Why would someone attack a painting? Last week in Washington DC, a visitor to the National Gallery’s “Gauguin: Maker of Myth” exhibition took hold of the frame of the post impressionist’s artist’s Two Tahitian Women, then began to pound her fist against the plexiglas protecting the painting.

A by-stander tackled the woman, enabling museum officers to step in. The woman, later identified as Susan Burns, a 53-year-old from Arlington, VA, was told her rights, then asked by an investigator why she had attacked the painting. She responded:

I feel that Gauguin is evil. He has nudity and is bad for the children. He has two women in the painting and it’s very homosexual. I am trying to remove it. I think it should be burned. I am from the American CIA and I have a radio in my head. I am going to kill you.

She is currently being held without bail as she awaits a hearing regarding her mental health. According to the Huffington Post, Burns served six months in jail following a 2006 assault and battery conviction after she attacked a police officer. Two years prior, she was convicted of misdemeanor trespassing. The Washington Post reported that Sharon Weathers Burns’ attorney, declined to comment when approached on Monday.

The painting by Paul Gauguin Two Tahitian Women shows two women standing side by side. One has both breasts exposed, and the other is showing one. A statement by the National Gallery has confirmed that the painting was not damaged; it returned to the exhibit following thorough inspection on Monday.

Violence against art at museums is uncommon, but it still occurs. According to ArtLyst, a man took a hammer to Michelangelo’s Pieta in 1972, shouting, “I am Jesus Christ, risen from the dead.” In 1975, a school teacher out of a job slashed Rembrandt’s The Night Watch with a bread knife some dozen times, decreeing, “I have been sent by the Lord! I have been forced to do this by forces out of this Earth!”

The Washington Post also cites several acts of vandalism against art: in 1974 a man ripped a painting from its mounting at the National Gallery and smashed a Renaissance-era folding chair into 30 pieces; between 1978 and 1979, also in DC, 25 paintings were damaged by a sharp instrument, including pieces by Henri Ma­tisse and Pierre-Auguste Renoir; in 1998, two Ma­tisse paintings were vandalized with a pencil at the Capitoline Museums in Rome.

Neither article mention the exact motivations for the damage in these cases. We’re disenchanted by the violently homophobic nature of the attack in DC, however. Bad for the children? We fail to see how censorship and violence are better than the freedom of artistic expression.

Header image by iamsosorry, via Dean Skibinski.

On Monday, over 100 University of Southern California students marched in protest of the school’s inaction in response to a misogynist e-mail said to have originated among members of the school’s Kappa Sigma fraternity.

The e-mail, a lengthy guide to living the “Cocksman” lifestyle, followed a brief introduction with the following statement before moving on to its tenets: “I will refer to females as ‘targets’. They aren’t actual people like us men. Consequently, giving them a certain name or distinction is pointless.”

From there, the piece introduces the vocabulary of the cocksman: a “pie” is a vagina and a “gullet” refers to the oral cavity. The e-mail describes the different “types” of “pie,” assigning flavors to women of different ethnic backgrounds, and essentially prohibits sex with women of Middle Eastern heritage as a matter of patriotism. It also casually suggests that it is easier to get women of lower socioeconomic status to have sex if one employs alcohol.

The use of alcohol to persuade women to have sex, in fact, has its own name: “loop n’ drop.” This technique carries the glib warning that too much alcohol may result in “instances of litigation and lawsuits. Terms like ‘sexual assault’ seem to be used in this case.” It couldn’t possibly get any worse after this point, but it does, with the introduction of the acronym “R.D.A. (Raw Dog Assassin),” which describes a man who refuses to wear condoms, a practice that is dismissed as only resulting in a few extra visits to the clinic, “but a quick penicillin shot really isn’t that bad (trust me).”

When USC’s Daily Trojan reported on the e-mail, they spoke with Mitchell Wilson, executive director of Kappa Sigma Fraternity, who stated he was appalled by the message.

“The content [of the e-mail] is contrary to everything [Kappa Sigma stands] for and we are not going to allow individuals to attempt to tarnish our name in any form or fashion,” said Wilson. “We will pursue this as far as we can.”

Wilson also told the Trojan that the organization has been discussing the matter and trying to find a way to go through internet service providers to track the source of the e-mail.

But Pat Lauer, president of USC’s Interfraternity Council, isn’t sure the e-mail originated at USC, or even the Ksig.

“We have been told and understand that this e-mail was forwarded from another source outside this community, but there have been so many contradicting facts being uncovered,” Lauer told the student paper. “At this point we are going to wait for Kappa Sigma’s nationals to conduct their investigation before making any conclusive statements.”

Not much later, the doubt became a full disavowal, as illustrated by this message from Jaclyn Matthews, executive vice president of USC’s Panhellenic Council:

The email did not originate at USC and the student who forwarded the email to USC’s Kappa Sigma is not a registered member of our Greek community. We have drafted an official response (attached) that asserts the facts of the situation and intends to clear the horrible misconceptions of USC’s Greek community proliferated by the email.

Not too much later, an account surfaced on a LiveJournal community naming not only the alleged author [name has been redacted, see bottom of post for details], but implicating Mitchell Wilson, the aforementioned executive director of Kappa Sigma and possibly the president of USC’s Kappa Sigma chapter.

According to this account, Wilson, another man from Kappa Sigma believed to be its USC president and the alleged author of the account, came over to the poster’s apartment to beg her roommate, whom the alleged author had asked to proof-read the e-mail and who may be the source of the leak, to refrain from speaking to the Trojan. The poster goes on:

They then said they were concocting a cover story that said the email was not written by a USC student, but obtained from somewhere outside USC (Harvard), and intended as satire.

Then yesterday the DT [Daily trojan] article came out. I was absolutely furious because Mitchell Wilson, IFC [Interfraternity Council], Kappa Sig — basically everyone lies about the email’s origins (“If there is such a member.”) Bullshit, they were all in my fucking apartment together two days ago! (and the email was signed by Elliot like 5 different ways, which people seem to keep forgetting).

Meanwhile, I have heard that Elliot has been expelled from Kappa Sig — but obviously only because it was made public and embarrassed the frat. The email was sent back in January. If they actually cared about the content of the email, they would’ve expelled him then, not now. I also heard he’s going through SJACS [Student Judicial Affairs and Community Standards] proceedings, but considering a prior frat related experience that my roommate and I had, I don’t necessarily trust those people to do anything of value.

The lack of action on the part of Kappa Sigma national and USC drove students to congregate in protest on Monday, chanting slogans such as, “Our bodies, our lives; our campus, our rights.”

Having blown up into a national story, the Los Angeles Times reported on the protest, noting Michael L. Jackson, vice president for Student Affairs at USC, finally took the microphone toward the end to condemn the e-mail anew, encourage the students to keep speaking out and promise that USC is “willing to work with anyone who has better ideas for improving what we do.”

We applaud the students who protested. Men and women should be concerned with the climate created by an e-mail of such a disruptive nature. There is nothing “satirical” or “funny” about an e-mail that supports such an appalling philosophy and it would do USC well to take a bigger interest in protecting the well-being of its students than in saving face in light of the national media’s attention.

And for no particular reason whatsoever, we want to suggest all female students read (or reread) the following play by Aristophanes. The link goes straight to the free version available from the Gutenberg Project. But if you are short on time, a quick skim over the Wikipedia entry may more than do the trick.

We’d support that, too. In fact, we’d join you.

Pie photo in header collage by Miss Sydney Marie.

* Initially, this post contained the name of the alleged author first published by Gawker Media’s Jezebel.com on March 10, 2011. On April 27, the alleged author contacted Sex and the 405 via e-mail and requested his name be removed based on having been “fully exonerated by my University and the California Court System.” He sent the March 17 open letter by Michael L. Jackson, Vice President of USC Student Affairs, mentioned in this post, but could not provide information from the California court system because offering any documentation regarding the civil dispute would result in a breach of settlement. The alleged author of the e-mail also informed Sex and the 405 that he is “currently in legal proceedings with the Jezebel author for libel and defamation claims.”

Tice, the breakfast cook, took the items along with two laptops and a wig from their storage locker in January. The Florida police were tipped off when his girlfriend told detectives that he had stashed a bag of dildos under the bed and flat-out admitted he had stolen these from his employers.

The woman, 38, turned over the items and Tice was charged with felony burglary and two misdemeanors. According to The Smoking Gun, he is being held in lieu of $4,000 bond.

The obvious moral of this story is: don’t steal. And if you do, don’t mess with people’s sex wares.

Cum in the eye. It happens even to the best of us.

While on the air with former Penthouse pet Sam Phillips on The Single Life, she told us that porn star and director Kimberly Kane had told her that semen is particularly painful when it gets in the eye because the sperm present are trying to impregnate the eyeball.

Say what? We hit up psychiatrist and sex therapist, Dr. Madeleine Castellanos to weigh in on the statement.

“Anything that gets in your eye that is not like normal saline will sting or bother,” Dr. Castellanos told us over Twitter. “[Sperm] can’t pass the cornea. Shampoo in the eye is much worse than sperm or semen. Tell them just to rinse already!”

To make sure we did our due diligence to the topic, we also presented the same question to Scicurious, who holds a PhD in physiology and a BS in biology:

“Getting semen in the eye might hurt,” she responded over e-mail. “But that’s probably not because the sperm are trying to get in the eyeball — though the sperm might be like ‘OMG! BIG ROUND THING! MUST IMPREGNATE!!!’ But let’s be honest, sperm aren’t much for deep thought. Sperm, and semen, contain a lot of enzymes which are used to dissolve the egg’s protective coat under normal conditions, and those might cause the pain if it gets in your eye. In addition, putting pretty much anything in the eye is going to hurt, so there’s that as well.”

It’s funny that Dr. Castellanos mentions shampoo being more painful because shampoo appears to have the preferred pH when it comes to dealing with the removal of freshly ejaculated semen. But use cool water! Warm water can cause the semen to clump around the lashes into a superglue-like mess. You don’t want that.

“Of course, swallowing eliminates that problem altogether,” Dr. Castellanos added.

Just make sure everyone has been tested for sexually transmitted illnesses and you’re set to go!

You think we’re kidding, don’t you?

They’re not totally wrong, you know. But something tells us not too many strippers read this magazine.

UPDATE: Whore Magazine has stated on Twitter that they would run this. With a few changes, we assume.

Via Jezebel.

When we talk about being ravenous and comment that we could just devour our lovers, well, it’s not literal. Lick, suck, nipple, bite, even. But chew and swallow? Not so much.

That could be changing. According to El Comercio, a Brazilian restaurant by the name of Flimé in Berlin is opening its doors soon and advertising that it will offer gourmet human flesh dishes, based on the customs of the Wari tribe in the Amazon, said to be cannibalistic.

The location of the restaurant is being kept a secret at the moment — for good reason, as Germany is up in arms about the restaurants campaign asking patrons to donate some flesh.

The site offers a PDF questionnaire with the following questions for donors:

Flimé assures patrons they will foot the costs incurred in the process of flesh donation. They are at present looking for their own “open-minded” surgeon.

Considering Germany recently faced a real case of cannibalism, if this is just a marketing ploy, it’s a very edgy one. The owner, Eduardo Amado, released a statement citing the Wari proberb that said, “Eating is more than satisfying hunger.”

“Let us contemplate eating as a spiritual act wherein one assumes the soul and strength of the being we ingest,” Amado added.

Um, can’t we just go down on each other?

Images from Flimé. Information via El Comercio.

This is a bandeau bra for kids ages 4 to 6. It has cups and clear straps. Yeah, we get it, baby wants to be like mommy. But come on. What next? Baby corsets? We already have baby heels.

We never thought we’d hear ourselves say this but that’s just inappropriate.

Via Jessica Gottlieb.

Via BlogHer’s Wall of Shame.

It was only a matter of time before it came to this, creatures. If you have a Facebook, you know first hand how angina-inducing interaction with your near and dearest can be. Unlike a social gathering or family dinner, you can’t really walk away — or try to keep things between yourself and the other person. They’re out there, breaking in real time, for all your contacts to see across the world — and to access, later (if you fail to remove the content) at their leisure.

Now, a 16-year-old in Arkansas is suing his mother for slandering him on his Facebook profile. According to ABC7, Denise New of Arkadelphia hacked into her son’s account, changed his password and posted “slanderous comments about his personal life.”

New says she sought only to monitor her son’s online interactions. The teen lives with his grandmother, who holds custodial rights, but New claims she has the legal right to monitor his online behavior. She plans to fight the charges.

Watch the report from ABC7 below:

“Amazing.”

Information from ABC7.

So get this, recently, the giant Condomania averaged the sizes of their custom-sized TheyFit condoms ordered by a sample of some 25,000 men in the U.S. between 2004 and 2010 to figure out what cities have the best-endowed men.

Los Angeles, they found, comes in at 17, a full nine places below San Francisco.

The SF Weekly wasted no time rubbing it in:

Finding a good man in San Francisco is not easy. We actually devoted a cover story to the challenging hunt. Yet apparently finding a well-endowed man is not too, umm, hard. According to stats released by internet condom store Condomania, it’s much easier in the City by the Bay than in the city of over-inflated pricks to the south, Los Angeles.

San Francisco ranked a respectable No. 8 among the nation’s 20 most populous cities, while Los Angeles came in at a stumpy 17th. And L.A. seems to be feeling a little down about their shortcomings, noting that even Ron Jeremy couldn’t carry the team. Basically they’re taking their loss like a man, concocting lame excuses about how not a lot of men in L.A. even wear condoms so the stats are skewed. Wah, wah, wah.

For all the grief we put San Diego through up here in the City of Angels, we here at Sex and the 405 have to admit that their coming in third place in the city rankings is pretty damn impressive.

And the smallest cocks? Detroit, Philadelphia, and Dallas/Ft. Worth.

Disagree? Pics or we’re not buying it!

And if you know someone who defies the results of this survey, send them a proper thank you!

Image by Julie K. Information via the SF Weekly.