In a post titled "So, I broke my neck," Clarisse Thorn says

That’s why I haven’t been around the Interwebs for a while. Because I broke my neck in a bicycle accident.

...

The only reason I survived this accident with nothing more than a fractured spine is because I was wearing a helmet. If I hadn’t been wearing a helmet, I would be dead right now. Wear a helmet!

Source: Clarisse Thorn

She says it doesn't look like there will be any neurological issues or paralysis but at the moment she's in a brace that's literally screwed into her skull.

This would be a good time to mention that I wish there was a good way to say "I'm sorry XYZ happened" that didn't at least peripherally imply a sense of responsibility for someone else's woes. Lacking that I'm just going to say I'm really sorry Clarisse was injured so badly and I'm glad that she wasn't more badly hurt.

I like Clarisse a lot, and as long as I've been reading her I've really valued her commitment, her perspective, and her insights into areas of gender and sexuality that have historically been swaddled in assumptions, stereotypes, myths, and sometimes deliberate untruths.

From the bottom of my heart I wish her a speedy and complete recovery.

And yeah, wear a helmet and if you've got loved ones do what you can to make sure they wear theirs.

Em & Lo are looking for new contributors to their popular Wise Guys section. I'm a participant and if you meet their understandably male-identifying criteria you might be too. Here's the scoop.

All we need is a few good men. A straight single guy, a straight married guy, and a gay single or married guy, to be precise. Must be communicative, concise, respectful of deadlines and not sexist. Bonus points for a great sense of humor and a penchant for correct grammar. We can pay you in crazy promotion for a blog, a book or a business (sorry, we’re short on cold hard cash these days). If you’re interested, send us a sample answer to the question below via our contact form (select “Question for the Wise Guys” in the pull down menu) — please keep your answer to one paragraph, no more than 250 words. And don’t forget to let us know your relationship status, sexual orientation, age, profession, the name you’d be writing under, what (if anything) you’d like promoted (please include links), and if you’d be happy for us to use your picture. By submitting a written answer to the below question, you agree to allow us to publish your answer on EMandLO.com for all eternity:

What’s the best way for a woman to ask a guy out?

Source: Em & Lo

Once again you submit your answer to their contact form, not in comments on this blog.

Note: The enclosed erotic male image is considered perfectly "safe for work" since it only shows body parts that straight men don't realize are sexy.  All links, however, lead to other NSFW posts.

Note to Rep. Weiner and... pretty much every other man who thinks it's the height of creativity to snap a pixie of their peepee and call it erotic, here's how you do it.

Australian sex-blogger and frequent erotic self-photographer GeekyVamp reposts another woman sex-blogger, Musingsandmischief's repost of a male self-photographer, Isinpi's photo.

Photo by Tumblr user Isinpi.

Oh wow, mr Isinpi,

this pic deserves to be reblogged the shit out of. Well played sir, well played…

musingsandmischief:

Beautiful picture, no wonder I keep seeing reblogs with you getting tumblr ladies weak at the knees.

isinpi:

I can’t decide which one, so fuck it I’ll post two. Hands, clavicle, lips, and scruff in one photo.

Source: There May Be Tits There May Be Banter

It's not that women don't think penises are sexy.  Or that penis bulges veiled behind athlete-gray underpants are sexy.  A surprising number do.  But what seems to be an even more surprising number of women prefer a bit more context -- as, in fact, would most men if they too were regularly innundated with random unsolicited closeups of solicitous women's vulvas.  Once context is established (and believe it or not, intentionally visiting a porn site establishes some kind of context) then one has a great deal more latitude.

But for out of the blue imagery?  Even when you want to preserve your anonymity?  Well.  If you follow the link to his Tumblr post and check out who's already followed and/or liked the photo you'll find that as of this morning (the photo was posted this morning) fifteen women (and no men) have indicated their approval and several, like GV and MAM have reposted it to their own erotic-photography blogs.

Hint, maybe?  Clue perhaps?

The funniest thing?  I could be mistaken but I'm guessing that Rep. Weiner could post and tweet photos like this all day long and the likes of Andrew Brietbart would never register it.  Or if they did they wouldn't register it as anything but some kind of artsy-fartsy east-coast liberal noodlings.  Because, you see, it wouldn't be porn for men.

Now I don't happen to think there's anything wrong with porn for men per se. And of course there are plenty of women who are downright cheerful about consuming it (and of course men who aren't.)  But that's not the point.

The point is, it seems to me, that if you're interested in women, and if you're going to go around sending random, unsolicited photos of yourself to women, then maybe you should take, oh, five or ten minutes to find out what women find most eye-catching about men.  And try sending that instead.

Especially if you're going to send them via Twitter.  Because, you see, while in the ancient history that was the world before Twitter (i.e. July, 2006) and before Tumblr (i.e. 2007) it was quite a bit harder to find out what sort of erotic images of heterosexual men women preferred.  But nowadays?  If you were interested you could find out pretty quickly.  But you would have to be interested.

Update: While watering the planter boxes just now it occurred to me that I might sound like I'm claiming I know this photo but not that one will work as "porn for women."  I'm just saying that if you want to know what works, look at what women are saying works!  Same's true, obviously, about all manner of other kinds of decisions, sex-related or not, about what works for all kinds of people.  Even when you think you know what should work for other people.

Also, this post obviously isn't supposed to be an enlightening tract on how people, in Congress, in power, or otherwise, should and should not impose themselves sexually on those who have not indicated it would be appreciated. 

Amanda Marcotte contributes to the recent spate of anti-gotcha spine-construction posts. Dan Savage recently said something (I haven't checked what.) Amanda doesn't agree with him (for reasons I haven't read but suspect are probably, well, reasonable.) Amanda begins with the following disclaimer.

Disclaimer: I'm not interested in turning this into a tedious thread about how Dan Savage is the worst person who ever lived because he occasionally says something you disagree with.  I'm genuinely surprised he gets shit on so much, since his occasional error is inevitable when you're producing a voluminous amount of work on the often-tricky and complex questions of sexual and relationship ethics and choices.  Most of the time, people who get shit on as much as he does, it's because the shit-ers believe the shit-ee is sensitive and responsive, and they enjoy shitting on them because they know it gets to them.  But Savage strikes me as thick-skinned, so I don't know why the Internet Denunciation Committee even bothers.  I don't really think he gives a flying fuck what you think.

Source: Pandagon

Yeah, that whole 15 minutes of hate thing has been getting a little old lately. I actually think Twisty Faster started it -- as ironic as that might possibly sound she actually dropped renamed herself Jill and changed her blog name to "Savage Death Island" in response to a near fatal case of screw-up gotcha-ing. Jill Filipovic has lately been getting the bit in her teeth. And now Amanda's weighing in.

I think it's a good idea to

#1) leave a brief note ("hey, when you're in treatment for real psychiatric problems it's not very comfortable hearing you call someone 'crazy' or 'mental' when you mean you think they're really mistaken") instead of unloading all over them, or

#2) respond with a brief apology ("Wow, it hadn't registered that 'crazy' is more than a dead metaphor. I apologize.") instead of volleying back with a defense of your infallibility or, worse, why you don't think the person your words hurt should have felt hurt(!!!!)

I mean, yes, there are limits to everything -- nobody's saying we should hold back on the deliberately racist male supremacist Satoshi Kanazawa, for instance, or even the affably tin-eared Scott Adams In fact nobody, including Amanda, is saying Dan Savage should be given a pass in the first place -- certainly not given a pass just because he's "one of us!" But just sitting there with your finger on your newsreader's "next" button waiting to pounce and denounce isn't constructive engagement, it's Tea Party tactics.