* Andrea Plaid takes on Trojan’s new hip-hop centered Magnum condom campaign, “Magnum Live Large,” and how it reinforces the “ye olde black male penis myth” [via Feministing]:

The campaign is an great idea, considering the epidemic-level stats on HIV and Black cis and trans women and, as my friend sexologist Bianca Laureano said, “especially in the hip-hop community where ‘I like it raw’ is still prominent.”

I am wondering, though, about the racialized sexual stereotypes undergirding and getting perpetuating by this, namely that mainstay of black sex-negative imagery, the Big Black Penis.

* Fuck you, LOST! Ahem. This is pretty interesting, however: Bitch Magazine crunches the numbers on race and death throughout the series.

* Emily Nagoski talks trials and tribulations of dating as a sex educator:

it’s hard to date when you’re a “sexpert” (hideous word). I mean, at what point in a new relationship is it appropriate to tell a guy that you’ve written a guide about fellatio? How early can you talk about orgasms and lubrication and the miracle that is cervical mucus? How early in a relationship is too early to use the word mucus? . . . It appears you can’t talk to any guy you’ve just met about sex—-even about sex research—-without giving him the wrong impression.

* On I Blame the Patriarchy, lessons learned from true crime documentary television:

(a) If a man targets you on Craigslist and murders you, remember that the really shocking thing to television producers will be the “photos of dead women in porn outfits.”

(b) Sex work is only safe if you are working at the direction of a pimp. “So ladies, remember; if you’re gonna work the classier hotels, you’d better get yourself a pimp to “protect” you. Otherwise you might come down with a terminal case of slain masseuse.”

* Sociological Images on Shape magazine: Kim Kardashian is confident with her body. Readers: Don’t learn how to get confident—-learn how to get a body just like Kim’s!:

It’s another example of articles that pretend to be presenting an alternative to beauty standards/Hollywood ideals (be confident! Even stars have cellulite! So what?!?) but ultimately reinforce them, both by presenting images in which the featured women’s bodies differ little from those seen in the rest of the magazine and by making sure you know how to diet and exercise in order to get  your body to conform.

Photo via Thirteen of Clubs, Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0