Introducing Gayworld: Disney’s Newest Park Offers Dynamic and Educational Fun For The Whole Family!

Something special and a little bit magical has been happening in Central California this past year — something new, something fresh, something exciting — and this month, you’re gonna be hearing a lot about it! For example, you can look forward to strip mall flash mobs blasting Alan Menken’s greatest hits mixed by DJ Samantha Ronson, whimsical ad campaigns highlighting Hercules’ carefully sculpted physique at Equinox Gyms, a feature story about that Bear from The Jungle Book and his adopted son in Gay Parenting Magazine and so many Vitamin Water giveaways at Pride Events that you’ll never need to buy water again. All of these things will be happening in celebration of Disney’s boldest move since inventing Abby Cadabby: the creation of Gayworld, an amusement park that will marry the rich history and culture of the lesbian and gay people with fun and entertainment for the whole family!

“We were getting a lot of pushback from the gays about ‘whatever’ and basically, it was either ‘make a gay amusement park’ or let Regina and Emma move in together as lesbian lovers on Once Upon a Time,” Disney’s Diversity Director Joseph McSmith told me. “The park seemed much easier.”

We were lucky enough to visit the park in its opening weeks and speak to many of the straight white people involved in bringing this fantasy to life. McSmith and his gay second cousin, Bryan, took us on a tour of the park last week, which is currently open only to press and members of Disney’s Elite Park Fanatics Club. I specifically asked to be shown the areas of the park most relevant to queer females, and after explaining to Joe that “queer” isn’t offensive anymore, my tour began!

Full Disclosure: We were given one park pass, a $25 iTunes gift card, two free hot dogs and $125 to write this article.

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The Happiest Place On Earth

The first thing we noticed was that the park’s attractions and layout seemed eerily similar to Disney parks. Turns out that’s no accident — 75% of the park’s attractions were repurposed attractions from other parks! Upon entrance, you’re immediately accosted by a plethora of drag queens, who will leave lipstick marks on your cheek while crowing popular Drag Race catchphrases as you make your way onto Gayworld’s Main Promenade — Castro Street USA, home of the famous activist Harvey Milk. “I really liked Milk,” McSmith told us.

Strollers are available for rent at the park’s entrance, but if you find yourself childless and strollerless, Gayworld has you covered with a bevy of rentable foster children already strapped inside their own strollers and ready to roll. “Because of adoption or whatever,” McSmith said. “You know, gays want to adopt kids? I heard they’re adopting all the kids.”

McSmith informed me that most of Gayworld’s employees were indeed gay, which he admitted wasn’t done on purpose. “We called a big meeting for the gay employees of Disney Parks in Anaheim and basically that turned out to be all of our employees.” At this point, Bryan stopped making the gagging gesture he’d been pantomiming since adopting children came up and broke into a riotous guffaw.

As you stroll down the bustling streets of Castro Street USA you may hear a riot nearby — yup, that’s going down at The Stonewall Inn, hosted by Zappos, where a pile of high heels are provided for you to throw at “cops” to join in the action! Although noticeably tamer than the actual Stonewall Riots, it was thrilling to see small children working in cahoots with gay men and drag queens to protect their bar! After the “cops” hauled an effeminate gang of Ducktales characters away in their paddy wagon, the few remaining patrons thanked the audience participants profusely for their participation, reassuring them that none of this could have happened without them. Then fireworks erupted in the sky while “A Dream Is A Wish Your Heart Makes” played on loud speakers. I almost shed a tear!

Shops lining Castro Street USA sell a variety of items, like Neil Patrick Harris action figures, Ellen DeGeneres collectable plates, and sunglasses just like Elton John’s. In a special old time photo saloon hosted by Logo, you too can get the RuPaul’s Drag Race Makeover Experience — if you’re willing to wait in line for five hours. “It’s overraaated!” Bryan loudly sing-songed to me as we passed a queue that wrapped all the way into Tomorrowland.

I was really looking forward to The House of Gay Icons, a spin-off from The Hall of Presidents featuring anamatronic figures of Joe Solomonese, Harvey Fierstein, RuPaul, Harvey Milk, Barney Frank, Macklemore, Gavin Newsom, Dustin Lance Black, Ellen DeGeneres and Audre Lorde, but Bryan said it was really boring, McSmith agreed, and thus we plowed gayly forward into the rest of the park.

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Equal Rights and Crazy Nights

Of course, the signature Sleeping Beauty Castle is visible from the moment you enter the gate, only this castle isn’t a castle — it’s a majestic Grandest Marriage Chapel, sponsored by The Learning Channel and Barefoot Wines. We all know the story of Sleeping Beauty, who dreamed of marrying her Prince Charming. In the Grandest Marriage Chapel, all homosexuals are invited to live out their one and only dream: getting married. We counted six lesbian couples who looked barely old enough to vote get married in the time it took us to finish our rainbow Sno-Cones! Ceremony packages are available at a range of price points and include add-ons like matching Cinderella gowns and a small selection of pre-made wedding cakes by Duff Goldman of Charm City Cakes.

On the other side of the Grandest Marriage Chapel lies a variety of entertaining rides and performances, such as Mr. Gay’s Wild Ride sponsored by Old Spice After Hours and Sleep Number Beds, which replicates an authentically gay wild and crazy night out with your gay pals. The ride whizzes you past famous dance clubs like The Planet, She-Bar, Central Perk and Babylon. You’ll fly over a White Party on a yacht, zoom ’round and ’round a Foam Party somewhere vaguely South American, and finally find yourself falling into dreamland on a Sleep Number m9 Memory Foam mattress.

If you’ve got any energy left after that, the Glee Musical Spectacular is not to be missed. ‘Shippers will be delighted to see their favorite Glee numbers performed the way they were always meant to be performed: in a world where everyone is gay.

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The Future Is So Bright

Tomorrowland, McSmith admitted, is very much a work in progress. “We’re trying to figure out how you can get even more gay married than current technology allows,” McSmith explained. “Once we’ve ironed out the kinks there, it will become part of the Tomorrowland experience!”

McSmith also brought up Tomorrowland when asked about the lack of specifically bisexual representation in Gayworld. “We’re still waiting for the numbers to come in as far as whether they really exist,” he said. “If it turns out they do, though, we’ve ordered some focus groups on a ride that simulates the experience of a four-episode same-sex relationship on a teen drama which is never mentioned again after sweeps.” When asked about transgender representation, McSmith asked, “What? Like Peter Pan?” and before I could figure out how to answer that question, he gestured grandly and declared “There are drag queens everywhere!”

“But drag queens aren’t trans—” I began before Bryan cut me off.

“Don’t bother,” Bryan said. “He still thinks LGBTQ stands for lesbian, gays, bisexuals and drag queens.”

Before I could even say “but—” McSmith interrupted me to show me an unfinished Mulan-themed area in Tomorrowland he’d forgotten about. Basically, it’s a sad green screen karaoke studio where you can pay $20 for a VHS of yourself singing “I’ll Make A Man Out Of You” on video. I slipped Mulan my number and said I’d be back later.

The only fully functional Tomorrowland exhibition is The Carousel of Progress, sponsored by Barnes & Noble, which guides you through three decades of progress in Ellen DeGeneres’s career, from her early days on Ellen the sitcom to her more recent career on Ellen the talk show. Furthermore, I was told that the now-shuttered Epcot attraction Ellen’s Energy Adventure will soon be restored to its full glory in Tomorrowland.

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For The Thrill Seekers

The park’s scariest ride, undoubtedly, is The Well of Loneliness, inspired by The Tower of Terror and sponsored by Netflix and The Radclyffe Hall Estate. Here’s the description from my pamphlet:

This adaptation on the legendary “Tower of Terror” is recommended for depressive lesbians who identify as female but go by a nickname that suggests maleness. After the queue winds you through a majestic tableau of late Victorian era English high society and introduces you to a series of captivating characters, such as Collins the housemaid and World War I driver Mary Llewellyn, visitors will enter a small carriage at a great height and plummet to their deaths.

Like most rides at Disney Parks, the lines at Gayworld are incredibly long, and visitors are encouraged to install Gayworld’s exclusive friendship app, Friendzone, sponsored by Hallmark Cards. Friendzone is a lot like Grindr or Tindr or OkCupid, but ostensibly just for finding potential friends within the park. “Pshhhh FRIENDZONE, more like QUICKFUCKZONE,” Bryan sort of squealed incredulously. “Everyone who uses that app ends up meeting behind Ariel’s Grotto for a quick hand job.”

While it’s no Well of Loneliness, It’s A Small World, sponsored by Gold’s Gym and Valeant Pharmaceuticals, is a pretty horrifying adventure in its own right. Instead of piling into a boat and traveling through far away lands like the beloved original ride, this Gayworld version guides you through different social scenes — a friend’s house party, a busy street corner, a coffee shop, Whole Foods at 9:55pm — while you come face to face with your worst nightmare: your exes. Why? Because it is a small world after all!

You won’t find any singing children along the way, because they’ve all been replaced with gaunt, almost possessed-looking versions of Ellen Degeneres yelling and singing a half-tempo version of that song from RENT.

“Jesus Christ this place gives me an eating disorder,” said Bryan.

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Back To Life, Back to Reality

For those who are missing more traditional park and carnival rides, never fear! The classic fun offered by bumper cars is still alive and well at Gayworld. Men have a choice of several colors and models of tiny, inefficient sports cars resembling the Mitsubishi Eclipse, and women can ride a bumper car Subaru with a U-Haul trailer hitched to the back for maximum bumping potential.

At the nearby Bibbidi Bobbiti Boutique, guests can enjoy the experience of shopping with a park-assigned gay man and get their princess on!

As with other Disney Parks properties, visitors will find a wide array of fine dining and entertainment options. I was particularly impressed by Gayworld’s proprietary ice cream flavor, The L Whirled, sponsored by Ben & Jerry’s. A lychee ice cream base includes Lorna Doones, lingonberries and latkes. I wasn’t as much of a fan of the signature cocktail The Twink, which is built around marshmallow vodka and is garnished with an entire fried Twinkie, but to each their own.

Lesbians may also find their expectations dashed at Space Mountain, which is identical to the original. “Nobody’s gay in space,” McSmith reminded me. I was surprised, however, by the plethora of unhappy lesbians milling around outside the entrance to the thrilling coaster. “I thought this was a mountain where I could get some fucking space from my clingy girlfriend,” one told me.

“There should be a mountain for that,” I agreed.

“You’re telling me,” said another sad lesbian.

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The Lesbian Separatist Commune (formerly Frontierland)

Perhaps the park’s most prescient problem lies, however, in the Lesbian Separatist Commune. Initially intended to introduce families to family-friendly topics like farming, couples therapy, womynhood, and drum circles, I got the distinct impression the women hired to staff the Commune have banded together against the park. McSmith and Bryan refused to enter — or sign the petition against Gayworld, which all humans must sign upon entry. “Last time I went in there, I left with a glob of hummus in my ear,” McSmith confessed. “Count me out.”

“I have to make a phone call,” Bryan insisted, already fake-talking on his iPhone.

The first thing you notice upon entering The Commune is the music, because a girl with shortish brown hair is sitting on the ground in front of you playing her guitar and singing songs she wrote her freshman year of college. The second thing you notice is the smell, because The Commune features compost bins instead of garbage cans. “There is no garbage on The Land,” a woman who referred to herself as Lizzy Van Dyke told me. “Well, every now and then a man finds his way in, HAHA! But that’s what Tonya Sawyer Island is for.”

Technically, men are allowed in The Commune — a radical departure, Van Dyke tells me, from what they signed up for. “I guess by “SEPARATIST” they meant “patriarchist,” she says, scowling. “These ‘Disney Family Magic Guys.'” She said, doing air quotes. “They said it was against ‘the rules’ to forbid men to enter. We said okay fine, they can come in, but we’re not going to make space for them or prioritize their needs.”

Van Dyke showed me the It Takes A Village daycare center, where you can drop off your child (or rented child) for one-hour intervals, and while you’re at the unscheduled and unsanctioned yurt building seminar, take heart that your children are having a great time tie-dying menstrual pads and learning basic Sanskrit. But don’t miss dinner at Farm To Lesbian To Table! Reservations are required at least seven hours in advance, as these womyn need ample time to harvest the vegetables you select for your evening meal. Plus, everything is on a sliding scale and all the employees seem genuinely happy.

The gift shop initially built on The Commune, which sold flannels and overalls with Gayworld logos, was forcibly removed by a group of “burly lesbians” who opposed the commercialization of their culture. The rogue band of lesbian park employees, using their own tools, dismantled the shop and then, in an unexpected twist, rebuilt it in a new location, which partially obscures the entrance to the  aforementioned Bibbidi Bobbiti Boutique, which Van Dyke refers to as “princess shit.”

Items available for barter within The Commune itself include pamphlets on sustainable agriculture, back copies of Heresies, Olivia Records mixtapes and inedible hand pies made with spelt and organic apples.

Bryan told me later that The Lesbian Commune, for all its daytime dowdiness, is the place to be at night. That’s when the Hookah-Smoking Caterpillar Lounge transforms into a bacchanalia, replete with “all the best drugs,” lots of lesbian sex (“whatever that is”) and wild dance parties. The Dykes on Bikes Ride, which the Van Dykes have converted to run on vegetable oil, only functions at night, and “at least six lezzers have lost their virginity on those bikes if you know what I mean.”

I did know what he meant.

Later, Bryan added, “I mean, it’s no Butt-Pirates of the Caribbean, but close.”

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Critter Corner and Log (Cabin Republican) Flume Ride

After an intense experience at The Commune, I was ready to hit up Critter Corner, sponsored by PetSmart and JCPenny. A bronze statue at the entrance to Critter Corner commemorates the first effeminate gay man to ever own a very small dog, and caricature artists stand by ready to illustrate portraits of lesbians as their own cats — be sure to bring a photo reference. A small animal enclosure houses a group of penguins in honor of Roy and Silo, Central Park Zoo’s famous gay penguins. McSmith couldn’t verify that these penguins were also gay but said, “I read a thing about it on Huffington Post, like how penguins are gay?” Critter Corner also boasts Jafar and Uncle Scar’s Tea Room, as well as a dog park where attractive actors (mostly former Real L Word cast members) pretend to be other dog-owning lesbians who flirt with you.

But I was still curious, after my experience on The Commune, hearing McSmith’s earlier conflation of transgender people and drag queens and witnessing that conflation at The Stonewall Riots attraction, if the creators of Gayworld had consulted any LGBTQ people when constructing the park. Turns out that the answer is “no,” with one exception — The Log (Cabin Republican) Flume Ride, sponsored by Log Cabin Republicans, which takes visitors on a chilling slow-mo drift past animatronic “Song of the South” characters posed to depict the joys of small government and the horrors of safer sex education, universal healthcare, and environmental regulation before a deathly plunge into the cold icy waters of the 99%.

“Those guys got real involved,” McSmith recalled. “They wanted the full hands-on control of the ride, like every last detail. Nice guys though,” he smiled. “We had some good times, me and those boys. Mostly at Applebee’s.”

Apparently the Log Cabin Republicans also had a hand in transforming the Mad Tea Party into an unpopular attraction wherein actual Tea Party members invited guests to sit down with them over a cup of Lipton and help them prove that the President doesn’t have an American birth certificate. McSmith repeatedly assured me that rumors of Mad Tea Party employees threatening to use their second amendment rights against park visitors were false.

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The Harlem Renaissance

Just when I thought my day at Disney was coming to a close and I’d said my goodbyes to dear Joe McSmith, Bryan let me in on a little secret — the best world in Gayworld isn’t even on the map. According to Bryan, McSmith and other park directors have no explanation for why The Harlem Renaissance has been left off the map and refuse to discuss it. “Last time I asked Joe about it, he literally pointed at the sky and said Is that Aladdin? Like that’s literally what he actually did.”

When I asked a Josephine Baker impersonator if she knew the reason, she looked me right in the eyes and asked “Why do you think?” The James Baldwin impersonator behind her laughed, “maybe the map-makers just don’t see color,” a joke I understood about thirty minutes later.

But by that point, I’d already had a kickass time dancing at the jam-packed Savoy Ballroom and was heading over to the Ubangi Club to see a Gladys Bentley impersonator with Bryan and his friends. I mentioned that I was worried about missing the nightly Gay Pride Parade, but Bryan insisted it was both “sponsored by Logo” and “super-douchey” and that The Dyke March at The Lesbian Commune was probably “more my style” but “never starts on time, so whatever.”

At some point later in the evening, a very drunk Bryan confessed that Out magazine had been given $12,500 to write their article about Gayworld even though we’d only been given $125, but before I could get too bitter, Josephine Baker, assorted Glee cast members and a gang of Van Dykes tripping on mushrooms invited me to the Minnie Moms Mabley Mouse Show sponsored by HBO and I couldn’t be sad for too long. After all, who needs money when you’ve got Disney magic?

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Gayworld is located in Hollister, California. Opening festivities for the park will take place April 24th featuring live performances by Katy Perry, Miley Cyrus and Justin Bieber. Tickets go on sale next week for $3,500 each. Regular park admission will be $124/person or $650/family, hours 9am ’til 2AM. 

Introducing B-Camp

Once upon a time we had a dream. It involved 46 or 200 lady-identified ladies, a charred valley in the shadow of the San Bernadino Mountains, platform tents constructed from discarded copies of The Daily Mail, canned pineapples with warm cottage cheese, a staff comprised of former Autostraddle Interns Who Disappeared Without Officially Quitting, and a weekend packed with workshops, panels, activities and performances designed to pass the time.

It was a dream called B-Camp.

The overwhelming success of A-Camp has led to a jam-packed waiting list and hoards of young lesbians unable to fulfill their fantasies of possibly having sex with Sarah Croce or overhearing somebody else having sex with Carmen Rios. Thanks to a recent newsworthy event in the Angelus Oaks region, we were able to secure a potentially carcinogenic patch of land only slightly down the hill from A-Camp, where we intend to provided a fulfilling experience for those unafraid of ghosts, processed meats, and spending a little extra for a truly authentic lesbian vacation.

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When: 

Thursday May 23rd – Monday May 27th, 2013, the same dates as A-Camp

Where: 

Your $875 tuition includes:

Lodging

Three nights of access to an umbrella and a carpet square. For $50/hour extra, access to platform tents.

Food

Three “meals” a day, including a last-day Rise & Shine Heart Attack Breakfast co-sponsored by the Jack-in-the-Box Ultimate Breakfast Sandwich and Beano®. Vegetarians, vegans and gluten-free campers are encouraged to bring your own weirdo crap, as our corporate sponsors do not have time for your hippie bullshit.

Programming

Full access to a variety of activities, workshops, panels, sports and arts & crafts, some of which you may have to lead yourself because we don’t actually know how to make friendship bracelets.

Transportation

If you’re flying into LAX, you will be picked up by one of several large vans driven by Autostraddle staffers arriving at uneven intervals, as coordinated by a bunch of girls who just met for the first time. Your van may or may not break down on the highway. Includes snacks.

Kickass Tote Bag!

Our official B-Camp Gift Bags will be jam-packed with amazing things such as the official B-Camp T-shirt (designed and printed by Urban Outfitters), a CD copy of the hit single “Dirty Knees” by Dusty Ray, a coupon for a free trial membership to eHarmony, a picture collage of our cats, a fresh pack of Bic Pens For Her, an autographed bootlegged copy of The Real L Word Season One and a paperback edition of The Well of Loneliness. The first ten campers to make it up the mountain will receive a 3 1/4″ floppy disk full of desktop backgrounds Carly made when she was 18 featuring images of strong women.

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Rise & Shine Workout!

B-Campers will rise with the sun for a morning workout, which will focus on whittling away excess arm fat, toning your abdominal region, and getting rid of those thighs! (Sponsored by Jillian Michaels Maximum Strength Fat Burner®.)

Skim a F*cking Book Club

You’ve been waiting your whole life to devote two hours to discussing Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia by Elizabeth Gilbert or Bitch, Are You Retarded? by Carlos Lee. Your time is now!

Slow Dating: Because Speed Dating is For Sluts

This three-day intensive workshop, led by Maggie Gallagher of NOM, is a great opportunity to really savor the flavor of your future match, feasting on lengthy dissections about Halberstam over Frutopia and staring at each other until your eyes hurt. Workshop will culminate in fully-clothed scissoring and hand-holding ceremony, followed by a romantic walk in the forest, which may or may not be haunted.

Transgender Representation in The Media Panel

Listen to special guests Ryan Murphy and Ilene F. Chaiken discuss the difficulties, challenges and rewards of accurately representing transgender people on Television. Panel will be followed by autograph session. Ally cookies and fruit punch will be served. Moderated by Sheila Jeffreys.

Conservative Lifestyle Haircuts

Inspired by the success of Katrina’s Alternative Lifestyle Haircuts at A-Camp, conservative lifestyle haircuts will inspire you to tone it down a little. You’re not planning on going to Target like that, are you?

Taylor Swift Appreciation Club/Songwriting Workshop

Campers interested in this workshop must bring their middle school diaries and/or printouts from defunct Xanga journals to camp! In this workshop, you’ll learn how to transform self-indulgent adolescent emotion into metered rhyme and then into music! You’ll then practice how to look surprised about everything all the time.

DIY Wax-a-thon

Your underarm hair is gross. Ew.

Getting Your Shit Together Workshop

You have so many feelings, and we all know what that means — you have too many feelings. Role-playing exercises will school you in the art of bottling it up, denial, and other ways to express your feelings besides expressing your feelings, such as insomnia, violence and aggressive internet commenting.

Advanced Unfisting

All the way up in there and re-evaluating your decision? This workshop will go over the basics of how to remove your fist from an unexpectedly inflexible vagina. (Pre-Requisite: Unfisting For Beginners)

Ropes Course

Just because we don’t have access to the fancy A-Camp Ropes Course doesn’t mean we can’t make you climb a tree and then jump out of it!

Gender Roles Panel

Let A-Camp have their “edgy” “liberal” “hipster” “gender panel,” down at B-Camp we’re keeping it real with boys and girls with a special focus on why Leaning Over is better than Leaning In. Boys will collect internet porn while the girls organize their spice rack. Topics will include figuring out “who’s the man” and why that person should be paying for dinner.

Glamour Shots!

A-Camp Co-Director Robin Roemer will not be doing this activity as she’ll be busy with her own photography situations up the mountain. Luckily we found somebody really talented on cragslist who actually worked at Glamour Shots in the Briarwood Mall in 1994, which’s when Riese got her glamour shot. (BRING YOUR OWN PROPS AND HAIR CRIMPER)

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That’s not all. We have overwhelming programming options. What can I say, we’re a team with a lot of ideas in our melons!

Butching It Down

Queer Your Kombucha: Put Your Vodka Into Anything

Damsels in Distress: Self-Defense For Tiny Females With Strong Handshakes

MRAs Anonymous

Pictures Of My Cat Workshop

Death Panel

Swag Workshop: How To Attract Dudes By Making Out With Chicks

Dana Fairbanks Memorial Hike

Harnessing The Power Of Your Clam

Queer Parenting 101: Instilling Gender Norms So The Rest of The World Doesn’t Have To

Public Sex is My Radical Sex

What Happened Before Ellen and “Is There Anything After Ellen?”

It’s Not Easy Being Gay: A Coming Out Story Performed As Muppet Theatre

How Do Lesbians Have Sex? A Workshop

“Marriage” And “Wedding” Planning For Queers

Mansplaining Explained

OkAwkward 101: How Panic Attacks, Anxiety and ADHD Can Get You Laid

Abstinence Panel: Because Tribadism Counts

Don’t Read a F*cking Poem Unless It Rhymes Workshop

Shane On You: A Workshop On Gender Policing In The Age Of Shiloh

Hymns for Her

Making Peace With the Patriarchy

Whiteness 101: How To Effectively Save QWOC From Themselves

Design-Your-Own Inspirational Moustache Tattoo

Get Baked Live: Artificial Insemination Or “The Other Use For That Turkey Baster”

Somewhere Over the Rainbow; or, How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love Inequality

Pray the Gay Away

Exploring The Lost Art of Fimo Beading

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After a hearty day of activities and a healthy diet of discontinued potato chip flavors, you’ll be ready for a long night of fun and games. We are pulling out all the stops this year.

Murder Mystery Night: Who Killed Jenny?

In this 55-minute event, hosted by Ilene F. Chaiken, campers will take on “characters” from Ilene Chaiken’s unsolved mystery Opus, otherwise known as Season Six of The L Word. (Please note: mystery will not actually be solved.)

Beauty Pageant

Hosted by special guest Carrie Prejean, this classy evening of classy fancy class will feature women with sexy bikinis who know how to twirl batons. Audience is encouraged to bring underpants to throw onto the stage, men’s briefs are acceptable.

Creamed Corn Wrestling

Hosted by the ghost of Old McDonald (of “Old McDonald had a farm” fame), this is a great opportunity for lesbians to test their skills in a slippery tub of undignified mush. Expect to emerge “smelling like pussy and creamed corn” and feeling like $4,000 bucks.

Movie Screenings

On Thursday night, you can revisit the pain and misery of being LGBT via Tearjerker Marathon — The Children’s Hour, Monster, Philadelphia, Brokeback Mountain, Milk and Boys Don’t Cry. Sponsored by Kleenex® Care-Packs. On Friday, we’ll be indulging in Movies A-Camp Bitches Hate Night, where we can safely enjoy Love Actually, Lost & Delirious and Bloomington free of ridicule. Saturday night, entitled Bechdel Who?, will feature Superbad, The Dilemma and Project X, capping off the evening with the 2012 Alliance of Women Film Journalist’s Most Misogynistic Movie Pick: That’s My Boy starring Adam Sandler!

Last Night Dance

The final night dance will be DJ’ed by your friend who ipod DJ’ed the other night when you guys had people over.

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So, if you’re emotionally prepared for a loosely supervised life-changing experience, don’t delay!

What are you waiting for? Register Now!

this post was made possible by the comedic stylings of Riese, Robin, Marni, Carly, Rachel, Laneia, Gabby, Katrina, Stef, Brittani, Alex, Taylor and Crystal.

The Dirty Truth About Bisexuals, A Case Study

Inspired by the research of Alfred Kinsey and the numerous misconceptions about bisexuality within the queer community, I set out last month to do some anthropological research of my own — speaking to bisexual women in their natural habitats all around New York City. I spoke to women at the Bisexual Resource Center, at various nightclubs, on film sets and on college campuses.

The first challenge I faced in my research was tracking down actual bisexual women, when so many of them identify as lesbians. On the other hand, I also found many women identifying as bisexual despite recalling heterosexual sexual activities as “not my idea,” “gross,” and “worse than eating GMO soy.” They claimed to have read on the internet that they’d been marked for life by formative heterosexual encounters, much like how cows are branded.

While surveying my entire body of research, however, I quickly learned that these misleading self-identifications were just part of a larger pattern — if these ladies had one thing in common, it was an overall inability to make sense. At least half of the subjects were visibly intoxicated during our interview and many confessed to being drug addicts, compulsive masturbators, generally stupid and/or enthusiastic online shoppers. Many of them also seemed prone to irrational, destructive behavior which rendered them totally incapable of sustaining a healthy relationship with a partner of any gender.

Eleanor, a 47-year old divorcee who summers in Tibet, even confessed to poisoning another woman for “contributing to bisexual erasure by identifying as ‘pansexual.'” The funniest part of that story was that I’d already heard it — the woman she poisoned dated a lesbian friend of mine who now hates bisexuals with evangelical zeal, sort of how I feel about Nazis, because of the Holocaust.

“Don’t you feel like you gave bisexuals a bad name?” I said to Eleanor.

“Oh,” she explained, laughing. “I don’t care about other people.”

“Only I know what I am,” said Leslie, a 36-year-old performance artist who lives in the Lower East Side with her husband in a building that smelled like crack-cocaine. “You do you, you know?” She also claimed that she’d “queered the space,” but refused to explain what exactly she meant by that.

Gina, a 23-year-old barista who lives with her boyfriend in Bronxville (due to its proximity to Sarah Lawrence College, where Gina’s female lover is a sophomore), admitted she’d never actually date a girl, she just likes kissing them. “My boyfriend thinks it’s hot,” she laughed. “Like he thinks it’s hot that I’m bisexual. Isn’t that so progressive?”

Jenny, a 24-year-old college sophomore (“I just couldn’t pick a major,” she told me, in reference to her sixth consecutive year of education at The New School), drank an entire bottle of Boone’s Farm during our conversation, and then proceeded to remove her clothing, lie down on her filthy floor and beg me to take body shots off her armpits. “All of my body parts are erogenous zones!” she exclaimed.

Jenny’s fancy-free sexual attitude was not uncommon. Throughout my conversations with about 100 bisexual women (including those who identified as “lesbians”), I was sexually propositioned 46 times. Twice interviews were interrupted by the subject’s need to masturbate due to an  insatiable sex drive. In general, these women were especially interested in sex, threesomes and being “chic.”

Three women actually had already gone back to being straight by the time the interview was over, and six had begun identifying as lesbians. “I realized I was a lesbian,” explained Sasha, a 22-year-old graduate student, claiming that her epiphany had come after writing a 25-page seminar paper on representations of female sexual agency in Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  I asked her if she thought that meant all bisexuals would eventually become lesbians. “No,” she said. “I’m just speaking for myself, about my own experience.”

Molly, a 27-year-old music teacher from Queens, also took the rare and radical approach of actually marrying a woman and speaking intelligently about her experiences with straight privilege while in straight relationships, about her love for her wife, and about her desire to work with underprivileged children in foreign countries. She also made me a fantastic grilled cheese sandwich, but I ultimately found her maturity and self-awareness horribly uninteresting, and immediately fled their apartment for an orgy I’d been invited to by an earlier interview subject.

I wondered if the girls felt slighted by a lack of positive representation in the media, but most of them reported no such lack and in fact felt there were plenty of “heroines” in the bisexual world. “When Tila Tequila stood in front of all those people in a bikini and came out as a bisexual — that was so brave,” said Mandy Anthony, a 25-year-old sex blogger.

Asha (pictured below) identifies as a “sweeps bisexual.” When I told her that “sweeps bisexual” was not a sexual orientation, but rather a term used within the television business to describe throwaway bisexual storylines implemented simply to up ratings during ‘sweeps week’, she said, “Exactly!”

In conclusion, I found that in general, bisexual women are incapable of making decisions, wearing underpants or respecting anybody else’s feelings besides themselves. Most saw lesbian relationships as fleeting distractions to tide them over until finding a nice man to marry. Sure, there were a few smart mature bisexuals who understood stuff like this and had no bias against relationships with women, but they hardly represent the whole.

On the last night of my research, several bisexual women planned a “surprise party” for me which involved rolling around naked in a giant vat of tapioca pudding while their boyfriends did Jager shots off the asses of crying, heartbroken lesbians. I must admit that it was super fun!

Lesbian Confesses Crush to Her Straight Best Friend, Is Received With Open Arms

For Trish Jones, 17, the decision to confess her lifelong crush to her best friend, Elizabeth Mary Watson, also 17, was not an easy one.

“I asked every Autostraddle editor on formspring what I should do, but they never answered my question,” Trish tells Autostraddle. “I even asked the girls on the AfterEllen forums for advice but they just kept talking about their crush on Shay Mitchell. Anyhow I’m glad nobody gave me advice, because following my heart was the best choice I’ve ever made.”

Trish didn’t make a plan for confessing her love — “It just sort of like, happened.”

It happened last Friday night at the Westwood High Sadie Hawkins Dance, which Trish was attending without a date, mostly just to be there for Elizabeth in case anything happened. Besides, “the whole Sadie Hawkins thing is like kinda misogynist or whatever,” Trish says.

While lurking behind the fake palm trees, Trish was able to see Elizabeth dancing with a popular and good-looking senior male who Trish describes as “a total douchebag.” That’s when Trish decided it was time to pull her friend away from this predator and introduce her to the pleasures of Sapphistry.

“To be honest I was like half in the bag,” Trish told us. “So that helped give me courage, you know? But Elizabeth never drinks at high school dances. She’s very responsible and beautiful, and her hair always smells like oranges.”

Trish had told Elizabeth she “might be bisexual” in 8th grade, and Elizabeth was “pretty cool with it” and also definitely watches Pretty Little Liars, so. Now it was time for Trish to explain to Elizabeth that she’d been obsessed with her since grade school and that she could treat her better than any of those douchey guys she’s always hanging out with. Trish shared her Elizabeth Text Message archive with Elizabeth to point out the lesbian subtext Elizabeth perhaps was unaware of at the time and reminded Elizabeth that she’d described Shane as “kinda hot” when Trish made her watch The L Word that one time when she slept over, and also that she’d once mentioned feeling attracted to Angelina Jolie.

“I told her — ‘I’m in love with you and want to be with you.’ And she was like, I love you too.”

“I’d never really thought about girls in a sexual way before,” said Elizabeth. “And I really do enjoy dating men. But Trish made so many good points! Like, I’d never heard of ‘sexual fluidity’ but it sounds right, right? I have always really liked Angelina Jolie and I LOVE Autostraddle.”

Was Trish surprised that her friend reciprocated the love and denounced her heterosexuality? “Not really,” Trish said. “I had initially planned to write her a song and bring her flowers to accompany the presentation if that was necessary, but the heart wants what the heart wants, you know?”

“I’d always wondered why Trish never had a boyfriend or a girlfriend,” Elizabeth confirms. “Now I realize that she was giving all of her romantic energy to ME, I was just too heterosexual to notice!”

So far, so good, says Trish — Elizabeth promptly broke up with her boyfriend and spent the rest of the dance in Trish’s arms. “I didn’t even care when they played Katy Perry,” Trish says. “I was just too happy!”

What’s in store for these lucky ladies? Elizabeth confirms: “We’ll probably be together forever.”

Everyone is Gay, Study Finds: That Includes Your Mom BTW

EVERYONE IS GAY:
A new study released this morning revealed that everyone is gay. When judged on a six-by-nine-point sliding scale mixing Marxist & Kinseyan techniques and analyzed against evidence from several longitudinal studies, Dr. Janet Jameson stated, “I always had a feeling about Ellen Page.”

“I told you my Mom was gay,” said an Intern. “Nice infographics,” she added.

Reactions from around the web:

+ Queerty: Hey Obama, If Everyone is Gay, Does That Mean Everyone isn’t Straight?: And how Obama and Joe Solomnese knew before you did.
+ ONTD: This is a Zac Efron Post
+ Zap2it: Everyone Has a Lesbian Lover: Hot Lesbian Fling Confession from Reality Star: “Everyone told an unnamed source today that everyone and their same-sex best friend were seen ‘canoodling’ at hot West Hollywood nightclub BEAVERBLASTER. “They’ve been intimate for a long time,’ said a close friend. ‘Like a really long time’.”
+ Perez Hilton: Anderson Cooper and His Butt-Buddy OUT OUT OUT!
+ Dorothy Snarker has a special “Everyone is Gay Day” version of Straight Girls Acting Like Gay Girls Tribute to Tank Tops.
+ Grace Goldstien at Grace the Spot has Stuff Everyone Likes: Lesbians.
+ Jezebel: Can Women’s Mags Survive Without Straight Men? “We know women airbrush women for the sake of other women, but without 50 New Ways to Blow His Mind via His Scrotum, will Cosmo finally land itself in the magazine graveyard? And will the land left behind by that bonfire of Clinique Happy samples oozing from Cosmo’s cum-soaked pages be liveable?”
+ Afterellen has published four gigantic photographs on the same page, accompanied by three short sentences and a link at the bottom to pages 2-4.
+ YourTango: We Don’t Really Know What To Talk About Now
+ Curve Magazine, cover story: “HELLO LADIES”
+ SheWired: Jill Bennett & Cathy DeBouno will be livecasting on the topic “Everyone is Gay” some time between now and 8 or 9 PM, Eastern or Pacific time, next Thursday-ish. Jill will be wearing a tank top. So just sit in front of your computer and wait for it.
+ HuffPo: GAY AGENDA WINS

So ladies, let’s get back to talking about you and your feelings, and other things we think are funny. mememememe. youyouyouyou. Do you think everyone is gay? Is this good science, bad science, or WEIRD SCIENCE? Will this change your relationship with your parents? Now that you can have any woman you want, how’s your default girlfriend lookin’? Are you gonna call your straight best friend now that you know she’s not straight? Is your ex-boyfriend making weird jokes about buttsex that seem slightly homophobic? GLAAD ALERT! (@huffpo)

GOVERNMENT:
A lesbian was appointed to head of the Spring Walk-a-thon committee at a small school in the middle of Nebraska. This is the first time a deaf, Asian-American female lezzy lezzz lezbian has been assigned to a sub-leadership in a Greater Lincoln Area Township municipal educational elementary school party planning committee. But since everyone is gay now, it really doesn’t matter. (@nowhereseville)

FEELINGS:
Late last night, your ex-girlfriend told Nerve.com, “She was the best thing that ever happened to me. I don’t think I’ll ever be happy without her. My new girlfriend is bad at fingerblasting and she’s always like, Oh, the internet just isn’t my thing to make me feel bad about being on it. Like right now, she just said it. GOD I hate it when she does this! GOD!!” (@nerve)

KE$HA:
Ke$ha’s Singing is “Awesome,” Taio Cruz says. (@mtv news)

CANDACE MCCALLISTER:
Constance McMillen has decided not to go to prom. When asked for comment, Constance replied, “I just didn’t feel like it.” Constance and her girlfriend say they plan to rent Saving Face, a recommendation from a close friend, and have Breakfast for Dinner. (@latimes)

WANNA WORK FOR US?
Yeah you do! You must have a unique voice, heaps of free time, and a slavish devotion to lofty ideals. Please send a resumè, three story ideas, and a letter explaining why the hell you want to do this to sarah and/or green at autostraddle dot com and we’ll get back to you by Labor Day.

The last thing we need is another white girl from Long Island or a similar state/country, so if that describes you and you’re still going to apply anyhow, the following stricter conditions apply:

– Personality that pops right off the page into our m*therfucking mouths
– You know HTML maybe even better than english
– Your spelling skills exceed our ‘editor’-in-chief’s by at least 75%
– You have no pre-existing conditions which might make you prone to failing out of school, having a mental breakdown or sending us completed articles as Microsoft Word attachments.***

(*** This only applies to people who have already been working for us for several months who, against orders, send us articles in word attachments instead of putting it into wordpress or a text-edit document in HTML, not to applicants or friends or anyone else)

– You should be free of any sort of social anxiety which may prevent you from calling a famous person or a famous person’s intern.
– The idea of e-mailing a stranger should not give you hives, sweats, or require time in excess of 20 minutes or consuming more than two illegal substances at the same time.

Also though you can try emailing Taylor, she’s still really earnest about it so your chances are better that way. (@autostraddle)

GLEE, GLAMBERT, GAGA, LINDSAY LOHAN:
Nothing. Where are these guys? I feel like no one puts baby powder in their shoes anymore these days. I hear Obama is guesting on Glee. They’re gonna do God Bless America on crutches. Though I guess now that everyone is gay, maybe Glee will seem repetitive.

JK, THIS JUST IN – ADAM LAMBERT:
Justin Bieber and Adam Lambert will be headlining a music festival called “Wango Tango.” Actually, this one is also real. (@allhealdinenews)

DINAH SHORE:
We’re all going to Dinah Shore tomorrow. There will be a liveblog. Like most of the people that work here? Riese, Alex, Laneia, Sarah, Tess, Brooke, Taylor, Jess, Nat and Kelsey will all be in Palm Springs, California, where we’ll be live-blogging via our temporary editor-in-chief, Rachel, who was actually an intern until a few weeks ago. The fact that we are all going to Dinah Shore probably seems like the biggest joke of all the jokes in this daily fix, b/c we are not like super “social” people. But no, it’s real! We’re really going! Waa!

Brooke is defo going to make me delete this in the morning! Tally-ho!