When I sat in con law class, the lack of verbal dissents from Ruth Ginsberg always got under my skin. There you are thinking that you're taking up the flag and moving things forward in the name, of dare I say it, feminism - enduring the insults from your almost exclusively male professors (I remember one who made me sit in the back of lecture because I didn't wear a skirt), going deeper and deeper in student loan debt with every semester, and having you're A grades relegated to alleged quid pro quo for sexual favors - and you're thinking why doesn't Ginsberg open her mouth and let Scalia have it already?

Maybe I wanted to live vicariously through her righteous indignation because of my own inability to air mine in any sort of public forum where anyone would care but still. I would say that for the last 20 years there's been this growing anti-feminism, anti-activist sentiment among women. The activism of the '70s had been replaced with the shoulder pad-wielding male competitors of the '80's, the social-climbing hedonists of the '90s, and the designer toting hooking up Paris adherents of the new millennium.

We all compete in the same arena. I know that other women aren't happy with the way things shake out in our culture. In the words of Salma Hayek, women have "to be beautiful, smart, skinny, tall, rich, successful at your job, married to the right guy and have genius children. And by the way, they also have to be a nun!" At this point, you have to admit that staying home and taking care of the kids doesn't seem so bad in light of the ever-increasing demands on the New Woman.

Men may feel the same pressure to be the perfect alpha but at least our culture makes provision for their stress release. They're expected and encouraged to be sexual, use their free time for hedonistic pursuits, and forgiven when they fall off the monogamy wagon. Women can't even get off. We're told that we don't need sex and have monogamous natures. It's even illegal to sell vibrators in several states - really. In Texas, it's illegal to "sell obscene devices with the intention of sexual gratification". I wonder if it's illegal to go to the strip club in Texas...right.

But I digress. The point is that I really had given up…given up on Ruth and given up on women in general. With breaking news coverage of the Anna Nicole Smith overdose on CNN and every new accounting of celebutante rehab woes, it seemed like there was no way to turn the tide. The world loved women but loved them rich and stupid. And no one had anything to say about it. Or so it seemed.

This is a monumental moment in jurisprudence. Ruth Ginsberg has found her voice. Both in the abortion case the court decided last month and the discrimination ruling it issued on Tuesday, Justice Ginsburg read forceful dissents from the bench. In each case, she spoke not only for herself but also for three other dissenting colleagues, Justices John Paul Stevens, David H. Souter and Stephen G. Breyer

In the abortion case, in which the court upheld the federal Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act seven years after having struck down a similar state law, she noted that the court was now "differently composed than it was when we last considered a restrictive abortion regulation." In the latest case, she summoned Congress to overturn what she called the majority's "parsimonious reading" of the federal law against discrimination in the workplace.
Now, to read a dissent aloud is an act of theater that justices use to convey their view that the majority is not only mistaken, but profoundly wrong. Scalia has read dissents aloud throughout his career. You can't shut him up. But Ruth Ginsberg has been quiet for years…until now.

Never before in her 15 years on the court has she delivered two verbal dissents in one term. In her past dissents, both oral and written, she has been reluctant to breach the court's collegial norms. Why is this so important? What she's saying is that these rulings aren't about the law – they're about politics, or rather, the Bush Administration's agenda. Hallelujah!

Maybe this is what it's going to take to get women off their asses. Maybe we need to have our civil liberties taken one by one until we're hoping on buses to get abortions in Canada and getting passed over for promotions only to realize we have no legal recourse since we didn't uncover the gender-biased HR practices within 180 days of their commission (180 days after we didn't get our raise) before we decide that we have to get involved. And I think we're just about there.

This '08 election is going to set the scene for a major shift in how women perceive themselves and their ability to avail themselves of the political process. Here's why: for the first time in voter history the target demographic for campaign strategists is the unmarried women dubbed by political pundits as the Single Anxious Female (SAF).

Who is this SAF: she's one the young side - 18 and 44, white (64 percent), unanchored (36 percent move every two years), unaffluent (earning $30,000 or less a year), relatively uneducated (only 14 percent are college grads), and thoroughly not happy with the direction of America (Iraq, health care, equal pay, and education are top issues).

According to the most recent Census data, 22 percent of the voting-age public is never-married women – 22%! Once seen by pollsters to be a politically inconsequential voting block—marriage has always been a top social factor that controls voting—single women are slowly starting to turn out. In the 2000 general election, for instance, the number of unmarried women voting was 19 percent. In 2004, that number jumped to 22.4 percent, and it's expected to vault higher in 2008.

Betsy Myers, the woman who launched the White House Office for Women's Initiatives and Outreach during Bill Clinton's presidency and is now the COO of Barack Obama's campaign, believes these women are the key to the '08 election, "The word is, this is the fastest-growing population for these campaigns to grab". Now, you know that the GOP jokesters and even Obama aren't going to really court these SAFs or commit any sort of resource to understanding they're concerns.

But you know that Hillary is on the motherfucker. She's held press events for "women on their own" in New Hampshire, Iowa, South Carolina, and Nevada. 22%+ of the electorate is comprised of angry women looking for change…looking for a candidate that will represent their interests.

I'm tingling just at the prospect of a woman in the White House. God, I can just see Bill on his sax and Fleetwood Mac reunited for the Inauguration. I know it's not in the bag by any means but we're closer than ever to a shift from testosterone to estrogen and I think women have hit their tipping point.

We're mad as hell and we're not going to take it anymore. It's time to stack the executive and legislative branches in our favor. I say the morning after pill, sex ed, insurance coverage for birth control prescriptions, equal pay for equal work, 50-50 split on household duties between partners, and orgasms all around. Bring on the vibes!

Britney and Madonna's kiss at the 2003 MTV Music Awards...Jennifer Aniston and Courtney Cox's upcoming kiss on Dirt…when famous women kiss each other it causes a public frenzy. And I think that the suburban soccer mom is way ahead of the curve on this one because she's living the dream of suburban bliss and the dream isn't getting her off. She has it all. Everything that we're told will make us happy but she isn't. How do I know this? I run an online community for women focused on sex and relationships www.newcherrybomb.com. I read their confessions and I read their fantasies. I poll them daily and know that their number one fantasy is sex with another women (it beat out sex with a celebrity and sex in an exotic location).

Now, we've all kissed our girlfriends to get the guys hot or dabbled in girl-on-girl play. But somehow those of us under 40 "play" with women for a while only to find ourselves back chasing men in no time. On my site, women under 40 will talk about how a woman found their g-spot or how a woman gave them the best orgasm of their life but they're still straight and prefer the company of a man. When I ask them why they tell me that sex with a girl isn't sex because they define sex as vaginal penetration.

And they're not alone. In fact, earlier this year the New Hampshire Supreme Court voted 3-2 that when a woman cheats on her husband with another woman, it is not considered adultery. Under New Hampshire state law, "adultery" is defined as "sexual intercourse outside of marriage." They simply went to Webster's Dictionary, looked up "sexual intercourse", and found that the definition required a male and a female organ. Case closed.

The lesson: if you're going to cheat on your husband in New Hampshire, cheat with a woman (I'm kidding). But most women don't go into marriage planning their future infidelity. In fact, the prevailing notion of the sanctity of marriage among women under 40 really surprises me. Despite the climbing divorce rate, they really believe the myth of suburban bliss. The notion of prince charming is still alive and well among young, urban career women even among the hipsters who subscribe to DAILYCANDY (the ultimate insider's guide to what's hot, new, and undiscovered sent to your email), own the Sex and the City box set, and shop at Barney's Co-op (it's half boutique half high-end department store shopping).

However, the suburban soccer mom isn't buying it. She has the husband, the picket fence, the 2.3 children, and the SUV. She doesn't have to work and she doesn't have to keep house. She has the gold card maybe even the black card but there's something she longs for that money can't buy her: great sex. She's feeling the twinge of bi-curiosity…and she doesn't feel guilty about it and she isn't confused about what this means with respect to her sexuality.

The Evolution of Bi-Curiosity

For me, it was always a generational thing. Feminists in the 70's clung to their sexuality like their lives depended on it. There was no gray only black and white. If you liked men, you were straight. If you liked women, you were gay. There was no in between. You just didn't see any women making out at Woodstock or rolling around on the lawn in front of the Washington Monument. They may have burned our bras but they kept their panties on and their girlfriends at arms length.

Bi-curiosity seemed to be all about the boys. It was the era of Ziggy Stardust….the era of rumored love affairs between David Bowie and Mic Jaguar. Then, the 80's ushered in an era of shortly cropped man-hair and over-stuffed shoulder pads but still no girl-on-girl play even though you'd think that trying to be a man would have unleashed all sorts of female lust. But, no, it was all about career all the time. Maybe women just didn't have the time for sex.

It kind of all started with Generation X (or it may just be my own ego-centrism coming through. We always think we invented sex). We'd never heard of the term "bi-curious" but we did our fair share of hooking up with our girlfriends especially in college. If you were drunk and lonely, if your boyfriend was out of town, or just plain horny you didn't think twice about making out, fingering, or going down on your girlfriend. And it didn't say anything about your sexuality.

I remember traveling with a girlfriend to LA. We shared one room with 2 queen size beds and at one point, out of sheer boredom; we decided to fool around a bit. We poured wine, got naked, climbed into bed with each other, kissed etc. but decided to call it quits not because we feared being labeled a lesbian but because we just weren't attracted to each other for full on sex. So we settled on ordering room service and watching Sopranos (although we did take a bath together later that evening that lead to one orgasm but not sex).

We didn't consider it real "sex" because there was no penetration (fingers didn't count). Some of my girlfriends even came out as full lesbians but I knew that it would pass it time. And it did. My combat-boot wearing, black lipstick-toting girlfriend traded in her girlfriend and strap-on upon graduation only to marry a man and move to the suburbs. Somehow her lesbianism just didn't take.

Then Generation Y and the Millenniums added their own wrinkle to these random girl-on-girl gropings in addition to the phenomenon of the sex bracelet: the term "bi-curious". They knew exactly what they were doing. They weren't gay they were just bi-curious. Britney and Madonna kissing = bi-curious. Carmen Electra and Joan Jett back stage = bi-curious. Wanting to jump Shane from the L Word's bones = bi-curious. There was no need to hide and there was no need to make your behavior fit within the existing social construct.

So if you were tired of the male perspective or disappointed by your last relationship with a man then you just picked up a girl. Now, this bi-curious relationship would only propel you into the arms of a man further down the road. At some point, you would yearn for the comfort of heterosexuality and tire of sharing shoes. Being with a woman only made you want a man all the more. And this cycle of boy-girl-boy would only continue until prince charming (there he is again) knocked on your door to whisk you away to suburbia. See, still believing the myth of suburban bliss.

Bi-curiosity Hits the Suburbs

While bi-curiosity may have found its way into every dorm room in America, the sanctity of the soccer mom remained in tact. Or so we thought? Back in 1994, Ellen coming out of the closet in primetime may have killed her ratings but she could rely on the inner bi-curiosity of the suburban soccer mom to propel her success in daytime television.

Over the last several years, we've witnessed the phenomenon of the openly gay morning talk show host. Soccer moms across the country dump their kids at school and race home to get their bi-curious morning fix. And it all began in 1996 with Rosie O'Donnell, the Queen of Nice. She wore sensible shoes, boxy jackets, and we all knew that she was gay although she didn't come right out and say it. I think she tried to soften the blow with her whole I-Love-Tom-Cruise bit. But come on! No one bought it and no one knew that soccer moms across America were getting a taste for gay.

Then Ellen hit the scene.

Ellen filled the Rosie void. Soccer moms wanted gay. They wanted to vicariously experience her gay lifestyle. They wanted to hear about her life with Portia and fantasize about what it would be like to share shoes with their SO and experience lesbian-quality oral sex. Ellen racked up 4 Emmys and just got her show renewed through 2010 because, and I quote, "she connects with the upscale, suburban soccer moms that advertisers pay a premium to reach", Jim Paratore, president of "Ellen" producer Telepictures.

And Ellen reigned supreme in that prime morning slot. Network executives gave us Sharon Osbourne: cancelled; Tony Danza: cancelled; and Megan Mullally: cancelled. Ellen is so successful that execs had the balls to put her in the 4pm slot opposite the television titan of all time: Oprah. Her numbers are strong and she's biting a piece off the Oprah franchise. Amazing. But, more importantly, I believe that this shift in the entertainment tastes of the suburban soccer mom is symbolic of a broad-based reevaluation of sex and orientation in our culture.

Let's talk about the upcoming onscreen kiss between Jennifer Aniston and Courtney Cox scheduled to air this March. Do you remember the episode of Friends where Chandler and Joey agreed to give Rachel and Monica their apartment back (they had agreed to swap apartments earlier in the episode) IF the girls kissed while the boys watched? It was all about the man's pleasure in watching two beautiful women kiss - the typical garden-variety male-focused display of bi-curious play. Now, what's different about this upcoming kiss?

Well, the tables have turned. This highly anticipated kiss between Jennifer Aniston and Courtney Cox isn't about male pleasure but rather female pleasure. The storyline isn't about two men conspiring or leveraging women into a sexual display. It's not the usual device employed to justify the desire for female touch on network television. No, it's about one woman who is a lesbian kissing another woman who wants to be kissed by her. There's no audience. No hoots and hollers. No high-fives. Finally, we're watching a scene where two women are emoting sexually for no other expressed purpose than pleasuring each other. And that is progress however small it may seem.

The New Monogamy

As women, we're always being force-fed some "new" trend season after season. We've all had to endure this never-ending roller coaster of "must haves" with respect to fashion and it keeps our cards maxed and our savings light. But recently I've seen article after article recounting new trends in sexuality.

I read articles in the New Yorker about the "New Monogamy" with all sorts of new slang for sex acts and relationship permutations. Some swing, some kiss others, some engage in above-the-waist sex acts with others, and some cling to monogamy with sanctioned girl-girl-boy threesomes (you just never hear of a girl-boy-boy love triangle which is odd since most men can't satisfy one women let alone two). I find it all kind of insulting intellectually. There's nothing monogamous about any of it. And, more importantly, why should I cling to the ideal of monogamy when very few of us can pull it off?

Life just isn't that simple. And aren't you sick of our culture's need to label every behavior as straight, gay or bi? Is it really that black and white? It doesn't seem to be for the suburban soccer mom. She can be married with 2.3 children and still fantasize about another life…another way of emoting sexually. She doesn't judge; rather, she laughs. She is entertained and inspired. It's that hunger of an alternative that makes her a feminist.

I can't believe I'm saying this but maybe the suburban soccer mom is the progressive in the room. Or maybe she's taken off the rose colored glasses because she's living the American dream and she isn't any happier than the rest of us. And the more time we spend on match.com eating out of Chinese cartons the more we want to believe the myth of finding our prince charming and living happily ever after...in suburbia. But the suburban soccer mom knows better!

And isn't that what female empowerment is all about: the choice to live according to your own ideals. Even if that means living in suburbia, driving an SUV, tuning into Ellen for your daily bi-curious fix, and awaiting an onscreen kiss between Jennifer Aniston and Courtney Cox with bated breath. She may tivo the L Word to watch after the kids are in bed but the suburban soccer mom is making her own in roads into the complexities of modern life one girl-on-girl kiss at a time.