marriage

  • 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.
  • 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.

The Loving Story

by Viviane on 01/09/2024

in marriage

45 years ago,  interracial marriage was a crime. It wasn’t until the Supreme Court overturned the miscegnation laws in Loving vs. Virginia (1967). The plaintiffs were Richard Perry Loving, a white man, and his wife, Mildred Loving, a woman of African American and Native American descent, who had been arrested for miscegenation nine years earlier in Virginia. I’ve noted Loving Day (June 12th) for a few years now, and remember reading Mildred Loving’s obituary in the New York Times.

This year, there is both a photography exhibit and documentary film examining the couple behind this case.

The Loving Story

The Loving Story, a documentary film, tells the story of Richard and Mildred Loving to examine the drama, the history, and the current state of interracial marriage and tolerance in the United States. The documentary was filmed in High Definition video and 16mm film. It is intended for a wide audience through theatrical release, festival screenings, community screenings, national television broadcast, web-based broadcast, and DVD and educational distribution. The film has enjoyed sold-out screenings at festivals and special events since its World Premiere at the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival in April 2011.t’ll be shown on Valentine’s Day, February 14th on HBO.The Loving Story is an Augusta Films Production. It was directed by Nancy Buirski, produced by Nancy Buirski and Elisabeth Haviland James, and edited by James. The documentary is fiscally sponsored by Living Archives, a 501 (c) (3) non-profit organization, created by legendary documentarian DA Pennebaker, and by the Southern Documentary Fund.

,loving 1 The Loving Story

Grey Villet, [Richard and Mildred Loving with their children Peggy, Donald, and Sidney in their living room, King and Queen County, Virginia. Estate of Grey Villet

The Loving Story: Photographs by Grey Villet (International Center of Photography)

Forty-five years ago, sixteen states still prohibited interracial marriage. Then, in 1967, the U.S. Supreme Court considered the case of Richard Perry Loving, a white man, and his wife, Mildred Loving, a woman of African American and Native American descent, who had been arrested for miscegenation nine years earlier in Virginia. The Lovings were not active in the Civil Rights movement but their tenacious legal battle to justify their marriage changed history when the Supreme Court unanimously declared Virginia’s anti-miscegenation law—and all race-based marriage bans—unconstitutional. LIFE magazine photographer Grey Villet’s intimate images were uncovered by director Nancy Buirski during the making of The Loving Story, an HBO documentary debuting on February 14, 2012. The exhibition, organized by Assistant Curator of Collections Erin Barnett, includes some 20 vintage prints loaned by the estate of Grey Villet and by the Loving family. This exhibition was made possible with public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council. This exhibit runs at the International Center of Photography January 20-May 6, 2012.

If you can’t get to the ICP exhibit, there’s  Times has a beautiful slideshow of Grey Villet’s photography, ” The Case of Loving v. Bigotry.”

 

  • The Case Against Drop-down Identities | Smarterware – Human beings and their relationships are complex and nuanced, so the software that attempts to describe them must accomodate a wide range of expression.
  • Dickinson College students protest school’s handling of sex assaults – Philly.com -
  • HTTPS Everywhere | Electronic Frontier Foundation – HTTPS Everywhere is a Firefox extension produced as a collaboration between The Tor Project and the Electronic Frontier Foundation. It encrypts your communications with a number of major websites.
  • Planned Parenthood: House Bars Planned Parenthood From Federal Funding – On February 18, 2011, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to bar Planned Parenthood health centers from all federal funding for birth control, cancer screenings, HIV testing, and other lifesaving care.
  • 6 Surprising Bad Practices That Hurt Dyslexic Users – UX Movement – When dyslexic users read text, some­times they can expe­ri­ence visual dis­tor­tion effects [5]. These effects vary in degree from per­son to per­son, but they can make read­ing text that much harder. Below are six bad prac­tices that are likely to cause these visual dis­tor­tion effects for dyslexic users. These bad prac­tices can also make read­ing dif­fi­cult for non-dyslexic users. But the effect they have on dyslexic users is much worse.
  • ACLU intervenes in Gay-Straight Alliance dispute, protest underway – Since Monday’s report, the local newspaper has editorialized that the district has placed themselves in a difficult position and the ACLU has gotten involved on behalf of the student seeking to for the club. More details after the fold…
  • Open Marriages – Galleries – The Daily Beast

Bookmarks

by Viviane on 12/07/2024

in del.icio.us, sex

  • Prop 8 Panel Deeply Skeptical of Standing | The Recorder – Proposition 8 proponents faced tough questions from all three of the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals judges today hearing the constitutionality of Prop 8, with the court focusing on the question of whether voters took away a right that previously existed in California…A good chunk of the two-hour arguments in the gay-marriage cases focused on the application of Romer v. Evans , the 1996 Supreme Court ruling that struck down a law aimed at repealing various gay-rights statutes in Colorado.
  • Bullies Aren’t Just Other Kids: LGB Teens Get Harsher Treatment | Charlie Glickman –
  • Digital Self-Harm and Other Acts of Self-Harassment | DMLcentral –  As they started looking into specific cases of teens answering "anonymous" harassing questions, they started realizing that a number of vicious questions were posted by the Formspring account owners themselves.  They appeared on Formspring as anonymous but they were written by the owner while logged into their own account.[1]  In other words, there are teens out there who are self-harassing by "anonymously" writing mean questions to themselves and then publicly answering them.
  • Assange’s Interpol Warrant Is for Having Sex Without a Condom – The Slatest – Slate Magazine | Slate – While the "consent of both women to sex with Assange has been confirmed by prosecutors," as a former attorney wrote in an impassioned op-ed, Assange has been charged with something called "sex by surprise," which reportedly carries a $715 fine.
  • Melissa Petro Call Girl Turned Teacher – Melissa Petro Interview on Selling Sex on Craiglist – Marie Claire – In college, she stripped. In graduate school, she sold sex on Craigslist. Then Melissa Petro became a popular grade-school teacher, known for inspiring her students. Her secret past could have stayed that way — until she blogged about it.
  • The porn supremacy | The Age – It's a dirty little secret, the thing they don't tell you, and they don't talk about – how every wave of technological advance has been fuelled by pornography. ("The Erotic Engine" by Patchen Barss.)