This post is not about Sexism or Feminism, it is about my experience in talking about them.

I have had several conversations lately about how people engage in debate over sex / gender / body (SGB) identity issues.  I am launching a blog that supports dialogue on those issues and in the communities that they create.  As I frame the terms of the conversations and the goals of the site, I have begun to articulate my view on the structure of dialogue itself.

We have a confession to make.

We read the May issue of Cosmopolitan. Okay, and the April issue also. We went on a trip at the end of March that involved long boring train rides! We’ll try not to let it happen again, especially since we’ve learned that for all of their willingness to talk openly about sex and encourage their readers to have a lot of it, the editors of Cosmo can also be pretty judgmental when it comes to expressions of sexuality that break their arbitrary rules. There's a section in the front of the magazine called "Cosmo News", which I can only assume means "here in Cosmoland we think this information qualifies as news", because it's all stuff about Zac Efron and random studies about kissing and the new trendy style of sandals among celebrities. On the "Hot Sheet" page, there's a little sidebar on "What's Not So Hot", and the victim this month is Pam Anderson:

What's Not So Hot: Acting Age-Inappropriate Dear Pam, You can still be hot in your 40s. You cannot, however, do it by acting like you did when you were in your 20s. Sincerely, Cosmo

This little love note is accompanied by a couple of images of Pam wearing a revealing bathing suit/bodysuit/sparkly thing, and one of them is captioned, "Her sons must be psyched."