*chuckles*

Maybe you and I should talk, Ms. Shirin. As it happens I have a marketing conundrum of my own and am just not much of a "marketing" type person, despite working for such a firm (but as a geek! :-P ). PM me?

why would I ask someone to do marketing for me who falsely markets their own image-
don't yell at me for commenting on your picture when you are using something that isn't you- how are people supposed to see who YOU are?
and it isn't like you are using an abstract image where we specifically know it isn't you!!
Marketing 101- the more people see your name,face, and message, the better your product will do-

I guess in your case I'll keep looking for the woman in the picture.......oh yeah, she isn't real.

At least my pictures on Tribe are me! No false advertising here!

<<maybe you're just bummed that we wouldn't want you! I would like beautiful women to represent what this is......I thought the angry lesbian thing only existed in stereotypes, but you two have made it seem like every lesbian out there is pissed at society.>>

Nope...only at having our intelligence insulted by offering us shit and calling it shinola.

There's a huge difference between walking around angry (when actually I'm walking around pretty happy and twitterpated in a great new relationship and stable job of geeky bliss) and taking offense at something that's patently offensive when you find it thrust in your face.

And, for the record, even had one been forthcoming, I wouldn't have accepted an offer to be on a show like you describe even if it had arrived with flowers and a brand-new iPhone.

<<I am a damm smart woman and I did the pilot for this show->>

Smart enough to shill for free, or did you at least get paid for your advertising efforts? Clearly, however, not smart enough to realize that the last thing the world needs is more pseudo-reality bilge on the tube.

<<The woman hosting this is a damm smart woman who makes more taking a shit than you do in an entire year!>>

Good for her, if it's true. Doesn't make the whole idea of the show any less patronizing, demeaning, or exploitative than other products of smart, well-paid, and cynical people willing to foist the "Temptation Islands" of the world off on us. *shrugs*

<<wake up and see that the past is over- time moves on->>

So, you mean in the fabulous <reverb>World of the Future™</reverb> we'll all maybe be so lucky as to get the chance to be a piece of meat up for auction on a skeeze-ball "reality" TV show? (I guess the rest of us are just stuck on YouTube or something. :-P )

Unless you mean the glorious "post-feminist" future in which we can all get lobotomized, walk around in jammy-pants with the word "Juicy" sparkling in a scripty font across our asses, and feel ignorantly blissful about the ways in which our images are used to destroy the dreams of another generation.

Wait! Maybe it's the long-scheduled demise of all forms of (hopefully) intelligent, scripted programming on TV at the hands of cheeseball games of "10 little Indians" as some other "lucky loser" gets their dreams crushed by getting voted off the island, not handed the rose, or given their final dismissive sneer by some haughty judge.

Did I miss any happy little slice of dystopia there?

Come on back to us if you find out Joss Whedon needs the next kick-ass femme to actually inspire women, hon. You've clearly been in La-la-land way too long and need to intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually detox if you think that televised exploitation is some kind of golden opportunity for a 20-something lesbian (or, far more likely given the material, an insecure and trendy bi grrl whose self-esteem is still somehow tied up in looking like something that dribbled off the cover of Cosmo or the Paris Hilton Stupid Spoiled Whore Playset™).

<<I personally have a supscription to Maxim because I like to look at the girls- unfortunately no one is smart enough yet to create a lesbian magazine to the same caliber->>

You're serious? Grrl, hie thee off to eBay to try to score back issues of On Our Backs...particularly from one of Susie Bright's tenures with the mag. What no one in the lesbian community has is the sheer potential audience numbers that a hetboy mag clearly has shooting fish in a barrel with a melange of boobs, sports, video games, and more for the teenage boy of any age or gender. If the numbers were there for it, OOB would still be kicking ass and taking names.

Tell me, do you actually think that "Milkshake" or "My Humps" are either good music or any kind of positive reflection on society as a whole? Just curious.

<<We are in a changing generation!! wake up and be more open-minded! or try getting laid, you might cheer up!>>

*chuckles* It's so obvious you know nothing whatsoever about me if you think I'm having either insufficient or inadequate sex...

But my idea of "a changing generation" is far better exemplified by Susie Bright, the original Wonkette, Annalee Newitz and Violet Blue and all the other women embracing media and using it to actually educate us or better our lives (including our sex lives!) rather than any of the losers on "The Bachelor" or your lezsploitation knockoff (though I'm sure they're really all enlightened feminist icons deep down... :-P ).

<<hate spreads and kills our youth- thank you for your comments Hitler- try running for President so that you can join the rest of the close minded squares in this universe! and this has nothing to do with Girls Gone Wild or it's marketing! Oh boy is right, what a square you are!>>

So, so sad...to once again see Godwin's Law upheld so soon in the conversation. (For your edification: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_Law )

I know so little about you...how could I hate you? What I *do* hate is a culture of stupidity and exploitation being held up as some kind of laudable goal. It wasn't even just that you came in here offering up a chance to debase ourselves and our sexuality for the titillation of crotch-scratching Nielsen-family bubbas (girl's gotta eat, right? Assuming they're even paying...), it was that you blew so much sunshine up our skirts in doing it.

Righteous indignation (as distinct from hate) motivates us to change the world around us...Jon Stewart got up on Crossfire and told 'em that they were hurting America by dumbing down our political speech and reducing it to mindless soundbites. The result? The CEO of CNN agreed and canceled the show. Rosa Parks wouldn't move to the back of the bus, Martin Luther King had a dream, and Susan B. Anthony wouldn't rest until women had the vote.

I'm not saying I'm anything like on that scale, which would be both foolish and self-aggrandizing...but you're the one who came in here asserting that whoring ourselves out for some screen-time and a possible lifetime of occasional, "don't I know you from somewhere? YEAH! You were on that cheesy lesbian dating reality show!" repetitions. But, since it's obvious you aren't in any space to be educated about the sad irony of what it is you're really willing to offer us all up for, if I've kept even one woman from such a fate, then my work here is done.

*rides off into the sunset from this conversation...hi-ho, Sappho, awayyyyyy!*

Miss. Chill.

<why would I ask someone to do marketing for me who falsely markets their own image-
don't yell at me for commenting on your picture when you are using something that isn't you- how are people supposed to see who YOU are? >

Um. They look in my profile and see the umpteen pictures that ARE me. I guess you haven't been around social networks much to know that often a person's photo isn't them. I like to share beautiful pictures I come across. I guess the difference between you and me is, I don't "market" anything on Tribe.

"I refuse to take birth control because I swear it is enslaving women" WHAT?

Birth control was promulgated by pioneers like Margaret Sanger to free women from the enslavement of endless childbirth and childrearing. Her mother had 18 pregnancies (and 11 live births) before dying at a young age. That's enslavement. PLEASE read some history.

< I went to LA Pride this weekend and had the same kind of reactions from about half of the women>

See, we actually did you a favor. At least you were anticipating it and ducked the black eye ;-)