May 2012

Ravenous Nights June 1st: Pride! Part One

by Viviane on 05/31/2024

in Events, new york

It’s Pride month and we’ve got the first of two line-ups to celebrate it! Join host-for-the-month and 2012 Lambda Literary Finalist Debra Hyde as we honor all things queer and colorful. Our on-going Dirty Word Draw promises prize packages bulging with wonderful books, ebooks, and other goodies so be sure to bring your favorite dirty word!

Location: Happy Ending Lounge,  302 Broome Street (Pink awning says “Xie He Health”), NYC
(212) 334-9676
www.happyendinglounge.com

Free. Casual dress.

Sassafras Lowrey is an international award winning queer author and artist who came into a gutterpunk leather community a decade ago. Sassafras is the editor of the two time American Library Association honored and Lambda Literary Award Finalist Kicked Out. Sassafras’ first novel, Roving Pack, will be released autumn 2012, an excerpt of which earned hir an Honorable Mention in the Astraea Lesbian Writers Fund for Fiction. Ze tours to colleges, and community organizations across the country facilitating workshops that support LGBTQ people in telling their stories. Ze is currently editing Leather Ever After an anthology of BDSM fairy tale retellings to be released by Ravenous Romance. Sassafras lives in Brooklyn, New York with hir partner, two dogs, and two kitties. You can learn more about Sassafras and hir work at www.SassafrasLowrey.com.

Our good friend (and self-confessed “reading whore”) Jefferson curates and hosts Spill Stories: True Stories of Queer Sex, Desire and Romance as well as Bare: True Stories of Sex, Desire and Romance. (Something for everyone!) A sex educator and writer, Jefferson keeps a pseudonymous blog, One Life, Take Two, that details his life as a parent and pervert. He is a storyteller frequently seen on stages around the city and elsewhere, including The Moth, where he is a StorySlam winner.

Indigo is a black poly kinky feminist queer dyke; writer, teacher, artist and aspiring sex education/blogger. She’s about liberating the woman, questioning the man and fantasizing about all folks in between. She reads, questions, wonders, writes and hopes the art leads the way. Her blog, Indigo’s Theory, explores being in a loving poly relationship, having sex in great spaces, learning to love her skin, belly, hair, etc. and coming into her kinky queer self. Visit Indigo at http://indigostheory.wordpress.com.

D.L. King is a smut writing—and editing—New Yorker who lives somewhere between the Wonder Wheel at Coney Island and the Chrysler Building. The editor of The Harder She Comes: Butch Femme Erotica, Spankalicious, Spank! and the Lambda Literary Award Finalist,Where the Girls Are: Urban Lesbian Erotica, D. L. King also publishes and edits Erotica Revealed, the erotica book review site. The author of dozens of short stories in dozens of anthologies, she is the author of two novels of female domination and male submission, The Melinoe Project and The Art of Melinoe. Find out more at dlkingerotica.com and dlkingerotica.blogspot.com.

Be sure to join us July 6th for a second Pride line-up. Hey, when it comes to the erotic word, the celebration never ends!

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29th Annual Leather Pride Auction

by Viviane on 05/31/2024

in Events, leather

29th Annual Leather Pride Night, NYC, June 16

 

NEW YORK, NY May 10, 2012 — The 29th annual Leather Pride Night Auction will take place on Saturday, June 16th, 2012. This year the festivities will be at XL Nightclub located at 512 West 42nd Street, between 10th and 11th Avenues. XL’s doors will open for LPN at 6:00 PM, and the auction will run from 7:00 PM until 10:00 PM. Liquor, beer, wine and soft drinks will be available at a cash bar. A sign language interpreter will be present to interpret some portions of the presentations. This year, as every year, there will be a team of bootblacks, led by International Mr. Bootblack Jim Deuder, to keep your leathers, boots and shoes looking sharp. The bootblacks’ tips go toward the event’s total for the beneficiaries. We encourage everyone to come early to view the items up for auction, get your boots blacked, and be seen!

Jo Arnone, LPN’s veteran auctioneer, will preside over almost a hundred items being auctioned, including leather and latex fetish clothing, unique toys and equipment, art objects, event passes and tickets, and much more.

Leather Pride Night is sponsored by nine NYC S/m-leather- fetish organizations: Iron Guard BC, Lesbian Sex Mafia, MAsT Metro NY, MetroBears NY, New York boys of Leather (NYboL), Pariah’s MC, The Eulenspiegel Society, ONYX NY/NE, The Imperial Court of New York and many committed individuals.

Over the years, Leather Pride Night has donated over $400,000 for local and national charities. This year, Leather Pride Night will donate the 2012 Auction proceeds to: The National Coalition for Sexual Freedom (NCSF), IRIS House, Health Outreach to Teens (H.O.T.T.) at Callen-Lorde Community Health Center, and, as has been our tradition, an annual donation to Heritage of Pride, the producer of New York’s annual Pride Parade.

Tickets for Leather Pride Night $20 in advance and $25 at the door . PayPal payment is available at the LPN website www.leatherpridenight.org. Tickets can also be obtained at any of the sponsoring organizations or the beneficiary organizations, as well as the following supporting commercial venues: David Samuel Menkes Custom Leatherwear, DomSubFriends / Paddles, Purple Passion / DV8, The Leather Man, Passionale and Le Chateau Exotique.

Leather Pride Night is part of a season of fabulous leather and fetish- oriented events in New York City!

Kicking off the weekend of leather events, on Friday, June 15th, Lesbian Sex Mafia will be hosting “BDSM and Anal” with Tristan Taormino at the LGBT Center in Manhattan, 208 West 13th Street. For information, call 212 726-3844 or go to: www.lesbiansexmafia.org.

On Friday, June 15th, MetroBears NY gets Leather Weekend started with a Leather Party at Rockbar NYC from 9PM until closing, hosted by George Haines, Mr. MetroBear NY 2009 and Mike Cotter, Mr. MetroBear NY 2004-2005. Rock Bar is located at 185 Christopher Street, at the end of Christopher Street.

New York’s Chapter of ONYX, ONYX Northeast, a leather club serving men of color, starts the weekend off at Rawhide located at 212 8th Avenue, also on Friday. The event, open to all, is a leather gear night at the bar from 9 PM until 1AM.

If you still haven’t had enough, keep the Leather Pride energy going at the all-gender Eulenspiegel Society (TES) play party, The TES LPN After-Party at Paddles! TES’ Leather Pride Night After Party is THE place to go to try out that new toy you picked up at LPN…or that new play partner. The revelry begins at 10 PM on Saturday and continue until 3 am Sunday morning at Paddles. For more info: www.tes.org

On Sunday, June 17th Folsom Street East presents FOLSOM STREET EAST, an S/m-leather-fetish block party on West 28th Street (between 10th and 11th Avenues) in front of the Eagle NYC Bar. Over 10,000 leathermen and women cap off Leather Pride Weekend with the largest outdoor festival of its kind on the East Coast. For more info: www.folsomstreeteast.org.

This year, leather pride continues into July with the TES Fest 2012. Held from June 29 until July 1, 2012 in New Jersey. With special events, countless workshops and classes, a 24-hour dungeon space and vendors, TESFest 2012 promises to be the must-attend event of the summer. It also promises outdoor play and nude swimming in the hotel pool. All info can be found at www.tesfest.org.

The Leather Pride Night Committee is dedicated to promoting freedom of sexual self-expression, and actively works to improve the image and understanding of S/m and fetish lifestyles. It meets on the first Thursday of the month (October through June) at 8:00PM at the LGBT Center, 208 West 13th Street (bet 6th & 7th Aves).

There is no photography or cellular telephone usage allowed at the event. Media photography inquiries can be directed to Darrell at darrellblackandblue@gmail.com or call 917 783 0127.

LPN is run by volunteers! If you want to volunteer, send email to LPNnyc@aol.com.

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Lesbian Sex Mafia presents BDSM and Anal Play with Tristan Taormino

by Viviane on 05/30/2024

in Events, new york

Tristan Taormino
Tristan Taormino leads you through the world of all things anal and kinky in this class about how to incorporate kink into your anal sex and anal sex into your kink. She’ll cover a wide variety of topics, including: the ins and outs of anal penetration; extended butt plug wearing and butt plug bondage; creating scenes around the psychological aspects and power dynamics of anal play; using consensual force safely; an introduction to enema play; plus, an extensive Q & A—ask her anything!
Where: The LGBT Center, 208 West 13th St. (7th/8th Ave), NYC
When: Friday, June 15 , 2012; 8:00-10:00PM
Cost: LSM Members: $5/Non Members: $10


About Tristan Taormino

Tristan Taormino is an award-winning author, columnist, sex educator, college lecturer, and feminist pornographer. She is the author of eight books, including The Ultimate Guide to Kink: BDSM, Role Play and the Erotic Edge, which features chapters written by some of the best kinky educators in the country (forthcoming in March 2012). She is the editor of twenty-three anthologies including Take Me There: Trans and Genderqueer Erotica and Sometimes She Lets Me: Best Butch/Femme Erotica, which won a 2011 Lambda Literary Award and the 2011 Samois Anthology Award from the National Leather Association: International. She is also founding editor of the award-winning series Best Lesbian Erotica. She runs her own porn production company, Smart Ass Productions, and is the director/producer of Rough Sex, a series that explores women’s real kink and BDSM fantasies and features performers like Madison Young, Dylan Ryan, Claire Adams, Sasha Grey, April Flores, Adrianna Nicole, Sinnamon Love, and Jiz Lee. Rough Sex has garnered a Feminist Porn Award, several AVN Award nominations, and two Audience Awards from The CineKink Film Festival. She has been in the BDSM scene for nearly two decades and taught, keynoted, and emceed for over one hundred kink organizations and events around the world, including Black Rose, Boys Training Camp, CAPEX, Desire, FIST, The Floating World, IMsL, Kinkfest, Leather Leadership Conference, Living in Leather, MOB New England, NLA Columbus, Pacific Friction, South Plains Leatherfest, TES, Thunder in the Mountains, Winter Wickedness, and Xplore Berlin. She has been honored with the Vaughn Keith National Educator of the Year Award from Black Rose, a nomination for Pantheon of Leather Businessperson of the Year, and the Lesbian Sex Mafia Appreciation Award. She has a wide variety of kinks, but mostly loves her boy Colten, D/s and service, sharp things, organization, and anal fisting. Visit her on the web at Puckerup.Com and TristanTaormino.com.

About Lesbian Sex Mafia

Lesbian Sex Mafia (LSM) is a social and educational organization for women and transfolk who have a positive personal interest in BDSM with other women. Our tenets are safety, consensuality, confidentiality and the right of women to explore their sexuality as they choose.

Membership in Lesbian Sex Mafia is open to all women 18 years of age or older including gay, straight, bi, and transsexual and intersexed women who live their daily lives as women, and all female-born transgendered persons who have a connection with and respect for the women’s community. For membership information and benefits please visit http://www.lesbiansexmafia.org.

LSM reserves the right to deny admission to non-members it has reason to believe will not abide by the LSM principles of safety, consensuality and confidentiality.

For ASL interpretation request please email LSMNYC@hotmail.com.

No member is turned away from an LSM event based upon ability to pay. Please contact us in advance to request a scholarship.

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‘Fifty Shades of Grey,’ by E. L. James, in Demand at Libraries (NYT)

by Viviane on 05/21/2024

in libraries

By JULIE BOSMAN

It did not escape the notice of Tim Cole, the collections manager for the Greensboro Public Library in North Carolina, that “Fifty Shades of Grey” was “of mixed literary merit,” as he put it with a heavy helping of Southern politeness.

He ordered 21 copies anyway.

His customers had spoken, Mr. Cole said, and like other library officials across the country, he had gotten the message: Readers wanted the “Fifty Shades of Grey” trilogy. In recent weeks they have besieged libraries with requests for the books, signaling a new wave of popularity for these erotic novels, which have become the best-selling titles in the nation this spring.

In some cases demand has been so great that it has forced exasperated library officials to dust off their policies — if they have them — on erotica.

In April the trilogy, which includes the titles “Fifty Shades Darker” and “Fifty Shades Freed,” was issued in paperback by Vintage Books, part of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, sending sales through the roof when the publisher printed and distributed the books widely for the first time.

That enthusiasm has carried over to libraries. At many, “Fifty Shades of Grey,” by the previously unknown British author E. L. James, is the most popular book in circulation, with more holds than anyone can remember on a single title (2,121 and counting last Friday at the Hennepin County Public Library, which includes Minneapolis, up from 942 on April 9).

But despite misgivings about the subject matter — the books tell the tale of a dominant-submissive affair between a manipulative millionaire and a naïve younger woman — library officials feel that they need to make it available.

“This is the ‘Lady Chatterley’s Lover’ of 2012,” Mr. Cole said. “Demand is a big issue with us, because we want to be able to provide popular best-selling material to our patrons.

Read more: ‘Fifty Shades of Grey,’ by E. L. James, in Demand at Libraries.

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Bookmarks for 5-15-2012

by Viviane on 05/14/2024

in del.icio.us, sex

  • ‘A Queer and Pleasant Danger’ by Kate Bornstein | Lambda Literary – In A Queer and Pleasant Danger Bornstein offers a raw exploration of her gender journey, including candid explorations of her lifelong eating disorders and their relationship to her conception of self and gender. Bornstein gives us the opportunity to see behind the scenes and into the early gender outlaw days of one of the most brilliant gender theorists and performance artists of our time. We watch as she grapples with coming out as a lesbian, learning how to work cute as an embodiment of gender, and find power in the body she transforms. Bornstein brings us into her early activist days, including a trip to the trial of Brandon Tina’s murders, visiting the house where Tina died, as well as to the stage of her first queer performance work.
  • When Children See Internet Pornography – NYTimes.com – There is no set script, and no predictable moment for the conversation. It can happen at as early an age as 6 or 7, when a child may not yet understand the basic mechanics of sex. It is typically set off by a child’s accidental wanderings online or the deliberate searches of a curious teenager on a smartphone, laptop, tablet or one of the other devices that have made it nearly impossible to grow up without encountering sexually explicit material. Even a quick Twitter or Facebook search reveals that older students report seeing pornography on others’ laptops or phones in class, usually with an “OMG” attached.
  • Sexuality and Other Female (Film) Troubles – NYTimes.com – “I wanted to make a Merchant-Ivory movie with vibrators,” Ms. Wexler, 42, said sitting in an office in Midtown Manhattan, her long brown hair bouncing every time she let out a booming laugh. “And in doing that, strangely, we’ve shone a light. Can you believe we’re still arguing about these same topics 100 years later — women’s rights over their own body? If a woman is behind the camera, these issues can be explored more than they have in the past.”
  • Sex Ed for Grown Folks — Indiegogo – Support The Garden, a DC based sexual education resource . The money raised here will help create space for people of all ages and walks of life to find the resources they need to ask the questions they might not know how to ask. Space for queer, trans, straight, gay, bi, poly, pomosexual, unsure, in between, on the edge, and in the closet people to come and figure it all out. Take a class. Buy that toy you’ve been eyeing online but needed to feel first. Seek the resources and find the therapists, coaches and body workers who won’t judge you for who are or how you live. Come to The Garden, ask the questions, get educated and find your pleasure.
  • Facebook and poly privacy « Polyamory Weekly – Is it OK to list my relationship status as “open” on Facebook if my girlfriend isn’t out publicly?
  • Library ban on best-seller sparks Florida censorship debate – USATODAY.com – Instead, the Brevard library chose recently to close the book on British author E.L. James’ “Fifty Shades of Grey.” Cathy Schweinsberg, library services director, decided after reading the novel to pull from circulation the system’s 19 copies of “Fifty Shades of Grey,” the first installment in a trilogy.
  • For Ultra-Orthodox Jews in Abuse Cases, a Prosecutor Uses Different Rules – NYTimes.com – Mr. Hynes has won election six times as district attorney thanks in part to support from ultra-Orthodox rabbis, who lead growing communities in neighborhoods like Borough Park and Crown Heights. But in recent years, as allegations of child sexual abuse have shaken the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community in Brooklyn, victims’ rights groups have expressed concern that he is not vigorously pursuing these cases because of his deep ties to the rabbis.

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