- ‘A Queer and Pleasant Danger’ by Kate Bornstein | Lambda Literary – In A Queer and Pleasant Danger Bornstein offers a raw exploration of her gender journey, including candid explorations of her lifelong eating disorders and their relationship to her conception of self and gender. Bornstein gives us the opportunity to see behind the scenes and into the early gender outlaw days of one of the most brilliant gender theorists and performance artists of our time. We watch as she grapples with coming out as a lesbian, learning how to work cute as an embodiment of gender, and find power in the body she transforms. Bornstein brings us into her early activist days, including a trip to the trial of Brandon Tina’s murders, visiting the house where Tina died, as well as to the stage of her first queer performance work.
- When Children See Internet Pornography – NYTimes.com – There is no set script, and no predictable moment for the conversation. It can happen at as early an age as 6 or 7, when a child may not yet understand the basic mechanics of sex. It is typically set off by a child’s accidental wanderings online or the deliberate searches of a curious teenager on a smartphone, laptop, tablet or one of the other devices that have made it nearly impossible to grow up without encountering sexually explicit material. Even a quick Twitter or Facebook search reveals that older students report seeing pornography on others’ laptops or phones in class, usually with an “OMG” attached.
- Sexuality and Other Female (Film) Troubles – NYTimes.com – “I wanted to make a Merchant-Ivory movie with vibrators,” Ms. Wexler, 42, said sitting in an office in Midtown Manhattan, her long brown hair bouncing every time she let out a booming laugh. “And in doing that, strangely, we’ve shone a light. Can you believe we’re still arguing about these same topics 100 years later — women’s rights over their own body? If a woman is behind the camera, these issues can be explored more than they have in the past.”
- Sex Ed for Grown Folks — Indiegogo – Support The Garden, a DC based sexual education resource . The money raised here will help create space for people of all ages and walks of life to find the resources they need to ask the questions they might not know how to ask. Space for queer, trans, straight, gay, bi, poly, pomosexual, unsure, in between, on the edge, and in the closet people to come and figure it all out. Take a class. Buy that toy you’ve been eyeing online but needed to feel first. Seek the resources and find the therapists, coaches and body workers who won’t judge you for who are or how you live. Come to The Garden, ask the questions, get educated and find your pleasure.
- Facebook and poly privacy « Polyamory Weekly – Is it OK to list my relationship status as “open” on Facebook if my girlfriend isn’t out publicly?
- Library ban on best-seller sparks Florida censorship debate – USATODAY.com – Instead, the Brevard library chose recently to close the book on British author E.L. James’ “Fifty Shades of Grey.” Cathy Schweinsberg, library services director, decided after reading the novel to pull from circulation the system’s 19 copies of “Fifty Shades of Grey,” the first installment in a trilogy.
- For Ultra-Orthodox Jews in Abuse Cases, a Prosecutor Uses Different Rules – NYTimes.com – Mr. Hynes has won election six times as district attorney thanks in part to support from ultra-Orthodox rabbis, who lead growing communities in neighborhoods like Borough Park and Crown Heights. But in recent years, as allegations of child sexual abuse have shaken the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community in Brooklyn, victims’ rights groups have expressed concern that he is not vigorously pursuing these cases because of his deep ties to the rabbis.
sexuality
 |
 |
Hello, my name is Viviane, and I am a Barbara Carrellas groupie. I first spotted Barbara Carrellas striding across the dining room during my first Dark Odyssey Summer Camp, in 2006. I wondered “who is that person with the blond hair with pink streaks? Those huge glasses? I have taken any number of classes with her over the years. One was a erogenous massage class where we breathed and shook along with the demo bottom, as she held, and released, held, and orgasmed. In another, I was in yab yum with a partner (him cross-legged on the bottom, me on top with my legs around him) – we breathed together as I pulled clothes pins off him. It’s pretty difficult to put into words these transformative classes, which is why I’m delighted that she has written Ecstasy is Necessary: A Practical Guide, so she can share this work with a wider audience.
In this book, she teaches us how to discover, nurture, expand, and embrace our authentic, ever-evolving, sensual, sexual self (from the Amazon.com page):
Everyone goes through different phases of sexual expression and desire, and there are an infinite number of erotic and ecstatic possibilities available at all points along the way. The insights readers will gain in their journey with Carrellas will help them confidently approach sex and relationships in a way that works for them no matter where they are in their sexual evolution. They will get tools for solving the inevitable challenges that arise. They’ll even receive permission not to have sex at all, if that’s what’s right for them, because it is possible to create ecstatic experiences even when sex itself is not possible, available, or appropriate.
Using stories and simple exercises, Carrellas helps readers understand how they are wired for sex and relationships, what their personal warning signs look like, and what they need for optimum care. Plus, they’ll learn how to effectively communicate this information to others so that they can be loved more easily and effectively.
As readers discover their authentic sexual selves, they will learn how to create the conditions that allow more and more of their experiences and relationships to be opportunities for—and invitations to—ecstasy.
On March 3rd, she’s also going to be teaching a new workshop based on the book: Ecstasy is Necessary: A Tantric Approach to Life and Love. Unlike the classes Barbara teaches at national events, this is a full day event, and shouldn’t be missed.
Barbara first learned how to have an breath and energy orgasm in the late 1980s during the AIDS crisis. Here’s an excerpt from the book about that experience:
A woman named Jwala facilitated the small workshop in which I had my first breath and energy orgasm. Jwala, whose name means Love Fire, would soon become my first Tantric teacher. I met her the way I met a lot of my teachers in that period-she had come to the Healing Circle as a guest speaker. Jwala was the ultimate hippie. She had no permanent home. She spent a great deal of time studying with her gurus in India. She was not like any spiritual seeker I had ever met. She was as sexual as she was mystical. Although in her that combination seemed natural and easy, I was initially skeptical. Something deep in my ex-Catholic background and career-driven New York personality bristled at her intense dedication to freedom, sexuality and spirituality. I was envious of how happy she seemed. But Jwala was generously willing to teach me everything she knew, and the first was how to have a breath and energy orgasm.
We all sat in a circle on the floor as Jwala explained how the technique worked. “With each breath,” she said “imagine filling up each of your chakras-the seven major energy centers of the body-with energy.” To demonstrate, Jwala lay on her back in the center of the circle and began to breathe. We watched her use her breath and imagination to pull energy from the earth into her body. She began with the first chakra (perineum), and moved up, chakra by chakra. Within a few minutes she was laughing and vibrating and writhing around on the floor. It was one of the juiciest and most joyous orgasms I had ever seen. And then it was our turn.
Jwala offered instructions in the form of a guided meditation. It wasn’t sexual at all and at first I didn’t feel anything. But I heard Jwala say, “Don’t worry, just keep breathing,” so I did. I imagined pulling energy up, chakra by chakra. By the time the energy reached my heart, I felt a tingling in my arms that started to spread into my chest and down my legs. I began to giggle. I felt like I’d like been picked up by a huge wave that got taller and stronger with each breath. I discovered that all I had to do to stay on the wave was keep breathing. Jwala was still guiding us up the chakras but I was in freestyle. I laughed hysterically. I cried in big gulping sobs. I tingled all over. It felt like lightning bolts were shooting out my fingers. I felt like I was being animated by the gods. And it went on and on and on.
How could I not have known this existed? Why didn’t everyone know how to do this? This ecstasy is what I imagined that sex could be-but seldom, if ever, was. And, oddly enough, this breath and energy orgasm had happened in every nook and cranny of my body except my genitals.
This ecstatic experience went far beyond pleasure. It was a profoundly transformative event that took me through all my emotions (including a few I hadn’t met before). It was like body surfing in a whirlpool at the convergence of rivers named Emotion, Intuition, Mysticism, and Sex.
I was hooked. Breath and energy orgasms became the foundation of my personal erotic practice and the cornerstone on which I later built a career as a workshop facilitator and author.
You can see who else is participating at: http://ecstasyisnecessary.com/
- Sexual Obituaries 2011 (Cory Silverberg) – People who choose to work around sexuality and gender often don’t get the acknowledgment from the mainstream media or from society as a whole that they would if their work was in another field. Every year, I feel this absence when I read the lists of famous people who died. Since 2006, I’ve tried to change that by sharing some of the sex and gender activists, educators, artists, and outlaws we lost in the year that is ending. Here is a list of sexual losses in 2011.
- Director Dee Rees And Star Adepero Oduye Talk Coming Out & Coming Of Age In ‘Pariah’ | indieWIRE – Pariah is the story of Alike (Oduye), a black lesbian teenager living in Fort Greene and navigating between the aggressive gay nightclub scene preferred by her butch best friend Laura (Pernell Walker) and a closeted life at home, where her tightly wound mother Audrey (Kim Wayans) tries to dress her in pink cardigans and quizzes her about who she’s taking to the school dance.
- Bondage Sex And The Liberation Of Culture – ErosBlog: The Sex Blog – For anybody with an interest in cultural history — and especially, aspects of cultural history that have ever been covert or officially suppressed, like porn — it’s this “everything floats up to the surface and becomes visible, in time” aspect of the Internet that is most miraculous. It’s far from complete, mind you — we have many centuries of recorded culture that have yet to be digitized and brought up from their buried layers of stone and canvas and paper and cellulose and vinyl and magnetic tape.
- 2011 Top Ten Sex Questions (Cory Silverberg) – I don’t dig into my statistics all that often, but once a year I like to see which questions and answers were the most popular…These ten questions are from the 105 Sex Questions that I’ve answered on the About.com site.
- Navigating Love and Autism – NYTimes.com- Only since the mid-1990s have a group of socially impaired young people with otherwise normal intelligence and language development been recognized as the neurological cousins of nonverbal autistic children. Because they have a hard time grasping what another is feeling — a trait sometimes described as “mindblindness” — many assumed that those with such autism spectrum disorders were incapable of, or indifferent to, intimate relationships. Parents and teachers have focused instead on helping them with school, friendship and, more recently, the workplace.Yet as they reach adulthood, the overarching quest of many in this first generation to be identified with Asperger syndrome is the same as many of their nonautistic peers: to find someone to love who will love them back. [via Violet Blue]
- When Will a Gay Pro Athlete Finally Come Out? — New York Magazine – “Something has happened in the last year,” says Jim Buzinski, co-founder of OutSports, an advocate for and chronicler of gay sports issues for more than a decade. “It’s almost like homophobia is no longer considered cool in sports.”
- Australian Passport Gender Options: ‘Transgender’ Will Be Included | HuffPo – Australian passports will now have three gender options – male, female and indeterminate – under new guidelines to remove discrimination against transgender people, the government said Thursday.
- New York Allows Same-Sex Marriage, Becoming Largest State to Pass Law – NYTimes.com – “Lawmakers voted late Friday to legalize same-sex marriage, making New York the largest state where gay and lesbian couples will be able to wed and giving the national gay-rights movement new momentum from the state where it was born. “
- Thousands Cheer Same-Sex Marriage Law in Euphoric Pride Parade – NYTimes.com – “They came to shout, dance, cheer, strut, hug and shed tears of joy, knowing that on July 24, when the law takes effect, the season for tears will begin in earnest…The focus of much of the cheering was Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, a Democrat, who made legalization of same-sex marriage part of his election campaign and visibly led the fight for its approval in the Republican-led State Senate. Mr. Cuomo marched with several local politicians, including Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and the New York City Council speaker, Christine C. Quinn, who is openly gay. But there was little question that the governor was the parade’s rock star, eliciting shrieks as he made his way down Fifth Avenue. “
- Gail Dines, SlutWalk, Saudi Arabia and The Place of Porn in a “Just Society” | violet blue ® :: open source sex – A professor of sociology and women’s studies, Dines shows a shocking disregard for women’s experience. She infantilizes “sluts” and women who consume porn (about whom I’ve never seen her make more than a passing reference) as women making not their own choices, but choices dictated exclusively by the pressures of men. Meanwhile, men make choices based exclusively on the pressures of porn. Which are driven by the desires of men. It’s a classic circular argument that places the responsibility for men who behave reprehensibly on the shoulders of women who self-identify as sluts, and of men who don’t always feel like making eye contact with their girlfriends during sex…But Dines is far more dangerous than that, because after decades teaching women’s studies, she doesn’t seem to have learned the explosive danger of the term “normal.”
- Sexual Orientation and the Law: A Research Bibliography – A research bibliography of legal literature discussing gay, lesbian, transgender and bisexual persons, their rights and their families. Edited by law librarians from the American Association of Law Libraries Standing Committee on Lesbian and Gay Issues.
- Thanks, but no thanks! | Fearless Press – Keep in mind that you do not need to have a reason to say no – you are entitled to say no for any reason (or even no reason) at all. It’s YOUR decision whether to play or engage in sex. You also do not need to give them a “rain check” or tell them maybe another time unless you want to – in fact, in my experience it’s been worse for me to tell them “maybe” instead of just saying no and leaving it alone.
What are you? Maybe you are a virgin, slut, thin, fat, warm, happy, bitchy, homeless, brainiac, jock, middle child, Gemini, proud, shy, sex worker, librarian, lumberjack, lesbian, straight, addict, slinky, sturdy, hard worker, lazy and/or tall?
Check whatever boxes fit and fill in the rest. As the old saying goes, “Thoughts are things.” What you believe about yourself and others will have an impact. Ducky will kick it off with some all-true, often hilarious storytelling of her life on the streets, as a gang girl, a sex worker, a lover, a sex educator and a few humbling, label-riddled experiences in between. She will also lead our discussion in how the labels we adopt, are assigned and give others shape our lives. We’ll roll through topics of sexuality, self image, personal history, empowerment,class, race, religion and where ever else our collective minds take us.
Where: Happy Ending Lounge, 302 Broome St, New York, NY
Cost:FREE
Open to adults 21+ and older
About Ducky Doolittle
With more than 20 years working in the field of sexuality, Ducky is considered to be one of America’s most celebrated sex educators. She is author of “Sex with the Lights On: 200 Illuminating Sex Questions Answered” and is a certified Sexual Assault & Violence Intervention Counselor. Harvard University has cited her as their “favorite, most informative and hilarious” sex educators ever to grace their campus. MTV said, “Who do you want to talk about sexuality with? Ducky DooLittle. She knows it all!” . She also continues to lecture on campuses, in community centers and at private events worldwide. With her trademark wit and humor, she speaks on topics such as pleasure anatomy, health & wellness, safer sex practice, STD education & awareness, LGBT rights, sexual assault prevention, intimate partner violence, alcohol & substance abuse, and boosting self-esteem. Learn more at: www.duckydoolittle.com
About The Chat Lounge
Taking the conversation out of the chat room, The Chat Lounge, focuses on bringing people face to smiling face, to meet, sip scrumptious cocktails and munch on salty and sweet snacks, while we talk about current issues in sexuality and the impact they have on our lives. Meeting the 3rd Thursday of every month at Happy Ending, 302 Broome Street, from 7:30 – 10:00, The Chat Lounge will feature a different speaker to guide discussions covering body image, gender, identity, orientation, love and relationships, the science of sex and much more.
