Welcome to our Sunday morning Longer Reads section. It’s your chance to catch up on some of the more interesting and obscure news items you might have missed. This week: The “full-bush Brazilian” for your pubes, six penis problems to be on the lookout for as you get older, and why gay porn is so damn racist.
Vulture has a jaw-dropping proposal: Fix the Academy Awards by ABOLISHING THE NOMINATIONS ALTOGETHER! Yes! Announce the top five nominees DURING THE SHOW, with the winner at the end. It certainly would shake up what has become a dreary awards season, wouldn’t it?
Cracked has the worst advertising slogans ever. (Spoiler alert: Charmin’s “Enjoy the Go” is there, but “Lose weight with Ayds!” missed the cut)
Cracked also has the top six reasons making homemade porn is truly a terrible, terrible idea.
Is gay porn racist? What are whites always on the bottom in interracial porn? Instinct investigates.
Drunk elephants, stoned water buffalo, and grieving mongeese: Why animals eat psychoactive plants in boing boing.
The Atlantic wonders: Why is Disney trying so hard to suck?
In Slate: How the great blizzard of 1888 killed the petticoat. Fascinating stuff.
The New York Times profile of Marilyn Manson you didn’t know you were dying to read.
The fashion community is aghast at the latest trend infecting the front row of Fashion Week: MANSPREADING. Read all about it in The Daily Mail.
Also trending: The “full bush Brazilian” for your pubes! Read about it in Salon.
And finally, HuffPo has six penis problems that happen with age. HAPPY SUNDAY!
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LEAVE BRUCE ALOOOOOONE: Outrage in Slate over In Touch‘s transphobic cover story of Bruce Jenner.
Ayn Rand: Worst Aunt Ever? Dangerous Minds has a letter from the Objectivist/Nietzschean/Capitalist nutjob to her teenage niece. And you thought YOUR family was a nightmare.
What the hell is Mortdecai? And can somebody please FOR THE LOVE OF GOD make it stop? Vulture breaks down one of the WORST ad campaigns in movie history.
Somebody named James St James, who is not me, I swear, has written an article for Everyday Feminism on why being called “cis” is not oppressive.
The Awl says you don’t HAVE to worship Joan Didion. It’s OK to let go and move on.
VERY IMPORTANT: i-D has the de facto guide to dressing for fashion week. Most important: NEVER WEAR A DESIGNER’S OLD COLLECTION TO THEIR SHOW. Omg, can you IMAGINE anything so déclassé?
Cracked has the 9 most bad-ass last words ever spoken.
New York magazine has an interview, a very squeamish interview, with a woman engaged in a consensual sexual relationship with her father. Not for the faint of heart.
LESBIAN NUN SEX GANGS! in Salon: The true story of murder and a lesbian cult in a Roman convent is a lesson in religion and the abuse of power. Goodness.
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HuffPoGay asks: How do we find justice for Transgender teen Leelah Alcorn?
“Dear Leelah, We Will Fight For You” – a powerful open letter in the Daily Beast from trans agitator Parker Malloy.
What the heck is Mitt Romney doing? The Washington Post thinks he’s cockblocking Jeb Bush’s White House run.
Future problems: Should American colonists on Mars pay US taxes? (via Slate)
Ever wondered what working as a phone psychic is like? Cracked has the lowdown. (Hint: It’s sad and lonely and makes you hate yourself)
“Today I learned something about my boyfriend no girl should ever have to discover” (via Medium)
Lessons on women and power dressing in The Cut.
#amwriting and other Twitter offenses that are as annoying as retweeting compliments – in Salon.
Rolling Stone on why the NYPD’s pissy “work stoppage” is not accomplishing what they think it’s accomplishing.
A surreal interview with nutty drag icon Dina Martina.
Dame Joan Collins tells The Daily Mail: “I thought I lost my damehood before I got it!”
The Guardian trumpets that the rules of pop music have radically been altered: How producers and songwriters are skipping the chorus altogether and building the bridges. (I’m looking at YOU, Nicki Minaj. Your chorus for Anaconda was just a quick sample from “Baby Got Back” – SO UNSATISFYING!)
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In memory of Danny Garvin, one of the homeless LGBT youths who fought at Stonewall. (HuffPo)
2014: The Year of Outrage. Slate has collected everything you were angry about on social media this year.
From Ruby Dee to René Ricard: The New York Times has collected some of the year’s best (?) obituaries.
The Telegraph has how to make sloe gin in a hurry – using gin, sugar, and… nitrous oxide?
The New Yorker wonders: Can AIDS Be Cured?
Lily Fury writes about watching her boyfriend’s execution in Salon.
Adrian Mourby writes in The Guardian that he wishes he’d asked his parents and grandparents more questions about their lives while they were still around to answer them.
Read about The Nutcracker‘s disturbing origin story.
In Slate: The REAL reason everyone thinks Millenials suck.
In The Atlantic: The rise and fall of charm in American men (OTHER THAN George Clooney).
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HuffPo has holiday gift ideas for gender non-conforming kids.
Before you take off for your holiday travel destination, the New Yorker has some pre-flight announcements.
In i-D, photographer Coco Young “picks apart the underlying framework of a generation consumed with its own image.”
Artist Mel Chin waxes poetic about Art Basel, Miley Cyrus, and the Eric Garner grand jury decision in the Creative Times Reports.
The Guardian has the obituary for ’60s showgirl-turned-scandal-queen Marion Rice-Davies.
Uh, we have pubic hair for a REASON, guys. Salon says: Looking prenatal DOWN THERE opens us up to all manner of ailments.
Elon Musk’s hyperloop could be just 10 years away.
PIZZA RAVES!
Slate has a guide to the Japanese art of decluttering your house and your life.
The New York Times has a meditation on the Chinese art of wu wei, or not giving a shit.
The New York Times also proclaims 2014 “The Year of Taylor Swift”
The plight of gay teachers in The Atlantic.
In VICE: What happens when you die alone in LA.
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God forbid you should ever have to, but GizmodoPod has 10 steps to help you pass a drug test.
Vice posits that cryptomarkets (like the Dark Net) are gentrifying the drug trade… and that’s a good thing.
The ever-changing lexicon of gender identity: Slate explains why the word “trans” caught on.
New York magazine explains why the Republicans endorse torture. #CIAreport
New York also has the sad death of Cat Fancy magazine.
Salon explores the many ways Leonardo DiCaprio has devolved into a Judd Apatow character.
Reddit has an open letter to screenwriters from Hollywood celebuspawn Max Landis that’s worth mulling over.
Obligatory “Internet Porn is Destroying Teenagers Minds” post, in the Daily Beast.
Also in the Daily Beast: What is was like being black and gay in the ’50s.
The Times of London on Stephen Hawking’s prophesy: Artificial Intelligence will kill off mankind.
The New York Times thinks that the movie Sybil ruined it for real dissociative disorder patients.
The Trolls among us: How internet commenters often changed a participant’s interpretation of the news story itself.
Half of all children are traumatized, claims the Atlantic.
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The Washington Post explains what white people need to know, and do, after Ferguson. “Benefiting from white privilege is automatic. Defending white privilege is a choice.”
Eye-opening and so very, very sad: What black parents tell their sons about the police, in Gawker. Read it, and be sure to read the comments.
Comedian W. Kamau Bell writes in Vanity Fair about being a 6’4” black man in America.
The New Republic takes a look at why it took America so long to wake up to Bill Cosby’s rape allegations.
Why Thanksgiving food sucks, in Slate.
45 two-sentence Thanksgiving stories from top writers.
Creed singer Scott Stapp is living in a Holiday Inn. Read about his fall from grace in the Daily Beast.
Also in the Daily Beast: The Hunger Games has a Peeta problem – and why Katniss just needs to kick ass and forget about the stupid men in her life.
Why Interstellar should be taken seriously – VERY seriously – in HuffPo.
How much can you really change after 30? Not much, says TNR.
Salon says the old rule about getting eight hours of sleep is wrongwrongwrong. Your body needs two three-hour rest periods with a “watch period” between them. It’s what our ancestors did and it’s what we should be doing.
In the New Yorker: The man who makes the lists.
Photographing imperfection for the digital generation, in i-D.
Grammar Lesson: How to make your last name plural on your Christmas cards (HINT: NO APOSTRAPHES EVER!)
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LA Weekly‘s investigative report on the gay wing of the LA County Jail is hysterical, shocking, eye-opening, brilliant, and informative. Kind of makes you want to get arrested just to see it for yourself.
Oh dear. Vice magazine says climate change might deliver a serious blow to cocaine production. I would tell you to start stockpiling, but who are we kidding? Nobody in the history of the world has ever been able to save cocaine for later.
i-D explains why Robert Mapplethorp matters now more than ever.
Cyborg cockroaches are coming, and that’s a good thing, explains Digital Trends.
Ding! Ding! All Aboard Britain’s new “Poo Bus,” which runs on the pressurized methane of its passenger’s feces. It needs at least five people to poop to get from Bath to Bristol. Read about it in The Register.
Speaking of Poo – Is Winnie the Pooh transgender or intersex? One town in Poland thinks so. Read about it in The Advocate.
TV Guide says the CW’s Supernatural has a queerbaiting problem that NEEDS TO STOP. Interesting and thought-provoking, even if you don’t watch the show.
The Daily Beast thinks Eminem’s tired, juvenile misogyny NEEDS TO STOP. And I couldn’t agree more.
Slate wonders if Foxcatcher – the new Steve Carrell/Channning Tatum ode to “rough trade” – is homophobic. Sometimes just asking the question is proof that it is.
In FT magazine, Douglas Coupland ponders the meaning of money.
Obituaries for the flamboyant Duchess of Alba –who had more titles than any other person on the planet, being a duchess seven times over, a countess 22 times and a marquesa 24 times – in The Telegraph and The Guardian. What a life. What a dame. They don’t make ‘em like that anymore.
Yes, Hannibal Buress was right to call out Bill Cosby, but The Daily Beast points out Hannibal’s own material is often littered with problematic rape jokes.
The Washington Post: You old, embarrassing tweets just got much easier to find.
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The New Yorker looks for meaning in “Too Many Cooks“: Is it “a postmodern satire of television and Web culture, a commentary on the power of nostalgia, a glimpse at the violence that lurks within us all? Perhaps it is a deconstruction on the very idea of virality itself: it’s the Internet that has too many cooks, and all of us, together, with our sharing and repeated clever comments and urge to be the first to share what thousands of others have already shared, have spoiled the broth.”
The Hollywood Reporter has 5 Fun Facts about it.
Sesame Street has the (inevitable?) parody: “Too Many Cookies” starring Cookie Monster (and Cookie Monster and Cookie Monster with special guest Cookie Monster, but not – thankfully – the serial killer).
i-D magazine has a think-piece about how #AlexFromTarget is welcoming in a golden age of boy-next-door beauty. Yes, seriously. “Somehow that blurry photo of a teenage cashier has become today’s equivalent of Caravaggio’s ‘Boy with a Basket of Fruit,’ a much-lusted-after image of everyday boyhood. Ordinary people are turned into stars overnight, as if in a fairytale. What does this say about our changing concept of beauty?”
So…. Health Goth is a thing now. Alexander Wang gets it. Rick Owens gets it. Even Kylie Jenner gets it. Do you?
Nicky Haslam waxes nostalgically about the genius of Cecil Beaton’s interiors in The Guardian.
A story in The New York Times which seriously came as a shock to me: Millennials don’t own TVs. Don’t need to. They consider it a passé symbol of their parent’s generation, like landlines or refrigerator calendars. They watch everything on their phones, tablets, and computer screens. Everything? EVEN GAME OF THRONES?
Also in The Times: Megan Daum spent several days in a medically-induced coma, hovering between life an death. She writes about how it changed her, spiritually (SPOILER ALERT: Not at all). Fascinating read about America’s need for redemption narratives and its corollary, the recovery narrative.
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With a hostile, Republican-ruled House and Senate, What can Obama actually accomplish in his last two years? Slate has the list.
WHAT A TURKEY: Entertainment Weekly lists the 15 most maddening plot holes in Interstellar.
And just how accurate is the The Theory of Everything?
Catching up with cultural warrior/performance artist Karen Finley in the New York Times.
Beautifully written: “Notes on the Exotic” in the New Yorker.
Also in the New Yorker: A 1962 article on the first year of the Berlin Wall.
In Vocativ: Do anti-bullying campaigns really even work?
NPR wonders if the LGBT community’s mono-maniacal focus on gay marriage is preventing us from achieving genuine equality.
Gen-Xers have hit middle age, and as usual we’re waaaaay over-thinking it, as this Salon piece illustrates.
Slate wonders: Should archives allow horrific images of eradicated diseases, suffering patients, and antiquated treatments available to the public?
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What we still don’t know about Ebola (is A LOT), in The New Yorker.
Also in The New Yorker: How Tim Cook’s coming out signals the end of gay rights as a Republican wedge issue.
Why teens sext: The Atlantic investigates. (I’m just going to go out on a limb here and guess: hormones?)
LA Times reports that McSweeney’s is becoming a non-profit, which begs the question: If McSweeney’s can’t make a go of it, what hope is there for other independent presses?
The Independent has a list of the catchiest songs of all time, and SPOILER ALERT number one is really ZIG-A-ZIG AHHHH.
Awwww. Vulture has the opposite trajectories of Ryan Reynolds’ and Bradley Cooper’s careers.
An interview with PEPPER! from American Horror Story in Salon.
The New York Times obituary of photographer David Armstrong, famous for exploring the often overlapping worlds of gay men, drug addicts, transvestites, fashion models and artists.
i-D argues the case for nostalgia.
Ask Polly: Would He Love Me If I Were Skinnier, Prettier, or Sweeter? A kick-ass response.
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The future of porn promises to be 1000% more IN YOUR FACE, says The Daily Beast.
The New York Times goes to the few Times Square peep shows left for a glimpse of porn’s past.
Must-Listen: Lady Bunny sounds off on the changing face of gay culture in the Feast of Fun podcast.
i-D has an interview with Andrew Logan on 42 years of The Alternative Miss World pageant.
BuzzFeed interviews the scientists who may have found the cure for drug addiction.
Although The Washington Post says hardly anyone uses heroin anymore so what’s the big deal? Why freak out over it?
The semiotics of being a “basic bitch” in New York Magazine.
THE SUPERHUMANS ARE COMING! THE SUPERHUMANS ARE COMING! (says Nautilus magazine)
Politico has how the Republicans lost the culture war (seems pretty obvious to me: They alienated the young, the gay, the non-white voters, and women DUH).
HuffPo wonders what happened to that young, energetic guy full of promise who ran for office in 2008. What was his name? Barack something-or-other?
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A panel of experts on HuffPo Live debate whether it should be legal for consenting adult siblings to have incest.
Explosive new evidence suggests that Sid DIDN’T kill Nancy. Read about it in The Daily Mail.
“I really envied the guy who laid in the bathtub at the Mineshaft every night. He really owned it. The Mine Shaft was his Cheers.” – True tales of ’80s nightlife in PAPER magazine.
YOU GUYS: WHY ISN’T ANYONE TALKING ABOUT NICK JONAS’ HAIRY ASS? (They are at HuffPo Gay)
The horror: PTSD after waking up under anesthesia in The Atlantic.
As Jean Paul Gaultier announces his retirement from ready-to-wear, i-D examines how he changed fashion…. and the WORLD.
John Galliano has been tapped to design for Margiela. The Washington Post finds it a jarring fit.
Also in The Washington Post: What is “Explainer Journalism” and why it’s so wrong.
In Salon: Why Raven-Symone and a lebian couple from Ohio illustrate the fight to assert one’s humanity.
The New York Times investigates whether putting a #hashtag in a title is a trend that is backfiring.
Vice has an interview with the Weekly World News reporter who created Bat Boy in the 1980s
Do you harbor a secret fantasy to own and run a neighborhood bar? Slate thinks you should give it up.
And finally: Ever since the ’60s, drugs have been used to bring about social revolution. i-D wonders what our drugs choices say about us today.
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Bret Easton Ellis writes in Vanity Fair about the too sensitive, too narcissistic, and too stupid Millennials, or as he calls them, “Generation Wuss.” SING IT, SISTER!
As a plane begins its potentially fatal crash landing, a passenger pulls out his phone, takes a selfie, and films what could be the last moments of his life. The New York Times says it’s symptomatic of life (and death) in the iPhone age.
Jay Roberts was a young Marine who spent a single, unforgettable afternoon with a notorious serial killer. Orange Coast magazine has his haunting and beautifully written account of that day, and I promise you: His story will stay with you a loooong time. If you only read one article today, make it this one.
The Daily Beast takes a hard look at Ello (which being touted as THE NEXT FACEBOOK, OMG), and predicts it won’t survive the year.
Meanwhile, HuffPo‘s Michelangelo Signorile profiles Sister Roma (of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence) who is leading the charge against Facebook’s Real Names Policy.
It’s the Battle of the Early 20th Century Female Authors and “the Anxiety of Influence” over at The New Yorker! In this corner, stuffy old Edith Wharton! Her competitor? Uber-bitchy iconoclast Virginia Woolfe! It’s icon versus icon! You can’t afford to miss this historical bout!
New York magazine has the incredible story of an 18th century sex-change operation. Yes, you read that right. The year was 1779, when a surgeon named Thomes Brand made the decision to “return a child to his proper gender.”
An Illinois teacher tweets his classroom discussions. Read about it in The Atlantic.
Elizabeth Wurtzel gazes at her navel.
And finally: Contemplating a New York City without any dive bars in The New York Times.
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The Daily Beast takes us, kicking and screaming, Inside Napa’s State Hospital for the Criminally Insane.
No, “going lesbian for a year” is not an acceptable hobby, says The New Statesman.
Buzzword, graph, celebrity example: Generic trend piece in highbrow magazine is funny because it’s true.
Simon Doonan on the death of his homophobic, emotionally withholding dog, Liberace.
Friday was International Talk Like a Pirate Day. Slate explains why they actually talk like that. The answer will surprise you.
From Salon: An interview with an actual asexual!
What happens when we all live to 100, in The Atlantic.
Also in The Atlantic: What internet vernacular reveals about the evolution of language.
Michael Musto spends time with the decidedly unpolished drag queens of Brooklyn’s Bushwig festival.
An interview with Brigitte Bardot on the occasion of her 80th birthday in The Guardian.
The New York Post: Julian Casablancas left New York because of brunch.
Also in The Guardian: “The English are unrestrained wild beasts and totally out of control,” says Portugese writer João Magueijo. “British homes are less clean than my grandmother’s poultry cage. Their diet is deplorable and fish and chips is a dish that makes you want to wash it with detergent before eating. The north is hideous, the class system the source of reciprocal fear and hate. And then there’s the drinking, and the shagging, illustrated through a number of eye-popping anecdotes involving projectile vomit and casual blowjobs. I never met such a group of animals.” HA! It’s funny because it’s true!
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Fuckin’ Facebook, man. Why Facebook is cracking down on the drag community, in Slate.
It’s Facebook vs Drag Queens in the Wallstreet Journal.
Read more about the uproar in The Guardian, Salon, Business Insider, DeathandTaxes, Towleroad, and The Edmonton Journal, among others.
Pink News reports openly gay San Francisco supervisor David Campos has now called on Facebook – which is based near his district – to meet with the drag community. He said: “I have reached out to Facebook and am working to schedule a meeting at City Hall between Facebook officials and local drag queens as soon as possible.” We’ll see how far that gets.
What can you do? Sign this petition at Change.org and spread the word. Remember: First they came for the drag queens….
Ironically, here’s an article about “the tiresome culture of outrage” in The LA Times.
In Salon, two authors travel across the country visiting independent bookstores, and report that BOOKSTORES LIVE!
The surprising theory why so many Disney characters are motherless, in YahooCelebrity.
Adulthood is dead, cries The New York Times. Vulture agrees, and adds that Seth Rogen is now more serious than Woody Allen.
In the Daily Beast: Why porn is leading the fight for net neutrality.
From celebrity nudes to Ray Rice’s domestic abuse to the ISIS beheadings, The Atlantic has an unresolved debate about what pics should be published, what pics should be taken, and what pics should be shared.
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Let’s just do this: How Joan changed the face of fashion forever in the Daily Mail.
Joan’s 50 best jokes in Vulture.
Remembering Joan’s iconic style in The Cut (I was partial to her ’80s big-hair-and-ballgown phase when she thought she was Nan Kempner) .
A fascinating remembrance “”Joan Rivers Always Knew She Was Funny” in New York
This is interesting: Read a previously unpublished chapter from Charlie & the Chocolate Factory in The Guardian.
Also in The Guardian: A brief history of psychedelic psychiatry.
Because it needs to be said: Vanity Fair‘s 7 Tips for Surving Fashion Week.
In “Mullets I Have Loved” David Keeps and Suzan Colón reminisce about working at Star Hits magazine in its ’80s heyday.
15 movies everybody will be talking about after the Toronto Film Festival.
ENOUGH, ALREADY! According to Salon: Hipster bashing has become a stand-in for anti-intellectualism, middle class resentment, and subtle homophobia. So STOP IT!
The Most Overrated Albums of the ’90s. Yeah, we’re looking at YOU, OK Computer.
Bestiality is on the rise in Europe. Vice has the investigation and gripping mini-doc.
In Slate: How Saved By the Bell invented the tween, and other reasons you shouldn’t have been so quick to dismiss that SBTB biopic on Lifetime.
And finally, dealing with digital cruelty, in The New York Times.
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It was revealed this week that Hello Kitty is not a cat. She’s a teenage girl. And if that wasn’t shocking enough, The New Yorker wants you to know the truth about these OTHER cartoon characters.
Porn Again: The Spectator takes a look at the middle-aged men and women warped by internet porn.
Of course, nothing really matters because government researchers think we’re all just living in a 2D hologram. Read about it in VICE.
Hilary’s gay rights evolution is chronicled in The New York Times.
In Slate: Taylor Swift’s Machiavellian move from country to pop, and how the horrid “Shake It Off” debuted at number one.
Why there should never, ever, ever be a Full House reboot.
And why The Simpsons can never get its mojo back.
Is the facekini the future of beachwear? The Daily Beast thinks so.
And finally: Why THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT STORY YOU WILL EVER READ and how Facebook plans to cut down on click-bait.
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Slate exposes the sad and disturbing world of Koko the gorilla.
The US Copyright Office has weighed in the case of the monkey selfie, and decided that “works produced by nature, animals, and plants” do not belong to the animals or plants that produce them (sorry Groot), they belong in the public domain, and furthermore, so do “works purportedly created by divine or supernatural beings.” Ok…. but does that law also apply to ROBOTS?
If you’re worried about the coming robot revolution as much as I am, I beseech you to watch “Humans Need Not Apply” – the mini-doc on how robots are going to take away your earning power.
Not so fast, says The New York Times. Robots aren’t going to take your jobs because they lack common sense! (FOR NOW).
A prominent law professor addresses addresses why Officer Darren Wilson of Ferguson hasn’t been arrested yet.
Salon catches up with our old friend Jonah Falcon, the guy with the world’s largest penis. SPOILER ALERT: His massive schlong has not brought him happiness and prosperity.
Check this out, bro: The origin and history of the word “bro” and why overuse suggests the word might be on the way out.
GQ has a profile of the legendary North Pond Hermit, who lived alone in the woods of Central Maine for nearly 30 years, and survived on what he could steal from the local townspeople in the dead of the night.
From Oddity Central: Professional Poo Diver Loves his Stinky Job!
Michael Musto lists the 10 Best Bad Movies of All Time.
And The Atlantic explores the psychology behind the word “the” in a band’s name.
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The Onion nails it: Tips for Being An Unarmed Black Teen.
From VICE: How to avoid being an exploding corpse after you die.
This will make you sad: Mental Floss has 11 smells that are disappearing from our world.
Robin William’s death, and how we mourn on social media in The New York Times.
In case you missed it: Lauren Bacall’s obituary in The New York Times.
Boy Culture has an incredibly comprehensive list of the last Golden Age stars left standing.
Vanity Fair revives the old Spy magazine Nightlife Decathlon.
The LA Times has a wrist-slittingly accurate game: So You Want to Be a Writer?
Last month, a North Carolina mother was arrested for letting her 9-year-old daughter play at the park, unattended. Which is RIDICULOUS. When I was nine, I drove a truck from Florida to Kentucky! BY MYSELF! And lived in a cave with a hibernating bear! I tell you, kids today are wussies. Slate tracks kid’s freedoms through the last seventy years.
A HuffPo reporter tries group masturbation! Wheeeeee!
The Daily Dot explains the problem with James Franco’s queerbaiting. And here’s a remedial lesson on what queerbaiting is, any why media queerbaiting tactics, in general, are wrong.
10 things not to do as a New Yorker visiting LA, via The Homemaker.
Why BuzzFeed is shifting its strategy. And why they’ve quietly deleted nearly 5,000 old posts.
And finally, to end on a disturbing note: From Matter magazine: You’re 16, you’re a pedophile, you don’t want to hurt anyone… what do you do now?
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In praise of back hair on The Dish,
An incredibly lengthy puff piece of Vine star Nash Grier on HuffPo Gay (odd, considering his recent homophobic rant. Damage control anybody?)
Forget Ebola. We’re all going to die of Valley Fever.
“I had no idea I’d been sex trafficked”: A terrifying true story in Salon.
Simon Napier-Bell: The ultimate rock n’ roll gossip in the Times of London.
The troubles and triumphs of fat, gay men in Slate.
Simon Doonan has 10 ways to stay chill in the heat of the summer.
Hmmm. If monkeys can own selfies, what other rights should they have? Check out the debate in Wired.
Also in Wired: When robots take all our jobs, what’ll be left for us to do?
How culture affects madness in The New Republic: An anthropologist asks schizophrenics around the world to describe the voices in their heads.
Also in The New Republic: Why did those two US missionaries get the Ebola serum while Africans are left to die?
And finally, the rise and fall… and rise again?… of superstar celebrity journalist Kevin Sessums in The New York Times.
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What you need to know about the Ebola outbreak in the New York Times.
Also: The Ebola virus is outpacing effort