- Glen Weldon On LGBT Characters In Graphic Novels : NPR – But it doesn’t change the fact that today’s mainstream superhero comics contain more LGBT characters than ever. Surely this is a good (if, let’s agree, weirdly specific) thing. After all, superheroes remain the comics medium’s dominant genre, and having the characters who populate that genre more closely resemble those of us who populate the world at large must count as progress.
- Why do gay porn stars kill themselves? « Conner Habib – All of this is to say that not even death can trump many people’s confused and hostile attitudes towards porn and porn performers. That is how deeply injured we are as a society when it comes to sex, sexuality, and love.
- Transforming Pornography: Black Porn for Black Women by Sinnamon Love – Guernica / A Magazine of Art & Politics – For me it is about agency. My black feminism is about helping women like me to be able to claim their sexuality in the face of decades of mis-education of African American women who were made to believe that they must choose between education, marriage, and family, or sexual freedom. I have come to realize in this phase of my life and career, that I have unknowingly dedicated my experience in social media to showing men and women of color that these are false choices, and that they can be sexual beings, wives, husbands, mothers, and fathers.
- Why does he need porn if he has ME? | Amy Jo Goddard – If you are threatened because your partner or lover watches porn, you need to ask yourself why. When women profess that their partners shouldn’t watch porn because they should just be enough, or because it makes them feel insecure, or because they are now questioning their partner’s integrity or even their attraction, big red flags go up for me because I know that the issue isn’t the porn. The issue is insecurity, an unstable relationship, or unrealistic expectations.
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media,
porn,
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women
- I’ll Tumblr for You: The 100 Sexiest Tumblrs | Betabeat -
- Revenge Porn Proprietor Reportedly Posed as Woman on Craigslist to Collect Naked Pics | Betabeat – Craig Brittain, the 28-year-old operator of the revenge porn website Is Anybody Down, may have obtained some of the site’s photos by catfishing women on Craigslist. According to an investigation by CBS Denver. Mr. Brittain reportedly pretended to be a woman on Craigslist’s W4W section where he solicited nude photos from unsuspecting women.
- Porn Star Agents: Inside Their Risky Business – The Hollywood Reporter – Meet the Ari Emanuels of the adult industry, negotiating for talent and fighting for commissions in a $1 billion business that — except for the sex part — isn’t so different from Hollywood.
- Berlin: Charlotte Gainsbourg ‘Nymphomaniac’ Threesome Still – The Hollywood Reporter – Gainsbourg stars in Nymphomaniac as Joe, a 50-year-old self-diagnosed nymphomaniac looking back at her erotic life. The film, which also stars Stellan Skarsgard, Shia LaBeouf, Jamie Bell, Uma Thurman and Willem Dafoe, is planned as two full-length features and will be released in both soft- and hard-core versions.
- nyc • cinekink 2013 – CineKink turns ten this year…and we’re celebrating our decade of decadence with a stellar line-up of cinematic wonders!
- Tales Of Kink.Com | Maggie Mayhem Speaks – I used to look at the pride flags on top of the armory and see it as a grand victory. The armory had been a place of war training but now it was the biggest kinky film studio in the world. I thought that if the freaks could siege the armory, they could take anything. But what is it but a corporate model looking to make money and nothing more? It’s not a special conspiracy, it’s the nature of the beast of capitalism. It exists to make money.
- The Perverted Negress • Speaking out against racism in Leather. – Being an ally means fighting alongside. It is about taking a stand, in front of everyone. Vocally. Holding people accountable. Not “agreeing to disagree” when people support racism. About saying “privilege is real.” and talking about ways to mitigate racism, ways to educate so that it is a shared responsibility.
- ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ Has Been Good to Lingerie Business – NYTimes.com – “It’s just a matter of upping the luxury factor and packaging it in a way that really speaks to a different woman who might be intimidated by something more blatant or something with a harder edge, or who might not go into a store like The Leather Man on Christopher Street,” said Tristan Taormino, who has written many books on sexuality and is the editor of “The Ultimate Guide to Kink.”
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- ‘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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social+networks,
was,
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women
- Fun in Getting Taken Out of Context | Feministe
I often avoid writing about this stuff because it devolves into a downward spiral of stupid. “This proves that women want to be dominated!” “No, as long as someone finds it erotic, it’s ok and we have no right to look at this in the context of a misogynist culture!” “BDSM is freaky and for perverts!” “No, people who practice BDSM are always responsible and it’s never abusive!” etc etc etc.
- Romance, Arousal, and Condescension | Blog | Smart Bitches, Trashy Books | Romance Novel Reviews | All of the Romance, None of the Bullshit.
I think the real temptation and curiosity for those people and many, many others was that many women were saying “This is great for my sex life. This is great for my marriage.” Better sex? Who is saying no to that?!…I certainly wouldn’t, though 50 Shades did not crank my engine the way it has for so many other women. But I remain stunned by the fact that yet again we’re repeating the same assumptions, and answering with the same assertions. We cannot examine female arousal without demeaning condescension. And that is a shame. I wish it were possible to speak candidly about what books turned women on, and why. It would be fascinating to see what those books have in common, and why some work and some don’t.
- The Soapbox: Actually, Katie Roiphe, Feminists Are Not Perplexed About Submissive Sex | Jessica Wakeman | The Frisky
Free will is very much present in submissive sex, which, let’s not forget, is acting out a fantasy. In fact, if it is done right, the very act of negotiating a dominant/submissive play session is a choice and is about as far from abuse as possible. Longtime partners and kinkier BDSM folks may play with total, I-place-myself-completely-in-your-hands submission (The Story of O comes to mind), but for the rest of us this “surrender” is beautifully negotiated, even planned. That is because most partners — the responsible ones — approach each other as equals. Equal dignity, equal respect, equal attempts at pleasure. Dominance and submission does not mean some animals are more equal than others. Sexual subjugation in the realm of sexual fantasy does not erase outside-the-bedroom equality — unless, of course, one wants it to, but that, too, will be negotiated.
Tagged as:
bdsm,
consent,
erotica,
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Novels,
pornography,
romance,
sex,
submission
- Why Some Find “Fifty Shades Of Grey” Disturbing, New Film Adaptation Announced, Erotic Novel Generates Controversy – Yet the story is pure fiction and merely a projection of what some women are afraid to admit they want. Anastasia has safe words that she is encouraged to utilize when things go too far. Furthermore, the acts are consensual. The heroine is captivated by Christen and wants to partake in the, sometimes violent, encounters.
- Mike Fleming’s Q&A; With ‘Fifty Shades Of Grey’ Agent Valerie Hoskins, Broker Of 2012′s Biggest Book Rights Film Deal – Since this was the wildest book auction in years and so many heavy hitters spent the weekend obsessing over it, I wanted to get the play-by-play from Hoskins, the British agent who, it turns out, is a real spitfire. I caught her just before she boarded a plane back across the pond with James, who left with a seven-figure publishing deal in one pocket, and a seven-figure movie rights deal in the other.
- Call for Submissions: New Views on Pornography: Sexuality, Politics, and the Law – New Views on Pornography is a two-volume collection of the most current scholarship on pornography. This edited series presents empirical research on a range of contemporary issues regarding pornography’s politics, psychology, cultural and legal debates, providing a comprehensive and multidisciplinary overview of the field of porn studies in one convenient location for students, researchers, and professors across related fields. Our goal as editors is to showcase new and innovative research that examines the culture and politics of pornography in a global context, including but not limited to, questions of production, audiences, market niches, technological innovations, political debaest and controversies, obscenity, free speech, public policy and the law. The editors seek well-researched facts and data in order to provide readers with a comprehensive overview of issues on the subject.
- Ontario’s top court overturns ban on brothels, cites safety of sex workers (AP) – A ban on brothels puts prostitutes at risk and is unconstitutional, Ontario’s top court ruled Monday, in a case that is expected to be appealed to Canada’s top court and have ramifications for the country at large.
- Anti-Gay Marriage Group’s Leaked Docs Reveal Divide and Conquer Racial Plans (Atlantic Wire) – Late yesterday, the Human Rights Campaign, a gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender civil rights group, obtained “internal NOM documents” that were part of an ongoing investigation by the State of Maine into financial activities by the organization. NOM apparently fought hard to keep those documents sealed, and in reading portions of one of the documents (a 34-page document entitled “The National Strategy for Winning the Marriage Battle”) we understand why. Not only has this organization used ham-fisted approaches to attack the LGBT community, but there’s textual evidence that they aren’t afraid to use a ham-fisted approach to court black and Latino communities.
- Transgender model disqualified from Miss Universe Canada pageant – Jenna Talackova, 23, was born as a male, but has identified as a female since age 4. She began hormone
therapy at 14, and underwent gender reassignment surgery at 19, according to a 2010 interview.
- The Story of a Suicide: Tyler Clementi’s Suicide and Dharun Ravi’s Trial | Ian Parker (The New Yorker) – Two college roommates, a webcam, and a tragedy.
- Unmasking A Digital Pirate On Amazon | Fast Company – When David H. Springer, a prodigiously productive erotica writer under such naughty pen names as Oediplex and TrojanSnake, learned that one of his stories, “I Remember Mother,” had been scraped off the Web and resold for the Kindle as My Step Mom Loves Me by someone he never heard of, he was, he says, more amused than angry. Still, the 64-year-old security guard, who initially began penning erotica to gain free access to porn sites, could use any income the book generated, no matter how inconsequential. But he doubted it was worth going after Luke Ethan, the person who stole his “stuff-for-stiffies,” nor did he have resources to hire a lawyer.
Tagged as:
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