- 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 Michael Peacock was unanimously acquitted, after a four-day trial that saw the outdated obscenity law of England and Wales in the dock…Peacock had been charged under the Obscene Publications Act 1959 for allegedly distributing ‘obscene’ ‘gay’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.
rape
- Making a Hot Mess out of “Feminist” TV | where is your line? – My experience in the hot seat of Hot Mess reminded me – like a slap in the face- a few basic media principles. As a filmmaker and producer, respect your subjects. They are not objects or props to be used or humiliated. Honor them. And as a subject and author of your life, remember – your story is your story. It is sacred, precious and individually yours. Find and maintain your boundaries about how and with whom you share your story. Call the shots and don’t forget you’re in control.
- Federal Judge In Boston Rules Gay Marriage Ban Unconstitutional – The federal law banning gay marriage is unconstitutional because it interferes with the right of a state to define the institution and therefore denies married gay couples some federal benefits, a federal judge ruled Thursday in Boston.
- Sex and Infertility – How infertility makes sex more difficult | Cory Silverberg – The impact of infertility (real or suspected) on your sex life can be enormous. Sex that is timed and filled with anxiety about the outcome quickly becomes mechanical and forced. What was once an intense expression of love, desire, and commitment can feel like an obligation, an expectation — and practically coercive.
- 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.
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