What's Your Capitalization Vector?

Thiel-backed dating site can't find the dames

I was introduced to the concept of rubbernecking sometime during high school. I was driving home from Cape Cod with a friend when traffic on I-195 came to a halt for no apparent reason. Your classic rubbernecking delay happens when an accident on the South side of the highway affects traffic on the North side as well because drivers turn their head to see the wreckage, try to figure out what exactly happened, and perhaps acknowledge that “there but for the grace of [insert higher power here] go I.”

This, however, was not that. On that day in the late 80s, traffic on both sides of the Rhode Island highway came to a stop because there was a runaway horse on the side of a road being lassoed by a police officer (or a cowboy in uniform). I remember it vividly and believe that sight was truly worth the delayed arrival.

Anyone who happened to be driving on I-40 near Oklahoma City last Wednesday morning might have a similarly unusual story to tell at parties after a tractor trailer overturned, spilling cartons upon cartons of what was later identified as sex toys and lube. While the OK Highway Patrol did not say what kind of products were spewed onto the roadway (the jokes are too easy), a local helicopter got some pictures, and an investigative team from Vice/Motherboard zoomed way in.

Based on the pictures, the team is convinced not just that they are sex toys but that the boxes contain Adam & Eve G-Spot Touch Finger Vibes. The visual evidence is pretty good:

And there’s some circumstantial evidence as well: the Oklahoma City news site The Lost Ogle noted that there is a warehouse nearby that has been known to be used by manufacturers/distributors of adult products. 

There was also speculation that the other items in the picture are bottles of lubes, but no one has gotten confirmation of that yet.

Most of us only have to worry about cleaning our own sex toys (soap and water usually suffice). I feel bad for the highway authority that had to clean up this mess. I don’t even know where you start, especially if there were burst bottles of lube involved. Forklifts? Skyhooks? Very large squeegees? An exceptional large pair of underwear? A few packages of tube socks?

Conservative Dating App Lacking a Certain XX Factor

A new cisgender, heterosexual-only, conservative dating app is scheduled to launch this month. It has a good pro-Trump pedigree; it’s being funded by PayPal-founder Peter Thiel and heavily promoted by Ryann McEnany, sister of Kayleigh who we may remember as Trump’s 4th and perhaps least qualified Press Secretary. Sure, the “woke” media made merciless fun of it when it was announced over the summer, but by all accounts, The Right Stuff should be good to go.

It’s just missing one thing … women.

In one ad for the site, three attractive young women (not all of whom are white, surprisingly) lament their recent dating woes; a man who didn’t want children because of the environment, one who asked her to pay for their ice cream, and another who showed up all sweaty on a bicycle (also because of the environment). The Right Stuff promises you can “start going out with normal guys” again. The right-wing messages in the ad seem a little subtle to me.

I believe these men were supposed to be awful because they are liberal, but the actors and the script just made them all-around awful: the ice cream guy has a bright yellow fanny pack, and no one wants a date who show up already sweaty. I can’t decide whether this was on purpose or the ad just missed its mark on what makes someone a liberal snowflake specifically unappealing.  

McEnany’s job has been to bring young, attractive conservative women (think aspiring Fox News hosts) to the site, but according to The Daily Beast, it’s been a hard sell, especially in DC where the app was looking to launch. Some Republican staffers told the news site that it was too much of a risk to join because there could be liberals masquerading as conservatives, or you could end up matched with someone you already know in political circles. Other staffers noted that McEnany’s messages were not just being ignored but passed around on group chats as a joke. And one young woman described as a Republican political operative said that thus far it was just Mitch McConnell’s staffers who’d signed up.  

A conservative reporter gave The Daily Beast yet another reason that people of her age and political proclivity wouldn’t be interested: “The internet seems to interfere with biological tendencies, like men courting women. This isn’t like Alexa telling you the weather. You can’t upend the natural mating process and call it traditional.” And, some other young conservatives question whether an app like this is necessary even for those who are willing to give up on the pheromone-driven meet cute because mainstream dating apps already allow people to filter for political views. Algorithms might not be perfect but to put it in DC terms, Bumble is unlikely to match a McConnell staffer with, say, Sotomayor’s newest clerk.

The unlaunched site is also a victim of Republican lack of imagination. Remember Melania Trump’s speech that so closely mimicked what Michelle Obama had said years earlier? Or the inauguration cake that looked almost exactly like the cake Duff Goldberg had made for Barack? The MAGA crowd didn’t bring a lot of creativity to the beltway and this is not exception.

The Right Stuff is a clever phrase, but it’s been used before. There’s a white-nationalist website with the same name, not to mention Tom Wolff’s great book that was made into a movie about the original Mercury astronauts, and, of course the New Kids on the Block song. (You got the right stuff, baby/Love the way you turn me on/You got the right stuff, baby/You're the reason why I sing this song.)

There is also—wait for it—an existing dating site. Launched more than 20-years ago, The Right Stuff tries to match highly educated individuals. Its taglines are “smart is sexy” and “join the ivy leagues of dating.” Not quite the same audience. The founder of that site told The Daily Beast that his lawyers are working on a cease-and-desist letter.

Rupert Murdoch’s far-right alternative to mainstream news—Fox—changed the world but attempts to do the same with dating apps (Righter) or social media (Truth Social) have not been nearly as successful. Thiel—who as an openly gay man could not actually use this app—clearly, saw money-making potential in this site, but perhaps he shouldn’t have picked a capitalization vector that ran straight through a horde of undatable MAGA incel trolls.  

Eff Urself: New Campaign Calls Out Absurdity of Abortion Laws

A group of women in advertising came together as Women That Fight (WTF) and created a new campaign called Eff-Urself: One of the Few Choices You Have Left in Post-Roe America. It is designed to call attention to the absurdity of today’s abortion laws and drive donations to the National Network of Abortion Funds (NNAF).

The anchor piece of the campaign is a parody ad for a giant, anatomically correct dildo being sold as “a foolproof way to guarantee you'll never need an abortion – or your money back!" The ad has a retro feel (you know, back to the 70’s when we had reproductive rights) and a darkly comedic tone. The accompanying website describes Eff-Urself as: “… a parody product and film created for the National Network of Abortion Funds (NNAF) that satirically exposes the lack of choices Americans with a uterus have left for protecting their bodies and reproductive health” and a “non-solution to the overturning of Roe v. Wade.”

I spoke with Che-Na Stephenson, the creative lead behind the campaign, about what drew the group to the topic and why they went with humor. Here’s a little bit of our conversation.

SOW: You guys are in advertising, what made you want to take on abortion rights?

CS: We were all deeply hurt and concerned about the state of reproductive rights in this country and were trying think of how we could make something a little better using the resources that we have and the talent that we have. Obviously we can't save the world, but we can improve things, we can let our voices be heard, and we can inspire people to donate. So that that was our part. That was what we were able to do as this independent collective of creative women.

SOW: How did you choose the National Network of Abortion Fund (NNAF) as a partner?

CS: We wanted to partner with an organization that would have the most impact. NNAF has such a wide web of different non-profits under them, and we loved how direct their impact is. They’re helping people with travel and lodging and all the things they need for abortion access.

SOW: Was the dark humor something you always intended to do or did it evolve in that direction?   

CS: We wanted to approach it in a way that really cut through because it's such a serious topic, as it should be, and most people talk about it in a very serious manner. Sometimes you just have to disarm people a little bit for them to listen to you. This has happened for hundreds of years. I was actually an English major and I remember reading satire written by all of the writers of the Enlightenment period. One of JonathanSwift’s essays was about eating children and I still remember it.

The absurd story is going to be the memorable thing in times like this because everyone is kind of shouting. When we thought about the thing that could be most memorable, for us, it was satire. Obviously, the notion that, you know, effing yourself with this dildo is going to prevent abortion, by way of just completely avoiding pregnancy is an absurd, silly way into the issue. And then there’s the provocative nature of showing a dildo.

People by nature want to be entertained, and if you can wrap a message into that entertainment, you’re firing on all cylinders.

SOW: Last question, as you said the dildo plays heavily in the creative, and the campaign is giving away five free Eff-Urself dildos to select donors. How did you choose which dildo would get the honor?

CS: We had a list of companies that would potentially work with us and let us rebrand the dildo for the campaign. I think there were maybe 15 or so dildos on it. It was actually very important to us that it was anatomical. There were some that were like purple and that doesn’t work for positioning it as “avoid this, you avoid abortion.” So, this was the one that that passed the test on all levels.

Can Cow Mucus Prevent Herpes and HIV?

A mucus-based prophylactic gel has been found to be 70% effective in preventing HIV and 80% effective in preventing Herpes, according to an article published in Advanced Science. Researchers at KTH The Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden say these laboratory-based results are a good sign that this gel could one day become an STI-prevention tool. 

Scientists have been looking for materials that could be discreetly inserted into the vagina or rectum to prevent the acquisition of HIV and/or other STIs. Often referred to as microbicides, these biomedical substances could come in the form of vaginal rings, gels, films, suppositories, foams, or enemas. For many researchers, the goal is to find a product that receptive partners (whether for vaginal or anal sex) could use instead of condoms which are traditionally controlled by the insertive partner. While there are many microbicides in clinical trials, there are still none on the market for preventing HIV.

For this project, researchers chose to work with mucin, a main component of the mucus produced by our bodies. We’ve discussed cervical mucus here so often that we have our own fairy (hi, Cecily), but apparently there’s more to know about the sticky substance. Mucin protects us from infection by binding to and trapping virus particles. These are then cleared from the body through “active mucus turnover” (a phrase none of us really want to—but all of us now can—visualize).

According to the Hongji Yan, the lead researcher on the project, mucin is the right material for the job because of this “self-healing function.” It can provide “lubricity and prophylaxis against infection.” Hongji believes that the mucin in the synthetic gel they’ve developed “also helps to dampen the activation of immune cells.” This is significant because HIV needs activated immune cells in order to replicate and take hold in the body.    

The researchers felt that a fully man-made substance would not work as well as one with real mucin so they turned to bovine mucus as the basis for their synthetic gel. While I can imagine raw bovine mucus taken directly from the cow as an ancient version of contraception (rivaling crocodile dung), this product is made from a purified form.  

The researchers believe this could help people take greater control of their sex lives because it can be used when a condom isn’t available or as a back-up method along with a condom. This study is just the first step, an actual product is still years away.

I think we should get a jump on naming it for them. Perhaps, Cowper’s Serum, a play on the Cowper’s glands which sit near the prostate and add clear fluid to semen. We could suggest Cowdom Gel or Skym? There’s also Moocrobicide, Moocus “For When the Mood Strike You,” or maybe Intamoocy Gel?

There are so many options, I want to hear from you. Comment with your best cow mucus related product name. Whoever comes up with the one that makes me laugh the most will win a “that’s not how it f**king works” tee-shirt.