Blog Posts by Erin Flaherty, Shine staff

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When it comes to online dating, effectively navigating profiles and analyzing emails can be a slippery slope. Conversations that take place on the computer don't always come across the way they would during a face-to-face meeting, and sometimes, people are less than forthcoming about their negative qualities (nooooo), not to mention the fact that a black and white glamour shot may look great on the screen, but doesn't exactly translate in real life. With these unpleasant realities in mind, we decided to come up with a list of all the online dealbreakers that should be the kind of red flags that make you hit "delete."

1. He/she isn't really single.
If someone gets in touch with you and their relationship status is ambiguous, this should be one giant indication that you shouldn't get involved. Period.

2. You receive a form letter.
It's sad but true. There are certain "speed daters" out there that craft one pat response and send it out to every single person they think looks hot. If

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For those of you who think it's downright sickening that Sarah Palin made Alaskan victims pay huge sums for their own rape kits (maybe she thought they were "asking for it"?), here's another example of backward stupidity when it comes to protection: The Guardian columnist Emine Saner decided to road test the lla Dusk, a new rape alarm that makes a noise that, wait for it, sounds like a woman screaming. Okay, so maybe if the rapist is covering your mouth this might come in handy, but as Saner showed in this video, not only does it sound more like a toy monkey screeching, no one reacted to the noise because it's simply not that, well, alarming. She writes:

"I am standing in a quiet London street, just off a busy market, and nobody is coming to help me. The personal attack alarm I have set off screeches away into a void of nothingness. Eventually, a man walks past on his mobile phone, glances in my direction and looks annoyed. A pigeon looks slightly alarmed. I could be dead by now, I

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Lately, the word "sexist" has been tossed around more than a squealing teenaged girl at cheerleading camp, and it seems everyone has a different definition of what it entails, (both in practice and philosophy). Is it envisioning a certain female political candidate in a star-spangled bikini, or deliberately refraining from asking her the "hard" questions because she's a girl? Is it standing up for stricter abortion laws because that's what some women believe in, or passionately fighting for the right to choose? These questions inevitably bring us to the underlying tension: What does feminism, in the western world at least, mean these days? And is it, as some would argue, propelling today's women backward?

Now that legal and institutional changes have been made, and the social liberation of the '60s and '70s is done with, what's left? Maybe women no longer feel crippled by the pressure to stay home and clean, but sexual objectification certainly hasn't gone out of style. However, to

There comes a point in your young life that you realize that your celebrity crush is never going to ask you out, so you gingerly take his or her poster off your wall, replace it with some art, and move on with your life. You grow up, get a job, maybe a real life romantic interest and the past is history. Still, you never quite forget that first love, even if the affair only existed between you and a pillow (ahem). That's why we decided to launch this round up of ex-poster boys (and girls!) in order to take a nostalgic little saunter back to the days when making out with Scott Baio was just a fantasy away. (Christ on a cracker what was I thinking?) Then you tell us: Who did you want to rip off your wall, and then like, rip off their clothes?

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Okay, file this under Captain Obvious celebrity gossip, but yes, Lindsay Lohan finally admits that she is dating her girlfriend.

"After months of open canoodling with celebrity DJ Samantha Ronson, Lindsay Lohan has stopped playing coy about whether the two of them are in a relationship, finally confirming the news on (of all places) last night's episode of the radio show Loveline. And she wasn't even prompted by the harsh interrogation techniques of Dr. Drew, either! No, Lohan--who had the phone passed to her after Ronson called in to discuss her hospitalized friend DJ AM--was caught flat-footed after an innocent question by Dr. Drew's cohost, Stryker."-Defamer

Now, I'm really glad that Lindsay is no longer living a lie and all, I truly am. And under normal circumstances, congratulations would be in order. But is it not upsetting that she was sneakily outed during a radio call that was supposed to be devoted to talking about the shocking and tragic plane crash that involved their

Every generation of women since the 1970s has most likely read at least one of Judy Blume's classic coming of age tales, if not every single adorable, doe eye-opening one. There was Iggie's House (theme: racism), Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret (periods), It's Not the End of the World (parents getting divorced), Blubber (mean girls), and that teenage sexuality tome, Forever. Oh and of course there were the little kid books: Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing, Superfudge and Otherwise Known as Shelia the Great, all widely stocked in school libraries. But even though to date it's sold four million copies, a lot of people still draw a blank when it comes to her scandalous "dirty book," Wifey.

Many great writers published in the legendary Olympia Press wrote erotica in order to pay the bills while they waited for their proverbial literary ships to sail in. Judy Blume, on the other hand, was already a successful, best-selling young adult and children's author when she did a 180 and

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When it comes to sex education, I couldn't disagree more with all this abstinence only nonsense. It's not that I don't understand it--oh I get it, I really do--but judging from the facts, oh say, skyrocketing amounts of STD sufferers and scores of unplanned pregnancies, no one can convince me that it's actually working. Still, just because I don't agree with it as the be-all and end-all of sex ed, doesn't mean I can't respect aspects of the idea if it works for certain individuals (to each her own!). And that's why a new site that's causing quite a ruckus in Japan gave me pause.

Apparently the big craze amongst 20- and 30-something Japanese women is Webkare (Japanese for "web boyfriend"), a website where you can "date" a virtual boyfriend. According to Tech Crunch, "the site attracted over 10,000 members just 5 days after its release on September 10, racking up 3.5 million page views in the same time frame," and with numbers like that, you can bet some American techie kid who lives

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In a 2006 issue of Esquire, Brad Pitt famously stated that he and Angelina would only "consider tying the knot when everyone else in the country who wants to be married is legally able." Looks like he's making good on his word, because he just donated $100,000 to help stop the California ballot initiative called Propostition 8 that would ban same-sex marriages in the state, reports OMG. The money is intended for fundraising, awareness and activism by the group Californians Against Eliminating Basic Rights, and his contribution is also the largest single donation to date by a celebrity.

Let's review, shall we?

Last month we reported on Proposition 8, which seeks to overturn the ruling that gays can marry in the state of California, the same ruling that recently helped Ellen Degeneres and her long time partner Portia de Rossi (um, I think I read somewhere that it's Portia Degeneres now?) realize their dream of making their relationship all official like. When celebrities get political