- 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 Michael Peacock was unanimously acquitted, after a four-day trial that saw the outdated obscenity law of England and Wales in the dock…Peacock had been charged under the Obscene Publications Act 1959 for allegedly distributing ‘obscene’ ‘gay’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.
crime
- Rules of Misbehavior – Benjamin J. Dueholm – Dan Savage, the brilliant and foul-mouthed sex columnist, has become one of the most important ethicists in America. Are we screwed?
- Trve West Coast Fiction: Spoiled (or why I sometimes feel like a rapist) | Danny Wylde – Having sex with beautiful women for a living is fun – except when it’s not.
- ‘Game of Thrones’: Making Sense of All the Sex – Atlantic – Ultimately, Game of Thrones is about power, and the consequences of sex—both immediately and years down the line—can mean the difference between gaining and losing it. Westeros is not a modern or progressive world, and sex and violence remain its primary trades. Viewers who find either untenable should steer clear.
- Getting Away with Murder on Long Island – Some of those 10 people might be alive today if it hadn’t been for the lackluster response of law enforcement and the press coverage of the case — much of it sensationalist and dehumanizing — all because of the first victims’ sex-worker status.
- The Perversions of Campus Sexual Culture – Brainstorm – The Chronicle of Higher Education – In other words, campus sexual culture in its dominant, heteronormative form is kinda f#%@ed up. Sexual desire is wrapped up in public humiliation, drunkenness, and yes, I’ll say the word, patriarchy. It’s not that I don’t get how such things can be sexy, how humiliation and domination in conditions of inequality can be turned into pleasure. But what is interesting is the very conflation of that pleasure with both profit and publicness, a visual pornification of power inequities so beautifully symbolized by the booty cam at Yale or the drunk college “chix” porn site.
- Sex Education Is A Political Act. | Arvan Reese | Scarleteen – In terms of group politics – there are large groups of people who are fighting to prevent you from learning any facts about sex. Facts that can effect your health, income, present, future, career, happiness, ability to have or enjoy sex, choice of sex partners and even the ability to have sex.
- Surviving Sexual Assault by Sarah Sloane – The CSPH Conference: Talking About the Taboo – All kinds of people experience sexual violence, and it is a sad fact that most people experience some form of sexual trauma at some point in their lives. “An 80 year old woman can be raped. An 8 year old boy can be raped,” Sarah Sloane, a rape survivor herself, reminds us in the opening to her workshop at The Center for Sexual Pleasure and Health’s 2nd Annual Conference. However, “sexual trauma does not necessarily mean rape,” she continues. “Sexual trauma can be sexual harassment [or] unwanted touching.”
- Gay rights activists rally outside Stonewall Inn two days after Benjamin Carver attack |NY Daily News – Early Sunday, Benjamin Carver, 34, of Washington, was attacked in the rest room of the Stonewall, where the gay rights movement was launched in 1969. Two Staten Island men were charged with assault as a hate crime, accused of yelling homophobic slurs at Carver and pummeling him.
- Archdiocese: Communion too sacred to be used as protest | Minnesota Public Radio NewsQ – St. Paul, Minn. — A spokesman for the Twin Cities archdiocese said Tuesday that Catholics should expect to be denied communion if they are wearing rainbow buttons or ribbons at church to support gays and lesbians.<br />
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The remarks come 10 days after Twin Cities Archbishop John Nienstedt refused communion to about 20 people wearing rainbow buttons and ribbons at a mass at St. John's Abbey in Collegeville, Minn. - National Survey of Sexual Health and Behavior – Welcome to the information and download page for the National Survey of Sexual Health and Behavior(NSSHB). On this site, you can learn more about the NSSHB, download the special issue of The Journal of Sexual Medicine in which the first 9 papers from the NSSHB are published, and find contact information for the investigators and study partners….The National Survey of Sexual Health and Behavior (NSSHB), conducted by researchers from the Center for Sexual Health Promotion at Indiana University’s School of Health, Physical Education and Recreation, is one of the most comprehensive studies on these topics in almost two decades. It includes the sexual experiences and condom-use behaviors of 5,865 adolescents and adults ages 14 to 94.
- Report: Teen gets 15 years for Facebook blackmail | Digital Media – CNET News – A Wisconsin teenager convicted of using Facebook to blackmail classmates into sex was sentenced to 15 years in prison, according to an Associated Press report.
- Apple creating “explicit” category for App Store | TUAW -
- Ask an Expert: How to Watch Porn on Your iPhone – iphone porn – Gizmodo -
- CineKinkster: And the winner is… – Rounding out multiple days of screenings and parties in our seventh(!!) annual appearance, here are the CineKink awards for 2010…
- CineKink ’10 | kink+culture – This years CineKink was the best I’ve seen. I didn’t love everything I saw, but as a whole the quality and diversity of films has gotten much, much better. What was really great was that so many of the film makers weren’t into BDSM themselves! It’s so good to see positive images of kinky people, not as villains or as comic relief, but as ordinary folks with all of the complexity as anyone else.
- Google Gets Sued Over Buzz: Why It Should Have Said “Please?” | ReadWRiteWeb – It seems that some others think this lawsuit is merely a “pure money grab”, but we think that Google’s actions can have real-world consequences for the more than 30 million Gmail users it signed up for the service without properly testing it beforehand. And even if they had properly tested it beforehand, those people signed up for an email service, not a social network.
- Fishnets & Furry Handcuffs: The Perception of Kink in Popular Culture | kink+culture – Tilda’s slideshow from the first Kink For All New York City
- How to make Midori’s Dildo Harness w scarves | Midori’s Thoughts and Distractions – I created this totally cool DIY dildo harness design – and I’m often asked on how to make it, so I’m posting it here to share… I’ve encountered enough challenges with so many of the commercially made harnesses, and I know many people also have other issues (privacy, finance, etc) – thus the invention.
- Welcome to Love U Parties | Ducky Doolittle – Love U Parties helps people build beautiful businesses by supplying them with high quality, ethically sound products with unsurpassed support and training.”
- The Richmond Rape: Local voices speak out | Oakland Local – Richmond, CA students and families are flocking to online video sharing sites to get their views out. These videos from CNN and Youth Talks present a wide range of view, but they all reinforce how little journalists are needed to interpret–there’s a strong effort for Richmond folks to speak for themselves.
These are my links for October 21st through October 22nd:
- Mollena Williams Named Ms. SF Leather 2009 | San Francisco Bay Times – Originally from New York, Mo has been active in the BDSM community since 1996. She is a founding member of the Crowded Fire Theater Company and speaks at leather events across the U.S. on many kinkcentric topics. Over the next year, Mo will be at every major leather event in the Bay Area and will produce several fundraising events to benefit Bay Area non-profits organizations. Mo plans to travel extensively and, in March 2010, will be competing for the title of International Ms. Leather here in San Francisco.
- NYS Updates Rape Kit, For the First Time in 20 Years | WNYC – For the first time in 20 years, New York is overhauling the way it collects forensic evidence from sexual assault victims. They found the rape kit needed to be updated to include more areas of the body for possible DNA collection. Evidence will also be gathered in a different sequence, from head to toe so it's not destroyed.
- Two Yale Law Grads Settle Suit Against Once-Anonymous Online Critics | ABA Journal – Law News Now – Two graduates of Yale Law School have settled their defamation lawsuit against several online critics who wrote nasty comments about them on the law school discussion board AutoAdmit.
- Rape Is a Pre-Existing Condition? The Heartlessness of the Health Insurance Industry Exposed | Health and Wellness | AlterNet – Some women have contacted the Investigative Fund to say they were deemed ineligible for health insurance because they had a pre-existing condition as a result of a rape, such as post traumatic stress disorder or a sexually transmitted disease. Other patients and therapists wrote in with allegations that insurers are routinely denying long-term mental health care to women who have been sexually assaulted.
- The Daisy Dick Strap-on/Strap-off rope harness | Feel the Love – I spent the entire weekend on into tonight mucking with it and ended up making a decorative dick harness that can be taken off, reused, and even washed (theoretically). It can be sized to custom fit any body. The centerpiece knot is a modified doubled up version of the Good Luck Knot, which can be seen here.
- The Gender Illusion | jaysays.com | – Caster outwardly threatens the gender illusion with her deep voice, masculine build and female identity. Because of her amazing athleticism she is now scrutinized and labeled in an attempt to disenfranchise her from her own identity. The boundaries of her gender and the legitimacy of her very existence are being judged by people who have no way of accomplishing such a task.
- Judge shoots down challenge to Craigslist erotic services • The Register – The ruling by US District Judge John F. Grady is good news not only for Craigslist but for any US-based website that accepts comments, photos, or other types of user-submitted content. The 22-page decision made it clear that a provision in the CDA, or Communications Decency Act, fully immunizes the site for user-supplied ads even when they "provide" contact details for prostitutes and brothels.
- KinkForAll (aka. KinkCamp) / KinkForAllSanFrancisco – KinkForAll San Francisco will be the first sexuality unconference of its kind in the Bay Area! Imagine what would be possible if you combined TED Talks with BarCamp. Welcome to KinkForAll! Now, get ready to change the world. Don't worry, it's actually not very difficult, and it's a lot of fun.
- WordPress › WordPress Exploit Scanner « WordPress Plugins – This plugin searches the files on your website, and the posts and comments tables of your database for anything suspicious. It also examines your list of active plugins for unusual filenames.
- WordPress 2.8.5: Hardening Release – We have also been working on trying to make WordPress as secure as possible and during this process we have identified a number of security hardening changes that we thought were worth back-porting to the 2.8 branch so as to get these improvements out there and make all your sites as secure as possible.
Written by Latoya Peterson
*Trigger Warning*
Latoya’s Note: So, as promised, here’s the original version of the essay that appears in Yes Means Yes. If you see this popping up in your reader, I do not recommend you read it at work.
Rape is only four letters, one small syllable, and yet it is one of the hardest words to coax from your lips when you need it most.
Entering our teenage years in the sex saturated ’90s, my friends and I knew tons about rape. We knew to always be aware while walking, to hold your keys out as a possible weapon against an attack. We knew that we shouldn’t walk alone at night, and if we absolutely had to, we were to avoid shortcuts, dark paths, or alleyways. We even learned ways to combat date rape, even though none of us were old enough to have friends that drove, or to be invited to parties with alcohol. We memorized the mantras, chanting them like a yogic sutra, crafting our words into a protective charm with which to ward off potential rapists: do not walk alone at night. Put a napkin over your drink at parties. Don’t get into cars with strange men. If someone tries to abduct you, scream loudly and try to attack them because a rapist tries to pick women who are easy targets.
Yes, we learned a lot about rape.
What we were not prepared for was everything else. Rape was something we could identify, an act with a strict definition and two distinct scenarios. Not rape was something else entirely.
Not rape was all those other little things that we experienced everyday and struggled to learn how to deal with those situations. In those days, my ears were filled with secrets that were not my own, the confessions of not rapes experienced by the girls I knew then and the women I know now.
When I was twelve, my best friend at the time had met a guy and lied to him about her age. She told him she was sixteen and she did have the body to back it up. Some “poor hapless†guy sleeping with her accidentally would make complete sense – except for the fact that guy was twenty-five. He eventually slept with her, taking her virginity, even after he figured out how old we were. After all, it’s kind of a dead giveaway if you’re picking your girlfriend up at a middle school.
More. . .
It took a while to register, but there was something naggingly familiar about Bernann McKinney, the 57-year-old California woman whose ecstatically beaming features were splashed across the world’s media on Aug. 6. The story was already a corker: the five baby pitbull terriers McKinney was showing off had been cloned in Korea from the ear of her late and much-missed pet Booger, who’d once saved her from an attack by another dog that had practically ripped McKinney’s arm off.
Now the story could get even better. McKinney, if British newspaper suspicions prove true, may be none other than Joyce McKinney, the former Miss Wyoming who once fled Britain to escape charges of kidnapping a Mormon missionary and forcibly having sex with him.
Britons over a certain age will recall with a shudder the surreal and sexy details of that story from the winter of 1977. The 27-year-old McKinney was accused in court, along with a friend, Keith May, of abducting 21-year-old Mormon missionary Kirk Anderson from a church in a London suburb and taking him to a cottage in Okehampton, Devon in the southwest of England. There, said Anderson, he was chained to a bed and forced to have sex with McKinney for three days. McKinney, once a Mormon herself, was said to have formed a crush on him after they’d first met and had sex in 1975. Anderson tried to break off the relationship but McKinney was infatuated and stalked him to England where he’d asked for a posting as a missionary to escape her attentions.
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