- 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.
consent
- 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
