Sunday Reads: Bringing the Bush Back, a History of LimeWire and What 23AndMe Is Really Doing With Your Saliva

Spread the word: Bush is for everyone. Even just a few years ago, having a bush, or a healthy mound of pubic hair, was shamed. But today, one could make the argument that bush isn’t just accepted, it’s actually chic. And now that it’s cool for women to let that thang grow, men should know that the same rules apply to them — at the very least, the same terminology should apply. 

Besides, winter is coming, baby.

Must Read

“An Oral History of LimeWire: The Little App That Changed the Music Industry Forever”
Infecting your parents’ desktop PC with viruses because you downloaded “linkin_park_Americanidiot.mp3” via LimeWire was a rite of passage for millennials. Today’s youth have a glut of legal streaming services at their disposal, making the need to rip music off the web all but obsolete. But even if LimeWire’s been dead for years, its impact on online file-sharing and a Wild West-style internet are still felt today. Quinn Myers spoke to a number of LimeWire’s original employees, a few internet historians and the guy who was sued by RIAA for illegally downloading songs about the service’s origin story and legacy. READ MORE

The Week in Features

23AndDoesn’tBelongToMe
Whatever you do, don’t give away your DNA — because you’ll never get it back. Such is the case with 23AndMe, the genetic testing and analysis behemoth that happily took Brian VanHooker’s saliva sample, but did everything in their considerable power to prevent him from ever getting it back. He even offered to swing by the office and pick it up himself! Better hope you’ve got some money for legal fees if you’re serious about retrieving your biological data. 

Errol Morris on Steve Bannon
Oscar-winning documentarian Errol Morris didn’t throw up his hands or wail on social media when Donald Trump stormed his way to victory in 2016. He set out to interrogate what went wrong, and who was responsible for things turning so pear-shaped. That’s also how we’ve ended up with the new doc, American Dharma, Morris’ examination of Steve Bannon, the architect of Trump’s presidential win. Now 71, Morris sat down with Patrick J. Sauer to discuss the film, Trump, Nazis and the utter insanity of world history.

‘That Scene’
The blunt impact of plenty of older movies has diminished over time, but that’s not the case with Deliverance. The film’s brutal male rape scene still has the power to unnerve, in large part because we’ve never, as a society, completely grappled with it. Tim Grierson writes that, rather than confronting the scene’s terrifying implications (for dudes at least), we’ve spent decades parodying it — often with disastrous results.

Smoke ‘Em If You Got ‘Em
Before we knew just how bad cigarettes were for our health, the Marlboro Man was as revered a fixture in American culture as John Wayne. But if, for decades, the leathery-skinned, ever-stoic figure captured the romantic ideal of the American dream, the Marlboro Man ultimately came to represent its much darker side, inextricably linked to countless deaths. Brian VanHooker spoke to researchers, journalists and a few of the Marlboro Men themselves about how it all came to be.

Five Things We Learned This Week

1. “Ok Boomer” isn’t ageism because, really, it has nothing to do with age. In fact, it has far more to do with privilege, values and status.
2. A bottle of Lipton iced tea contains the same amount of sugar as two Twinkies. So if you’re looking to absorb some of the health benefits of tea, it’s best to turn to the actual leafy stuff. 
3. If you end up naked in a hotel hallway without your room key, make a dash for the elevator phone. It’ll be the easiest way to call the front desk to have someone help you out.
4. Comedy club two-drink minimums are actually a steal. Or better put, they allow the ticket price to remain a steal.
5. If you have to pick a Muppet to fight to the death, choose wisely. Do you want to live like a coward, knowing you chose a weaker opponent, or die with dignity, having chosen a worthy adversary?

Quote of the Week

Few dicks have rocked the comic-book world as completely as the blue-tinted hog of one Dr. Manhattan, the resident omnipotent superman in Alan Moore’s Watchmen. Ever since he stepped naked out of the nuclear-field generator that his formerly human self accidentally stepped into, fans have pondered over this particular unit like no other, from the early days of the comic book to the recent Zak Snyder remake. And now that we’ve been gifted another live-action version on HBO’s Watchmen, it’s time we renew that dong discourse.

But Don’t Just Take Our Word For It…

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Magdalene Taylor

Magdalene Taylor is a staff writer at MEL. She covers internet culture, sex and the online adult industry. She lives in Brooklyn but is from God's Country, Western Massachusetts.