The 4th Carnival of All Substances is up over at Therapydoc's Everyone Needs Therapy.

Check it out if you have an interest in addictions, substance abuse, codependence, or know someone who does. Is there anyone left who doesn't?

by Tracee Sioux

This weekend my husband and I got away without the children and we went out to a bar. Not just any bar, but bizarro bar.

Let me paint a picture, I'm wearing my hot red heals and we're sitting in the back corner, because it was the only open table.

The table in front of us was a bachelorette party and they've brought a male blow up doll. We were to find out later in the evening, when they took off the doll's Levi's, it was an anatomically correct and very well-endowed blow up doll.

Straddling the doorway between the pool area and the live cover band area was a uniformed county Sheriff.

And all over the entire bar, amidst the smoking, drinking, anatomically correct blow up doll bachelorette paryting is a 10-year-old little girl. I can only presume the woman who brought her there was her mother. The man she was with was her mother's boyfriend, also a presumption. Several men in their party gave her special hugs that would probably have been construed as appropriate had they not been drunks in a bar, where really it looked quite inappropriate.

At one point a uniformed city cop came in. The sheriff went over to one of the ladies partying with the well hung doll and whispered in her ear. The lady then took off running with the plastic penis flapping in the wind and threw the doll on the city cop. City cop had quite a good sense of humor about it and even posed for a picture with the doll. Turns out the Sheriff wasn't chatting with the woman about lewdness with the doll, but was enlisting her in throwing it on his fellow officer.

All this to say that perhaps the most empowering place for the 10-year-old little girl would have been at home with a really nice babysitter. I thought that was a given, but apparently someone needs to say it again.

I got a couple of pictures on the cell phone. What was I going to do, call the cops?

By Tracee Sioux

I've been racking my brain, trying to figure out why we keep the monthly menstrual cycle a big secret from our daughters.

I've got nothing. Can't think of a single developmental reason for keeping the biological fact of menstruation from my daughter.

Out of default I have attempted to be private and secretive about my period. My 5-year-old daughter, Ainsley, has questioned me numerous times about what tampons and pads are. Or why I was being so uncharacteristically private. (Like most mothers I have no real privacy whatsoever.) I've always responded with something super lame like I'll tell you when you're older. To which she responds, Like when I'm a teenager? Then I say something like, Maybe when you're 9.

I was quite shocked when learning about my monthly period. I must have been 9 or 10. The only thing I remember was thinking along the lines of, Whose idea was that? Why? Come to think of it, those are the questions I still have.

I suppose it felt like a coming of age thing. I can't figure out how my mother kept it quiet for so long. My daughter was tuned into the tampons and pads from the get go and I've been avoiding the question, waiting for the appropriate right of passage moment.

Shopping for tampons at the pharmacy my daughter wanted to know what was up.

What are those?

It's for my period. Girls bleed every month. Down there.

Bleed? Why?

It happens so we can have babies.

Oh.

Then CVS sent me a Kotex sample.

Did anything come in the mail for me? What's that?

It's a pad, for when I bleed. So the blood doesn't get on my panties.

Why did they send you that?

I guess they want me to buy this kind of pad.

So many teachable moments passed before I finally told her and it was completely without drama. I can't figure out why I hid it from her begin with.

My advice to other mothers of young daughters? Tell them the first time they ask. Tell your sons too for that matter. The mystery doesn't add anything to the experience. Knowledge of their own body and its biological facts can only empower girls. If it's something a girl has always known, it's not surprising, shocking, shameful, weird or dirty.

After the knowledge of the biological fact there's the issue of attaching a value judgement to the monthly period. Is it a blessing or a curse? Should we celebrate with a party and go out for tea or something to mark the moment? Well, we have a few years for that. I suppose it depends on your daughter's attitude about getting it. I wanted it desperately as a sign of womanhood, I have a feeling Ainsley will feel the same way. She's already quizzing me about when she'll be allowed to wear make-up (12) and date (28). Like mother, like daughter.

by Tracee Sioux

One wouldn't immediately think of a tatoo artist as the ideal role model for girl empowerment. But, then there is Kat Von D (Katherine Von Drachenberg), who makes viewers question the definition of beauty and is an empowering illustration (literally) of what it's like for women breaking into male-dominated industries.

Perhaps you've occassionally tuned in to Miami Ink. Kat used to be the only girl in the tattoo shop and it was entertaining to watch her try to mesh with the men who dominate her profession. That's when my 5-year-old daughter, Ainsley and I became fans. Then she got fired. Well, you know she got mouthy with the boss and turned her nose up at jobs she didn't really want to do.

The Learning Channel, brilliantly offered her a show, LA Ink, which premiered on Tuesday night. Genius!

She's really beautiful, Ainsley says of Kat Von D. Somehow, she really is.

I wouldn't have described beauty as ink portraits and doodles covering a massive portion of a woman's body, yet there is something infinately beautiful about Kat and the other tatted up chicks on LA Ink. There is something authenticly lovely and feminine about her that makes you question traditional beauty. Perhaps it's her retro-feminine sexuality and the pin-up marketing that make her so appealing. Maybe it's her more sexy than not rocker chick style. Could be the dramatic eye makeup and the black long hair.

Not everyone could pull off tattoed animalistic spots on her face. Somehow Kat makes it hypnotically beautiful with intention.

What we're used to seeing as beauty is featured on "reality" shows like E!'s Sunset Tan or The Girls Next Door, where everyone is tan, bleached blond and wearing the latest designers. Heck, even The Simple Life, which features Nichole Richie, a racially mixed woman, only allows tan blond beauty.

LA Ink and Kat Von D make us question and redefine our definition of beauty. It's really quite refreshing to broaden the scope of acceptable beauty. Broadening the definition of beauty, will hopefully, prevent our daughters from appearing on Dr. 90210 in an attempt to surgically become narrowly defined beauty.

It's empowering to watch Kat recruit her employees - mostly other female artists - and know that this is the first time they've ever been able to work in a predominately female environment. I think it's going to be fascinating to watch how that plays out. She brought in one male tatooist, her mentor, to provide the grounding for the catty and PMSy factor, Kat said.

I expect LA INK, based on the first episode, to deconstruct femininity, beauty, body image, gender and self in a way that will make both myself and my daughter feel empowered.

On Tuesday's show we saw a client getting a tattoo of a 1950s era Gil Elvgren pin-up dressed in a sexy apron with the tagline "I should be in the kitchen." We can look back on the fact that we were bound to domestic roles with a sense of humor, so its completely rediculous and ironic, Hannah Aitchison, one of LA Ink's female artists said as she did the tat.

It may seem like I'm setting back decades upon decades of womens rights. I've pushed myself into a very masculine world and I've succeeded. But at the end of the day I want to go home and put a little cute apron on and make cupcakes and that's all I want to do. I love the feminine part of my life, so this is just a reminder of that, Jessica, the client, said.

Hit record on the DVR Tuesday nights on the TLC Channel. Live & Learn!