WELCOME to So Pasted, LadyClever.com’s weekly roundup of posts that have gotten us drunk on words and helped us through the work week.
Rat Camp: Young filmmaker, Kate Logan, heads to the Dominican Republic to document the Escuela Caribe school for at-risk American teens, and discovers that many students’ purported wickedness is simply anxiety, everyday issues with their parents, or the crime of being gay. Bitch Media dove into Logan’s documentary Kidnapped For Christ, which debuted on Showtime this week. More that mere reform, these children are punished with extreme physical and emotional abuse at the facility by counselors who make teens run until they bleed, for example, and lock them in solitary confinement. Administrators intercept her interviews with their charges, but survivors of the experience tearfully share their stories with Logan. She even unearths a former staff member who finally calls for accountability.
The Penis Mightier: From the attention her submissions received to how she communicated with her editors and peers, author Bryn Donovan explained on The Hairpin how having a gender-swapped pseudonym impacted her writing career and her own perspective on her work. “What part of me,” she wonders, “had managed to hold onto the idea that my vagina made my writing more trivial?” Why was masquerading as a man making her value her pieces more?
The Whole World Smiles With You: “Telling women to “smile” may seem a small thing — until you consider what often happens when women don’t want to. Up to 98 percent of women surveyed reported persistent, aggressive street harassment,” Salon.com reports. Starting even when they’re still little girls, most modern females find themselves faced with street harassment, fearing what happens when they quietly ignore lewd passersby or the consequences of standing up and fighting back. Perhaps that’s why even the most well-meaning suggestion to “smile” can feel like such an affront on a woman’s personal space and a commentary about her appearance. How do you reply to chirpy gentlemen who suggest you turn that frown upside down?
Ruby Red Rub Down: Think of it as American Pie for the farmers market generation. This week, shiny new NSFW viral sensation and self-proclaimed sexpert and blowjob aficionado “Auntie Angel” debuted her cringe-worthy tutorial “Angel Teaching Her Grapefruit Technique” and the citrus, erm, marital aid, instructional video has already collected more than 300K clicks from curious folks, or perhaps grapefruit aficionados. Skeptics may raise an eyebrow at her somewhat graphic methods (her enthusiastic deep-throating on the demonstration dildo is a little gag-inducing for the faint of heart), but Refinery 29 encouraged us to applaud her frank discussion of fruitful fellatio. Plus? Raise a glass to finally finding a way to use up all that grapefruit you’re not eating.
Knope Knope Knope: Sure, it’s easy to assume that we all love how Amy Poehler’s hyper-organized and lovably overzealous wonk Leslie Knope lights up NBC’s Parks and Rec. But somehow it’s still a little breath of fresh air to see that the first woman to have become the United States Secretary of State is one of us, via this this adorable autograph at The Cut.
