accessories, toys, and so much more. Catch us again in the spring in New York,

London, or Los Angeles in 2011! Stay tuned on www.bust.com for more info. Special thanks to ModCloth, King’s County General Store, Random House, Lower Eastside Girls Club, NY Cares, Blue Q, Izze, and Popchips.

BUST MAGAZINE CRAFTACULAR POP-UP SHOP BUST’s Helen Dally (left) with friends

Live music echoed throughout the enchanted forest!

Handmade and one of a kind

Verameat jewelry

A tower of soap makes a great gift

PHOTOGRAPHY: AMELIA BURNS

Laurie from BUST and Sheila B

Shoppers were merry in the Enchanted Forest Pop-Up Shop

We extended the BUST Magazine Craftacular for an entire week by teaming up with Hendrick’s Gin and Gallery 151 for our firstever Pop-Up Shop. Featuring different BUST Magazine Craftacular vendors every night, the event also dished out live music, gin

cocktails, hot cocoa, and cookies to keep people shopping, merry, and warm. The raw gallery space was transformed into an enchanted forest by Adam Aleksander who created a unique shopping experience that was truly one of a kind! On top of a gorgeous set-

ting, we were located in downtown New York to help all the last-minute holiday shoppers every evening. Keep in touch on www.bust. com for our next Pop-Up, it may be near you! Special thanks to Adam Aleksander, Miguel Calvo, Hendrick’s Gin, and Gallery 151. // BUST / 91

boobtique

Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Sexy Time!

A portion of all proceeds are donated to the fight against breast cancer.

www.bustboobtique.com

92 / BUST // FEB/MAR

the guide

BOOKS

LITPICK

A STRANGE STIRRING: The Feminine Mystique and American Women at the Dawn of the 1960s BY STEPHANIE COONTZ (BASIC BOOKS) BETTY FRIEDAN’S GROUNDBREAKING 1963 book, The Feminine Mystique, remains an icon of the feminist movement. In her excellent, eminently readable A Strange Stirring, Stephanie Coontz documents the lives and perspectives of women who read Mystique when it was first published, in order to understand its impact and legacy. Coontz seems to be aiming squarely at the popularity of AMC’s Mad Men, which has brought this period back in vogue. And in a very accessible style, this historian and professor attempts to flesh out the range of freedoms and barriers with which the real Peggys, Joans, and Bettys lived. By combing through archives and conducting scores of interviews with women who lived through this era, Coontz reveals even uglier realities than those at the fictional ad agency Sterling Cooper: pregnant women forced by employers to quit or put their children in orphanages; the regular incorporation of women’s ideal physical attributes in published ads for secretaries, typists, and receptionists; and laws that allowed husbands to beat their wives anytime but “after 10 p.m. or on a Sunday.” Coontz articulates how The Feminine Mystique was (in some cases, literally) a lifesaver for many women conditioned to believe this state of affairs was natural. But Coontz also carefully speaks to its problems and Friedan’s many exaggerated claims—in particular, Friedan’s self-construction as a fellow-traveler housewife to the privileged white women she exclusively addressed. In all, Coontz’s “demystifying” of both the era and Friedan is an erudite, even-handed look at the explosive feminist undercurrents of the era. [MARIA ELENA BUSZEK]

BLOOD, BONES & BUTTER: The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef By Gabrielle Hamilton (Random House) “We threw a party. The same party, every year, when I was a kid.” These simple lines, which begin Gabrielle Hamilton’s memoir, are stunning only in retrospect, after you’ve taken the journey to the last page—past the family’s annual lamb roasts at their home in rural Pennsylvania, the fall-from-Eden that was her parents’ divorce and Hamilton’s subsequent estrangement from her mother, and Hamilton’s unsupervised teenage years with her bad catering and waitressing jobs and starvation-driven travels through Europe—to her improbable rise as chef/ owner of a celebrated restaurant in New York and her doomed marriage to a closed-off Italian with a lovable extended clan in Puglia. Only after all of that, after swallowing the last page of this compelling book, does it become

clear the magic, the sense of promise and abundance and family inherent in: “We threw a party. The same party, every year, when I was a kid.” About halfway through the book, Hamilton opens her restaurant, the truly excellent Prune, and notes the absurdity of celebrity chefdom—the upstairs-downstairs quality of cooking, the fact that you can be on Martha Stewart in the morning and unclogging a sink full of caul fat in the afternoon. It is the latter, the real work of cooking, that Hamilton lingers on, and what makes this gorgeously written book so refreshing is that it thoroughly busts up the myth of the great chef as destined artiste. To make a family, to throw a party—these are the victories of life and of cooking. [PRIYA JAIN]

CLEOPATRA: A Life By Stacy Schiff (Little, Brown and Company) Cleopatra may be best known for bedding two of Rome’s

most powerful men—Julius Caesar and Mark Antony—but as the Pulitzer Prize–winning writer Stacy Schiff shows in this absorbing, epic biography, it was Cleopatra’s skills as a strategist, not a seductress, that allowed her to rule Egypt successfully for 22 years. Unfortunately, the little we know about her life comes from histories written by Romans, and so while Caesar and Antony are deemed virile for their royal conquests, Cleopatra has been labeled “the whore queen” for her advantageous liaisons. This lack of unbiased information makes any attempt to restore Cleopatra’s reputation a challenge, but Schiff pulls it off effortlessly, cutting through the complex politics of the era while also vividly re-creating the ancient world. Born in 69 B.C., Cleopatra began ruling Egypt at 18. She was the ﬁrst Egyptian royal to learn the language of her subjects, and she managed to stabilize the country’s economy and regulate its currency early on. To cement her rule, she

murdered her siblings, birthed an heir with Caesar, and then declared their son her king consort. Later, she cannily entered into a decade-long partnership with Antony. Together, the power couple used Cleopatra’s vast fortune to create a short-lived empire. She brieﬂy was known as Mother of Kings, Queen of Kings, the Youngest Goddess before her reign ended tragically, in suicide, after her defeat by Rome. As Schiff observes, Cleopatra “remains largely incomparable,” and the same is true for this book. [ERICA WETTER]

CREATE DANGEROUSLY: The Immigrant Artist at Work By Edwidge Danticat (Princeton University Press) Early in her new collection of essays, Edwidge Danticat advises the reader, “Create dangerously, for people who read dangerously. This is what I’ve always thought it meant to be a // BUST / 93

the guide

BOOKS

writer. Writing knowing in part that no matter how trivial your words may seem, someday, somewhere, someone may risk his or her life to read them.” This passage follows a story about the grotesque public executions of two Haitian exiles, Marcel Numa and Louis Drouin, who returned to their home country to battle dictator Francois “Papa Doc” Duvalier in 1964. The description of the scene is difficult to read, harder to turn away from. And in her subtle, lyric way, Danticat is saying, People are dying for their beliefs. Work diligently. The tone of the collection is set and the reader, invested. Create Dangerously jumps— movingly, with obvious intent— through personal essays recounting Danticat’s trips back to her native Haiti to visit family, profiles of torture victims seeking asylum in the U.S., and fresh takes on Hurricane Katrina and the World Trade Center attacks. In each case, Danticat reveals the faces of those who do indeed create dangerously while making parallel the reasons one should choose to do so. As with her other works, Danticat is using this moment, the essay collection, as an opportunity to open the world to her reader and turn the personal political. The images dance around themes of chasing death, surviving death, and taunting death, while always reminding the reader that it’s one’s legacy, large or small, that overcomes death—and more powerfully, that everyone is connected in life. [ MELYNDA FULLER ]

DRINKING CLOSER TO HOME: A Novel By Jessica Anya Blau (Harper Perennial) In the follow-up to her well-received debut, The Summer of Naked Swim Parties, Jessica Anya Blau returns to the same terrain: children who grow up in the 1970s with minimal supervision due to parents who embraced bohemian ideals. The novel’s realism can be credited to the fact that Blau based the char94 / BUST // FEB/MAR

acters on her family, adding problems and drama to make it more fictionally compelling. The story opens in 1993, with three grown siblings reuniting when their mother suffers a massive heart attack. Through flashbacks, they relive their past, going back first to the 1970s when their mother decided to devote her time to her artwork and smoking copious amounts of homegrown marijuana, leaving sisters Portia and Anna to raise their baby brother, Emery. Things destabilize further when the sisters discover, through a diary, that their mother may be having an affair with a poet. We eventually find the siblings dealing with their own chaos as adults. Anna becomes addicted to drugs and sex; Portia’s husband leaves her for another woman; and Emery struggles with his homosexuality and his desire for a family. Despite these heavy-handed issues, the family never seems to take anything seriously, even laughing off Anna’s suicide threats and their mother’s declaration that she is an alcoholic. And Blau presents the drama lightly, rarely exploring the troubled psyches of her characters. In the end, however, this is a good thing: Drinking Closer to Home is a lighthearted, enthralling read that enables us to laugh at our own less-than-perfect families. [ ADRIENNE URBANSKI ]

THE GOOD DAUGHTER: A Memoir of My Mother’s Hidden Life By Jasmin Darznik (Grand Central Publishing) Most of us grow up thinking of our parents as just that—parents. We often fail to realize that they lived for decades before we came along, and even after we’re old enough to conceive of it, there is much about these years we will never know. For Jasmin Darznik, her mother’s former life in Iran comes crashing into her consciousness when, one day in her early 20s, she discovers an old

photo of her mother, Lili, barely a teenager, wearing a wedding veil, and standing next to a man who is not the author’s father. Though entirely incapable of explaining the photograph to her daughter in person, Lili eventually finds the strength to record the oftentorturous memories of her past onto a series of 10 cassette tapes, which Jasmin receives in the mail over the course of many months. The Good Daughter is Darznik’s retelling of her mother’s tapes, beginning with the days of her great grandmother’s childhood in Iran to the author’s childhood in the United States. Written as though we are unraveling Lili’s past, tape by tape, right along with the author, The Good Daughter proves to be a fascinating tale, despite Darznik’s lack of literary flair. Best of all, the book begs us to explore the wealth of experience we have to gain from our own parents just by asking them about their lives before we became their whole lives. [ GINA MARIE VASOLI ]

HOW TO CLIMB MT. BLANC IN A SKIRT: A Handbook for the Lady Adventurer By Mick Conefrey (Palgrave Macmillan) When asked to picture an explorer, most people might imagine your typical man’s man with a scraggly beard and a weatherworn face. In this humorous collection, Mick Conefrey tells the inspirational tales of history’s finest lady explorers—none of whom, he notes, have scraggly beards. Here we meet Frenchwoman Alexandra David-Neel, who traveled in disguise as a Buddhist pilgrim in order to be the first European woman to reach Lhasa in the 1920s; Rosita Forbes, a strikingly beautiful young woman who embarked on an extraordinarily dangerous quest to reach the fabled oasis of Kufara in the Sahara; Lady Hester Stanhope, who traveled across the Syrian Desert to the ancient city of Palmyra, where she was declared queen by the locals; and many

more. Despite their shared love of adventure, the book’s subjects are decidedly different, ranging from bourgeois gentlewomen who traveled in full skirts with an entourage to gender-bending masters of disguise to Bible-loving missionaries more interested in saving souls than charting maps. And while one might assume that lady adventuring is a feminist hobby, some of these women were avidly against the women’s-liberation movement. One was famous 20thcentury traveler Gertrude Bell, a founding member of the British Women’s Anti-Suffrage League. This book is more a collection of random fun facts than it is an in-depth historical guide, but with illustrations, charming anecdotes, and goofy lists, it will entertain you as much as it will motivate you to live life on the edge—or, at least, to buy those plane tickets to Europe you’ve been contemplating. [ANTONIA BLAIR]

LOUD IN THE HOUSE OF MYSELF: Memoir of a Strange Girl By Stacy Pershall (W. W. Norton & Co.) With a title that pays homage to Anne Sexton, it should be clear from the get-go that this debut memoir is not for the faint of literary or emotional heart. Growing up in a small town in Arkansas (population: 1,000), Stacy Pershall was like a square peg in a round hole. Her early, teenage attempts to find her place led her through an eating disorder, years as a soul-saving Jesus freak, and, eventually, bipolar episodes. She tells her story through a series of character sketches—of friends, therapists, “savior” boyfriends, and shocked family members who could not understand the severity of her emotional struggles, which manifest in the form of popping up to 30 Dexatrim a day and literally inscribing insults onto her body. She chronicles her various suicide attempts, including one that she accidentally broadcast over the Internet during the early

BOOKS days of webcams, and shows us how she overcame her mental illnesses through a unique combination of tattooing and dialectical behavioral therapy, a program for people struggling with borderline personality disorder. Pershall’s way of describing how the disordered mind works is joltingly accurate. And Loud in the House of Myself is a beautifully written sliver of understanding that is frank, self-deprecating, and, at times, funny. This memoir is more than just a tear-jerking page-turner; it’s the manifesto of a “strange girl” and could be, for some, a lifeline. [ERICA VARLESE ]

POSER: My Life in TwentyThree Yoga Poses By Claire Dederer (Farrar, Straus & Giroux) Seattle native Claire Dederer took up yoga when, in her early 30s, she pulled a muscle in her back and found herself unable to hoist her newborn. In the decade or so since, she’s become obsessed with the practice. In her new book, Poser: My Life in Twenty-Three Yoga Poses, Dederer examines her life as a mother and a daughter through the lens of yogic postures. In “Crow,” for example, she connects the posture’s name to her mother’s decision to leave her father when Dederer was a child. In “Cobbler’s Pose,” she relives the traumatic childbirth that marked her own entry into motherhood. Despite the touchy-feely subject matter, Poser is mercifully funny, especially about yoga; Dederer reports that she once selected a yoga video because the “graphics did not look as if they’d been drawn up in an asylum.” She is also very aware of her generational and class privilege as part of what she calls the “mothers who read” set, obsessed with doing everything right for their children, and attributes that trend to the high divorce rates of her parents’ generation. Unfortunately, the correlation between life events and the

poses often feels forced. There are lengthy passages describing the physical maneuvers various poses require, but since this is not a practice manual, these sections read more like interruptions than part of the story. And though the writing is skillful, all that humorous criticism ultimately starts to feel more bitter than enlightened. [ LISA KIRCHNER ]

RADIO SHANGRI-LA: What I Learned in Bhutan, the Happiest Kingdom on Earth By Lisa Napoli (Crown) In the aftermath of Eat, Pray, Love comes this jewel of a book about one woman’s journey to a remote Buddhist kingdom nestled high in the Himalayas called Bhutan. It’s 2007, and radio journalist Lisa Napoli finds herself 40-something, childless, single, and fed up with her career. Questioning her place in a society where consumerism is a pastime and romantic comedies always tie off with a happy ending, Napoli jumps at the chance to jet off to Bhutan and help start the nation’s first public-radio station for young people, KUZOO FM. This karmic event is Napoli’s ticket to a magical land where success is measured in Gross National Happiness, compassion and patience are on everybody’s to-do list, and His Majesty hocks his BMW in order to fund a music station for the kids. Napoli skips the typical “OMG, They Eat What?” chapter and instead dives into her new surroundings sans judgment. She meets people of all kinds, from holy monks to hunky divorcées to hipster kids devoted to Sex and the City—but the common denominator in all her new friends is that they live and breathe a culture that values human contact over Facebook and prizes Buddhist tradition above all. That’s not to say, however, that her journey is as smooth as yak butter. Life never plays that way—another nugget of wisdom that Napoli finds in the mountains. She writes about her // BUST / 95

the guide experience from the heart, and her story is sincerely moving because it focuses more on dharma and less on drama. And for all of you demanding a Julia Roberts ending, you won’t be disappointed. Napoli finds herself falling headover-heels in love—with herself. [MICHELLE KEHM ]

SOMEBODY’S DAUGHTER: The Hidden Story of America’s Prostituted Children and the Battle to Save Them By Julian Sher (Chicago Review Press) Among the many examples of our society’s disturbing attitudes toward prostitution, there’s this: in the best-selling video game of all time, Grand Theft Auto IV, it’s possible to pick up a prostitute, have sex, then kill her and get your money back. In real life, too, prosti-

96 / BUST // FEB/MAR

tuted young women—the average starting age is 13—are treated as a disposable commodity. Preying on girls with low self-esteem and unhappy home lives, pimps have historically faced fairly lenient punishment. This is one reason, according to an FBI agent, that “the sex trade is the new drug trade.” Investigative journalist Julian Sher has written a compulsively readable account of the battle to save these exploited children, the vast majority of whom were molested at home and subsequently ran away. Sher chronicles how the justice system changed its approach in recent years, understanding that the prostitution problem is actually a runaway problem, both of which were being ignored. By tracking the investigation of several pimps who prey on young girls’ desire for unconditional love, Sher elevates a collection of horrifying statistics into a cinematic, fully dimensional story, with villains, sym-

pathetic characters, good and bad cops, family drama, and a streak of violence toward prostitutes—first and foremost by their pimps— that screams to be stopped. Sher’s book is equal parts narrative and, by extension, a call to action. It’s one hell of a subject, and he’s woven an intense and gripping account. [SARAH NORRIS ]

SWAMPLANDIA! By Karen Russell (Knopf) Fans of Karen Russell’s best-selling short-story collection, St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves, will delight in her ﬁrst novel, which expands on the trials of the family introduced in her story “Ava Wrestles the Alligator.” Swamplandia!, the Florida island theme park owned by the Bigtree family, is in crisis. Its star alligator wrestler, the family matriarch, has died. And a hip mainland attraction, the World of Darkness, is literally swallowing Swamplandia!’s patrons. So the Bigtrees start to buckle under the strain: 12-year-old Ava is swimming with the gators, her brother, Kiwi, longs for the dreary comfort of mainland life, and her sister, Osceola, is in love with a ghost. When one of them finally departs the island, the family’s seams rupture, leaving Ava on a perilous quest to knit them back together. Russell does what she does best here—presenting a world we recognize and imbuing it with magical mysticism—and does it brilliantly. The surreal is never a prop, and there’s a heart to the writing that goes beyond the sensational. The novel’s backbone is in the nuanced intricacies of its characters, in their hopes and fears whether tangible or touchingly naive. “The Beginning of the End can feel a lot like the middle when you are living in it,” Ava tells us. Russell’s sentences are well-crafted miniatures building to create a world so enchanted that we are both comforted and devastated to realize that it’s our

own. Swamplandia! is a dizzying cocktail of heartbreak and humor, a first novel worthy of celebration. [ LAURIE ANN CEDILNIK ]

A WORLD OF CAKE: 150 Recipes for Sweet Traditions from Cultures Near and Far Krystina Castella (Storey Publishing) After Krystina Castella (co-author of Booze Cakes) attended a bake sale on her college campus in which foreign students brought cakes from all over the globe, she got the idea to write a global-cake cookbook. The result, A World of Cake, is like a silicone spatula’s wet dream. It begins with an introduction on the history of cake, as well as a “Field Guide to Cakes”—an incredible simple table that places all the cakes into categories that range from “creamy to chewy” and “dense to fluffy” (and which changed my life). There is also a section on cake-making techniques that will turn you into a cake genius and connoisseur, if you aren’t one already. The ensuing chapters traverse various sections of the world—Iceland, India, Pennsylvania, Thailand—supplying detailed recipes of each region’s cakes and quick, fun stories about each one. There are Queen Anne’s cakes, king cakes, sweet Scottish scones, snake cakes, tamale corn cakes, opera gateau, bûche de Noël, princesstårta, mochi, New York cheesecake—you name it. The book is liberally frosted with photographs so enticing, they’re nearly pornographic, and ends with a helpful appendix, featuring recipes for fillings, sauces, creams, pastes, and a metric conversion chart. A World of Cake will be, in many ways, the most influential book in your collection, if not the most powerful, as it speaks a universal language and affords you the knowledge and confidence to make any cake in the world. This book will have you shouting, as a famous woman once did: Let them eat cake! [ WHITNEY DWIRE]

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BOOKS {INTERVIEW}

lick it up TONGUES ARE WAGGING OVER CHERRY VANILLA’S NEW ROCK ’N’ ROLL MEMOIR

The sensory details throughout the book are exquisite. Did you keep journals? I did. But they were a jumble of to-do lists, appointments, phone numbers, doodles, and so forth, with some poems, proposals, and diary entries thrown in. There was so much I never wrote down. When I was busy and having fun, I didn’t think about it too much. It was usually when I was in trouble and desperate for a way to exorcize my fears that I wrote a lot about what was going on in my life. It was kind of like talking to God or a shrink, I think. And then there was the acid. It made things so intense. How do you think you came to be so sexually free? From what the boys have always told me, it’s the Catholic girls who turn out to be the wildest. When you’re told all your life that sex is taboo, forbidden, and a sin, often you try it and find out it’s one of the most pleasurable, spiritual, healthy, therapeutic, exhilarating things imaginable. And the time period probably had a lot to do with it, too. We were just coming out of the 1950s, when everyone was so conservative and narrow-minded. And suddenly you had all of your contemporaries coming of age in the psychedelic ’60s, so you had the strength of numbers. 98 / BUST // FEB/MAR

Cherry Vanilla onstage in the U.K. in 1977

Why did you decide to include details about your abortions in the book? Well, my ﬁrst mission as a writer is to relate. I wanted other women, especially, to know they were not alone in a lot of the problems and worries we women have. And I think men should be aware of them too. I’m a Libra, and I am always working to strike a balance between the ha-has and the boo-hoos, I guess. You say you left your sex life behind when you turned 40. Why? It wasn’t really a conscious choice; the desire for sexual activity just left me, and I was happy to let it go. I have no idea why it went, but it did. And it became just as liberating for me not to have sex as it once had been to have lots of it. I still feel sexy now, though, maybe precisely because I don’t need it. My relationships with straight men are deeper than ever, because of my not needing to be physically seductive. Take all of that out of the equation between a man and a woman and some real non-threatening love and understanding happens between them—at least, it has for me, anyway. I was always blessed with a strong, healthy body, great legs, and fabulous hair. So I still feel sexy in my own skin, and I still feel both mentally and emotionally seductive. [SHAWNA KENNEY]

PHOTOGRAPHY: RAY STEVENSON

ROCK STARS, RECORD deals, and raging parties—Cherry Vanilla’s done ’em all, and now she’s dishing the dirt with love and lucidity in her new memoir, Lick Me: How I Became Cherry Vanilla (Chicago Review Press). A celebrated groupie in the ’60s, Vanilla, 67, could have easily turned her tome into a litany of sexual conquests. Instead, she deftly describes what it was like to be an audacious scenester working in the music business at the birth of the sexual revolution, “when at last a lusty young woman like me,” she writes, “could play the sex game the way men had been playing for so long.” Born Kathleen Anne Dorritie in Queens, NY, Vanilla got her start DJing in 1960s N.Y.C. before she got her ﬁrst taste of stardom in the London production of Andy Warhol’s play Pork. She went on to work as David Bowie’s publicist, front a punk band with future Police bandmates Sting and Stewart Copeland, and land a record deal while falling in and out of love and struggling with OCD. But by the end of the ’70s, her life in the fast lane slowed, and the quest for fame lost its luster. Here, the self-proclaimed “bad girl” gives us the scoop on what became of Cherry Vanilla after the spotlight dimmed.

sex ﬁles

sheath the sword FEBRUARY IS NATIONAL CONDOM MONTH. TO CELEBRATE, OUR WRITER TOOK THESE NEW RUBBERS FOR A TEST RIDE SO YOU DON’T HAVE TO

One size does not ﬁt all when it comes to prophylactics: condoms need to cover the entire shaft. Magnums used to reign supreme as the king of large condoms, but there’s a new heir to the throne—LIFESTYLES KYNG ($11.99 for 12, www. lifestyles.com). I took this baby for a three-hour tour. The prelube lasted for a long time before we had to reapply, and my bang buddy loved that “larger” didn’t mean “thicker.”

TROJAN SENSITIVITY BARESKIN ($9.99 for 10, www.trojancondoms. com) claims to be 40 percent thinner than the average condom, and I believe it. Even though it felt barely there, it stayed tight—no slipping, no breaking. The lube was lovely, and the dude was impressed with the increased feeling the thinness provided. If you’re banging a Quick Draw McGraw though, I’d advise against going BareSkin—it’s that good.

The award for groundbreaking technology goes to SENSES ($13.99 for 12, www.sensiscondoms.com), whose condoms have two tabs that let you pull it down in one smooth motion, which is not only fun but also makes it impossible to roll on inside out. The Micro-Dot Ribbed version has raised dots on the shaft and ribs near the tip that I could actually feel! I tested this with a big dong, and while it was snug, it provided full coverage and got two thumbs up from my man. This is the condom everyone will be talking about.

TROJAN PLEASURES ECSTASY FIRE AND ICE ($11.99 for 10, www. trojancondoms.com) was totally not worth the $50 I had to drop on Plan B because it busted. I couldn’t feel the condom’s duel-action warming and tingling lubricant, but my partner said it felt like Icy Hot. Since he couldn’t tell it had busted, it must’ve felt natural, but no matter how good a condom feels for a guy, I’m not into paying for his pleasure.

Created by two French aristocrats, THE ORIGINAL CONDOM ($20 for box of 6, www.theoriginalcondom. com) is hyped as the prophylactic you’ll want to display. Everything about it screams luxury except the thing itself: it’s just a standard jimmy hat in a fancy package—an elegant faux jewelry box. The ﬁrst go was a literal bust, but my partner felt the break right away; he put a new one on, and we didn’t have any other problems. The rubber may be all show, but its makers have substance; the Web site is heavy on condom history (particularly France’s role), and the company is dedicated to both humanitarian and environmental causes. [CALLIE WATTS]

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sex ﬁles

questions for the queen DR. CAROL QUEEN TELLS YOU EVERYTHING YOU EVER WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT SEX BUT WERE WAITING FOR SOMEONE ELSE TO ASK

This does sound like the sort of situation that made sex therapist JoAnn Loulan coin that dismal LBD acronym. It isn’t terribly unusual for a long-term couple to let the fires of love fade, and it’s by no means an issue only for lesbians. Some therapists think lesbians may be more prone to it, however, because women are less acculturated to initiating sex than men are. And while we’re flinging theories around, Simone de Beauvoir felt that women tend to merge identities too much to keep passion hot, which she argued had to do with the sparks that fly between people who are different. But what to do? Check out Loulan’s books (Lesbian Sex, Lesbian Passion, and The Lesbian Erotic Dance). One extremely useful insight of hers is that both partners do not need to be hot to trot to get into an erotic zone; they need only to be willing to have an intimate experience with one another. If your lover will just agree to get naked and close and intimate, it’s possible that eroticism will find you, and at the very least, you’ll get to share more loving touch, a precursor to sexual feelings for many women. You’ll want to talk about this first, of course, and probably also schedule time to do it—more than once! Other things that might be at play: perimenopause (depending on her age) and its sometimes attendant libido changes, physical and mental health (does she suffer from depression?), any history of negative sexual experiences, such as abuse or a shame-based upbringing, and poor body image. Frankly, many libidos are lost to lifestyle factors: too much saturated fat, nicotine, alcohol and/or other substances, and too little exercise. Also check out Felice Newman’s The Whole Lesbian Sex Book. She hates the term “lesbian bed death” and thinks the best cure for it is sex, so she updated the new edition with a section on partnership, just for you. Best of luck!

102 / BUST // FEB/MAR

My boyfriend and I have an awesome sex life, but there’s one thing we haven’t tried: anal sex. My bf is totally into the idea, and while I’m open to it and even a little excited by it, I can’t get past my fear of putting something so big into such a tiny hole. Does it really feel good enough to warrant the pain? Do you have any tips? And what might the physical repercussions be? Anal About My Asshole

Oh, I am so glad you asked. So many people are convinced that anal sex must hurt. The fact is, as Dr. Jack Morin’s classic book Anal Pleasure and Health wants you to know, anal sex never has to hurt, and if it does, one of three things is usually wrong: 1. You’re going too fast for the bottom’s degree of relaxation (I don’t mean “bottom” here in the BDSM sense of “submissive”—the person receiving anal pleasure is in charge of the encounter). 2. You must communicate your readiness, and your partner must heed what you communicate: go slow er, more lube, etc. 3. Lube is absolutely crucial. Anal tends to go best with thicker lubes, which are “cushier” than thinner ones, or the new silicone lubes, which are very slip pery. Use a condom, too. You might also like Tristan Taormino’s book The Ultimate Guide to Anal Sex for Women. If your boyfriend is open to going both ways on this one, check out a DVD I made years ago: Bend Over Boyfriend: A Couple’s Guide to Male Anal Pleasure. Not only will it give you the 411 on strap-on shopping; it also includes lots of beginner anal play info as well. As for physical repercussions: do your Kegel exercises and anal sex shouldn’t have any ill effects. (People worry about stretching, but really what happens is, I’ll say it again, you relax.) And does it feel that good? Yes, when all goes well, it’s one of the most intense and amazing kinds of sex there is, if you like these sensations. And you won’t know whether you do unless you give it a try!

Got a sex or relationship question you need answered? Post it at www.bust.com/sex

ILLUSTRATION: MARCELLUS HALL

My partner and I have been together for more than 10 years, and her interest in sex has slowly faded, whereas mine has not. I am an every-other-night kind of gal, and she’s become an everyother-month sort of person. I have heard the term “lesbian bed death.” Could this be the case? Any ideas on how we can get more in sync? She’s Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’

sex ﬁles ONE-HANDED READ

the ring master AN AERIAL ARTIST SHOWS HER NEW RIGGER THE ROPES [BY SONJA TODD]

PEOPLE THINK THAT being a circus performer is so glamorous. But while I was rubbing rosin into my palms for the Friday night show, it didn’t feel that way. My camper van was freezing, and I wore nothing but a sequined turquoise leotard. I finished stretching and dusted my cheeks with extra glitter before heading to the tent. The lanky new rigger, Jez, was working the ropes on my aerial hoop act. Though he was supposedly the best in the business, I was slightly nervous—we’d practiced only once, without music, but he’d picked things up OK, even if he didn’t talk much. I put on my best show-biz smile and walked into the big top, to the center of the ring. It was dark, and the crowd was silent in anticipation. I could almost see Jez, wearing combat shorts and a vest, and I heard the clunk as he clipped my hoop’s rope to his harness. Then the music began—my favorite Nirvana track. Jez glanced at me; he’d obviously been expecting something girly. At practice, he’d referred to the aerial hoop by its French name, cerceau, making it sound like so-so. Well, I’d show him. I grinned and walked confidently out to meet the hoop and the spotlight. Jez climbed the rigging and began to lower my hoop to the ground with the rope that was attached to his harness. I grasped it, and a tug from Jez lifted me off the ground, swirling into the air. As the hoop spun, I pulled myself into a series of gravitydefying poses in time to the throbbing music. When I entered flying position, balancing inside the hoop on my hips, I eyed Jez and gave a smile of thanks for his rope skills. He met my gaze and grinned back, giving a little tug of acknowledgement. His circus-crew muscles flexed beneath his tanned skin, and his green eyes glinted. As the guitars built, I straddled the top of the hoop and swung my long hair. Jez tugged the hoop up and down to the beat of the song, and I felt a sudden pulse against my clit. I looked over to meet his gaze. He seemed to be enjoying the show. Well, I was ready to enjoy it, too. I leaned back, sliding forward an inch to hold the rope between my thighs, then I threw my body back, bouncing along with Cobain and the boys and the jerking rope, enjoying the feel of it against my crotch as I never had before. Perhaps he is the best in the business. After my final tumble of tricks, I left the ring with guitars buzzing in my ears, applause trailing behind me, and the feel of the rope on my clit. I slid out the back into the cool air and saw that Jez’s beatup trailer was parked nearby. The door was ajar, and I couldn’t

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resist letting myself in. There was a thick mattress, a couple of large trunks, and a battered old tape deck. A big heater made it toasty warm. I was still sweating from the performance, but the extra heat felt good. Suddenly, the door swung open. The look of surprise on Jez’s face was quickly replaced by a grin. We looked at each other with a mix of shyness and the same spark of connection we’d had in the ring just a couple of minutes ago. “So, you like Nirvana?” he asked. I smiled. He tugged the buckle of his harness, and it fell heavy to the floor. His eyes looked me over, and I looked right back. His face was handsome, with full lips and defined cheekbones. I took a step toward him and put my hands on his waist where the harness had been. He was warm and smelled of sweat and sawdust. He brought his hands, still white with chalk, up to brush my hair back from my face, then dropped them to my shoulders and pushed the leotard’s straps down one by one, looking me in the eye with a glimmer of intent. I ran my fingers up beneath his vest and over his stomach, feeling his muscles tighten under my touch, to show him we both had the same idea. I leaned forward till our mouths met, hot and salty, as he pulled me close enough to feel him hard against my stomach. He tugged my leotard down, releasing my breasts from their stiff, sequined cups, then put his hands over me, sliding each nipple between his fingers, squeezing until they hardened then rubbing his palms against them. “I thought you were hot before, but then…your act,” he said, gathering my hair into a rope and tugging it backward to expose my neck and shoulders, kissing my bare skin as he did. I felt his hips move against me, and I peeled off his vest, running my hands over a tattoo on his chest and a pierced nipple that made him moan as I pinched it. He dropped to his knees as I stepped naked out of my leotard. He kissed my thighs, running his tongue up to my crotch. Then he pulled my legs apart and drew long, slow licks over my clit while one hand grasped my bottom and the other glided up and down my thigh. Dizzy with pleasure, I steadied myself against the side of the trailer as his hand stroked my leg up to my pussy. He pushed a thumb up inside me and rubbed it hard against my G-spot until I was flooded with juice, my legs quivering. As I began to moan, he rose to face me and I pushed him down onto the mattress, tugging off his combat shorts and straddling him with my clit against his cock. I began to move against him as if he were the »

rope, arching my back like I did on the hoop. I dipped forward to kiss him and whispered, “Health and safety?” He pulled a condom from under the mattress and tore the packet open with his teeth. “Rig me up,” he said, and smiled. I rolled the rubber down over his cock, then eased myself onto him with a gasp. We began to move, finding the same rhythm we’d had on the hoop, him pushing to thrust me up and down, me grasping on and riding him in waves of motion. As our breaths became grunts, I paused my grinding, lifted myself off of Jez, and pulled him up. Standing, I turned to face the wall and looked over my shoulder at him expectantly. One of his arms clasped my breasts and the other fell low on my stomach, two fingers dropping to my clit. He pushed into me from behind with a groan and moved as he’d moved on the rigging, making my insides throb and sparkle. I turned my head to catch a glimpse of his beautiful face and he began saying my name over and over: “Arial, Arial, Arial.” As he filled me with a few lunging thrusts, I shuddered and tightened my muscles around him, the sensations in my clit and G-spot coming together to explode in a grand finale of orgasm, pulsing against his fingers and around his cock as my body went weak. He pushed into me one last time with a groan that shook the trailer and melted my pussy in a final wave of pleasure as he came deep inside me. We leaned against the metal wall, gasping for breath and dripping with sweat. He looked at me with those green eyes. “Want to practice tomorrow?” he asked. “With the music, this time.” I smiled as I leaned over to press play on his tape deck. Nirvana came on. United States Postal Service Statement of Ownership, Management, and Circulation: 1. Publication Title: BUST 2. Publication Number: 1089-4713 3. Filing Date: October 1, 2010 4. Issue Frequency: Bi-monthly 5. Number of issues published annually: 6 6. Annual subscription price: $19.95 7. Complete mailing address of known office of publication: 18 West 27th St, 9th floor, New York NY 10001 Contact Person: Debbie Stoller Telephone: 212 675-1707. 8. Complete mailing address of headquarters or general business office of publisher: 18 West 27th St, 9th floor, New York NY 10001 9. Full names and complete addresses of Publisher, Editor and Managing Editor: Publisher, BUST Inc., 18 West 27th St, 9th floor, New York NY 10001, Editor, Debbie Stoller, 18 West 27th St, 9th floor, New York NY 10001, Managing Editor, Emily Rems, 18 West 27th St, 9th floor, New York NY 10001 10. Owner (If the publication is owned by a corporation, give the name and address of the corporation, immediately followed by the names and addresses of all stockholders owning or holding 1 percent or more of the total amount of stock. If not owned by a corporation, give the names and addresses of the individual owners. If owned by a partnership or other unincorporated firm, give its name and address, as well as those of each individual owner. If the publication is published by a non-profit organization, give its name and address.) BUST Inc., 18 West 27th St, 9th floor, New York NY 10001; Debbie Stoller, 18 West 27th St, 9th floor, New York NY 10001; Laurie Henzel, 18 West 27th St, 9th floor, New York NY 10001 11. Known bondholders, mortgagees, and other security holders, owning or holding 1 percent or more of total amount of bonds, mortgages, or other securities: NONE. 12. N/A 13. Publication title: BUST. 14. Issue date for circulation data below: Dec/Jan 2011. 15. Average no. copies each issue during preceding 12 months/No. copies of single issue published nearest to filing date: A. Total no. copies (Net press run) 68317/70055. B. Paid and/or requested circulation: 1. Paid/Requested Outside-County Mail Subscriptions: 18074/17215. 2. Paid In-County Subscriptions: 0/0. 3. Sales through dealers and carriers, street vendors and counter sales: 25582/45414. 4. Other Classes mailed through the USPS: 1922/1870. C. Total paid and/or requested circulation: 45578/64499. D. Free distribution by mail: 0/0. E. Free distribution outside the mail: 2151/2975. F. Total free distribution: 2151/2975. G. Total distribution: 47729/67474. H. Copies not distributed: 20588/2581. I. Total: 68317/70055. J. Percent paid and/or requested circulation: 95%/96%. 16. This statement of ownership will be printed in the Feb 2010 issue of this publication. 17. Signature and Title of Editor, Publisher, Business Manager, or Owner: Debbie Stoller, Publisher. I certify that all information furnished on this form is true and complete.

BUST (ISSN 1089-4713), No. 67, Feb/Mar, 2011. BUST is published bi-monthly in Feb/Mar, Apr/May, June/July, Aug/Sept, Oct/Nov, and Dec/Jan by BUST, Inc. 18 West 27th Street, 9th Floor, New York, NY, 10001. Printed in the U.S.A. Periodicals postage paid at New York, NY, and additional mailing ofﬁces. Subscription prices, payable in U.S. funds, are $19.95 for one year (6 issues). Additional postage: In Canada add $10 per year, and in all other foreign countries add $20 per year. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to BUST, P.O. BOX 16775, NORTH HOLLYWOOD, CA, 91615.

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The BUSTshop

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FOR ADVERTISING INFORMATION EMAIL ADS@BUST.COM OR CALL 212.675.1707 X104

// BUST / 107

The BUSTshop

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The BUSTshop

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// BUST / 109

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X GAMES [BY DEB AMLEN]

spin it like a sissy

Queen Diva” 66. Oscar Madison, for one 67. Yawn inducers 68. Litter’s littlest 69. Well-ventilated 70. Glove material 71. Fencer’s blade

Down

Across 1. Nasty 5. Hard to pin down 10. Pay lip service to? 14. Passed with ﬂying colors 15. Ancient Greek marketplace 16. Side by side? 17. City where 39-Across originated 19. X-Men villain with a very long tongue 20. “___ be a shame...” 21. Knitting blogger and author Crazy ___ Purl

ANSWERS TO “MAD FOR MAD MEN” FROM THE DEC/JAN ‘11 ISSUE. FOR ANSWERS TO THIS ISSUE’S PUZZLE, SEE NEXT ISSUE OF BUST.

22. Most high-schoolers 24. “Comprende?” 25. Undertake, with “out” 26. “I Did It ___” 28. More than unkind 30. Circus prop 34. Bass, for one 35. Itty-bitty 37. Big fuss 38. Cultural doings 39. Overtly queer rap genre that originated in 17-Across 42. Lowlife 44. Actor Mineo 45. Some like it hot 46. How the weasel goes? 47. 2007 hit by Amy Winehouse 49. Fodder ﬁgures? 53. Gladiator setting 55. Clever 57. Charlotte-to-Raleigh dir. 58. Eat away 60. Fellatio or cunnilingus, for short 61. Combine 62. Smooth-talking 63. Star of 39-Across, also known as “The

1. Go with the wind 2. Summer cooler 3. More salacious 4. Old name for Tokyo 5. Hold in high regard 6. 99 and 86, on Get Smart 7. Source of milk for chevre 8. Big coffee holder 9. The Fillmore ___, New York City concert venue also known as The Church of Rock ‘n’ Roll 10. ___ Red, transsexual rapper thought of as the pioneer of 39-Across 11. Like a Japanese Tetsubin teakettle 12. Ocean condiment 13. Bummed 18. Targets for talc, maybe? 23. CPR pro 27. Word on a Ouija board 29. Cartoon Network’s Adult ___ 31. Small drum from India 32. Bachelor’s last words 33. Boor 36. Being, to Caesar 38. Trendy antioxidant berry used in shakes and smoothies 39. BUST’s “Mother ___” columnist, Ayun Halliday 40. Fargo afﬁrmative 41. Company that makes a Crunch 42. Hydromassage facility 43. Baroque violinist and composer Arcangelo ___ 47. “Far out!” 48. Blew chunks 50. Precede, with “to” 51. Warhol’s Factory denizen who appeared in Vinyl (1965) 52. Put under 54. Sissy ___, rapper of “Beat It Out the Frame” 56. Break down, in a way 59. Drops off 60. Grimm villain 62. Fed. property overseer 64. Promise to pay 65. Before, in verse // BUST / 111

the last laugh [BY ESTHER PEARL WATSON]

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