At last, we've reached it: the MILF stage of Jennifer Lopez's career. If you have eyes and the sense of what must happen to keep sex selling, you predicted this. However, practically none of us could have predicted that Lopez would reach this rite of passage via the heaping serving of frequently nonsensical pulp that is The Boy Next Door, a domestic thriller with erotic-thriller aspirations directed by Rob Cohen (The Fast and the Furious) and written by former lawyer Barbara Curry. But like a celebrity who must continually acknowledge her ass that just won't quit, this movie is what we have to work with.

Jennifer Lopez's character Claire Peterson is as sharp as a person can be portrayed in a dumb movie, though this matters not at all because she suffers immensely for a slight lapse in judgement. Really, what she's paying for is having sexuality at all. Curry's script boorishly absolves Claire of mortal sin by establishing early on that her husband has cheated on her. She's already separated from him when the aesthetically flawless, stud god Noah (Ryan Guzman) moves next door to take care of his sick uncle. "I can fix that for you if you want," are Noah's first words to Claire, as he comes to her assistance while she struggles to lift her broken garage door. ("Men: can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em!" is the caption on the Cathy cartoon rendering of this scene.) Masculinity compels him to aid her, or so traditional gender roles would have us think. Noah is 19, as a conversation with Claire's son Kevin (Ian Nelson) soon reveals. So know that even though she's going to have sex with him, she's not an adulterer or a pedophile, got it?

And yet, she's a bad girl. Sorry, woman. Sorry, mom. Complicating matters is that Noah is set to enroll at the high school where Claire teaches. No matter; Claire lusts after Noah, surreptitiously peering at him naked in his room, and leaning out of her window to openly stare as Noah and Kevin work on a car in the driveway below. Noah's so masc and the entire setup is so reminiscent of a Coke commercial from the early '90s that fucking seems like the next natural step.

And so it is. When Claire's estranged husband and son are out of town, Noah calls over Claire to his uncle's house to help him cook a chicken (not a euphemism, although...). Domesticity compels her to aid him. He lays it on thick during dinner, calling her "sweet, matured, sexy—so sexy." "Noah!" she purrs back. He begins to kiss her body passionately while she murmurs things like, "I can't do this," and "It's wrong." Eventually she stops murmuring and gives into passion. His hands move down the shape of her underwear-clad ass for what feels like a stretch of minutes. He removes his shirt to reveal predictably perfect abs. He eats her out. He mashes her breast in his hand, like he's crumpling a piece of paper, as they fuck.

The next day, Claire comes to her senses. Noah refuses to accept this as a one-night stand (whoa, gender-role reversal!). He acts out in progressively insane ways that include showing up to her house and lingering while her husband is over (that's enough to make a woman drop the pie she just baked!), forging his way into Claire's class on Homer, following her in his car, taking part in a montage full of boxing, brooding, and Dutch angles, writing "I FUCKED CLAIRE PETERSON" on a bathroom wall, and filling her classroom with hundreds of copies of a still that comes from a sex-tape he made the time the two of them fucked, just before her class is set to begin.

Watching Claire scramble to keep this all a secret as it gets harder and harder amounts to a sort of psychological torture porn. And then in its final act, The Boy Next Door turns into actual torture porn. A sustained closeup on an eyeball mutilation is the Hostel-esque climax's centerpiece. When Kristen Chenoweth (the sassy principal of the school at which Claire teaches) was clobbered on the head, the audience I sat amongst cheered. (At this point, the friend I saw this with mouthed, "Why are they cheering?" "Well, she is awfully annoying," was my guess.)

By the time its brutal climax arrives virtually out of nowhere, we're already used to The Boy Next Door's hilarious insanity. For example, it makes no sense that Noah hangs out with Ian, who's several grades younger than him, bullied by a kid who looks like Ed Sheeran, and allergic to bee stings. Noah doesn't have time for some pipsqueak—he has a tremendous body to maintain, for one thing. And yet, Ian is his only friend. I watched the first half of the movie thinking maybe they were going to fuck. Wouldn't that be something coming from the boy next door?

It makes no sense that we see Noah's uncle precisely twice: once for the sake of exposition, once for the sake of a jump scare.

It makes no sense that when Claire breaks into Noah's house to delete the sex-tape file from his computer, she does so by selecting the "Secure Empty Trash" option on his Mac.

It makes no sense that Noah was able to forge his way into Claire's classroom and that her initial confusion over this confuses no one else.

It makes no sense that Claire puts up with this abuse instead of just confessing immediately.

It makes no sense that Noah gives Claire a "first edition" of The Iliad.

Claire is a character whose behavior serves the movie's moral far better than its plot. Through Claire, we get a lesson on what happens when a woman—even a well-behaved one who isn't technically cheating on her husband with a kid who isn't technically a child—goes slightly astray and gives into lust. The Boy Next Door is as hypocritical as a pulp novel, wooing you with sexuality and then punishing you for having impure thoughts with a sex-negative message. And—spoiler alert—once the family is back in place, the movie ends abruptly. "Was it all worth it to get to this point?" is a question that everyone should be asking themselves: the characters, the audience, and especially Jennifer Lopez.

Do you work in sales at Tumblr? Have you noticed a disturbance in the force? We're hearing that bad shit went down at Tumblr this week, and while it is not going to be announced until next week, for now everyone at Tumblr is drinking heavily.

The deal: Yahoo is going to announce some tighter integration between their sales force and Tumblr's sales force. No word yet on management-level exits or layoffs. But if you're working in ad sales, you know the drill.

Maybe you will cry foul, considering that when Yahoo bought your company Marissa Mayer promised that Tumblr would remain independent:

We promise not to screw it up. Tumblr is incredibly special and has a great thing going. We will operate Tumblr independently. David Karp will remain CEO. The product roadmap, their team, their wit and irreverence will all remain the same as will their mission to empower creators to make their best work and get it in front of the audience they deserve. Yahoo! will help Tumblr get even better, faster.

You didn't really believe that, did you? Wait, you did? Oh, poor Tumblr person. Your small, cool, hip little startup was acquired by a big, stupid, lumbering monster. Of course the monster was always planning to eat you. That's what monsters do.

Seriously, Over the past year the two companies have been integrating, a little bit, on some projects. So it's not really a huge surprise. And Wall Street has been bitching about the $1.1 billion Tumblr deal being a flop.

Hey. You had a good ride. Go home, get drunk, start calling your friends and sending out resumes.

Internet Wikipedia Purged a Group of Feminist Editors Because of Gamergate | The Vane What Is a "Trace" of Snow? | Newsfeed NYPD Arrests Teen for Making Emoji "Threats" on Facebookhttp://gawker.com/how-to-read-ga...

What will you be doing roughly 13-17 months from now? Maybe you'll finally be taking a stay-cation in sunny Tulum, where you could live by then. Perhaps you'll be starting a new job at the soda can factory. You might even be well into your second pregnancy if you start on the first one right now. Change is scary, but take comfort in the knowledge that while your life may look different 400-500 days from now, one thing is for certain: you'll be able to read former Laguna Beach star Kristin Cavallari's first book then, probably.

Kristin announced exclusively to E! News this week that her debut memoir/guide to life will drop someday, sometime during the spring of 2016, which is not so far away that we can't imagine what the world will look like then, but far enough into the future that we'll likely be able to order our copies on iPhone 9s.

Why must we wait so long to know all of Kristin's earthly wisdom? Put simply, she has a lot of it. It will easily take at least one and a half years to write it down. She explains:

[The book will be] basically an intimate look at my life. It's going to be a lot of fashion and beauty. Because I'm such a big health nut, it's also going to be health and fitness. And then a lot of recipes because I love to cook and a lot of mommy and wife stuff. So really just everything in my life...

Imagine committing everything in your life to a single book. An exercise both ambitious and humbling. The complete record of one human's existence on the planet, bound in buckram.

The likely 100,000-page tome will be called Balancing on Heels—mark it down now so you don't forget over the next 9,600 to 12,000 hours. We've reached out to Kristin's publisher to see if we can nail down the anticipated release date a little more firmly, and will update if we hear back. In the meantime, please enjoy this recent photo of Kristin wearing a sweater.

Looking forward to finding out how to get this look in time for the Summer Olympics in Rio.

[Photo via Getty, Splash News]

Like every other instance of vaguely subversive youth culture, text slang and internet jokes are now the property of people who want to sell you breakfast cereal and pasta sauce. One sub-Reddit called /r/FellowKids is dedicated to tracking all of these nauseating attempts at internet youthfulness.

This is how corporate American is hoping to co-opt tween America in an unbearable attempt to be down:

Seamless dredges up ancient memes for the New York subway

Popular deformed pet Grumpy Cat shills for McDonald's

Hey, the Pop-Tart robot almost talks the way my friends and I text

"Bae" is a cancer unto itself

FUCK YOU!!!

There's a brilliant Twitter account called @BrandsSayingBae that exists only to chronicle faceless corporations using the word:

This is straight out of Don Draper's playbook. pic.twitter.com/8U5CrGKPEj

— Brands Saying Bae (@BrandsSayingBae) January 7, 2015

How fleek is IHOP? Greetings, Fleeksters. It's me, Funky Papa Pancake, here to rap steady.

Denny's, a chain of racist diners that serve disgusting hog grease buckets to unhealthy people, is probably the worst offender:

after a long week of sküle, george glass kicks back with a tropical smüthie from dennys

— Denny's (@DennysDiner) January 17, 2015

There is literally nothing so stupid or shameful that the person who runs @DennysDiner will not tweet it. This butcher's assistant to the bloody dismemberment of all meaning is beyond even the small breath of pity you might summon for "person who runs @DennysDiner"; its existence is the worst thing on the internet, even worse than a meal at Denny's.

Worse even than its howls into the empty carcass of value is their echo: Denny's has over 170,000 Twitter followers, and each wet turd that slips from its cyber-cheeks receives hundreds of favorites and retweets. We get the advertising we deserve. We deserve garbage.

Police say they are searching for four diamond thieves after the theft of a diamond necklace worth more than $4.6 million in Hong Kong, Agence France-Presse reports. One of the thieves is reportedly a girl between 12 and 14 years old.

The three adults posed as "big spenders" to distract the shop's employees, an unnamed police source told the South China Morning Post.

Meanwhile, the girl stole a key to open the cabinet containing the necklace—"embedded with more than 30 diamonds totalling about 100 carats," the Post's source said—and lifted it off the display bust.

The other thieves, two women and one man, are all estimated to be aged between 30 and 40 years old. The four reportedly remained in the shop for about a half-hour before leaving without buying anything.

[Image via Shutterstock]

An open-air market in the Ukrainian coastal city of Mariupol came under rocket fire on Saturday, the Associated Press reports. According to city officials, at least 16 people were killed.

Mariupol, under Ukrainian control, is strategically important as it lies between mainland Russia and the Russian-annexed Crimea. "Heavy fighting in the region in the autumn raised fears that Russian-backed separatist forces would try to establish a land link between Russia and Crimea," the AP reports.

On Friday, rebel leader Aleksandr Zakharchenko said that separatists intended to go on the "offensive," the New York Times reported. The day before, a mortar attack on separatist-held Donetsk reportedly killed 13 people. The AP has shared graphic photos of the incident.

The cease-fire devised by Vladimir Putin and signed in September after five months of fighting appears to have collapsed. "It was pure illusion that peace could be achieved now," Enrique Menendez, who runs a humanitarian relief operation in eastern Ukraine told the Times. "The only real surprise is that the fighting started in the winter instead of the spring."

[Photo credit: AP Images]

According to prosecutors, Cory Batey is one of several former Vanderbilt football players who raped an unconscious student in a dorm room last year, filming parts of their crime and urinating on the victim afterwards. According to Batey's defense, however, their client is also a victim—of "a campus culture of sexual freedom, promiscuity and excessive alcohol consumption," Reuters reports.

On Friday, defense attorney Worrick Robinson brought in an expert witness to support his claim that Batey was a promising athlete and upstanding non-rapist betrayed by "a culture that changed the rest of his life." From the Associated Press:

Neuropsychologist James Walker testified Friday that wide receiver Cory Batey told him he had 14 to 22 alcoholic drinks before the players dragged the incapacitated woman into star recruit Brandon Vandenburg's dorm room.

"Because he was this intoxicated, he was not his normal self," Walker said. "He was doing things that he would not have done normally."

Among the non-normal things Batey allegedly did that night: asking for a quesadilla from Qdoba, urinating on an unconscious rape victim.

"Is there anything in their culture that might influence the way they act or the way they think or the way they make decisions?" Robinson asked his expert on psychology.

"Yes, at that age peer pressure is critical," Walker responded, "because you're just going out on your own, you're not fully an adult, you're not fully a child ... You tend to take on the behavior of people around you."

Ultimately, says the Associated Press, Walker admitted that he had done no scholarly research on the culture of the school.

There's a lot to read and watch on the internet. In just sixty seconds, 278,000 tweets are sent, 347 posts are published on Wordpress, and 72 hours of footage are uploaded to YouTube. And it's only getting worse (like really, really bad). So, in the spirit of oversharing (click, click, click!), here are five medium-to-long reads that you most likely missed this week. From India's record-setters to Jan Brady on Jan Brady Meme™, these stories highlight the week that was.

"How PAPER Magazine's web engineers scaled their back-end for Kim Kardashian (SFW)" by Paul Ford

There was one part of the Internet that PAPER didn't want to break: The part that was serving up millions of copies of Kardashian's nudes over the web.

Hosting that butt is an impressive feat. You can't just put Kim Kardashian nudes on the Internet and walk away —that would be like putting up a tent in the middle of a hurricane. Your web server would melt. You need to plan.

https://medium.com/message/how-pa...

"Berlin Story" by Alex Ross

During the golden years of the Weimar Republic, which occupy the last chapters of "Gay Berlin," gays and lesbians achieved an almost dizzying degree of visibility in popular culture. They could see themselves onscreen in films like "Mädchen in Uniform" and "Different from the Others"—a tale of a gay violinist driven to suicide, with Hirschfeld featured in the supporting role of a wise sexologist. Disdainful representations of gay life were not only lamented but also protested; Beachy points out that when a 1927 Komische Oper revue called "Strictly Forbidden" mocked gay men as effeminate, a demonstration at the theatre prompted the Komische Oper to remove the offending skit. The openness of Berlin's gay scene attracted visitors from more benighted lands; Christopher Isherwood lived in the city from 1929 to 1933, enjoying the easy availability of hustlers, who, in Beachy's book, have a somewhat exhausting chapter to themselves.

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/...

"Why Is India So Crazy for World Records?" by Samanth Subramanian

In recent decades, an obsession with the Guinness World Records book in India has given rise to a fevered subculture of record-setters. There are homegrown catalogs of achievement — the India Book of Records, which is distinct from the Indian Book of Records, and the Limca Book of Records, named not for a beer but for a brand of fizzy lemonade — but the Guinness World Records book holds the most allure. Nearly a tenth of all Guinness World Records submissions now come from India.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/25/mag...

"What the Actress Who Played Jan Thinks of her Brady Bunch Movie Meme" by Lindsey Weber

My husband said to me, "You've got to be in a meme if you want to be anywhere." And then I was like, "Wow, I feel so lucky that I ended up in one."

http://www.vulture.com/2015/01/jan-br...

"Our Generation Needs Liberation Music, Not Protest Songs" by Rawiya Kameir

I thought of the Chairman and realized I didn't want protest songs; I was looking for liberation music, songs that acknowledge political realities while interrogating them existentially; art that imitates life and then goes a step further to contextualize that life. Music that asks as many questions as it tries to answer. Like black liberation theology, liberation music puts forth some sort of ideology. On Let's Get Free, the Chairman's fervor sets the tone for dead prez's pan-African philosophy, which is almost religious in its anti-religiousness. D'Angelo's brown-skinned-Jesus-loving preacher does that for Black Messiah, whose revolutionary concept is based on love.

http://www.thefader.com/2015/01/22/let...

On Saturday morning, ISIS militants released a new video which purportedly shows the decapitated body of "security contractor" Haruna Yukawa, one of two kidnapped Japanese nationals the Islamic State demanded a $200 million ransom for earlier this week.

The video shows a static image of the second captive, journalist Kenji Goto, holding a printed photo of Yukawa's corpse. Over the image, a voice claiming to be Goto reads a statement blaming the Japanese government and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe for Yukawa's death.

"Abe, you killed Haruna," the voice says. "You did not take the threat of my captors seriously and you did not act within the 72 hours." The voice goes on to demand the release of "imprisoned sister" and alleged attempted suicide bomber Sajida al-Rishawi in lieu of money, "so you don't need to worry about funding terrorists."

The Japanese government is currently trying to verify the video, which is a significant departure from previous, largely similar ISIS beheading videos.

According to The New York Times, Japan has paid for the release of hostages at least once before, "spending $3 million to secure the release of four mining experts held in Kyrgyzstan."

The NYPD is searching for a Queens man who allegedly shot his two daughters, his girlfriend, and her mother, the New York Post reports. One of his daughters, who had been shot in the head, was reportedly able to call 911 after he left the house this morning.

Three of the shooting victims were pronounced dead at the scene in Queens' Springfield Gardens neighborhood, Pix11 reported. Viola Warren, 62, and her daughter, Shantai Hale, 31 were found in one room; Kayla Walker, 7, was found in another.

The 12-year-old girl who called police was taken to Long Island Jewish Medical Center and is in critical condition. Not only did she call 911, but, according to the Post, she opened the door for police when they arrived. A bullet had exited through her eye.

The suspect has been identified as Jonathan Walker, the Post reported. (Pix 11 reported the spelling of his first name as "Jonathon.") He is 34 years old, 6'6", and weighs 260 pounds. Police believe he drove off in a silver 2013 GMC Arcadia SUV, license plate GVS8110. DNAinfo reports that he is also believed to still be carrying a gun.

"My heart cries out to the family," City Councilman Donovan Richards said. "What could trigger such madness?"

Update, 1:10 p.m. – The New York Post reports that Walker was found dead in his car around near John F. Kennedy Airport with a gunshot wound to the head.

[Image via Twitter/@MarksPIX]

Growing up in a predominantly white, middle-class neighborhood in Seattle I remember my mother warning my older brother not to be caught running after dark, and, if ever stopped by police, to do whatever they asked—no more and no less. Speak as little as possible, she'd say. Every suggestion was a weak attempt to minimize a danger that would exist regardless. My brother would always be a black male.

If you've grown up black and male in America or have been closely connected to a black man in America, you know the constant threat that lies in simply existing, the potential danger that underlies even the most routine interaction with police. Dave Chapelle deftly and comically illustrated the issue in HBO's 2000 special "Killin' Them Softly." In relaying their various adventures, Chapelle introduces the audience to his white friend Chip, who approaches officers brazen and carefree. With no overarching history of unprovoked violence, there is nothing to affect Chip's judgment. To me, the most telling scenario occurs when Chip is pulled over while driving drunk. Chappelle anticipates the ramifications from the passenger's seat, but as the officer approaches, Chip doesn't even bother to turn down his music. "Sorry officer, I didn't know I couldn't do that," he says. There's no deference, no caution.

The death of Michael Brown last summer reminded America—at least the part that seemed to forget or hadn't noticed—that racialized violence and police brutality against black men exists as much today as it did in 1955 or 1991.

Brown's killing reignited national discussions regarding police brutality and excessive force, but in most of these conversations one under-addressed topic remains: the equally unceasing police violence against black women. Black women, like black men, experience racialized violence at the hands of law enforcement, but these encounters largely go unreported. Black women (and other women of color) face the threat of police and—as in the cases of Shereese Francis, Yvette Smith, Raven Dozier, Reika Boyd, and Tarika Wilson—sometimes fatally. For women, this threat further includes sexualized violence.

Black women occupy a unique position in American history. The intersection of race and gender positions us both within and above the realm of racialized violence faced by our fathers, brothers, uncles, and nephews. While my mother advised my brother to comply with police however necessary, to walk and not run, to pull up his pants and take off his hood, and say "Yes, sir," the advice she gave to me as I entered the world was different. I was told to stay away from police, not to follow them or pull over for a cop on a secluded, dark street or else risk being sexually assaulted.

But because of how our bodies are viewed in contrast to each other, black men and women must navigate public spaces differently. Century-old stereotypes of barbarianism and violence still characterize the black male in today's American psyche. This embedded view of the black man as a wild, physical threat is the same that allows one Ferguson officer to refer to a group of black protesters as animals and countless Americans to label a college-educated professional athlete a thug.

Diana Ozemebhoya Eromosele, writing for The Root, pointed to the differences black men and women face based on assumptions regarding their bodies:

I've spoken up many a time when I felt that a police officer was being overzealous or condescending or exerting power out of pure ego and not necessity [. . .] But black men have to be extra cautious about how they respond to adversity—hell, they have to be extra cautious about how they conduct themselves in most situations. I remember how broken I felt when another black male friend of mine—who has a hefty frame—explained to me that he always makes it a habit to cut sidewalk corners wide as not to startle white women. He always tries to crack jokes and appear congenial because he's aware of how his looks might intimidate white people.

The male body—imposed upon as large, dominating, aggressive, and violent—since its introduction to American history is viewed no less negatively today. Seen as something to be retained, put down, and controlled, the black male body is subject to police violence for the so called threat it presents, even when that threat is an unarmed youth. These perceptions of the black male—buck and brute stereotypes—date back to colonial and slavery eras but still persist, both in how black men are represented and how they're treated.

In a sort of response piece to Eromosele, Josie Pickens explained that black women, too, suffer racialized violence because, like black men, they're seen as threats.

As I raise my own daughter, I realize that I can't make the errors my mother did. I have to teach her, as I would teach my son, that the police and random strangers may mean her more harm than good, that she has to be alert and mindful of the way her black body moves.

Eromosele and Pickens both make accurate points. Black women face police violence, but black men do navigate social nuances not experienced by black women because of entrenched racism inflicted upon the black male body. The black female body has some liberties the black male body doesn't in the way it traverses public space, because while the black male body is viewed and seen as threatening, the black female body is viewed and seen as a target.

This difference between black bodies, male and female, allows the black woman to move through social arenas differently than the black male. While she holds the position of being black and female in a society that dismisses both, that same attitude of dismissiveness gives her a type of freedom not as easily granted to black men.

The black male body is regarded as having both presence and force. The black female body is not seen as a threat that provokes violence by merely existing, but a target that incites violence—and often sexualized violence. The black female body has long been a topic of public conversation when it comes to sexuality. From the the tragic icon Sarah Bartmann to Beyonce, the black female body is most visible for, and targeted, because of its presumed hypersexuality. This image exposes black women to both racialized and gendered violence.

But because she is female, and therefore easily dismissed, the black female body has been allowed to subversively influence certain public spaces. Nineteenth century race women collaborated largely within the confines of churches—and extended their influence to fights for suffrage and equality. The privilege they received in these spaces is the same privilege Eromosele feels today. Because it was just church, because they were only women, because the female black body is not traditionally seen as a threat but something to be conquered, there is some freedom for the black woman. Scholar bell hooks refers to this type of freedom as marginality that allows for "radical possibility." "Margins," hooks goes on to say, "have been both sites of repression and sites of resistance." It is from the margins and outskirts that these overlooked black women can dismantle frameworks, eventually and ideally expanding the center until they, and others, are included. Historically, when black men were denied work, black women were employed as domestics—simultaneously limited to the private sphere while being invited into the public workforce. Because the black female body is targeted in contrast to its male counterpart, it can and does pursue public space differently.

If media coverage is an indicator, then black women do obviously meet police-inflicted violence, but at lesser rates than black men. According to the Bureau of Justice, men are more likely to experience excessive use of force from officers, with black men experiencing the most. The highly publicized killings of Brown and other black men, and the shameful silence surrounding police-related deaths of black women show not only the disparity in violence toward black bodies, but the near-invisibility of the black female body.

She is invisible, not in the exact sense, but invisible still, because she is unseen by the larger world. She is unseen in the way a light switch is unseen when you enter a dark but familiar room, and somehow still your hand instinctively knows where to fall. She is unseen as the sunset is unseen in your bored and aging eyes, even as it daggers the sky with streaks of lavender and persimmon, delicate and fierce.

The 2012 case of Shereese Francis epitomizes the vulnerability of the black woman's intersectional position. Female, black, and schizophrenic, Francis suffocated after being pinned by four officers. Francis's sister originally called 311 to request paramedics to escort Francis to the hospital where they hoped she would resume taking medication. Instead, officers arrived and pinned 30-year-old Francis to the bed while trying to arrest her. Why four, trained police officers were needed to obtain one person, I can't say. I would expect even one officer—or at most two—capable of apprehending an individual. But then, I would also expect Francis's story, which occurred in New York—same as Eric Garner and Sean Bell—to have received wider coverage.

The black woman is unseen, but in this place she is also free to move within the margins, to rearrange things and, as hooks reminds us, turn a place of repression into resistance. Turning this marginal space of repression into one of resistance is exactly what three queer black women did after the acquittal of Trayvon Martin's killer in 2012. Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi created #BlackLivesMatter in response to the routine killings of black men by police and the continued lack of justice. That Garza, Cullors, and Tometi are all black women behind a movement initially formed in response to state-sanctioned killings of black men reinforces the black female's privilege to infiltrate space and create change, particularly because she is—in a male-focused, predominantly white world—invisible. Garza acknowledges this invisibility in "A Herstory of the #BlackLivesMatter Movement," writing:

[B]eing Black queer women in this society (and apparently within these movements) tends to equal invisibility and non-relevancy. We completely expect those who benefit directly and improperly from White supremacy to try and erase our existence. We fight that every day. But when it happens amongst our allies, we are baffled, we are saddened, and we are enraged. And it's time to have the political conversation about why that's not okay.

The paradox of the black female body is that it is highly scrutinized and objectified while simultaneously being overlooked in realms that matter. The #BlackLivesMatter movement counters not only that erasure of black women but the lives of all black people.

The national conversation about police brutality continues to focus on the lives of black men, with occasional responses highlighting the violence directed at black women. In a culture that overlooks intersectionality and seems to allow only one injustice per person, the issue of police violence can stagnate and bounce back and forth between black men and black women if we're only interested in whose deaths receive the most media coverage. If the invisibility of black women grants even a slight privilege of freedom within the margins, it must be used wisely—as it has been throughout our history to advocate for black people. All of them.

Karla Rose is a writer in Los Angeles.

[Illustration by Tara Jacoby]

Mandy Moore and Ryan Adams, who have been married for almost six years, are now getting divorced, Us Weekly reports.http://gawker.com/desperate-soro...

"Mandy Moore and Ryan Adams have mutually decided to end their marriage of almost 6 years," the couple said in a statement. "It is a respectful, amicable parting of ways and both Mandy and Ryan are asking for media to respect their privacy at this time."

Radar Online reported that Moore filed for divorce in Los Angeles while Adams was in New York.

Update, 3:10 p.m. – A spokesperson for Adams has emailed Gawker to clarify that Adams was not in New York when Moore filed, but in Los Angeles. Also: "They honestly filed on the same day—Mandy didn't file first."

An Oklahoma woman who taught a high school sex ed class has been accused of having sex with a teen student, including multiple times in the school's teachers' lounge, the Enid News & Eagle reports. According to her handwritten, mistake-filled confession, the suspended teacher deeply regrets "the deasion."

Police say 32-year-old Daresa Poe maintained a sexual relationship with the unnamed 18-year-old up until she was questioned on Tuesday, having had sex with student in his truck just hours earlier. Under current Oklahoma law, sexual contact with any student under 21 years old is illegal.

A probable cause affidavit filed against Poe this week contains the Waynoka Public Schools teacher's confession in full:

I am Daresa Poe a wife, mother and teacher. I have made a horrible mistake. I have let my judgement [sic] faulter [sic] and I am embarrassed and mortified for the deasions [sic] I have made in the last two weeks. I have had sexual intercourse with a student. I am so very sorry for the decision I have made.

Poe now faces charges of sexual battery and second degree rape.

"I was just, kind of creeped out," said one student upon hearing the news. "Because she was my teacher."

[Image via KFOR-TV//h/t Uproxx]

In this photograph, originally published by the London Evening Standard, Tom Hanks appears to be taking up a pair of seats on the subway. You know what? That's fine.

Let no one deny that "manspreading"—a neologism coined to refer to the distinctly male entitlement to space as often made manifest in the cramped environs of the subway—is a real and true thing.

But "Manspreading" is only an epidemic in so far as it affects people's lives. If you spread while people are standing, there's no argument—you're bad.

You're taking up two seats sir - Tom Hanks sits back as he rides the New York subway http://t.co/Nq8Me2sBtJ pic.twitter.com/gBNIBdcnAB

— Standard Showbiz (@standardshowbiz) January 23, 2015

If, however, there's plenty of room from one end of the subway car to the other—as there would appear to be from the photo above (obviously we can't really tell but it certainly seems that way)—there is no reason why a person should not feel entitled to make themselves comfortable.

Should we give Tom a pass just because he's Chet Haze's dad? Of course not. But this? This is fine.

[Image via Twitter/@standardshowbiz]

Sexy pop quiz! Have you ever awoken utterly confused to a mild vibration, only to find it's your partner taking care of business, solo-style right there beside you in bed? Did you: A) Laugh. B.) Ignore it or C.) Shut it down or D.) Lend a hand? Let's explore!

In any cohabiting relationship, it's bound to happen eventually, right? Someone is horny, the other someone is not and/or asleep, so the horny someone decides to service the equipment. True, in many anecdotes of this nature the horny someone sneaks off to another room, waits until they're alone, or pressures their mate into maintenance sex. But let's imagine here that it's late, they're tired, and, hey—it's their bed too, right? This, at least, was the scenario in a recent Dear Prudence over at Slate (see the second question):

Dear Prudence,


I recently moved in with my boyfriend of about two years. Everything has gone pretty well, except one. My boyfriend has always had a very strong libido—I have no complaints about that—but lately his desire has been over the top, and the other night he crossed a new line. I have not been as aroused lately due to some issues outside of our relationship, and it has been a little hard on him. The other night when I came to bed (he was already asleep), he woke up and, as I was drifting away, I felt the bed shake a little. I look over to discover that he was masturbating right there next to me. I told him I found it gross, and he said that most other people would just join in! Am I wrong for thinking this crosses some sort of politeness barrier? I feel icked out and don't know what to do.

—Sleeping Beat-y

For many a 'bater, the act is best conducted alone, in private. Other people, I guess, are enviably comfortable in their own homes and ready to bust a nut whenever the need arises. If you're in the latter scenario, you could:

1. Laugh

Who could blame you for letting out a little chortle for waking up to a swift handy? Self-administered handjobs are hilarious (as are all handjobs, in my opinion), and a perfectly valid response to a mate going to town enthusiastically enough to wake you up is good-natured laughter. Give it a try. Try saying this with cheerful surprise: Oh, hahahaha, oh, ok then, well, alright, enjoy that, g'night! Then off to sleep and make no mention of it again.

2. Ignore It

Hey, this ain't your first masturbation-adjacent moment. Maybe you have a sixth sense—a masturbation radar—or a simple furtive glance will confirm all the details you need to know: This is a private moment, no need to embarrass anyone, and there's certainly no need to interrupt it or your sleep. Save your protest energy for more important matters, like wet towels on the bed. Now that's something to get worked up about in broad daylight.

3. Lend a "Hand"

Perhaps the sight or sounds of your partner in the throes of self pleasure is a major turn-on, in which case, congratulations: you're winning at life. If so, you can wake up, re-orient, and ask if your loved one would like a hand with that. It doesn't have to be a literal hand—it could be a prop hand you've been sleeping with under your pillow for months, waiting and hoping for just this moment. OK, it doesn't have to be a prop hand, it could be your vagina. Or mouth. Or butt. Or just some old-fashioned enthusiastic sideline support. You get the idea.

4. Shut It Down

Surely, in a relationship that is otherwise going well, cutting off the act mid-stroke is a last resort. You don't want to shame your partner for expressing natural sexual urges, and there's something kind of comforting about the idea that they wouldn't feel the need to hide it from you, when so many people do. If you're offended by the location of the act, I'd say wait until the next day and suggest that going forward, move the self-love to somewhere decidedly more private—all after-hours masturbation to be heretofore committed in the breakfast nook.

And yet, I have to say I was sort of happy about the idea of people just going for it in a good, happy relationship in this way. It's all about the quality of the relationship and context, no? In the reader question, there is reason to give pause when she asserts, "I have not been as aroused lately due to some issues outside of our relationship." Grief? Illness? Job loss? It's hard to speculate, but a friend who read the question thought the dude was in the wrong. Maybe he knew his lady was depressed or something and was trying to get something anyway. My friend referred to this as "classic passive-aggressive masturbation," which I admit I had zero idea existed. Someone please explain.

On the flipside, I think the reader also betrays her own comfort level with the situation. She knows he has a high libido, and lately she hasn't been into it, for no reason she attributes to him. She even admits her lack of interest has hit him hard, which means he's taking care of business as he should. She says his aforementioned high libido is not a problem, but clearly the problem is him still having one in her presence. Whether you agree with her probably depends on how much you enjoy it when your partner's libido wakes you up, taps you shoulder in the middle of the night and asks for directions to the nearest bliss.

Prudie's answer was prudent enough:

Dear Sleeping,


Your boyfriend was aroused by the nearness of you, and because you've made clear you're not available sexually at the moment, he decided to take care of himself. He was being both flattering and polite. I agree with him that in response to the bed tremors, you could have offered to lend a hand. Be glad that you're not one of those women whose partner finds the Internet infinitely more gripping than her. Even people who enjoy the most robust sexual relationship can sometimes desire quick, personal self-relief. There is nothing icky about that. Living together is supposed to enhance your intimacy with your boyfriend in every way, and that means having a better understanding of his sexual desires and expression. Tell your boyfriend you're sorry you overreacted and you're going to work on being less prudish.

—Prudie

Or at least make sure the building is up to code.

Illustration by Tara Jacoby.

This weekend, sentient rotting pumpkin time-lapse Donald Trump visited Iowa for the Freedom Summit, "a launch point for conservative ideas as we head towards 2016." There he spoke on a variety of topics, chief among them why the Republicans who might run for president are shit and he's great.

It all started on Friday, when Trump claimed that, really, he should already be president.

"I was leading in every poll... I regret that I didn't stay in," Trump told The Des Moines Register, referring to his aborted campaign for the 2012 election. "I would've won the race against Obama. He would've been easy. Hillary is tougher to beat than Obama, but Hillary is very beatable."

Later, speaking at the summit on Saturday, Trump shared some grim assessments of the G.O.P.'s current 2016 frontrunners. From the L.A. Times:

"It can't be Mitt because Mitt ran and failed. You can't have Romney; he choked," said Trump, revving the crowd.

But then he went on: "You can't have Bush. The last thing we need is another Bush."

Trump blamed Bush's brother, former President George W. Bush, for being the man who "gave us Obama."

Luckily, Trump offered a novel (if somewhat counterintuitive) solution: him.

"I know what needs to be done to make America great again. We can make this country great again," said Trump. "The potential is enormous and I am seriously thinking of running for president."

However, it wasn't all politics this weekend. Trump also found time to talk a little not-history with reporters:

. @kasie asks @realDonaldTrump to name his favorite of iowa’s 99 counties. He replies “this isn’t a history course”

— Zeke Miller (@ZekeJMiller) January 24, 2015

[Image via AP Images]

A lawyer for Jaime Castano, the New York University student who was arraigned this week for allegedly setting his classmate on fire, told a judge that she didn't think prosecutors would be able to prove that Castano's victim wasn't participating, the New York Daily News reports.

According to the Daily News, Alyssa Gamliel, Castano's attorney, argued that the sleeping 19-year-old woman to whom Castano sang as her mattress burned had been so drunk the night of the incident that she blacked out.

"I do not think she knows what happened or her participation in this," Gamliel told the judge, "nor do I think the People will be able to prove that she was not sort of participating in some of this activity."

NYU said that Castano had been expelled in September after an internal investigation, though Gamliel told the judge at his hearing earlier this week that he left of his own accord.

Castano was released on a $50,000 bond Friday. The case, in which he has not yet been indicted, was adjourned until May. The student who was burned is reportedly studying abroad.

[Image via Shutterstock]

On Saturday, CNN reported that two passenger planes had been escorted by fighter jet to Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport to be searched, the result of an online bomb threat military officials "deemed credible." It soon became clear, however, the threat came from a source most of us would treat pretty skeptically: some dumb tweets from an obvious troll.

As BuzzFeed, The Verge and others reported, the threat was apparently made by the Twitter account @kingZortic, which, by playing coy, got Delta Airlines to flesh out a key detail about the supposed bomb.

At 6 p.m., an FBI representative announced that bomb squads and canine units were unable to find anything suspicious on either plane. "We haven't found anything at this point," Special Britt Johnson told reporters. "Nothing's been found."

Shortly afterward, the airport announced normal operations had resumed.

Of course, in an age where murderers sometimes brag about their crimes on social media, taking online threats seriously makes a degree of sense. But that doesn't make it any less depressing when NORAD scrambles F-16s over terrorists like this:

More than 30 elite Filipino police commandos were killed during an attempt to capture a terror suspect, the Associated Press reported. The raid resulted in a "misencounter" with members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, a Muslim militant group that won semi-autonomy last year after four decades of fighting, Mamasapano's mayor told the AP.

Mohagher Iqbal, chief negotiator for the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), told local outlet Minda News that a team from the Philippine National Police Special Action Force descended upon the in the village of Tukanalipao, in Mamasapano town—an area which is controlled by MILF and the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF)—without communicating with local authorities.

The MILF signed a peace deal with the Philippines government last March, brokered by the Malaysian government, after nearly 45 years of armed conflict that left some 120,000 people dead and 2 million displaced.

A BIFF spokesperson told Minda News that the gunfight started when police forces descended upon the house of a MILF commander named Ustadz Manan.

An army spokesperson told Reuters that police had intended to arrest Zulkifli bin Hir, who is believed to be a member of terror group Jemaah Islamiyah's central command and has a $5 million bounty on his head, according to the National Counterterrorism Center's website.

[Photo credit: AP Images]