- 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 Michael Peacock was unanimously acquitted, after a four-day trial that saw the outdated obscenity law of England and Wales in the dock…Peacock had been charged under the Obscene Publications Act 1959 for allegedly distributing ‘obscene’ ‘gay’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
- N.Y.U. Doesn’t Want Film of Larry Rivers’s Naked Daughters – NYTimes.com – After it came to light last week that films and videotapes made by the artist Larry Rivers included footage of his two daughters naked, New York University informed his foundation that it did not want those materials included as part of the archive it was purchasing, said John Beckman, a spokesman for N.Y.U.<br />
<br />
That leaves the question of what to do with the films and tapes, which are now in the hands of the Larry Rivers Foundation and which Mr. Rivers’s younger daughter, Emma Tamburlini, wants turned over to her and her sister, Gwynne Rivers. Mr. Rivers died in 2002.
- Buttman v. The Man: D.C.’s First Big Obscenity Trial in Decades Fails to Determine the Obscenity of Milk Enemas – The Sexist – Washington City Paper – But after the trial, jurors were more concerned with what wasn’t in Milk Nymphos: Violence. Rape. Bestiality. Kids. “These people were adults and they were willing. No one put a gun to their head,” Crawford said. “Had they brought a child out in pampers, then we would have been like, hell no,” Mordecai added. In opening arguments, the defense emphasized that the only entity forcing anyone to watch porn is the government. “The movies are not—and are not meant to be—distributed to these 14 strangers sitting in a federal courthouse,” defense attorney Paul Cambria said. The films feature “adults putting on a performance…for another adult, who would make that choice [to watch it] if that were his or her cup of tea.”
- Stagliano Case: A Pyrrhic Victory? « Blogging Censorship – Not prepared to alienate anybody, Holder told a panel of congressmen that he will pursue, with limited resources, obscenity cases that have the “greatest potential for harm” while being aware of First Amendment considerations.
- District To Pay Lesbian Teen $35K Over Prom Dispute : NPR – A school district in rural Mississippi that canceled its prom rather than allow a lesbian student to attend with her girlfriend has agreed to pay $35,000 to settle a discrimination lawsuit the ACLU filed on her behalf.
Tagged as:
art,
discrimination,
john+stagliano,
legal,
lesbian,
obscenity,
sexuality
- Love in the Age of the Pickup Artist | Stendhal Among the Seducers | The Point Magazine – In other words, it is not enough that playfulness be taken up in the service of seriousness; the seriousness must always be present alongside the playfulness, bound up with it in a constant synthesis. This means that the lover will have to show his hand every once in a while, even if he is quick to hide it again. And this also means that love will always bring with it some portion of terror. Because his heart is at stake, the lover will feel the terror of losing the beloved, even in the moment she gives herself to him. This is the terror the seducer believes he has bypassed. Maybe he has—but in doing so the chance for love has slipped through his fingers. Because he does not sow, he cannot reap. There is no way around this.
- Study: Fish-oil supplements may cut breast-cancer risk | Seattle Times Newspaper – Researchers at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center surveyed more than 35,000 postmenopausal women in Western Washington and found that those who took omega-3 fish-oil supplements had a 32 percent lower incidence of breast cancer, but senior author Emily White doesn't recommend that women begin taking the highly touted capsules.
- Star Witness Makes a Liar out of Stagliano’s Prosecution – Reason Magazine – The prosecution can no longer vouch for the integrity of its own star witness. FBI Special Agent Bradley is the only one to testify that he watched the entire content of the films in question and deemed them obscene, so if the prosecution has serious doubts about the honesty and accuracy of his testimony, the government has a responsibility to not present that testimony to the jury. And there are good reasons for doubting Bradley.<br />
<br />
In Thursday's proceedings, Bradley claimed that prosecutor Pamela Satterfield told him to review the movies before the trial began at the behest of Judge Richard Leon, so that he could recall better on the witness stand basic elements of the movies, including action and dialogue. If Bradley's statement is true, it would be a shocking breach of ethics by Judge Leon—you can't have impartial arbiters helping the prosecution prepare witnesses.
- What turns women on: less kitsch, more context – The Globe and Mail – Swedish filmmaker Erika Lust favours everyday hook-up scenarios and modern apartment settings over Mafia dons on yachts.<br />
<br />
Female-friendly erotica features the guy next door and showcases the bed linens, says filmmaker Erika Lust
Tagged as:
dating,
health,
john+stagliano,
legal,
love,
obscenity,
porn,
pua,
women
- BBC News – Argentine Senate backs bill legalising gay marriage – Argentina's capital is widely considered to be among the most gay-friendly cities in Latin America. It was the first Latin American city to legalise same-sex unions.
- Sexual Revolution Slowly Progressing in Russia – NYTimes.com – Two decades after government-imposed prudishness ended with the Soviet collapse, Russians still shy away from embracing European-style sexual mores. Despite a burst of licentiousness in the early 1990s, when pornography and prostitution surged through the country, the sexual revolution has never really taken hold here.
- Porn Star Lorelei Lee to Testify in Buttman Trial – The Sexist – Washington City Paper – “Ms. Lee, who is scheduled to be a witness for the defense in the instant trial, seeks for reasons of safety to be allowed to testify under her professional stage name without disclosing her true identity and address in open court,”
- Naked Confusion: So You Wanna Follow Me? | Silverdreams – If you’re going to tweet to kinky girls (or to any girl for that matter), there’s some basics that you should know…On Twitter, the unwritten rule is to be a human being.
Tagged as:
argentina,
etiquette,
gay,
john+stagliano,
legal,
legislation,
obscenity,
porn,
Russia,
samesex,
sex,
Twitter
- Fox Television Stations, Inc. v. FCC | 2nd Circuit (text of opinion) – “the FCC’s policy violates the First Amendment because it is unconstitutionally vague, creatin.g a chilling effect that goes far beyond the fleeting expletives at issue here.
- Supreme Court Strikes Down FCC’s Indecency Policy – WSJ.com – A three-judge panel of the Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York said the Federal Communications Commission’s indecency policies violate the First Amendment and are “unconstitutionally vague, creating a chilling effect that goes far beyond the fleeting expletives at issue here.” (Fox v. FCC)
- “Buttman’s” porn obscenity trial: Why it matters | Salon.com – Whatever the outcome, the moment in our legal history when at last we recognize that community is now everybody with a computer, that “prurience” is in all our cable boxes and our hotel rooms — and that civilization has somehow managed to continue to exist anyway — may soon be upon us.
- IML 2010 and Getting Real About Contests | Race Bannon – I now liken the contest circuit to the court system within the larger LGBT community. It has its own community, priorities, protocols, rituals, honors, awards and social constructs. It is a subset of the overall LGBT community, but does not necessarily “represent” that entire community in the sense that not all LGBT folks relate to the court system or its adherents. They might attend a court event or mix socially with court members and winners, but that doesn’t mean they relate to them personally whatsoever. That’s not a judgment, just an observation.
Tagged as:
censorship,
FCC,
gay,
john+stagliano,
kink,
law,
leather,
legal,
obscenity,
pornography,
speech
Add to Google
