• Apparently, for only one species of praying mantis (out of over 2000), the female has to remove the head of the male in order to mate properly. But the myth lives on! Sociological Images considers the problem with the post Shoddy Research & Cultural Tropes: the Praying Mantis.
• If You’re Black in Philly, Every Day is a TSA Day. For some of us, the new TSA regulations are the first time we’ve had to seriously worry about our bodily integrity being violated by the authorities. For others, it’s a daily concern. —(via Racialicious)
• Via Lindsay S., a satisfying take-down of a piece in the New York Times by a blogger for NPR: Please, PLEASE, No More Trend Pieces About Women Based On ‘Sex And The City’.
• Lena Chen has a post about shifting definitions of virginity here.
“When I say that there is no such thing as virginity, I’m not trying to dump on what other people “believe”, but I am saying that they’re wrong in thinking that virginity is anything more than an idea. And this is simply an objective observation based on the economic, religious, medical, and socio-legal function that virginity has served in Western society. And if more people start to come to this conclusion, perhaps they’ll ask themselves how they can put so much stock into something that is defined differently across history?”
frame of nature 