- L.A.’s porn Mistake | Lorelei Lee (Salon.com) – What performers like Hartley and I are equally opposed to is being condescended to by hypocritical zealots like Weinstein and Lubben who are obviously motivated by a concern for something other than our health and safety. Who have, in fact, shown a “blatant disregard” for the health and safety of industry workers by making it more difficult for us to use the protections we already have in place when their actions led to the closure of AIM.
- Making a Fist of It: The Law and Obscenity | Freedom in a Puritan age – On Friday 6 January 2012, a historic case came to a conclusion in Courtroom 7 of Southwark Crown Court. Michael Peacock was unanimously acquitted, after a four-day trial that saw the outdated obscenity law of England and Wales in the dock…Peacock had been charged under the Obscene Publications Act 1959 for allegedly distributing ‘obscene’ ‘gay’ DVDs, which featured fisting, urolagnia (‘watersports’) and BDSM.
- Ask Tristan: Sex Toys and the Law • Pucker Up – [Ed. note: For this question, I turned it over to my legal expert, Davis from Sexquire.] So what does all of this litigation mean to sex shop clerks? First, unless you are in Alabama, you have no reason to fear being arrested on obscenity charges for providing sex education about or selling these products as other than novelties.
- Porn Star Activist Jiz Lee Talks About When and How Sex Workers Can Give Consent – San Francisco Art – The Exhibitionist – The ethics of consent is becoming a hot, vital topic of discussion in alternative sexuality communities. While talking about consent is something that never quite goes away, especially in BDSM communities, a lot of the dialogue doesn’t stray much beyond making sure that everyone is over 18 and knows his or her safeword. A few months ago, local activist bad-asses Maggie Mayhem and Kitty Stryker talked to us about their attempts to speak openly about abuse in BDSM and build “consent culture.” As they prepare to take those ideas on a cross-country tour, plenty of other people are continuing the conversation here in the Bay Area.
- Kate Bornstein reading excerpt from her new book, “A Queer and Pleasant Danger”
- The Case of Loving v. Bigotry – Slide Show – NYTimes.com – “In 1958, Richard & Mildred Loving were arrested in a nighttime raid in their bedroom by the sheriff of Caroline County, Va. Their crime: being married to each other. The Lovings…were ordered by a judge to leave Virginia for 25 years. The International Center of Photography is mounting a show of Grey Villet’s photographs of the couple in 1965 (January 20-May 6, 2012).
- Eric Holder Expands FBI’s Narrow, Outdated Definition Of Rape- MANCHESTER, N.H. — U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has revised the way the FBI defines rape, the first update to the federal definition in nearly a century.The FBI’s Uniform Crime Report has defined rape as the “carnal knowledge of a female forcibly and against her will.” This definition was narrower than the one used by many police departments around the country, and women’s rights advocates said it led to the under-counting of thousands of sexual assaults each year.
- Rape definition broadened to include men | CNN – The crime of rape will now be defined as “penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or object, or oral penetration by a sex organ of another person, without the consent of the victim,” the Justice Department said.
Tagged as:
Beyond+Visibility,
britain,
consent,
crime,
health,
Jiz,
jiz+lee,
Kate+Bornstein,
kink,
legal,
legis,
legisl,
legislation,
loving+virginia,
marriage,
memoir,
obscenity,
porno,
pornography,
racism,
rape,
sex,
Sexquire,
sextoys,
supreme,
supreme+court,
transgender
- Sexual Obituaries 2011 (Cory Silverberg) – People who choose to work around sexuality and gender often don’t get the acknowledgment from the mainstream media or from society as a whole that they would if their work was in another field. Every year, I feel this absence when I read the lists of famous people who died. Since 2006, I’ve tried to change that by sharing some of the sex and gender activists, educators, artists, and outlaws we lost in the year that is ending. Here is a list of sexual losses in 2011.
- Director Dee Rees And Star Adepero Oduye Talk Coming Out & Coming Of Age In ‘Pariah’ | indieWIRE – Pariah is the story of Alike (Oduye), a black lesbian teenager living in Fort Greene and navigating between the aggressive gay nightclub scene preferred by her butch best friend Laura (Pernell Walker) and a closeted life at home, where her tightly wound mother Audrey (Kim Wayans) tries to dress her in pink cardigans and quizzes her about who she’s taking to the school dance.
- Bondage Sex And The Liberation Of Culture – ErosBlog: The Sex Blog – For anybody with an interest in cultural history — and especially, aspects of cultural history that have ever been covert or officially suppressed, like porn — it’s this “everything floats up to the surface and becomes visible, in time” aspect of the Internet that is most miraculous. It’s far from complete, mind you — we have many centuries of recorded culture that have yet to be digitized and brought up from their buried layers of stone and canvas and paper and cellulose and vinyl and magnetic tape.
- 2011 Top Ten Sex Questions (Cory Silverberg) – I don’t dig into my statistics all that often, but once a year I like to see which questions and answers were the most popular…These ten questions are from the 105 Sex Questions that I’ve answered on the About.com site.
- Navigating Love and Autism – NYTimes.com- Only since the mid-1990s have a group of socially impaired young people with otherwise normal intelligence and language development been recognized as the neurological cousins of nonverbal autistic children. Because they have a hard time grasping what another is feeling — a trait sometimes described as “mindblindness” — many assumed that those with such autism spectrum disorders were incapable of, or indifferent to, intimate relationships. Parents and teachers have focused instead on helping them with school, friendship and, more recently, the workplace.Yet as they reach adulthood, the overarching quest of many in this first generation to be identified with Asperger syndrome is the same as many of their nonautistic peers: to find someone to love who will love them back. [via Violet Blue]
- When Will a Gay Pro Athlete Finally Come Out? — New York Magazine – “Something has happened in the last year,” says Jim Buzinski, co-founder of OutSports, an advocate for and chronicler of gay sports issues for more than a decade. “It’s almost like homophobia is no longer considered cool in sports.”
- Australian Passport Gender Options: ‘Transgender’ Will Be Included | HuffPo – Australian passports will now have three gender options – male, female and indeterminate – under new guidelines to remove discrimination against transgender people, the government said Thursday.
Tagged as:
activism,
African-American,
culture,
harassment,
health,
history,
lesbian,
movies,
politics,
sex,
sexuality,
sports,
statistics,
transgender,
women
- Michele Bachmann’s HPV Vaccine Safety and ‘Retardation’ Comments Misleading, Doctors Say – ABC News – The medical community issued swift criticism Tuesday after Rep. Michele Bachmann dragged the safety of the vaccine against the human papillomavirus (HPV) into the political spotlight, reigniting the controversy over the risks and necessity of vaccinating children.
- When Sex Bloggers Get Slut Shamed | Charlie Glickman – It probably shouldn’t surprise to anyone that, in general, women in the blogosphere get a lot more harassment than men. After all, just walking down the street, women get a lot more harassment than men.
- Assistance Needed – A Call For Help « PassionAndSoul – As many of you may have heard by now, I have had severe health concerns since mid-July. These are connected to my long term health issues, but I am in the midst of a flare up. Between July and December, I have had to cancel 13 gigs related to my health. Folks have asked for some time how they can help. This post is the answer.
- Everyone Loses on Booberday Except Google+ – Technology – The Atlantic Wire – A breast cancer meme has broken out on Google+: Booberday. As the name suggests, it involves breasts, specifically, "posting photos of women's cleavage under the guise of fighting breast cancer," explains Jezebel's Margaret Hartmann. On the surface it's just boob shots, which some might call demeaning. But we're talking about breast cancer, so it's all good, right? Not really. Booberday is demeaning to women, makes men look bad, and doesn't help the cause. The only winner we see here: Google+.
- Contraceptive Comeback: The Maligned IUD Gets a Second Chance | Wired – When the Mirena first hit the US market, so few women were using IUDs that many doctors didn't even know how to insert them. Today, the devices are recognized as safe, and 2 million US women have a Mirena.
- Frank’s Story (Runner’s World) – Frank Shorter is the father of the modern running boom. An enduringly popular speaker, he spins a captivating narrative about winning the 1972 Olympic Marathon. The story he hasn't told is the dark truth about his own father.
Tagged as:
birth+control,
breast+cancer,
child+abuse,
contraception,
culture,
google,
harassment,
health,
leeharrington,
parenting,
socialmedia,
women
- BDSM’s Dirty Secret – The Real Risk of Kinky Sex by Midori | Sexis – I can’t shake the feeling that I’m not watching two people sharing an experience, but rather two strangers having separate thrills over one activity. The top feels satisfaction in displaying competence in a set of measurable standards (The ropes go on. The person goes up. They come down and they’re still in one piece), while the bottom gets to have a self-contained experience delivered by a competent technician. The human factor of the other person seems irrelevant in either case.
- James Franco is Directing a Documentary About Porn Site Kink.com Because He’s James Franco – indieWIRE -
- ‘Sex On Six Legs’: When Insects Go Wild : NPR – Everything you wanted to know about bug sex (but didn’t bother to ask) is explained in a new book by insect expert Marlene Zuk. Sex on Six Legs: Lessons on Life, Love and Language from the Insect World, describes a world of small — but surprisingly sophisticated — insect behavior.
- The Art of Rope Bottoming: Delano by Midori – Getting tied up isn’t for wimps. To bottom gloriously takes mad skills.
- The Creepy Naked Guy In The Dungeon | Maggie Mayhem Speaks -Today’s lesson: You are not a hypocrite for confronting Creepy Naked Guy
Tagged as:
bdsm,
bondage,
kink.com,
Midori,
rope,
sanfrancisco,
sex,
shibari
- New York Allows Same-Sex Marriage, Becoming Largest State to Pass Law – NYTimes.com – “Lawmakers voted late Friday to legalize same-sex marriage, making New York the largest state where gay and lesbian couples will be able to wed and giving the national gay-rights movement new momentum from the state where it was born. “
- Thousands Cheer Same-Sex Marriage Law in Euphoric Pride Parade – NYTimes.com – “They came to shout, dance, cheer, strut, hug and shed tears of joy, knowing that on July 24, when the law takes effect, the season for tears will begin in earnest…The focus of much of the cheering was Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, a Democrat, who made legalization of same-sex marriage part of his election campaign and visibly led the fight for its approval in the Republican-led State Senate. Mr. Cuomo marched with several local politicians, including Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and the New York City Council speaker, Christine C. Quinn, who is openly gay. But there was little question that the governor was the parade’s rock star, eliciting shrieks as he made his way down Fifth Avenue. “
- Gail Dines, SlutWalk, Saudi Arabia and The Place of Porn in a “Just Society” | violet blue ® :: open source sex – A professor of sociology and women’s studies, Dines shows a shocking disregard for women’s experience. She infantilizes “sluts” and women who consume porn (about whom I’ve never seen her make more than a passing reference) as women making not their own choices, but choices dictated exclusively by the pressures of men. Meanwhile, men make choices based exclusively on the pressures of porn. Which are driven by the desires of men. It’s a classic circular argument that places the responsibility for men who behave reprehensibly on the shoulders of women who self-identify as sluts, and of men who don’t always feel like making eye contact with their girlfriends during sex…But Dines is far more dangerous than that, because after decades teaching women’s studies, she doesn’t seem to have learned the explosive danger of the term “normal.”
- Sexual Orientation and the Law: A Research Bibliography – A research bibliography of legal literature discussing gay, lesbian, transgender and bisexual persons, their rights and their families. Edited by law librarians from the American Association of Law Libraries Standing Committee on Lesbian and Gay Issues.
- Thanks, but no thanks! | Fearless Press – Keep in mind that you do not need to have a reason to say no – you are entitled to say no for any reason (or even no reason) at all. It’s YOUR decision whether to play or engage in sex. You also do not need to give them a “rain check” or tell them maybe another time unless you want to – in fact, in my experience it’s been worse for me to tell them “maybe” instead of just saying no and leaving it alone.
Tagged as:
bibliograpy,
etiquette,
gail+dines,
gay,
gay+marriage,
law,
lesbian,
lgbt,
newyork,
nys,
porn,
pride,
queer,
research,
samesex,
sex,
sexuality,
slutwalk,
thomas+roche,
transgender
