AfterEllen's Top 100 Hottest Women

AfterEllen, the fabulous Logo-based website for lesbian and bisexual women, has releasted its top 100 hottest women as chosen by its readers. And I have to say, if I weren't, you know, interested in men, this may just be the hottest list around. 

The top 5:

1. Portia de Rossi
2. Jennifer Beals
3. Lena Headey
4. Leisha Hailey
5. Sarah Shahi

I don't know who three of those five women are, but I have to admit... Portia is no surprise. She's gorgeous and she's married to Ellen. 

Check out the whole list.

(Especially while I eagerly await AfterElton's 100 hottest men list.)

UK Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy

"I’m not a lesbian poet, whatever that is. If I am a lesbian icon and a role model, that’s great, but if it is a word that is used to reduce me, then you have to ask why someone would want to reduce me? I never think about it. I don’t care about it. I define myself as a poet and as a mother – that’s all."

Meet the UK's new poet laureate, Carol Ann Duffy, apparently considered one of the most widely read contemporary poets in the English language. She also happens to be lesbian. Duffy was nominated for the position in 1999 but Blair didn't think a "homosexual poet laureate" would play well in middle England. She also happens to be the first female poet laureate of the UK.

A piece of her work, called "Talent:"

This is the word tightrope. Now imagine
a man, inching across it in the space
between our thoughts. He holds our breath.

There is no word net.

You want him to fall, don't you?
I guessed as much; he teeters but succeeds.
The word applause is written all over him.

Thanks to LGBT History Month -- UK. Make sure you check out her interview with BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour.

Oprah and CNN take on female-only relationships

Hrm. Considering the interest garnered by the previous two posts on bisexuality, and the noted lack of talk about women in the referenced articles, I found this on the "Most Emailed" List on CNN this morning.

I eagerly await your thoughts, because, if I know my readers, you have many interesting things to say about it:

Lately, a new kind of sisterly love seems to be in the air. In the past few years, Sex and the City's Cynthia Nixon left a boyfriend after a decade and a half and started dating a woman (and talked openly about it)...

Certainly nothing is new about women having sex with women, but we've arrived at a moment in the popular culture when it all suddenly seems almost fashionable -- or at least, acceptable...

But experts like Binnie Klein, a Connecticut-based psychotherapist and lecturer in Yale's department of psychiatry, agree that alternative relationships are on the rise.

"It's clear that a change in sexual orientation is imaginable to more people than ever before, and there's more opportunity -- and acceptance -- to cross over the line," says Klein, noting that a half-dozen of her married female patients in the past few years have fallen in love with women. "Most are afraid that if they don't go for it, they'll end up with regrets."

Feminist philosopher Susan Bordo, Ph.D, a professor of English and gender and women's studies at the University of Kentucky and author of "Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body," also agrees that in the current environment, more women may be stepping out of the conventional gender box.

"When a taboo is lifted or diminished, it's going to leave people freer to pursue things," she says.

"So it makes sense that we would see women, for all sorts of reasons, walking through that door now that the culture has cracked it open. Of course, we shouldn't imagine that we're living in a world where all sexual choices are possible. Just look at the cast of 'The L Word' and it's clear that only a certain kind of lesbian -- slim and elegant or butch in just the right androgynous way -- is acceptable to mainstream culture."...

"People always ask me if this research means everyone is bisexual. No, it doesn't," says Lisa Diamond, Ph.D, associate professor of psychology and gender studies at the University of Utah and author of the 2008 book "Sexual Fluidity: Understanding Women's Love and Desire."

"Fluidity represents a capacity to respond erotically in unexpected ways due to particular situations or relationships. It doesn't appear to be something a woman can control."

Furthermore, studies indicate that it's more prevalent in women than in men, according to Bonnie Zylbergold, assistant editor of American Sexuality, an online magazine.

I submit to you without comment ... for now, at least.

100 Hottest Lesbians

To my (occasional) lesbian readers!!!

Vote now for the hottest women on the planet at AfterEllen.com, as decided by lesbian and bisexual women and not by Maxim or Sports Illustrated! Tell them who you think is beautiful!!!

For me (who will not be participating in the survey), I think number 1 should be Tori Spelling, but that's just me. Oooo... or, maybe, Tammy Baldwin. Tell me there are people out there that think politics is sexy. I mean, other than the obvious hotness factor of, say, Aaron Schock.

I have a tag that just says "lesbians." Hrm.

On Lesbian Kisses...

Favorite new quote ever, via a great AfterEllen piece on lesbian kisses on TV:

“It started like every other organic, long-term lesbian relationship on television: with liquor and a complete misunderstanding.”

Sounds like every one of my relationships.

(via another AfterEllen article)

Susan Arnold Leaving P&G

Picture thanks to SheWired
HA! Right, I'm covering P&G. Well, I guess I sort of am. P&G's highest ranking female is on special assignment until September, reports the Advocate, leaving her work life open to speculation.

Rumors have it that a couple other Fortune 500 companies may be interested in her talents -- including Playboy and Sears.

...which would make her the first openly LGBT CEO of a Fortune 500.

Funny, didn't even know she was one of us.

Marge Simpson = Lesbian?

This is a real screen shot that aired this week on the Simpsons.

Lesbian = Overtly Sexual for Microsoft

[snarky] I knew "lesbian" was a bad word!!!! [/snarky]

Via The Consumerist:

Teresa says that she was harassed by other players and later suspended from XBOX Live because she identified herself as a lesbian in her profile. When she appealed to Microsoft, she says they told her that other gamers found her sexual orientation "offensive.

We've heard of gamers being suspended for identifying themselves as gay in their GamerTag, and even one case of a guy whose name was actually "Richard Gaywood" but his tag was suspended anyway because apparently the word "gay" is so offensive that it doesn't matter if its actually your name.

As far as we know, Microsoft is unwilling to reconsider this position

Weird, dude. I thought Microsoft, overall was really very supportive? [snarky] In all seriousness, though, I find lesbianism terribly offensive.[/snarky]

Really, though, I thought gamers (straight males, predominately, unless I miss my guess) would be just fine with a lesbitron roaming their halls occasionally. It's something more interesting to see than, well, pretty much anything on the screen.

I really love my GameCube, btw. I'm a mini-gamer. Closeted, too.

Lesbians in Spandex!

Next up in gay superheroes?

Batwoman is a lesbian, marking the first major lesbian superhero.

1967 Murder Case

A death bed confessional is generally considered acceptable as truth because there's nothing left to lose.

Sucks to be 70 something and arrested for murder:

Two months before dying, a Virginia woman confessed to killing two women nearly 42 years ago, authorities said Friday, telling police she shot the women because they had taunted her for being a lesbian.

Sharron Diane Crawford Smith, 60, confessed in a November 28 interview to shooting the women at a Staunton ice cream store in 1967, authorities said.

"I was just pushed so far," Smith said, according to a transcript of a police interview.

Smith was arrested and charged with first-degree murder in the deaths of Constance Smootz Hevener, 19, and Hevener's 20-year-old sister-in-law, Carolyn Hevener Perry, according to CNN affiliate WVIR.

But health problems forced a postponement of a December court date, WVIR said, and Smith, who had heart and kidney problems, died January 19.

Authorities on Friday said they consider Smith the guilty party and are working toward closing the case.

In a transcript of the police interview, Smith told police she and the women worked at High's Ice Cream. The night of the shooting, she went to the store to tell the women she could not work the next day and took her .25-caliber pistol with her.

"I was just going to tell them that I couldn't work and one thing led to another."

She acknowledged that teasing "about my lifestyle" had gone on for a while.

Asked how the victims knew about it, she said, "How do kids find out about anything? I mean, it was really unusual back then."

Um. Don't make fun of lesbians is the lesson here, I think.

Lesbian Experimentation

I just giggle every time I read xkcd.com ... even if I've read the same comic over and over and over again. I've posted about it before, long ago, but I can't seem to find it, and, honestly, I don't care.



Oh, and PS, I love that I have a "lesbians" label already. I wonder where it takes me...

BLOGGING: Update @ Rainbow Cincinnati!!!

New column posted at Rainbow Cincinnati!!!! Here's your sneak peak, and here are all of my columns!!!

"When did you become a hypocrite?" Libby asked as I handed her an HRC sticker during the Northside Fourth of July Parade.

Just a few weeks before, she and I had harangued a local HRC Steering Committee member at Dayton Gay Pride about the evils of the gay empire -- the Human Rights Campaign. And now? I was promoting their event. In the matter of less than a month, I had become a hypocrite.
(click here for the rest)

And don't forget to check out Juliet's column, too, over there... a preview from her latest:

Lesbian Bed Death is a term created by sex researcher, Pepper Schwartz. It’s a term that describes, what she calls, the inevitable diminishment of sexual passion in a long-term lesbian relationship. Schwartz study indicated that over time, lesbians have less sex than all other couples, no matter the sexual orientation. Most noted was the fact that there was a steep decline in sexual activity among lesbians after the first year!
(click here for all of her posts)

Darren has not posted since last I updated.

And don't forget to click on the img below to browse the rest of this excellent site!!!!