Lelo Ina: We appreciate the sleek, modernist design of this easy-to-use vibrator. (We, personally, are not huge fans of vibrators that try too hard to look like penises. When we want the real thing, we’ll have it, thanks.) This two-pronged model allows for simultaneous vaginal and clitoral stimulation, though we happen to prefer just letting the vibrator work its clitoral magic and then call it a day. This more than does the job, with lots of fast/slow variations as well as several different kinds of rhythmic pulse. The up/down/left/right buttons on the Mac-inspired white plastic handle are very easy to use, and we love that this is part of a new crop of vibrators that charge up instead of requiring batteries. We don’t even want to figure out how to get batteries anymore, and there’s nothing sadder than your vibrator running out of charge when you want it most. Did we mention this also comes in three gorgeous colors?

We-Vibe 3: This design is so different that it’s a little intimidating at first: What to do with this purple, U-shaped, vibrating silicone thing? Turns out it’s pretty smart. One end goes inside, one goes outside, and you get that magical vaginal/clitoral stimulation in a way that doesn’t feel too forced. And yes, there’s even plenty of room left inside you to allow this to be, as the instructions tell you, “worn while making love.” (Being small, we were skeptical, but, yay, technology!) It’s also chargeable and comes with a cute little remote that makes it fun for your partner even if he/she is just watching (and controlling) from the sidelines. Most importantly, it works. And it, too, comes in three classy colors, complete with travel case!

Jezebel reports: Tucker Max is still gross, and involving Planned Parenthood in his grossness.

The Feminism of The Beastie Boys. Jessica Valenti offers a beautiful tribute to the late Adam Yauch at The Nation. Not only does it feel great that one of our favorite groups of all time has made a difference in the world for women but it reminds us how important it is to allow anyone—famous hip-hop kids who once rapped about women as commodities or your everyday lady—to evolve. No one is born a perfect feminist, but everyone has the chance to become one and live a conscious, fair, just life.

Yay for female action heroes: Ian Grey reports on the Katniss/Lisbeth/etc. phenomenon for IndieWire.

President Obama stands up for gay rights. Barack Obama announced Wednesday that he believes gay couples should have the right to marry, period. He’s the first U.S. president in the history of the nation to do so. All we can say is: Fuck yeah, Mr. President! Maybe next we can pay women equally and enact a family leave policy.

We love comedian Katie Goodman: And wish we could go to her Improvisation for the Spirit workshop at the Omega Institute in upstate New York next week. Maybe you can!

It weakens or deletes entirely some of the vital improvements in the Senate bill, including the strong provisions that are designed to increase the safety of Native women and the needs of the LGBT community. The bill also contains damaging provisions that create obstacles for immigrant victims seeking to report crimes, increase danger for immigrant victims by eliminating important confidentiality protections, undermine effective anti-fraud protections, and roll back years of progress to protect the safety of immigrant victims.

This is antithetical to supporting violence against women. Call your representatives and tell them: fuck this shit! And do it soon; the bill goes up for committee next week.

Visit opencongress.org for an easy way to contact your representatives. Or target the key players involved here.

I am impressed, however, by the balance and sound arguments in the New York Times‘s latest Room for Debate round table, “Feminism vs. Motherhood.” There’s an attachment parenting advocate who defends being feminist while breastfeeding and co-sleeping; an unapologetic workaholic mom who believes being the best that she can be is the best thing she can do for her children; a grandma who reminds us we need stop judging each other—a mom of a special-needs child echoes that sentiment; that lady who thinks French moms are the creme de la creme; and a mothering traditionalist (think: 1950s housewifery) who blames feminism for pretty much everything wrong with society and its children.

The latter argument is a given in this debate, and though hers is not alone in attacking feminism for causing women to devalue marriage and family, in this debate it’s hardly the loudest. Mostly because for perhaps the first time I’ve clicked on an article with a headline like “femimism vs. motherhood,” (and there seems to be a new one every day), I see  a wealth of perspectives. Though each essay was written and published independently, the series reads like a conversation. It gives me hope that we can have civil, educated, open-minded debates with other women on this topic. Because the one thing we all have in common—whether we sling our babies with us everywhere or formula-feed while working 60 hours a week—is that we all struggle with balancing the demands and importance of raising our children while maintaining our identities as individuals.

Doing both is perhaps the hardest thing about parenting and I believe the most important.

Get a pap smear and breast exam.

Get a mammogram if you’re in your 40s or above; immediately if you have a history of breast cancer in your family.

Have your cholesterol checked, eat heart healthy, exercise and reduce your stress. Heart disease is the leading cause of death among women.

Support public health programs for women, advocate for and donate to Planned Parenthood, and contact your lawmakers to tell them you’re so not down with the government trying to diminish healthcare for women.

The next time you visit the doctor, do your research, seek second opinions and ask tons of questions. Advocate for your body’s well-being and health; it’s the only one you’ve got.

There are women in LA who argue that men there are more adventurous than men in other parts of the country, that they’re young at heart and a blast to date. These women enjoy dating the dreamers and find that men in New York are too serious and obsessed with their work.  There have been women here in New York who look at me with shock and horror when I relate my positive outlook on the scene here.  It’s possible I am having such a unique experience because I’m starting over in a new place and therefore radiating a positive energy of optimism, freedom, and fearlessness.  A fistful of great guy friends have confirmed this: Men can read that energy from a mile away and are drawn to it. If there’s a real lesson to be drawn from my experience, that’s probably it. It’s crucial to be happy with myself; to respect myself, love myself, and treat myself the way I’d want or expect any man to. It’s just as important to follow my heart as it is independently of a man.  If I feel like living in New York, I’m not going to wait for a man to take me there, I’m going to be on the move.

In New York, you are constantly surrounded by people.  You are interacting on the street, on the subway, in coffee shops, there are new people and faces everywhere and everyone seems to be open to eye contact and small talk.  This natural co-existence makes it easy to relate to people on a very basic and honest level.   In Los Angeles, you’re constantly surrounded by people, but they’re usually in their cars and they’re usually flipping you off.  Being in this new environment, I have found a significant difference between  the day-dreaming, good time guys, who don’t seem to ever want to grow up out in Los Angeles and the worldly, honest, in control, and did I mention sexy?  New York men.

I have a friend in New York who has spent a lot of time in LA, and I asked about her experiences dating in both places to see how it compared with my own.  In her opinion, the men of New York are more dateable because, as opposed to men in LA, they come here with a plan.  New York, being such a tough city to live and thrive in, is one you must come to with a strategy.  You must lay out a plan of attack and be able to follow through in order to survive.  One generally moves to LA to pursue childhood dreams, ends up working in TV, and it can be a very vain and ego driven existence; I’m allowed to say that, I did it.  I’m finding that people generally come to New York to build realistic and successful careers and inevitably this makes for more grounded men and women.

One of the most attractive things to me about the New York man is his honesty.  This is by far the biggest and most obvious difference to me and something I’m still adjusting to.  This goes for both the men and women in New York.  They are a genuine bunch in a way I’ve never experienced.   The men here seem to have a better sense of self; they know who they are and what they want.  In Los Angeles, the men and women seem to still be figuring all of that out.  Having been a part of that group for a long time, I know that a lot of us there walk around with our head in the clouds pondering what it is that makes us happy and wondering if it’s possible.  You’re surrounded by very young people in a vain  industry and everyone seems to want to hold onto that and keep drinking from the fountain of youth instead of getting real with themselves and growing up to experience all the other wonderful things that maturity and adulthood have to offer.

When a man is truly honest with himself and knows what really makes him happy, he is able to be more honest with the people he is in relationships with.  People in New York seem to be more on that level and it works better for me at this point in my life.  I don’t want the man I’m dating to try to fit who I am.  I want him to know who he is, respect and enjoy who I am, or move on.  In LA, too often, we stick with someone, trying to be someone we’re not or lying to ourselves about who we are and who the other person is, or not really caring to find out in an honest way.  We stick with it hoping to find out that person is who we want them to be instead of asking the important questions outright.  I don’t know where that fear of honesty comes from—I’d venture to guess it’s an outgrowth of the city’s major industry, showbiz—but I know it well and it’s so refreshing being in a place where the men have evolved out of that fear.

I would be remiss not to acknowledge the amazing men who have contributed to my life and learning over the years on Los Angeles.  I would be dishonest in leading you to believe I didn’t fit with them and that scene for a decade.  In my life at this point, however, the men in New York are helping me grow, learn, and understand myself on a more meaningful level. Maybe the move itself, plus my own ever-advancing maturity, has helped me figure out more about who I am and what I want. In turn, I am dating on a more meaningful level and finding men who measure up to the person I have grown into. I know I deserve a man who’s an honest, perfect fit for me—just like the city where I now live.

– Kristin Tschannen

Girls: Let’s just say you’re not allowed in the young, cool feminist club right now if you don’t watch this show when it premieres April 15. Seriously, everyone is talking about it. It also happens to involve Tiny Furniture’s Lena Dunham, producer Judd Apatow, and a wickedly realistic take on life as a struggling, confused, terminally poor young woman. So, win-win.

Mad Men: The drama phenomenon has been hinting at the coming feminist movement since its storytelling began in 1960 (with plenty of ’50s sensibility left over). Now that we’re deep into the ’60s, there’s no escaping the impact of women’s lib. Peggy is now openly lamenting having to “act like a man” to get ahead in her job, while Joan showed her military hubby the door for dominating her for too long. Thanks to those ladies’ show-stealing turns, we barely even care anymore what happens to erstwhile philanderer Don Draper. Oh, and he’s having terrible guilty fever dreams about that, by the way; his seeming desire to make good to second wife Megan makes her more intriguing to us than we thought possible.

Veronica Mars: Yes, our favorite crime-solving teen is back, thanks to cable. SoapNet, known for its awesomely addictive repeats of such hits as The O.C. and One Tree Hill, is now running Veronica, which brought us Kristen Bell, noirish intrigue, and important issues in one package. Set your DVR for the April 15 marathon that kicks it off.

Game of Thrones: This fantastical, sexy, bloody HBO romp was debatably feminist last season; now in its second go-round, it’s become an undeniable tale of female empowerment. Little Stark family runaway Arya is staying under the radar in a cross-dressing plot more believable than anything Shakespeare ever dreamed up; Dany has taken on an indisputable leadership role after the death of her husband; and Theon Greyjoy’s latest conquest turned the tables on him after a roll in the hay. We’re hooked on the soapy, layered plots and drooling over the scruffy hunks in addition to getting our weekly dose of woman-power from the cable net’s newest hit. Thank the Gods it’s already been renewed for a third season.

Nurse Jackie: The tough, pill-popping nurse played by Edie Falco feels real and complicated; she also gives us a dose of Falco’s brilliance every week.

I remember thinking, as I was walking to Dave and Laura’s place that night, that marriage seems like something I could give or take. It was a balmy fall night in 2008, and I headed to their place in Jersey City to meet their new baby. To me, I thought, marriage is like health insurance; I can successfully survive without it, but it seems like a responsible thing to get involved in at some point. I usually think about marriage when I have to do things like, walk alone at night in Jersey City or carry heavy things up the stairs in my fifth floor walk-up. Or when I really need health insurance.

What I do like about marriage, as it pertains to other people, is that it can often make your friends doubly excited to see you, just to have someone new in the house. When I got to Dave and Laura’s place, they were outside talking to a neighbor. Dave wore his tiny daughter in a Baby Bjorn, and because he is a considerably tall guy, it was kind of funny how high up she was. After I met her they introduced me to their neighbor, Amy.

“So, do you guys want to go see Madonna tonight?” Amy said, holding up an envelope. “I have two tickets, and I can’t use them. I have to get back to Sloan Kettering.”

I instantly assumed that Amy was a doctor or nurse, along with her role as a Madonna ticket-wielding angel from heaven. I looked at Dave and Laura, who were shockingly not eagerly grabbing at the envelope.

“Of course, we have to take them,” I said. “It’s Madonna.”

“I can’t go,” Laura said, “I’m nursing and I am still really uncomfortable. I just wouldn’t enjoy it.”

I looked at Dave, who along with being a dude, is a musician, and not exactly a fan of non-ironic pop music. I could understand his apprehension at first.

“If you can tell me how the hell to get there from here, I could go by myself,” I told them.

“I’ll go,” said Dave. “It will be interesting.”

“Dave,” I told him, “along with the birth of your daughter, this will be the most interesting thing to happen to you this year.”

“They are great seats,” Amy said, “put them to good use. Paul gave them to me for our anniversary.”

That’s when I realized she didn’t work at Sloan Kettering. Dave had a great affection for Paul and told a lot of stories about their nights out together in Jersey City. Paul was a great character. He had gotten sick really quickly, and his doctors were confounded about what was causing it. They realized he had a rare blood disease, and they putting forth their best eleventh hour fight. And Amy just handed over her anniversary present to us, unblinkingly, so she could go be with him.

As we headed to the Meadowlands, I tried to sell Dave on the experience.

“Madonna is, after all, Joe Henry’s sister-in-law,” I tell him.

He instantly reaches for his iPod. I figured he would have Joe Henry in close proximity. Dave is the kind of guy who has an encyclopedic knowledge of music and literature. He always seems to have a song in his head and his mind has the rapid, shifting pulse of a touch screen.  He can rarely listen to a song in its entirety.

The Joe Henry song “Stop,” is jazzy. It has that scratchiness of the brush on a drum. The tempo is slower, and it sounds like a song that you could tango to. When Joe Henry sings, “Tell me love isn’t true, it’s just something we do,” it’s in the same tone as the other verses and it sounds almost flirty.

Madonna’s version is the closest to country she has ever gotten. “Don’t Tell Me” is memorable for its twangy guitar riff in the beginning. She takes it from a smoky club and adds a bit of line dancing. But most notably, she takes out the back and forth playfulness of Joe Henry’s version and adds vulnerability. Her version highlights the melancholy in the lyrics.

“Tell the bed not to lay, like the open mouth of a grave.”

“Not to stare up at me, like a calf down on his knees.”

The difference is in tone. Madonna sounds almost pleading.

“Please don’t.”

“Please don’t.”

“Don’t you ever.”

“Don’t ever tell me to stop.”

Madonna isolates and accentuates the line, “Tell me love isn’t true, it’s just something that we do.”

I think it is defining how a man and a woman can interpret a line to such a varied extent. It sort of reminds me of marriage, I think, two people locked in the same song with completely perspectives on the tune, yet only one actually says “please.” But I don’t say this out loud. I just say, “I like Madonna’s song better.”

The sports and entertainment complex in East Rutherford, New Jersey looks like it got there by accident. That fall, it looked as if New Jersey went to an enormous building garage sale and stocked up. There was an old Giants Stadium, a new Giants Stadium, there may have been a soccer stadium, and next to the Izod Center, where Madonna was performing on her Sticky and Sweet Tour, there was this ski lift type contraption that looked like it was made of Legos. At night, it can look sad. That is, unless of course, thousands upon thousands of Madonna fans are arriving en masse. Then it looks like a sparkling cartwheel riot.

Having a career that spans decades, means that Madonna has fans of every shape and form. The gays come out in full devotional regalia; there are matching outfits, lots of short shorts and eagerly-placed sparkles in fantastic formations. And that is just the men. There in the land of football Giants, it is their Super Bowl.  The women are of all ages, but none super young. Lots of former lace-bow wearing, rubber bracelet-armed girls.

The Izod Center is chaos and crawling with people, thrilled to spend their Saturday night in the same building as Madonna.

When we go to buy drinks, we find numerous stands that sell individually-packaged frozen cocktails, daiquiris, pina coladas and margaritas. Everything is stepped up to a slightly more fabulous level.

Dave looks at me.

“Are we supposed to get those?” he says, “I feel like an asshole drinking beer.” We do it anyway.

When we find our seats, we are in awe. The stage is the size of a Broadway theater but way more elaborate. There is a platform that extends out from center stage, deep into the audience and there are two satellite stages that branch off on the left and right side.  We are no more than one hundred feet from one of these. They are seats that I would never be able to afford and probably the best seats I will ever have access to any Madonna show, maybe.

It begins and there is video and magic and I would not be surprised if one day it is discovered that Madonna has been replacing body parts with robot parts over the years and is actually a cyborg. I yell something about this notion in Dave’s direction but he just says, “Huh?” He is transfixed, and for the first time in our friendship, I witness him dancing.

I never got a chance to meet Paul before he died, but I feel like I got a sense of who he was from his profoundly ecstatic and charming love for his wife, as evidenced by his anniversary present to her.  I thought about Amy while we were there, and her love for him, as evidenced by the fact that she was exactly where she wanted and needed to be.  It’s just something that we do.

There are many new Madonna identities trotted out in the course of a show, and that tour she brought Gypsy Caravan Madonna, Jump-Roping Madonna and the variations on the theme of “Hard Candy.” She danced with a hologram of Justin Timberlake and she may have actually roller-skated, but that might be a fever dream brought on my sheer bliss in being there. She reinvigorated the classics, songs we all know the words to that we’d all sung along to for years and careers and marriages and babies.

Then there was a crescendo. It involved the dancers and back-up singers and we were all together singing in unison, taken up in the wave, a community of a moment. And then she was finished. The house lights went on and we all stood around, hoarse and a bit dumb-founded. There is always the desire for more, but we all know, Madonna doesn’t do encores. At some point she does actually stop.

Jezebel’s Lindy West gets transcendent picking apart a douchey Globe and Mail piece: “Titled ‘Why men can’t—and shouldn’t—stop staring at women,’ the piece attempts to make a reasoned argument for why the male gaze isn’t creepy (in fact, men are doing society hella favors!), but instead reads like an episode of Law & Order: SVU (one of the ones where Liv uses her sexuality as a weapon and it backfires and Elliot has to rescue her).” Her evisceration only gets better from there.

We heart mentoring young feminists: And we kinda want to take this debate workshop that Ms. talks about here even though we’re grown women.

An interesting women-in-tech mini-controversy: Two recent semi-public sexist incidents in the overwhelmingly male programming industry prompted a swift and decisive outcry — refreshingly, not from feminist agitators, but from the industry itself, as reported by blogger Brian Curtin. This seems like good news — if one company is so quick to denounce another for “hiring women to bring you beer,” that means lots of these places genuinely want to welcome women to their high-paying, in-demand ranks.

Yeah, we’re gonna have to support a no-porn-on-planes rule: We’re neither prudes nor Miss Manners, but it just seems rude to peruse porn when you’re crammed into those tiny seats so close together. YourTango has more on one women’s crusade against such antics.

Feminist!

Katniss Everdeen is a badass. The Hunger Games is often compared to Twilight because both are female-targeted fantasy fiction, written by a woman with a female lead character. But Katniss is no Bella Swan. Rather than moping and brooding after an aloof, abusive guy, er, vampire, Katniss is a little more focused on saving the world. She’s the hero of the story not because she’s a woman but because she’s brave, loyal, determined and human. She fights for good, stands up to evil and the focus of her character is that she’s a warrior, rather than a sex object (we say a big thank-you that Jennifer Lawrence’s breasts weren’t forced to be a supporting character like so many other action ladies’ have been—yeah, like, all of them.) One feminist blogger even noted that the gender of this character could be exchanged without changing the story at all. That’s pretty revolutionary.

Maybe Not…

While it’s a major score for feminism that we can now, hopefully, move beyond the vapid co-dependence of boy-crazy Twilight characters, this new brand of female hero—Katniss Everdeen in Hunger Games and Lisbeth Salander in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo before her—takes badass perhaps a bit too far. The gore and guts in the former and sexual violence in the latter are akin to something we might see in the latest torture-porn flick. That’s not to say women-targeted action adventures can’t and shouldn’t include fighting, swordplay, blood and conflict. Girls like this stuff too. But perhaps The Hunger Games walks a little too closely to the line of exploitation. Our hero, Katniss, is a pretty girl in peril (Hollywood loves those), literally fighting for her life. The titillation there is the threat of her death, which she narrowly escapes, not without scars, on more than one occasion. Wars need fighting and women leading the way is imagery I hope we see more of in entertainment. But perhaps we can find a way to project this without also adding to the overabundance of violent, abusive depictions of women.