Sexy Halloween Costumes That Aren't

Sexy Halloween costumes are nothing new, but if you've shopped for a costume in the last few years you might have noticed that the "sexy _____" costume trend has really gotten out of control. We collected some pictures of the worst offenders that we saw this year. Some don't make any sense to us, and some are things that just shouldn't be made sexy.

(All of the costume pictures in this post are from Yandy.com, but they're certainly not the only offenders.  You can find costumes like these on lots of different stores and sites.)

Probably the most disturbing ones to me are the sexy versions of children's characters.  Can't we all agree to draw the line at sexy schoolgirl and not try to take it to the next level with sexed up Sesame Street and Disney characters?

Sexy Cookie Monster and Sexy Big Bird

Sexy Nemo

Sexy SpongeBob (aka SpongeBabe SquareSkirt)

Sexy Care Bear

Then there are those costumes that take the most unsexy characters possible and attempt to make them sexy for no apparent reason, as if there's a shortage of actually sexy costume ideas to choose from.

Sexy Tin Man Woman

Sexy Mrs. Potato Head

Sexy Pinocchio

Sexy Optimus Prime

Of course there are always those costumes that demonstrate a heightened sense of cultural sensitivity.

Sexy Chinese Take Out costume and Sexy Indian Warrior

And then there are those costumes that just make you ask 'why?!' because they're that random.

Sexy Scrabble Board

Sexy Shower

Sexy Straightjacket Costume

But I think that this next costume has got to be my personal favorite.

Sexy George Washington

Sexy. George. Washington.  This costume is so random and ridiculous and bizarre and wrong that I think it turns a corner and becomes kind of amazing.  But I do think it would work better as a group costume, so next year I'm going to see if I can get a group of friends together to go as Sexy Founding Fathers.  I know, it's an awesome idea and you wish you'd thought of it first, but we call dibs so don't steal it.  Happy Halloween!

Juan Williams and Muslims and Bears, Oh My!

In case you haven't heard yet about Juan Williams being fired from NPR, here's a quick summary of what happened: Bill O'Reilly went on The View and spouted some ignorant, bigoted bullshit about how "Muslims killed us" on 9/11. Juan Williams went on O'Reilly's show The O'Reilly Factor and said:

I'm not a bigot. You know the kind of books I've written about the civil rights movement in this country. But when I get on the plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous. [full transcript]

And then NPR fired him. NPR CEO Vivian Schiller said that his firing was the result of a "series of deeply troubling incidents over several years."

He was explicitly and repeatedly asked to respect NPR's standards and to avoid expressing strong personal opinions on controversial subjects in public settings, as that is inconsistent with his role as an NPR news analyst. After this latest incident, we felt compelled to act. [mediaite.com]

I just flipped past Fox News a little while ago and they're still talking about this story. (Good thing there's no other news going on in the world.) Not only has Williams not apologized for what he said, but he's certainly milking the situation to his benefit by playing the martyr. It's really kind of ridiculous. Not only was what he said offensive (and wrong) but apparently he has a history of crossing the line on controversial topics, something that was specifically prohibited by his contract as a news analyst... At this point I think he just should just own up to the fact that news analyst (with its required impartiality) was the wrong job for him. And apparently he just signed a huge new deal with Fox, so it's not like 'Oh poor Juan, how will you feed your family now?' He should be happy that he no longer has to restrict himself from saying bigoted things on TV because Fox News clearly loves that kinda thing.

We're not going to give a full-on commentary here, because well, what is there really to say? But based on what we've been seeing other people say about it (on places like message boards, blog comments, and Facebook) it seems that a lot of people out there just aren't getting it. There have been a few recurring 'themes' in response to this issue and frankly, it's frustrating...

We've seen the "he was just being honest" argument, as if we should reward all honesty even when it is inappropriate and violates your contract.

We've seen the "this should've been a learning experience" argument, as if it's somehow NPR's responsibility to 'educate' Juan Williams while continuing to pay him a salary for violating his contract.

We've seen the "America is too politically correct" argument, which is often just code for 'I'm upset that it's not socially acceptable for me to say the N-word anymore'.

We've seen the misguided "freedom of speech" argument which just shows a clear ignorance of what our free speech rights actually entail.

We've seen the "but ____________ does the same thing all the time" argument (with Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and even Katie Couric used as examples) which fails to recognize the differences between their individual job titles and job requirements.

And of course, we've seen the "we should fear Muslims because Muslims killed us on 9/11" type of ignorant comments. (Those are the ones that piss us off the most.) But we've never seen that argument made exactly like this... so we're going to share one particular conversation that just kind of blew our minds a bit. Below are excerpts from an actual 'fight' I had on someone's Facebook wall. We hope you're as confused and outraged by it as we were.

Idiot: If I see a bear in the woods, I get nervous. It could be the greatest bear ever. But SOME bears have been known to attack randomly. A human reaction to a POSSIBLE reality. So fire me.


Evil Slut: It would be just as POSSIBLE that a non-Muslim would commit a terrorist act, do you fear ALL people? Do you get nervous everytime you see a human being on an airplane because of the possible reality? But wait... did you just compare Muslims to wild animals? And... fuck you.
 
Idiot's Friend: She did not compare Muslims to wild animals. She used an analogy.

Now, maybe I'm just a stickler because I'm a writer... but um, doesn't anyone know what an 'analogy' is!?

a·nal·o·gy (noun): 1. a similarity between like features of two things, on which a comparison may be based; 2. similarity or comparability [emphasis mine]

So she wasn't comparing them, she was just... comparing them. Okay!

Idiot: Thanks for clarifying that Muslims are not bears and telling me to fuck myself. I think you just disqualified yourself from all future intelligent discussions. Reactionaries resort to extremist aggressive behavior when threatened. (Like she just did getting angry, like some cultural groups that get violent.) To have an opinion you must be able to comprehend the issue.

You know what that means right? If you get a little mad at me because of the totally offensive thing I said, then you're no better than the terrorists!

Evil Slut: No, but a bear is a wild animal... its in their inherent nature to attack and it's a rational, reasonable fear to be nervous around them. Being nervous around Muslims on airplanes is not reasonable nor rational, nor is it in their nature to be violent. So the analogy makes no fucking sense. Unless you want to compare ALL people to bears. It's unreasonable and irrational to live in fear that ANY and ALL human being might possible kill you, but that is way more close to the actual reality than the 'Muslims might kill me' theory. Your comparing Muslims to wild animals deserves a 'fuck you'. In fact, I consider it to be extremist aggressive behavior, so um, yeah... fuck you.


Idiot: I compared irrational fear to irrational fear. And I DO NOT fear ANY human. We are all capable of harm. Some MORE so than others, as history documents. Is anyone handing out clues?


Evil Slut: Yes, who is handing out clues? Fear of a wild bear in the woods = RATIONAL fear. Fear of a random Muslim on a plane = IRRATIONAL fear. We are all capable of harm, some more than others... but there is no evidence to support the claim that Muslims are more capable of harm than non-Muslims. Prove that.


Idiot's Friend: She's not saying Muslims are more capable of harm than non-Muslims...the only thing is a Muslim in Muslim garb stands out. I basically look at all people with the same suspicion, when something stands out about one in particular, I tend to focus on it, rationally or irrationally. And guess what, I bet the people on the planes that went down on 9/11 had no nervousness about the "Muslims" on their planes.

Ah, the whole 'if someone looks different than me, I should be suspicious of them' stance. Is she suspicoius of people with unusual haircuts? Is she suspicious of people with physical deformities? Is she suspicious of people who dress like Lady Gaga? (She certainly stands out.) Sorry, but if you're suspicious of Muslims because 'Muslim garb stands out' then... that makes you a bigot.

Evil Slut: I believe she is saying that Muslims are more capable of harm than others. "We are all capable of harm. Some MORE so than others, as history documents." What 'more' is she referring to? If she's not suggesting that Muslims are more capable of harm than non-Muslims, then why use the stupid bear metaphor to defend the irrational fear of Muslims? I've seen and experienced so much crime and violence at the hands of white Christian men... but I would never say "gee, when I see a white guy with a cross I get a little nervous because he's really putting it out there there he's first and foremost a Christian". Some Muslims may be more easily identifiable by the way they dress (although tell that to all the Sikh Indians who were attacked after 9/11) but it doesn't mean they are more likely to commit an act of violence. Most likely if someone really was going to try to commit a terrorist act they would dress in a way so as to NOT stand out... so the argument makes even less sense and then it just amounts to racial profiling.

10 Things About BlogWorld Expo '10

Earlier this month we attended the BlogWorld Expo at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center in Las Vegas. It was our first time attending BlogWorld (and our first time in Vegas!) so we didn't really know what to expect. We were also curious about how it would compare to the other conferences that we attended this year, BlogHer and the Affiliate Summit. Here's our take on BlogWorld.


#1 - The Backstory

We've talked about going to BlogWorld before, but we were never able to make it happen because of scheduling conflicts and finances and other various reasons. This year, we skipped a conference that we usually go to because of a conflict, so we found ourselves with a little bit of extra money and time. Obviously just saving the money was not an option, so we decided that this was our year to check out BlogWorld. We had heard good things about the conference from a lot of people, including BlogWorld CEO Rick Calvert, who we met at the Affiliate Summit. And we'll be honest, having an excuse to take a trip to Vegas was a major factor in our decision making process.


#2 - The Hotel

As we mentioned, the conference took place at Mandalay Bay, and that's also where we decided to stay.

We really liked the hotel, and there's so much to see and do (and eat) there that we could have gone the entire trip without ever leaving and never been bored. Our hotel room had a TV in the bathroom and a phone next to the toilet. (We did a lot of speculating about why they felt like that phone was needed.) We also had a really nice view of the hotel pools...and a parking lot. Usually when we travel we just get the parking lot, so this was an upgrade.

There's a shopping center attached to the hotel, and then of course there's the casino, and every type of restaurant, bar, and lounge you could want. We justified eating and drinking at almost all of them because the place is fucking huge and we did about a million miles of walking each day. At one point a sales guy in the neighboring Luxor hotel offered us a tour of local time-shares, and by the end of the trip we were considering it.

#3 - The Keynotes

We really enjoyed the opening keynote from Scott Stratten of UnMarketing. A lot of what he said was common sense and he admitted at much. But it was common sense in a 'hey yeah, he's right, we should be doing that' sort of way and not a 'duh, we know this crap already' sort of way. He talked about not writing a lot of mediocre filler posts just to keep to some kind of blogging schedule, or writing something that's just okay and then worrying about how to get people to spread it around. "People spread awesome", so only write when you're passionate and you have something to say.

He also talked about how to deal with trolls and annoying commenters and various other haters. (To be clear, this doesn't include people who have constructive criticism or who just happen to disagree with you.) He said he's sometimes asked why he doesn't spend a lot of time engaging with people like this and trying to 'convert' them. His response? "I'm not the Jackass Whisperer...my job isn't to rehabilitate assholes online." Love it.

There was a keynote on Friday morning about social media and politics featuring Mark Penn, Karen Hughes, Hugh Hewitt, and Reid Wilson. We were planning on going, but it was early in the morning and we were jet lagged and we were in Vegas and it just didn't happen. But we did watch the video afterward and honestly we don't feel that we missed much. This conversation leaned more towards the 'duh' side of common sense, like Karen Hughes just listing a bunch of politicians who have Twitter accounts.

It also seemed that Hughes just couldn't help herself and kept derailing the conversation to make barely relevant comments bashing President Obama and praising George W. Bush and the tea party. And if you're not familiar with Hugh Hewitt, he's a conservative radio host who once said of a college football game that "it’s probably the last football game we’ll ever get to see before the United States gets blown up by the Islamists under Obama." How charming. Obviously we realize that BlogWorld isn't WAM or Netroots Nation so we didn't expect a whole panel full of people that we would agree with about everything. We just felt that overall we didn't take much away from this particular keynote.


#4 - The Sessions

Monetizing Your Blog (60 Tips in Sixty Minutes)

John Chow, Zac Johnson, Jeremy Schoemaker, Jonathan Volk, dk

We were really disappointed in this session. First of all, it was misleading. There weren't even close to 60 tips... in fact, there weren't any actual tips at all. Instead of the so-called "rapid fire session" that the description promised, this was basically a question-and-answer session... so the quality of the 'tips' received relied heavily on the audience knowing the right questions to ask. We were surprised that it seemed like the panel hadn't actually come up with any of the tips ahead of time and was relying entirely on the audience to keep the session going with their questions.

To make matters worse, the answers weren't actually that great either. At one point someone asked "what are some ways to make money online other than advertising?" and the answer was basically "oh there's lots of things you can do..." and then a quick list of blah blah blah blah given without any actual tips about how to do any of those things. (That wasn't a huge problem for us, since we were familiar with most of the examples given that would've actually applied to us, but I can bet that the answer wasn't helpful to whoever asked that question.) The few tips that were actually helpful seemed a little hypocritical to us... For example, the advice that your site shouldn't be all ads and affiliate links. We agree that a website should be balanced and have enough quality content. This is good advice. But we thought it was a little ironic that this advice came from this particular panel. A brief survey of their sites shows that not all of them are following this advice (in fact, the website of one panelist - no names - crashes my browser every time I open it because it's so overloaded with ads and links and pop-ups).

Also, a lot of the topics were rushed over to 'save time' in an attempt to stick to the format, which meant that the few quality answers were cut off in the middle. But then time was wasted displaying useless supposed-to-be-funny 'tips' on a screen, such as "Buy John Chow's book". I don't know why they bothered to call it 60 tips in 60 minutes, when there was no way they could've possibly come close to 60 tips. I guess "25 sort-of answers to 25 questions in 60 minutes" wasn't catchy enough. At one point the moderator 'scolded' the audience for not laughing enough at their super-awesome jokes... Maybe if the jokes were actually funny we would've laughed. The panelists spent most of the time patting themselves on the back for how amazingly awesome they are and how much money they make on their blogs and how huge of an audience they have in India and how we should go buy their books. What more could we expect from self-proclaimed "blogging superstars"?

We were amused when we got home and had a chance to read Zac Johnson's take on the session, which was just a little different from ours:

We just finished our 60 Question in 60 Minutes Blog Monetization Panel at Blog World. It was a really fun and great panel… and not to toot my own horn, but it was definitely the best session at BlogWorld because we focused all of our efforts at the audience, and had so much audience participation. Go into any other session and you will get a few questions if you are lucky, our session had a ton of user submitted questions, which the panel then answered. I don’t think we ended up getting anywhere near 60 questions answered, but it was a great session full of quality content. [emphasis ours]

Clearly these guys are caught up in their own hype. We know that they are each extremely successful, but it just feels like many people have gotten caught up in this... cult of personality... to the point that everyone is afraid to question or criticize them. It's so well established that they are "blogging superstars" that they no longer have to actually say anything useful because people will automatically believe that what they're saying is golden just because they're the ones saying it... or will be too afraid to question it lest they look like they 'don't get it'. We don't want to bash them completely. It's obvious that they really do know what they're doing. We just wish they would've spent a little more time helping us learn to do it too and less time reminding everyone how awesome they are. In their defense, we will say that we felt like the '60 tips' format was a big part of the problem. We don't know if they came up with that or if it was suggested to them, but it seemed like it got in the way of letting the panelists give their best advice.

Mom Bloggers: Blog For Money, Not Swag!

Kelby Carr, Amy Lupold-Bair, Katja Presnal, Kimberly Blaine, Lucretia Pruitt

After going to BlogHer all these times, we knew we wanted to check out this session. We weren't disappointed and we think that BlogHer needs more sessions like this one. The panelists had some great advice and concrete tips about how to put advertising on your blog, how to work with companies and brands in a way that really benefits you, how to get started in social media consulting and how to know what to charge for what you do. Our main criticism would be that while the panelists were all parenting bloggers, this session wasn't really about Mom Bloggers at all, so we think there were probably a lot of people at BlogWorld who didn't attend this session because they thought it 'wasn't for them'. (In case you haven't noticed... we aren't mom bloggers either.) It's unfortunate that the title was so limiting, because the tips and advice they gave would easily apply to anyone. It's a little disappointing that so many of the all-female panels were for 'female' topics like mommy blogging or women in sports media (more on that one later). One thing we will say about this conference was that unlike the Affiliate Summit, there were quite a few female presenters and panelists and not all of them were for female-centric topics.

32 Ways to Make Your Blog Suck Less

Scott Hanselman

This was by far our favorite session. (This is what the 60 Tips in 60 Minutes should have been like.) A lot of times when there's only one panelist it can get a little bit boring, but Scott definitely kept us engaged and entertained. He had a slideshow to accompany what he was saying and it was actually funny (but not distracting). While not every single one of the tips applied to us, many of them were very helpful and we think that all 32 were valid and definitely useful to someone. And he timed it perfectly. The session was scheduled for 2:45-3:45 and he finished #32 at 3:44. Impeccable timing. He also provided a url where attendees could go to view the slideshow in case anyone missed anything or wanted to refer back to it later. It was clear that he put a lot of work into making his presentation really great, which provided even more of a contrast with the 'let's just wing it' style we had experienced earlier in the day.

From Blog to Book

Stephanie Agresta, Warren Whitlock, Ellen Gerstein, Simon Salt

It seems like every blogging conference has a 'blog to book' session, so you never know if you're going to get anything new by attending, but we're glad we checked this one out. It was a diverse panel so we were able to hear from a variety of perspectives, from someone who self-published to someone who works for a 'real' publisher that works with bloggers. The various methods of self-publishing and publishing on demand continue to grow in popularity, so it can be hard to figure out what the best route to take is for your book. One of the best pieces of advice from this panel was that you should really think about what your goal is in writing the book. Are you trying to establish yourself as an expert in a particular field, get more speaking engagements, get more paid writing work, or become a best-selling author and get into Oprah's Book Club? When you figure out what you're really trying to accomplish with your book, it will help you put your plan of action together.

Women in Sports Media Panel

Valli Hilaire, Kathleen Hessert, Patricia Hannigan
(We didn't catch the name of the moderator. The schedule incorrectly said it was Stephanie Agresta.)

This session was in the last time slot of the last day so it was pretty empty, which is a shame because it was a pretty cool discussion. We expected them to dive into issues related to sexism a little bit more, but overall it was a decent session. We had one major issue though. Of course, the Ines Sainz/New York Jets controversy came up and we were shocked by some of the comments... (we've bolded the parts that really stood out to us).

Patricia Hannigan: Yeah, you know I did a radio show on this, I have a call-in radio show. There were a lot of divergent opinions. But the way I looked at it was more that than anything else, it was - the case of the New York Jets and Ines Sainz - it was really new media bumping up against old media or vice versa. The fact that you had folks in that locker room all of a sudden who were writing features, kind of fluffy features and who did those without a problem and they were comfortable doing those features and then at the same time you had reporters who had a deadline and had to get that story done. And that's where the conflict was. Unfortunately it snowballed and it... There were a lot of factors at play and it took on an aspect of this gal from Mexico was complaining about how the Jets treated her and I don't think that was really the case. I think it was really the case that she was completely comfortable with what was happening in that locker room. It was the fact that she was with reporters that weren't comfortable. And it was more like the conflict between the new media and the old media... And I think it came down to the teams and the leagues and how they credential reporters and how they get them in there that's going to make that locker room journalism either succeed or fail or have issues like this. And then we need more people like Kathleen who can train the teams how to react in situations like that.

Um.... what? We were really shocked to hear this kind of victim blaming and dismissive response to what should've been a serious issue of sexism and harassment. So it was Ines Sainz's fault because she's not a real journalist? Because she's part of 'new media' or writes 'fluffy features' then she doesn't deserve to be credentialed... or respected? We do not understand at all what she was talking about - the fact that Ines Sainz isn't a 'serious journalist' has absolutely nothing to do with the way that the Jets should have treated her. We expected more from women in sports media, and coming from Patricia Hannigan of all people this was just comical. Let's take a look at Ms. Hannigan's website to see just how professional she is...

First of all, she doesn't even have a real url. She has a blogspot domain. Not that there's anything wrong with that (we were once evilslutopia.blogspot.com) but she's going to imply that Ines Sainz wasn't to be taken seriously because she writes fluffy features when she doesn't even own her own domain name? At least Sainz worked for an actual network. Also, the main photo on her blog is of her in a bikini, so there goes any arguments about whether the way Sainz dresses determines how professionally she should be treated. And to be clear, if anyone doesn't have a problem with bikini photos, it's the ESC, but we had to point out the blatant hypocrisy of Hannigan suggesting that Sainz wasn't to be taken seriously. Pot... Kettle.. Black...?

And just in case you think we're taking her words out of context, here is her original blog entry on the Ines Sainz 'situation' (as she called it) to show just how much of a hypocrite, slut-shamer, and victim-blamer that she is.

Thank God Valli Hilaire was there to inject some sense to the conversation...

Valli Hillaire: Just to tack on to this, talking about the New York Jets thing... My whole position on the whole thing was that... it's a level of respect. I don't care if you're Drew Brees or Tom Brady or Mark Sanchez or whatever ... If you're this athlete who has earned such accolades, I'm sure they're.... the point is it's down to respect, this woman was there to do a job, she wasn't there to get hit on, she wasn't at a bar hanging out to look for dudes, she was there to do a job, especially if you... I just think there's obviously certain locker rooms have an atmosphere where that kinda behavior is ok I guess or something but I think it's down to respect and as long as she wasn't acting... she wasn't doing anything to elicit that and I don't think that was necessary... and even if he really really wanted to and he felt that he had to and she was gonna be his future wife... its just inappropriate and , it's not the time or or the place to do that kinda thing. It just comes down to a basic level of respect and maturity. Bottom line.

Thank you!

Unfortunately, Kathleen Hessert wasn't going to let that sense last for too long. She was quick to 'refute' Hillaire's points with some thinly-veiled racism insights of her own.

Kathleen Hessert: I think it has more to do with cultural differences than male or female or new media and old media. What is acceptable and in fact encouraged in one culture, in Mexico, is very different than what is encouraged and accepted in the United States. And again, I've been in the locker rooms - literal and figurative locker rooms - for different sports and any time an athlete has just finished a competition there is a level of anxiety and there is a level of emotion that is unmatched right before and right after a competition that makes them say and do things and listen and hear and view things in a different way. You just... as the outsider coming into their home, their locker room, you need to be sensitive to that. Professionalism is absolute, but I think that it was more a cultural difference than anything else. Women have... women are fans, women are journalists, women are executives in the sports world... and that's not going to change except to get even larger and deeper and better. So people just need to understand it's a different environment.

Wow. Where to start? First off, we're back to victim-blaming again because this "cultural differences" argument implies that this is just a case of a silly Mexican woman not knowing how behave properly in an American locker room when it actually was (some of) the Jets players who were acting inappropriately, not Sainz. Hessert never explained exactly what Sainz was supposedly doing that would be "acceptable and encouraged" in Mexico but not in the U.S., probably because there's nothing to explain. Sainz was there waiting to interview Jets quarterback Mark Sanchez, who is Mexican-American. Sanchez is a rising star in the NFL with a large Latino fanbase and is seen as someone who can help to market football to more Latino fans. By all accounts he's also proud of his heritage and very interested in reaching out to his Latino fans, even taking Spanish lessons so that he can better communicate with them and with the Spanish language media...which would include reporters like Ines Sainz. I guess if Sanchez had talked to Hessert about that she would have told him it was a waste of time due to "cultural differences".

The idea that the heightened emotional state of a post-game locker room was partly to blame is also silly, as well as wrong right from the jump since Sainz was in the Jets locker room after a practice, not a game. It shouldn't matter anyway, because members of the media are always in locker rooms after practices and games, so this wasn't some shocking new development, and because the players are all trained in how to handle the media, and because sexual harassment is wrong no matter when or where it occurs.

It's shocking that someone who is allegedly hired to train these football players in how to behave towards the press, would even remotely condone their behavior. (Maybe she's afraid of offending the very institution that often signs her checks?)

Now we're certainly not above walking out of workshops when the presenters say shit as offensive as that, but we stuck it out for Valli Hilaire's sake and we're glad we did because we really liked what she had to say. The other panelists did have some interesting things to say too, but their views on the Ines Sainz situation outweighed them in our minds so it was hard to take the rest of their comments as seriously after that.


#5 - The Expo Hall

We have to admit that attending BlogHer has totally warped our Expo Hall expectations. Yes, BlogHer has the swag, but there's also this crazy chaos that's really unique to BlogHer. So when we're at other conferences, we have this confusion. Where's the sandwich-making contest hosted by Padma Lakshmi? Why is nobody offering us special pH-balancing tampons or samples of cheese? (Not at the same booth.) If the Pillsbury Doughboy isn't there handing us a cupcake, we're just not impressed anymore.

Okay, just in case it's not totally obvious, the previous paragraph is tongue-in-cheek. (We do appreciate BlogHer for what it is, but we don't actually compare it seriously to other conferences.) BlogWorld's expo hall featured a lot of great blog, vlog, and podcast-related companies, like Blogger, Plixi, and YouTube. And thanks to the people from GourmetGiftBaskets.com, it also featured a world record-setting moment in the form of a ginormous cup of coffee. Oh yeah, and there was also scotch thanks to The Macallan. Something for everyone!

#6 - The Compliments

~There was a really wide variety of sessions to choose from - a food track (plus BlogWorld Kitchen in the expo hall with cooking demos), travel track, military blogging track, plus sessions on mom and dad blogging, humor writing, photography, monetization, podcasting, vlogging, SEO, sports, and more.

~Registration was quick and easy - there was a bar code in our confirmation email, so all we had to do was scan that and our badges printed out immediately. Nothing gets us crankier than waiting on a long registration line when we have a packed conference schedule, so this was great.

~There were official parties each night that were open to all attendees, so there weren't really any 'who got invited to which private event' issues that we noticed.

~For the second year in a row, BlogWorld partnered with some conference sponsors and raised a whole bunch of money for cancer-related charities by having attendees tweet with the hashtag #beatcancer.



#7 - The Criticisms

~We liked the official open-to-everyone parties each night, but they were all held outside of Mandalay Bay. It would have been much easier and more convenient if at least one of them could have been held on site.

~The first thing we saw when we were picking up our schedules and stuff after we registered was a flier for Sarah Palin's reality show and the blogs that they're going to launch to promote it. Ew. (We realize that this wouldn't be a complaint for all of the attendees, but for us it was.)

~As we mentioned above, we felt that the Blog For Money, Not Swag panel was pigeon-holed by being called a "mom blogger" panel, and it should have been marketed to a much larger audience. Also, the Women in Sports Media panel was practically empty, and some people mentioned that this was probably because it was in the last slot on the last day when a lot of people have already started leaving. We might not have thought much of this, but the same thing happened at the Affiliate Summit when we attended a panel on marketing to women that had a similar problem, so we had to wonder if this represents some kind of trend of sticking the 'woman panel' in a crappy time slot or slapping the 'women' or 'mom' labels on something that really deserves a broader audience.

To be fair, as we also mentioned there were a lot of women on panels and many of them were in sessions that weren't woman-specific. And according to this comment from BlogWorld Conference Director Deb Ng, they've made an effort to have a diverse group of speakers and almost 50% of this year's speakers were women. We think that's great, but one area where we'd say there might still be room for improvement is the keynotes. All of the keynotes this year were either all male or had ratios of three or four men to one woman.


#8 - The 'Only the ESC' Moments

Dude, we were in Vegas for the first time. There's way too much to fit in this one little section. Stay tuned for some separate 'ESC Does Vegas' posts coming soon.


#9 - BlogWorld vs. BlogHer vs. Affiliate Summit

BlogWorld fell somewhere in the middle as far as our conference experiences this year. There was more focus on monetization and the business side of blogging than there was at BlogHer, and more focus on content (you know, the actual blogging part of blogging) than at the Affiliate Summit. The same goes for the Expo Hall - there was no Dora the Explorer or Pillsbury Doughboy, but also no bars or bikini booth babes.

As for the attendees, this was the closest to an even mix - more men than BlogHer (obviously) and more women than the Affiliate Summit - but we felt like it leaned a little more towards the men. Maybe because of that, there was also a focus on some of the same 'blogging rock stars' that were popular at the Affiliate Summit, like the crew from the 60 Tips in 60 Seconds panel, who all happen to be men. And that's not really a criticism, it's just always interesting for us when we go to a new conference to see who the 'cool kids' are in the group. Overall, we're glad we attended all three conferences and we took something different from each of them.



#10 - Other Coverage of BlogWorld

• BlogWorld.com: BlogWorld 2010 Web Round-Up!
• SocialMediaClubhouse.com: What BlogWorld is and what it is not [If you're looking for a snotty, condescending, and inaccurate take on the question of BlogWorld vs. BlogHer, this is the post for you.]
  
• BMikeStenger.com: BlogWorld 2010: Greatest Time EVER! (Recap)
• 7viels.com: Social Media & Sex: Adult Entertainment at Blogworld
• blog.prnewswire.com: People, Content and Measurement: Recurring Themes from BlogWorld
• SmallBizTrends.com: 5 Trends Uncovered at BlogWorld
• Lijit.com: Lijit Does BlogWorld 2010
• ThisOneWildLife.com: BlogWorld: The Experience

Zumanity!

While we were in Las Vegas last week we had the opportunity to see the Cirque du Soleil show Zumanity at the New York New York Hotel & Casino. There are a lot of Cirque shows to choose from in Vegas, but Zumanity is described as "the sensual side of Cirque du Soleil" and "a sexy thrill ride full of sensational acrobatics and naughty fun", so we figured that one was perfect for the ESC. We definitely weren't disappointed - the show was funny, sexy, and entertaining - so we thought we'd give you a taste of what it was like.


What We Liked

~Our hostess (excuse me, Mistress of Sensuality) for the evening was a fabulous drag queen, so we knew we were in good hands right from the beginning.

~There's no shortage of chances to see half-naked women in Vegas, and we're not complaining about that, but it was nice to see a show with some equal opportunity skin-baring going on.

~There was a great mix of different styles of dancing, from ballet to African dance, plus all of the acrobatics and gymnastics and stunts that you'd expect from Cirque du Soleil, only sexier.

~The contortionist was really impressive, even if his contorting did totally freak us out.

~We learned how to make some gorgeous and functional fake boobs with the simple use of booze, plastic bags, and duct tape.

~There was some really fun audience participation, from the guy who assisted with the boozy boob demo to the woman in her late 60s who got up on stage (and up on some of the male dancers) to the adorable couple celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary.

~The Waterbowl routine was amazing - apparently just balancing and posing on a tiny little surface isn't cool enough, so they decided to up the ante by doing it while soaking wet. As our hostess said at one point in the evening, you won't get this at Donny & Marie.

What We Didn't Like

~There were a few points in the show where we felt like they went a little overboard with the lighting effects. (In particular when they flashed the house lights, not just the lights on the stage.) Maybe it was just where we were sitting, but it's hard to enjoy what's happening on stage with bright lights shining right into your eyes. Not a huge deal but mildly annoying.

~It was just our luck that we ended up sitting behind That Guy. You know, the guy who thinks that the enjoyment of everyone around him will be greatly enhanced by his loud commentary on everything that's going on. There was one scene where two guys do this fight/dance routine in a cage. They start out fighting over a woman but by the end of it they've decided that they're more into each other. They kiss, and then That Guy morphs into That Homophobic Guy and yells out "not cool!" At that point we finally had to tell him to shut up. I mean, really? First of all, shut up and keep your homophobia to yourself. Second, we didn't hear you saying it wasn't cool when it was two half-naked women who were all over each other. Third, you're in Vegas. There are plenty of places to see a show that features naked women only if you're going to be so horribly traumatized by seeing two men kiss. Fourth, have we mentioned shut up yet?

~This show has kinda ruined certain sexy archetypes for us for awhile. For example, if we see any women dressed as sexy schoolgirls on Halloween this year, we're not going to be impressed at all unless they can also twirl a dozen hula hoops around their bodies while hanging from a tiny strap in mid-air.

~We wanted more! We totally weren't ready for the show to end when it was over.


Okay, yeah, so you might have noticed that those last two "didn't likes" aren't actually bad and are really just positives masquerading as negatives. We had to balance out this side of the list a little bit!

Overall we really enjoyed the show, and of course we loved the message that sexuality is a beautiful and natural thing that should be celebrated. (Cheesy but true.) We would definitely see it again the next time we're in Vegas.

Disclosure: We received free tickets to see Zumanity. This had no bearing on the content of the review and our opinions are our own. Honestly, we would've paid full price... it was that good.

The Sluts are at the Slots

Yes, we know we've been neglecting Evil Slutopia this week. We were preparing for our trip to VEGAS for the BlogWorld Expo and now that we're here, we've just been way too busy at the conference drinking and gambling to blog much yet.

We'll try to live blog some of the most informative sessions this weekend... oh... who are we kidding? We'lll be lucky if we can pull ourselves away from the slot machines long enough to even go to one of the sessions. We have to keep reminding ourselves that this is a business trip and not just a Vegas vacation!

Wookie Monster

We're so happy to introduce our newest guest blogger, Dinah.

Dinah was a daughter of Jacob who sold her into marriage with a Canaanite prince. Her brothers claimed the prince had defiled her and killed every man in the city, including Dinah's new husband. There was even debate amongst the brothers and Dinah's father about whether or not Dinah should be put out as a harlot. No one ever asked if Dinah was really raped, she was just an excuse to pillage a city and was still blamed for being a whore simply because she was there and a woman.

Our Dinah is a US Marine, a published author and has a B.A. in Political Science. She is active duty so she's probably not really supposed to be writing something like this, but we're glad she is! We know there must be other military women reading our blog who can relate to her and non-military women will appreciate her perspective of a woman in a "man's world".



Since the ladies of Evil Slutopia decided to reclaim the word “slut,” I feel inspired to reclaim “Wookie Monster.”

What is a “Wookie Monster,” you ask? Wookie Monster is my favorite variation on the acronym “WM”- Woman Marine. Also popular is “Walking Mattress,” because everyone knows females Marines are sluts.

The image of a Wookie Monster is fabulous: big, hairy, grunting and growling and good with a gun. I am neither big nor hairy, though I do growl when angered and am very good with a gun.

“Wookie Monster” is a term of derision for female Marines, though very few have the testicular fortitude to say it to a woman’s face. Even Han Solo knows you don’t want to piss off a Wookie.

In fact, very few ignorant a-holes use this term in any situation that is not playful mockery.

On that note, you should also know that Marines abuse each other. It’s a sign of affection, really. Verbal, physical and emotional abuse tells us we’re loved. If you see a bunch of Marines having a good time, they’re probably making fun of and/or hitting each other.

But then there’s that one jerk, or sometimes a whole group of jerks, who really means it when he says “Wookie.” This person really does believe that all females in the Marine Corps are big, hairy and promiscuous.

As the ladies of this blog have pointed out, it’s not just men who jump on the slutshaming bandwagon. It’s very often other women who hate on their own kind.

“You don’t look like other woman Marines!” exclaimed the wide-eyed wife of an infantry Marine I had the displeasure of meeting recently. 1. “Woman Marine” is outdated. Catch up, sister. 2. Did you mean any other female Marine you know?  I’m pretty certain Marines come from all backgrounds and walks of life, and there are thousands of females in the Corps. Have you seen pictures of all of them? And I really don’t look like ANY other female in the Corps? Wow, I’m special!

“What does a female Marine look like?” I shot back with the special belligerence all Marines learn in boot camp.

The woman faltered a little, probably realizing just how insulting that statement was. “Well … I know this one and she has the short hair and is a lesbian.”

That’s my favorite. You know one female Marine and suddenly you know them all. That is like me (all blonde hair blue eyed Western European-ness) approaching an African American woman and saying, “You don’t look anything like the other blacks!” Are you offended yet?

I did not realize when I signed the contract to enlist that I was supposed to have short hair and be a lesbian. My bad. I guess that means I’m not being a good Wookie.

This lovely lady also told me later, as she inserted herself into a conversation that did not include her, that I should be used to being called a “Wookie.” I wanted to know if she was used to being called a lazy bon-bon eating breeding machine, but I don’t think it’s fair to stereotype anyone, even Marine spouses. That and I’m pretty sure she would have cried.

So, I’m reclaiming what it means to be a Wookie. Turns out, I am hairy - I have long blonde hair that makes me basically in disguise whenever I take it out of its uptight bun. I am not huge, but I carry the same god awful heavy gear as the Marines who weigh 200 lbs. I have sex when I chose with whomever I chose, so I guess that makes me a slut, too. I growl when no other noise will sufficiently express my anger. (I can’t make that cool Wookie noise though.)

I am strong and beautiful and yes, a Marine. I refuse to believe being a Wookie is a bad thing. I have accomplished things as a Marine that would make a grown man cry and I can still pull off wearing a designer dress with the best of them.

It takes one hell of a strong woman to earn the title: Wookie Monster.

Cosmo Quickie: PostSecret

[via PostSecret]

Getting Ready for Vegas

So we realized that our trip to Vegas is in less than two weeks now, so it's time for us to start procrastinating and start planning. We've never been there before so we're doing some research and collecting tips from people that we know who have been there.

A lot of our time is going to be spent attending the BlogWorldExpo conference. We're excited about that, of course, but we also want to make sure we make the most of our free time. The conference is at Mandalay Bay this year, so we'll probably spend a lot of time there and at the surrounding hotels and casinos. We're not really big gamblers, but...it's Vegas! We've got to do some gambling.

Basically we want to make sure we have two things - the 'only in Vegas' experiences and our usual 'only the ESC' experiences. Sometimes we can combine the two. Like, we wanted to see a Cirque du Soleil show, so we decided to go with Zumanity, which is described as "the sensual side of Cirque du Soleil" and "part burlesque and part cabaret". We also want to check out the Las Vegas area gay scene. Even though we're not gay, we feel like we can usually find 'our people' there. It's a strategy that usually works for us in New York City and always works at BlogHer - the coolest people are always at the Queerosphere - so we're going to stick with it in Vegas too. We found a site that has a lot of tips and info for gay travel, which has been helpful in planning for a scene that we're not familiar with. Our list of stuff to maybe do also includes a strip club and an all-you-can-eat buffet, because...well, we're us.

So who has some Vegas tips for us? We're up for almost anything, so tell us where to go, where to eat and drink, and what we should see and do.