Letter From Your Editors

Hello Autostraddle Plus members!

Welcome to the fourth edition of the Insider Newsletter, brought to you by the Senior Staff of Autostraddle.com, your #1 source for tips on canning and orchid-related embroidery projects. It’s almost Halloween! If you have kids, I hope they’re gonna look as cute as we did when we were kids. Hey, look at these weirdos who work here:

Well folks — we got behind this month. I mean, epically behind. Shit fell to pieces. Pitches and drafts and e-mails piled up. The second wave of CE applicants to contact about contributing in other capacities? Never contacted. Every day was another game of “what are we gonna do for content?” Grace’s third attempt at editing a podcast suffered yet another technical mishap. Laneia’s attempt to salvage the podcast ended with her laptop drenched in water, its contents instantly inaccessible. Hansen had to step down from her DIY/Food Editor position due to school/work. Intern Grace had to step down out of her full-time position to pursue comic book stardom. Bren, Cara and Ali started grad school. Google reconfigured its algorithm to knock us back out of top search results for “lesbian” and a host of other keywords thus destroying the traffic gains we’d made recently. It was a dark time.

But in these times of darkness come bright beaming rays of light and opportunities to change and transform our world into a better, smarter, more expensive version of the world from which we came. Then we pray to the earth goddesses that we’ll earn the money to pay for this new world. Then, in order to manifest this reality, we all drink a magic potion comprised of a dollop of Shane McCutcheon’s favorite hair product, a Tegan & Sara tattoo, a That’s So Raven! VHS box set and ten organic caramel apples from a lesbian-owned farm in Missoula AND THEN do a special dance around a bonfire while a heartbroken lesbian reads tragic slam poetry to the beat of iced tea being stirred.

We’ve faced impasses like this one before when something had to give. It happened last year when we decided to pay our writers, it happened in 2012 when we decided to fix the website and make Rachel and Alex full-time, it happened in 2011 when we decided to hold morning meetings and send daily e-mails and in general organize how we operated, and it happened in 2009 when I was drowning in a sea of my own creation and Laneia became Autostraddle’s first paid full-time human (at a whopping $500 a month!).

This time, we’re upping what Subject Editors are paid and how involved they are in leadership and management of the site as a whole, moving Yvonne Marquez into a full-time Senior Editor position, promoting Rachel to Managing Editor, moving our entire operation to Slack, and bringing on Heather Hogan as another Senior Editor!

Heather comes to us with over six years experience as a Senior Editor at AfterEllen and is really excited to write about things besides television for y’all! But she’s also excited to write about television for y’all. Since AfterEllen has hired our Chelsea Steiner to take Heather’s job at AE, Heather will be taking over Chelsea’s recaps of Orphan Black, and she’ll also be recapping Pretty Little Liars, Gotham, Lost Girl and The Fosters and switching off weeks with me for Glee. We’re super pumped to see what she can add to the team and you can read her tumblr post about her job switch here.

We’ll be having a big membership drive soon — we have 590 paid members now and were able to give away six free memberships last month with our comment contest! We still need 1,000 members by year’s end. WE CAN DO IT. We also hope you’ve enjoyed our amazing lip sync videos (and that they filled a podcast-shaped void in your heart), The Costumed Sex We’re Talking About Today, Mey’s beautiful essay on going to church presenting as a woman for the first time and the fourth, fifth and sixth issues of everybody’s favorite community newspaper, The A+ Bee!

Love,

RRLYH

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Top 10 Most Popular Posts From September 2014

These posts were hella popular last month.

1. 28 Gay Girl Covers of Straight Songs Because Everything’s Better When It’s Queered, by Riese Bernard
2. Lesbian Obesity Study Misses The Point, by Mari Brighe
3. It’s Bisexual Awareness Week! Here Are Five Ways To Celebrate, by Audrey White
4. How To Have Lesbian Sex: Anal Edition, by Yana
5. A Tomboy Femme’s Dream Come True: Jewelry You’ll Actually Want To Wear, by Sarah Hansen
6. You Need Help: Battling Heteronormativity With Style, by Lydia
7. No Tampons, No Diva Cup, No Problem: Two Earth-Friendly Tampon Alternatives, by July Westhale
8. She Asked If She Still Made Me Nervous, by Kari
9. Autostraddle’s 2014 Fall TV Preview: Queers and Women of Color All Over Your Teevee, by Riese
10. NSFW Lesbosexy Sunday Wants To Strap On First, by Carolyn

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Nine Important Excerpts From Editorial Conversations

Heather: Archie Panjabi is leaving The Good Wife at the end of the season to star in her own show. I’m sure they’ll replace her character with another bisexual woman of color. (Ha!)
Brittani: I’m replacing her. I’m actually just going to continue to be Kalinda via a dope wig. They won’t be addressing it at all so it’s best we keep this quiet.
Heather: In that case, this is the best entertainment news of the year!
Rachel: Is the show gonna be called The Good Wife is Hilarious

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Carmen: just got a press release about a marijuana food truck in dc giving lessons on cooking with mary jane. i’m taking this as a sign that i need to change the entire course of my life and pursue a career in marijuana innovation. side note: i think about this on an almost daily basis.
Laneia: Carmen can you please report back re anyone on/involved in this truck being a queer womanz?
Carmen: oh, it’s just two dudes
Rachel: so would you say it’s two dudes, one truck
Carmen: i should do a food list of marijuana treats but the entire world would scowl at me, so.
Laneia: carmen right now i represent the whole world and i am not scowling and am instead approving this food list.
Kaylah: I found AS after looking for a good pot brownie recipe… I thought ‘Get Baked with Autostraddle’ was a weed cooking series

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Yvonne: black women do not ride bicycles according to shutter stock
only white women ride bicycles
Laneia: yes
also 90% of the time it’s only in an effort to get flowers from point A to point B

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Stef: hey congratulations heather for being quoted in this really weird page six article about how celesbians are EVERYWHERE YOU LOOK (cue full house theme song)
Rachel: guys i heard a noise behind my couch, worried it might be a celesbian? should i check
Laura: Rachel don’t worry, it’s probably just Brittani in a wig

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Carmen: a construction crew told me how cute my dog was and let me go on our walk this morning and i questioned my internalized assumptions of them in my head space. then one of them openly followed me into an alley, acknowledging how scared i was and refusing to let me leave while he hit on me, and he walked with me to the corner where i live, leaving a last promise: to find me again tomorrow and to get my number when he did.
“rebel girls: yes every single man now please eliminate yourselves from earth.”
Ali: But Carmen! Not all men.

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Laneia: do we publish pieces by outwardly straight women?
is this writer queer and i just missed it
Rachel: i don’t think she’s queer
but her stuff is so good
maybe she kissed a girl in college once
[…]
Rachel: i mean come on, her website says “She is currently working on a sexy female Robin Hood heist caper.”
that is so fucking gay
Laneia: that’s like the story of our existence
Autostraddle Dot Com: a sexy female Robin Hood heist caper
i’d buy the shirt
Rachel: i feel like that’s a way more revealing question than if someone is butch or femme
are you Robin Hood or Maid Marian
or, alternatively, a Little John
Laneia: the people who were friends with maid marian, that’s me. but i would’ve wanted to be robin hood himself. it’s very complicated.

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Laneia: let the record show that july’s cheese does not look hard to me
or semi-hard
BUT OK
Rachel: can we somehow not use “semi-hard”
it sounds really pornographic for some reason
Laneia: flaccid
Rachel: half-mast cheese
Laneia: post-coital cheese
Rachel: whiskey cheese
i’m sorry this almost never happens cheese
Laneia: !!!!

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Riese: this really great podcast applicant i was really excited about pitched us $1,200 for a 15-minute podcast
i cannot imagine what a person could do in 15 minutes that would be worth $1,200
Rachel: you definitely can’t do it over the internet, that’s for sure

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Audrey: Public Service Announcement: Cameron Esposito’s new comedy album came out yesterday! It is funny.
Grace: Actually, would it be ok if I team pick Cameron Esposito’s album? Her publicist keeps emailing me about it, and I actually really like it anyway.
Rachel: i think cameron esposito team pick sounds good! almost typed “carmen esposito” bc carmen.
Carmen: carmen esposito de la pica morales
Brittani: Noooooo. I’m doing a review! Cameron asked me to do a review that’s the plan.
Grace: HOW DARE YOU BE SO ON TOP OF THINGS
Rachel: what if grace waits and team picks brittani’s review
brittani can then review grace’s team pick of her review
ok good glad we talked

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Meet Some New Contributors!

Get to know some of our newest faces.

Heather Hogan, Senior Editor

Tumblr: heatherannehogan
Twitter: hhoagie
Instagram: heatherannehogan
Facebook: Heather Anne Hogan

If you could only use one emoji for the rest of your life, what would it be?
That cat that’s scowling at something off to the side. Sometimes I’ll be halfway to firing off a text about a thing that’s annoying me, but as soon as I add that guy, I’m like, “You feel me, cat” and I don’t have to complain to my people after all. If the emoji makers would add a therapy cat, I’d save so much money.

What is your favorite kind of sandwich?
Grilled cheese sandwiches are my favorite sandwiches. There’s a place in Astoria called Queens Kickshaw that basically only serves world class beer and cider and grilled cheese sandwiches. (So: heaven, basically.) Listen to this one: gouda, black bean hummus, guava jam, and pickled jalapeños. Maybe the most perfect thing to ever happen between two slices of bread (which is where all the best things happen).

Describe the worst date you’ve ever been on.
I one time went on a date with a girl who insisted Bella Swan is a better fictional character than Hermione Granger. I spent a lot of time in the bathroom staring at myself in the mirror having a mental crisis about how I ended up in that position. Like, how had she duped me so thoroughly. She had seemed so nice, so normal. Was she a terrorist? Had she drugged me? Was I in some kind of matrix-type simulation facing down my worst fears? Could she even read? Luckily our server spilled an entire tray of drinks on me, so I got to step out early.

What’s your favorite sex toy?
My best friend gave me this thing called Lady Clankington’s Little Death Ray. It looks like a steampunk gun, but it’s actually a vibrator! I’ve never used it because I’m the kind of person who doesn’t take action figures out of the box, but I’m going to cosplay with that thing one day and it’s going to be so rad.

What’s your #1 turn-on?
Brainz. Girls who talk smart about stuff make my soul sing. But like a specific kind of smart. The effortless kind where you’re just talking how you talk in regular life, not performing or anything, and what you’re saying is about how you read this and learned that and have been thinking deep about this other thing. Teaching me something is the best way to seduce me.

What’s your #1 turn-off?
Jerks. I like nice people only.

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KaeLyn Rich, Contributing Editor

Website: kaelynrich
Twitter: kaelynrich
Instagram: kaelynrich

If you could only use one emoji for the rest of your life, what would it be?
I went to my recently used emoji and the goddamn honest truth is that I get excited about things a lot of the time and I’m also sarcastic and I use that clapping hands emoji pretty much every day ever. So I guess that’d be it, so I could both enthusiastically and sarcastically clap at y’all.

What is your favorite kind of sandwich?
Cucumber, dill, salt, pepper, veganaise, avocado slices

Describe the worst date you’ve ever been on.
I’ve never really dated in the traditional sense of the word. I have sex with my friends. That’s kind of my m.o. We become friends. We tell each other deep dark secrets. I fuck you. For better or worse, we take it from there. So basically The L Word.

What’s your favorite sex toy?
Solo time: a simple and powerful vibrator for clit stimulation like a Pocket Rocket (cheap) or Hitachi (fancy).
Partner time: restraints (not restraint)

What’s your #1 turn-on?
Brains and snarkiness. If you can debate me and keep up with my sarcastic flirt-style, we have a match.

What’s your #1 turn-off?
Heteronormativity or gendernormativity.

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Anna Bongiovanni, Cartoonist

Website: annabongiovanni
Tumblr: bikesbabesandbooze
Twitter: dumb_
Facebook: Anna Bongiovanni

If you could only use one emoji for the rest of your life, what would it be?
Probably the one of the person biking, but I’d really like to pair it with the snowflake ’cause that is my life in Minneapolis.

What is your favorite kind of sandwich?
Let’s be real, cookie sandwiches: Oreos, ice cream sandwiches, moon pies, etc.

Describe the worst date you’ve ever been on.
Someone talked about how their ex wanted to carry their eggs. Like in their belly. To produce babies. This was before I even had finished my first beer. I’m sorry, but I would like to be at least three beers in before I hear the word ‘womb,’ kthanks.

What’s your favorite sex toy?
Consent.

What’s your #1 turn-on?
Great hair! Such as: rat tails, mullets, buzzed hair, leg hair, long curly locks, hair dyed unnatural colors, unruly eyebrows, fohawks, the Bieber-shwoop.

What’s your #1 turn-off?
People who won’t go dancing with me.

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Cameron Glavin, Cartoonist

Tumblr for draws: glav-draws-things
Tumblr for whatevs: glavender
Instagram: glavinder
Facebook: cameron

If you could only use one emoji for the rest of your life, what would it be?

I’d probably go with this nugget right here. What does it mean? Am I pleased? Uncomfortable? Bad at smiling? Using a jackhammer? Experiencing really bad cramps? Frolicking with vigor? Nobody knows. Nobody. Knows.

What is your favorite kind of sandwich?
If you’ve never had a grilled cheese sandwich made with havarti, you haven’t lived. It melts with the grace of a prima ballerina who is also really good at melting. It hugs your tongue and makes it feel loved. Throw some sliced avocado, lemon pepper, and pickled red onion on there and you just created heaven between two slices of warm, toasty goodness.

Describe the worst date you’ve ever been on.
I don’t think I’ve never really been on a bad date. But when I was a baby freshman in college, I went on an accidental date. I didn’t realize that “Hey, do you grab coffee sometime?” was the first thing you learn in This Could Be A Date If You Want It To Be 101. So about an hour in, I realized something was not what I expected. And proceeded to wordvomit all over this poor girl about this serious long-standing crush I had on someone else. At the very end, she said, “Yeah… So, I thought this was going to be a date.” To which I very eloquently said, “Oh. …Sorry. Well… see you in class,” and went home.

What’s your favorite sex toy?
I’m not SUPER into toys, BUT I had this vibrator. It was the Gigi 2 from Lelo. It was awesome. I loved it, it loved me…we were very happy together. Then I forgot it at my ex’s house and that’s all she wrote.

Also strap ons, I fairly recently discovered, are not even half bad. From either vantage point.

What’s your #1 turn-on?
If you’re a feminist and you can nerd out with me, we’re good. I mean, and if you make the first move. Because I about 90% of the time don’t. THINK OF THE MISSED OPPORTUNITIES.

What’s your #1 turn-off?
The 3 Cs: Conservatism. Condescension. Clowns.

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Six Brilliant Ideas We Had This Month

Rachel: i would really love it if someone would write a post about twin peaks halloween costumes, which has nothing to do with the fact that my hair is finally long enough to be a believable Shelly Johnson
Stef: rachel if you are not willow pape for halloween i swear to god
Rachel: I WILL BE i will do this for you stef, and for God
maybe i will just be shelly in the privacy of my own home alone in the dark

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Riese: we should make a Problematic Merchandise Package containing misandrist tee, YDY flask, high femme sticker
Rachel: i like this idea a great deal
i am on board 100$
100% even
in the copy about it we could include testimonials from people who are offended by the products

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Rachel: in my heart of hearts i want a playlist of songs by female vocalists about murdering men
but that might be asking too much from the universe

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Laneia: wait what if we did a thing about queer owned food trucks and made the owners share one of their recipes and took pictures of them
Rachel: god i would love that
Laneia: how would people find these food truckers
Riese: well have you ever been to portland
Laneia: they’d just have to be in the know i guess? IN THE KNOW
Rachel: we could tweeter it
Laneia: i want this to happen
i’m writing this down
Grace: the first girl i ever hit on owns a food truck now, i am super into investigating this situation
Rachel: what kind of food truck is it
Food Truckers We Have Loved: The AS Roundtable
Grace: unclear, their main draw seems to be mac & cheese paninis?
Laneia: i wish there was a picture of b in a smoking jacket sitting in a wingback chair eating a string cheese
by a fireplace
Rachel: we should probably start a kickstarter to get her a wingback chair

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Riese: Hello I’m at the doctor
He was very nice and when I told him what I did for a living, he asked if I “believed in “bi”
He thinks “sexuality is on a spectrum,” FYI
So that’s what happened there
Laneia: !
Rachel: you guys got very personal very quickly
sounds like there’s a second date in the future
Riese: I really think we need to make a list of the things straight people say to us when they find out we are gay

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Laneia: (seems to have come from reading a PR pitch of some kind) hey i just came to see if y’all wanted to talk about men on our website for women
Riese: i want to talk about men every day all the time
Laneia: i was hoping we could write more about men and especially their struggles? their unique struggles
Rachel: this is one of [my partner] franklin’s all-time favorite jokes, have i told you guys this
Laneia: please tell us
Rachel: just being like “hey babe, i’ve been thinking, maybe i should write a series or something for AS, it just feels like you’re really missing the unique male perspective”
Laneia: honestly though i would read anything franklin wrote
he could have a column called Not All Men and it would just be a weekly journal
he could write about your cats
Rachel: the header text would be “no seriously he’s literally just one man, not all men”
Laneia: “Yesterday Rachel brought home wine. It was good. I don’t remember the name of it. I have a cat on my lap!”
200 comments about cats and wine recs
Rachel: yes, this would be ideal
i’m glad everyone shares my vision of slowly turning autostraddle into a multimedia documentary about my cats

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Yvonne Saves The Day: October Edition

Welcome to Yvonne saves the day, a new feature in which we remember when Yvonne saved the day.

Rachel: i am trying to figure out what is going on with the contest
that is my goal for right now
Yvonne: i scheduled the post already
Rachel: oh! that’s really the best news i could possibly have heard
Riese: THANKS YVONNE
Rachel: thank you for saving the day already yvonne
Yvonne: NO PROBLEM
Rachel: in that case i’m going to go back to googling pictures of gillian anderson for WORK
it’s a tough job but somebody’s gotta do it

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Flashback: The First Time Heather and Riese E-mailed, 2009

“I think if we could get heather hogan to write for autostraddle, then we’d be unstoppable. That’s my expert opinion.”
-Riese to Rachel & Laneia in G-Chat, January 10th 2012

Some Answers To Some Things You’ve Been Asking Us

Do you have burning questions about what the fuck is going on around here, Doris? Ask us — just use the A+ priority contact form in your sidebar.

You should check out Pride, it’s a film about Lesbians and Gay men supporting miners during the strikes we had in the UK in the 80s. I have so many feelings about this film, guys.
So do we.

Hey ATeam! I’ve recently starting watch the youtube show Carmilla, based on the novel by the same name, and it’s basically a college retelling of the book. Everyone is pretty gay and adorable and totally worth covering! Keep up the good work!
Taken care of.

I know you guys are probably all over this, but I just saw Raven-Symone’s Oprah interview where she admits to being in a relationship with a woman, but explicitly decries any and all labels. Would love to see your reactions to it. Will you write an article about what Raven said on Oprah about labels recently?
Yes indeed.

dear priority contact box, i was wondering if y’all had ever considered publishing a motherhood/should i have kids team roundtable? i feel like it is something i desperately need to hear some queer feelings about and sadly i know no queers in real life and i recently turned thirty and my queer heart is having some really complicated feelings re: my uterus etc…it might feel too personal but i would love some advise from wise people of the internet such as yourselves about deciding kids/no kids. love what you do thank you for fighting the good fight xoxox
WE ARE ON IT. It’s actually something I talk about in my real life near-constantly, so it’s kinda funny that we’ve not dived in onsite.

I got my SAFE SPACE pencil case today you guys!! Thanks so much!!! =) I love it and it fits way more pens than I thought it would. BTW, are the A+ stickers still happening? Thanks!
Yes! If you signed up back in July and have not gotten yours, email [email protected].

It would be cool to have someone tell me how to put on makeup. I do not really understand.
We kinda did that before with Makeup 101: A Reluctant Girl’s Guide To Face Editing (be sure to read the comments too, there’s heaps of advice and addendums, etc) and we did a Butch Eyeliner Tutorial, but we could definitely do something more like a how-to actually apply makeup! We’ve passed this on to Lydia.

I am supposed to tell my boss all of the days I want off for the next year, but since I don’t know the A-Camp dates and I am FINALLY going, I told her, “Weeeeeell, I’m not sure, I need to take like five days off somewhere in the middle of the year to spend time with … like-minded rad individuals.” She thinks I want to go to Burning Man.
!!!!

You guys should write about this movie called ‘life partners’. leighton meester plays a lesbian in it, so.
Handled.

I think it’s an injustice that after all this time the recamps haven’t come out.. I think the best time is to do them when the memories are still fresh.. It’s as if the staff wanted to forget camp 5.0, and that’s unfair to the people who had a great time..
I’m really truly sorry! But no, the staff doesn’t wanna forget camp 5.0! CAMP IS OUR FAVORITE THING IN THE WORLD. I agree that the best time is when the memories are still fresh! I feel like I’ve said this a few times but creating camp was a huge part of my 3.5-year relationship with my then-girlfriend, and then we broke up literally a few days after May Camp, and those fresh memories just stabbed me in the heart. I rarely prioritize my own dumb broken human feelings over work, but just this one time I really couldn’t and I am really sorry, but also, we’re still gonna be running camp together with Robin and I think that’s the most important thing.

Then things got better obviously — a lot better! — but fuck, I have just been slammed and haven’t had the time, even working 60-80 hour weeks. I love A-Camp more than just about anything. So does Marni, so does Robin, and so does everybody who works at camp and who submitted their fresh memories to Chelsey several months ago. I mean, without A-Camp I wouldn’t even know this crazy-awesome girl who turned my world upside down and currently is impeding my typing abilities by shoving her feet on my lap, and I’m genuinely excited to finish them.

Although there are a few staff members who haven’t submitted their stuff yet (TAYLORLIZZLANEIAALEXCEE), that happens every time and we just work around it, so it really is just my fault and my fault alone, not the whole staff.  I have a fantasy of getting it done this week or next, it’s on my to-do list right underneath finishing this Insider! I’m getting there. I genuinely feel terrible that it’s taken so long, honestly.

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MINI-INTERVIEW WITH AN EDITOR:LYDIA

What do you do in your job?
I’m still pretty new around here, but my job entails creating, soliciting, editing and writing fashion and style related content for Autostraddle. Essentially it boils down to finding fashion/beauty/style that is relevant, current, helpful (if it’s advice) and engaging for Autostraddle readers.

What is your vision for the section?
I would love to create a space that is has a balance of what’s happening in the fashion industry, up and coming queer brands and personal style advice/editorials etcetera. I’d love the section to be more expansive as far as the spectrum of gender identities, with more content that is closer to center of center identities, while still featuring femme/butch/magical unicorn content. I’m working towards more regular contributors to the section as well! I’m hoping to add more stylish queer humans to the lovely net of Autostraddle.

What would be your dream pitch?
A queer fashion editorial with unlimited access to my favourite clothing (designer and otherwise!) If there was a way I could get a crew of awesome Autostraddlers and have a big happy fun queer *fashun* shoot, then all my dreams would come true! I enjoy brainstorming a concept and bringing together the appropriate talented people to make it happen, so perhaps one day I’ll see that come to fruition (perhaps several times over!).

What’s the hardest part?
Staying on top of what’s happening in the industry, and making it relatable/useful to our readers. I know that there are many negative associations with the fashion/beauty industry, and rightly so. But since I’m all about infiltrating the powers that be and queering the vision from within, I do believe that “fashion” isn’t just an empty wasteland of underfed models and self-esteem damaging conglomerates. I suppose the tough part is filtering through allllll the things and bringing you guys what you want to see!

Favorite online writer/editor / or like your hero?
TAVI!!! Between the Style Rookie (her style blog) to its evolution in Rookie Mag (the magazine I desperately needed as an awkward teen in a small, conservative city) and now her slow-but-steady world domintation, I’m very inspired by Ms. Gevinston. She’s a testament to having an unwavering vision and getting shit done, albeit at a very young age. She also seems like she has surrounded herself with like-minded folks, and I like the idea of creating a posse of rad humans to take over the universe. I think the Straddleverse is 100% capable of this.

What do you wish people understood about your job? 
I wish that people understood that I want to be as inclusive as possible, and break the alienating association that many of us have with “fashion”. At the risk of sounding super corny, the best part of being involved in the fashion industry is exposure to inspiring, smart, stylish folks and diverse personal style. That’s what motivates me, and I’d like to share that inspiration with all of y’all. So hopefully the fashion/style section can offer something approachable and inviting, rather than aloof and snooty.

Favorite snack to eat while working?
Lately it’s been Mini-Eggs and Chicago Mix popcorn, ha ha. Maybe a gin and tonic if I’m feelin’ fancy.

What would be the song that a montage of you doing your job would be set to?Flawless by Beyonce. Not that I’m flawless by any means, but I feel more motivated when I have Bey pushin’ me along.

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Your Monthly Infographic About You

We did an Autostraddle reader survey this summer and found out a lot of shit about you, like which four TV networks you watched most often. Here’s that information:

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October Retro-Reading

Some posts from previous Octobers Riese thinks you might enjoy.

What Does A Lesbian Look Like? (2009), by Riese, Carly, Robin, Intern Lily, Intern Katrina, Laneia, Crystal and Tinkerbell –  This was a really brilliantly written roundtable that sought to bust the assumption that lesbians “look like” anything. Most fascinating was everybody’s story of how they thought being gay required a certain gender presentation and how their relationship with those expectations evolved. I think it’d be even more awesome to do something like this now that we have a much more diverse team in terms of gender identity, race, size and background.

Top Ten Nickelodeon Shows We Remember Things About (2010), by Taylor, Riese & Kip – When I first moved to Oakland I slept on Taylor and Kip’s couch for like a month until I found my own place. At night someone would make dinner and we’d maybe drink some whiskey or get high and then posts like this one would just all of a sudden happen.

28 Things About Portland That Seem True (2011), by Taylor – And merely a year later, Taylor would move to Portland, and make some solid observations about the place.

The Ones We Left Behind: On Being An Ally To Small Town Queers (2012), by Fonseca – Ugh Fonseca is SUCH a good writer! This is just so important.

Let’s All Write Open Letters To Miley Cyrus And Also Your Mom Forever and Ever (2013), by Rachel & Riese & Laneia – Ugh I wish we’d had the Insider last October because the skype chat process of writing this HILARIOUS piece of ASTUTE internet journalism was pretty good, I think. We just got so tired. Of how much energy feminists spend calling out individuals for specific performances instead of focusing on larger and more systemic issues. NBD LOL.

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Tumblrs About Autostraddle

Lesbians love tumblr, y’all. LOVE IT. We have more followers on tumblr than on any of our other social media presences, a statistic which baffles everybody unfamiliar with the queer tumblr community. Here are some of our favorite tumblrs started completely independently of Autostraddle by people unaffiliated with Autostraddle. If you run one of these tumblrs and wanna do a mini-interview with us for the next Insider, e-mail yvonne [at] autostraddle dot com!

Fuck Yeah Autostraddle – This is the original autostraddle fan tumblr and we love it. We love it because the curator knows this site and the external work of all its writers as thoroughly as we know it ourselves, which means she’s the most qualified curator of all time. Legitimately there is nothing it could do to be more perfect than it already is.

Autostraddle Captions Are Funny – tbh Lizz and I are sort of obsessed with getting our picture captions onto Autostraddle Captions are Funny. For a while I was checking it so much that my search bar actually defaulted to autostraddlecaptionsarefunny.tumblr.com instead of autostraddle.com.

Autostraddle Camp – Emily Gigler, who has attended every A-Camp, started this unaffiliated tumblr her own self before A-Camp 3.0. Although Emily wasn’t speaking as an Autostraddle representative, we were super impressed by how “on-brand” she was nonetheless. The tumblr was becoming such a great resource for campers that when we turned out short-staffed at the last minute before October A-Camp 2013, we reached out to Emily to see if she’d like to be the first camper ever pulled off the bench and put into the game by joining the A-Camp staff team. SHE DID!

A-Camp Confessions – Run by a very talented designer and A-Camp Alum, A-Camp confessions publishes your confessions in cute graphic form. Confessions range from secretly wishing there was more meat in the cafeteria to enjoying a flogging session in a prom dress. It’s been out of commission for a while but the archives are delightful!

Weird Shit Autostraddle Advertises – We haven’t made a direct sale display ad since like, April, so right now we’re just running ad networks that reap us a whopping $50-$60/day (not great for a website that costs about $800/day to operate on the tightest possible budget) — this means the ads that pop up on your homepage are relatively random, some determined by cookies, I guess (like if I’m looking for flights all day, every site I go to on the internet for the rest of the day shows me Kayak ads, including Autostraddle), and some that are loosely targeted at, say, every LGBTQ website on the internet. Sometimes the results are f*cking hilarious, and this tumblr captures that situation in all its glory.

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That Time We Got All These Weirdos To Make You A Video

The Thrilled…

Lizz: Mine are gonna be unreal amazing
Lydia: LIPSYNCING FOR MY LIFE IS MY TRUE CALLING I HAVE BEEN TRAINING FOR THIS 4EVA
Kaylah: I excel at dramatic lip syncing sooooo I’m very excited about this!!!
Carmen: I have the perfect hat for eli to wear in this video
Hannah: THIS IS THE BEST THING WHATTTT

The Brave…

Kate: “because you love me” will just be me posing as a boy band a bunch of times and doing justin bieber postures. because that’s where we’re at.
Kaitlyn: just did literally 30 takes of Jay’s rap and I hate almost all of them
Robin: I’m recording this in an apartment full of SF Giants fans so sorry in advance for any random shouts about sportsball. apparently we just got a grand slam!
Ali: I am trying to think of ways to incorporate my rolling desk chair. I hope that makes it better.
Audrey: Would it be funny if my crazy in love vid was just me sitting in front of a fans and my hair blowing everywhere? Would people get that joke or am I dumb?

The Petrified…

Bren: um… i hope i’m not the only one who is terrified.
Fikri: Gabby I might need you to hold my hand through this, everything about this is terrifying
Intern Liz: I’m horrified but also excited to wear my AS shirts & sing tenderly to my Rachel Maddow poster.
KaeLyn: 70% pumped-up, 30% awkward-stupified, 100% good idea.
Intern Chloe: I was pretty panicked about this because I basically live in a cave but actually in Switzerland where I’m pretty sure I’m the only queer and so obviously couldn’t invite anyone else to help me BUT then Bren gave me the cutest pep talk (and yes I did change shirts between songs NO JUDGING).

The Triumphant!

Helen: In true queer biddie triflin fashion, my cat crashed my video making shenanigans and I hope that the sheer terror my cat caused in all people dancing doesn’t make it too hard for those doing the video editing
Mari: You have no idea how much I have to love you all to even be WILLING to do this. Kind of huge for me.
Gabby: yo but i think we killed our celine dion.
Chelsey: me and my elbows did a dance to crazy in love
well i don’t know if you can categorize it as “dance”, but.

The Wearing Cat’s Pajamas:

Deanne: i did a full-on ridiculous dance to “crazy in love” in cat pajamas. ONE TAKE. (which means please edit generously, riese. turns out it’s difficult to dance on a hotel bed, what with the bounce and all.)
Stef: deanne i think you’re just the cat’s pajamas

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Five Posts Rachel Can’t Believe You Motherf*ckers Didn’t Read Last Month

1. Bisexual Awareness Week: We See Each Other and That’s Something, by Audrey

I know there was a lot of stuff we published related to Bisexual Awareness Week and it was a busy time, maybe you had a haircut that week I don’t know your life, but we have heard from a lot of people that they want more content around bisexuality and if that’s true then it is really important that people read and comment on it when we write about it! Audrey did such a great job with this and it will really help us in our long-term plan for bisexual world domination if you read it every time we publish something about bisexuality.

2. New Report Demonstrates How Anti-LGBT Laws Make It Hard for Lots of LGBTs to Make Ends Meet, by KaeLyn
This report is really helpful in understanding a lot of stuff about how LGBT Americans experience life and their economic realities, and might even help explain some of the things you’re experiencing in your own life w/r/t work and money. Also it has helpful infographics! Read it and you’ll see.

3. Comedy Crush: Issa Rae Launches Color Creative TV,  by Brittani
YOU GUYS do you know how cool Issa Rae is? She is very funny and smart and driven and she is one of the reasons we have a Words With Girls pilot in our world, which means she is someone who is as obsessed with Brittani as we all are, which is a lot. Read her words and let them make your brain better pls.

4. Calluses and Cow Sheds: How I Found My Queerness in Rural America, by Lila
If there is one thing we have consistently heard from you weirdos for YEARS, it’s that you want more writing by and about people who don’t live on the coasts or in major cities, more writing that doesn’t emphasize metropolitan queer bar scenes, etc. We always wish we could provide y’all more of the exact kinds of first-person writing you want to read, it sucks that it’s so hard to do, because first-person writing is the only kind of writing we can’t just wave a wand and produce; it can only get made when someone comes to us and says “hey this is my experience and i wanna write about it” all on their own. So that’s why we were SO THRILLED when this human did just that, and wrote an essay about farms and truck beds and sex and sheep and it was just the greatest. But then not very many of you read or commented on it! Come on! Get your head in the game! The more that you read and share and celebrate writing on this topic, the more people will see it, and the more people will think “oh well I was raised in the Yukon, maybe I should write for Autostraddle.” Get in there!

5. How Racism, Not Shonda Rhimes, Created the Angry Black Woman, by Hannah
Hannah wrote this in response to that terrible NYT article but it’s also relevant in life generally. Please read and and print it out and tape it above your bed and refer to it every time someone talks about a Rhimes show and/or the trope of the “angry black woman” and also just all the time.

“I got totally derailed this morning because my landlord brought some workmen into the apt without notice while I was showering and I almost had to burn the building down and change my name and move to Switzerland. But I think I’ve mostly recovered now.” – Rachel, last week

Carolyn’s Sex Toy Recommendation Of The Month

This Insider I’m going to talk to you about the Stronic line of pulsators – dildos that pulse back and forth, rather than vibrate – from Fun Factory. I’ll be the first to admit that a dildo that thrusts itself inside you sounds like it might be any of the following: uncomfortable, flawed, weird, or too good to be true. And in fact, they move in a way that would be nearly creepy and disembodied except 1. You can hear the motor running (but not too much) and 2. They are very effective.

The Eins, the first of the line, is totally smooth. Like the other two, it runs a little big, but unlike the other two, its shape means it moves smoothly back and forth. (Though this also means it sometimes falls out.) The Drei, soon to be reviewed on Autostraddle.com, is ridged and flared enough that if you were feeling ambitious you could use it for anal, and while the ridges mean it stays in place far better than the Eins, they also mean it moves a little less. I find that not having to hold it in place constantly was worth the loss of movement, but you may not agree. (There’s also the Drei, which I feel “meh” about because although the shape is more interesting than the Eins but still smooth, I refuse to believe the little nub Fun Factory says is for my clit will actually reach it.)

I left my Eins behind in a move and I have missed it and the orgasms it provided ever since. I am not one for elaborate (read: anything actually requiring lube or the full removal of my pants) masturbation generally, but the Eins, and now the Drei, are definite and constant exceptions.

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Lip Sync For Your Life

Rachel: what would be the funniest object in my house to use as a pretend microphone for the celine song
i don’t have a hitachi unfortunately because that would be perfect
Laneia: damn this is tough
i just looked around my kitchen and all i’m coming up with is a bottle of sriracha
although i think a bottle of bragg’s might be funnier in that specific case
Riese: beer bottle?
Laneia: large tomato on the end of a fork
Riese: large knife
Laneia: something about cats
string cheese
Riese: a cat paw
Laneia: scully figurine
tampon
oh wait
Riese: tampon with a diva cup on top of it
Laneia: better
Riese: tampon / diva cup mike
best of both worlds
Laneia: wii remote
scissors
i’m in my living room now
an entire lamp
Riese: an entire person
Laneia: a cat’s tail while you hold the cat in your lap
Rachel: these are great i’m writing these all down
Laneia: small potted cactus
Rachel: this tube of arthritis cream
Riese: preparation-h
Rachel: a box of bikini wax strips
Riese: a bikini wax strip
Rachel: a bikini
Riese: which you should warm in your hands while performing
the bikini wax strips
not the bikini
Laneia: do you have a naked ken doll? that might be an option
Riese: do YOU have a naked ken doll
Laneia: i could get a naked ken doll
Rachel: who among us will get the naked ken doll
Yvonne: i only had one ken doll growing up
Laneia: same
Riese: i had zero ken dolls because of my mom
Yvonne: vs. the twenty barbies i had
Riese: i wasn’t allowed to have barbies
the only barbie-esque dolls i was allowed to have were the black heart family dolls
which i loved, incidentally
the mom was dressed like a mormon
omg though
look at dad’s hot pink tie
he looks great
i love it
Yvonne: wow
Riese: yes
Laneia: oh i see what’s happening here
this is a fundamentalist christian family with a closeted dad
that’s what this is
my aunt definitely got married in a dress similar to this one
Riese: i believe it
i built furniture for my heart family we had a lot of fun together
Rachel: you built it? with your own hands?
that is the gayest thing i’ve ever heard

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XOXO

Team Autostraddle