Web Log Archives: August 04, 2002 - August 10, 2002
Saturday, August 10, 2002
Darryl Pinckney profiles the groundbreaking black scholar Joel Augustus Rogers, who spent forty years researching an encyclopaedic history of interracial sex. (This Guardian article is an excerpt from Pinckney's book Out There: Mavericks of Black Literature.)
The British film magazine Sight and Sound has been running a "Top Ten Films of All Time" poll every ten years since 1952. This decade's poll results were announced Friday, and Sight and Sound has done an exemplary job presenting the results on the web. You can browse the top ten lists (divided now into a critics poll and a directors poll), lists of every film and director receiving votes, and each individual voter's ballot, all seamlessly hyperlinked.
Four hardcore porn films from the 1970s received votes in this year's balloting: Deep Throat, Behind the Green Door, The Opening of Misty Beethoven and The Devil in Miss Jones. These votes were almost certainly provocations rather than sincere aesthetic judgments. Misty Beethoven is a legitimately great film (though L'Image is Radley Metzger's best film, in my opinion), but hardly worthy of "best films of all time" consideration. Another three non-porn films with lots of onscreen sex received votes: Ai No Corrida (aka In the Realm of the Senses or Empire of the Senses), Salò, or The 120 Days of Sodom and The Pillow Book. And Daze fave Russ Meyer got two votes for Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!.
Friday, August 9, 2002
Twenty people have been arrested on child pornography charges across the United States and Europe. Members of the ring molested their own children and traded pictures and videos over the Internet. The U.S. Customs Service and the Danish National Police have been working together on the investigation and indictments. More.
A Maryland woman who runs her own amateur porn site is suing a local radio station for harrassment and invasion of privacy. In January, the station's wacky morning DJs belittled her and encouraged listeners to stalk her by broadcasting her full name, home and work addresses, directions to her home and work, and a description of her car. (Link fixed)
The Cockettes, the documentary about the renowned 1970s drag performance troupe, opens in Austin today, and the local alt-weekly gives it a rave review. The refreshingly Flash-free official film site has a history of the group, collected reviews, filmmaker profiles, "making of" background, archival photos and video clips. Did you know: "In anticipation of the televised wedding of President Nixon's daughter Tricia, The Cockettes made a film called TRICIA'S WEDDING, featuring a transvestite Tricia, a drunken Mamie Eisenhower, a party crashing Lady Bird Johnson, and a drag Eartha Kitt spiking the punch with LSD, resulting in a mad orgy."
Stripped, a documentary film by Jill Morley, looks at the lives of strippers around New York and New Jersey. The New York Times reviewer calls the film "far from sleek and polished, in the manner of HBO, but it's much the better for it. Ms. Morley leaves in her contradictions and loose ends, where a more 'professional' approach to this material would probably try to obscure them behind slick graphics."
Prompted by friends asking "So why don't you just adopt?", J.D. Munro imagines a nightmarish interview with the adoption agent.
Invite someone into my home to decide whether I'm worthy enough to take in someone else's unwanted children? Our house isn't even big enough to inspect, for god's sakes. We would have to buy a new 3-bedroom, 1.5 bath with security system, fenced yard, and attached three-car garage (complete with mini-van equipped with air bags) at the end of a cul-de-sac before filling out the application. And put up happy family pictures in the hallway instead of the watercolor of two carrots fucking.
And what would the inspector say about my bookshelf, with the de Sade biography and the obvious penchant for Anais Nin? The tarot deck and The Story of O? I know that looks like a carving of a larger-than-life (more's the pity) erect phallus, but, trust me on this one, it's priceless art with spiritual significance. Would you like me to smash it?
At Scarlet Letters, Chris Hall interviews Cara Bruce and Lisa Montanarelli, authors of The First Year: Hepatitis C, which "covers what a person needs to know, which questions they need to ask, and what decisions they have to make in that first year after being diagnosed for Hep C." A sidebar provides some basic facts about the disease.
This site is really, really gross. Don't say I didn't warn you. The Atlas of Congenital Anomalies of the External Genitalia is just what it sounds like — lots of closeup photos of weirdly deformed penises. . . . Elsewhere, a closeup photo of someone with two penises.
Humorist Liz Langley reviews The Puppetry of the Penis, "a show which, like a patch of pansies growing out of a volcanic rock, has found itself flourishing in a place you'd never have thought it would. It seems like the kind of thing that should have stayed in the bathroom of a bored and very lonely man, or in the treasure chest of memories of two men who spent a drunken evening together that they will never tell their sweethearts about. Where it ended up is off-Broadway at the John Houseman Theater."
From the Guardian books section: "Saffy, the strait-laced daughter of Edina in TV's Absolutely Fabulous would be horrified at a graphic book showing teenagers how to have orgasms and practise oral sex. But Jessica Howie, the 24-year-old daughter of former PR supremo Lynne Franks — the inspiration for Jennifer Saunders's satirical creation — has made her publishing debut with a controversial sex manual for young girls. The book, entitled Sisters Unlimited - Everything A Teenage Girl Should Know includes chapters called Sex is Great; Why Can't I Orgasm and How Do I Masturbate." Darling!
At Culture Vulture, Phil Freeman reviews a Japanese sci-fi porn DVD called IKU.
The British Board of Film Classification has brought in a psychotherapist to counsel the censors. One anonymous source says, "The censors are freaking out. They are often having to do solid hard-core porn all day ... the intellectual content of the job is not what it was." (Thanks, Eric)
Thursday, August 8, 2002
5000 people are expected to attend an Internet porn trade show in Hollywood, Florida this weekend.
Several Florida women are challenging the state's idiotic adoption laws, arguing that the laws violate their constitutional right to privacy. New statutes require birth mothers to track down and notify the birth father about adoption proceedings, in order to avoid situations where the birth father comes forward to challenge an adoption after the fact. When background searches don't work, the law requires the mother to place a newspaper ad detailing "her name, describe herself, name or describe the possible father(s) and list the date and the city or county of conception." A lawyer representing the plaintiffs says, "The adoption community is up in arms against this [law]. When women come into my office and find their whole lives have to be exposed in the newspaper, they are like, 'Forget it.' They can abort without consent, but they can't give the child an opportunity to live without humiliating themselves." (There's a Metafilter thread about this story.)
Some Singapore parents are upset over popular novelty lollipops imported from the United States. "Besides being phallic in shape, the sweet, called Fr-ooze Pop, has jelly oozing out of a hole at the top when the base is squeezed. . . . [One complainant] said: 'It's very dildo-like. What's the motive behind making it like look like that when it could be done much more tastefully?' . . . The advertisements, which are aired mainly during the cartoon belts, show young children sucking voraciously at the candy, with 'squeeze and lick' as the recurrent message."
The Ausome Candies site has a brochure page hawking the Fr-ooze Pop. "As you lick the lollipop to dissolve the thin coating, pull up on the top and squeeze the bottom, for a burst of fruit flavored ooze." And Usagi has a humorous illustrated account of sucking, squeezing and licking a Fr-ooze Pop. (Also check out Usagi's journal, where she's been discussing the torrent of Fr-ooze Pop-related traffic.)
I read Billy Budd this week. When I mentioned to Dazette (former American Studies major) what I was reading, she replied, "oh, the gay one." I hadn't heard this association before picking up the book, but apparently it's pretty common. Billy Budd ranked #13 on a list of the top 100 lesbian and gay novels published a few years back. It's not exactly gay-friendly; the one clearly gay character is the villain. But it can be read as a tragedy of sexual repression. And it's full of sensual descriptions of beautiful men.
In the time before steamships, or then more frequently than now, a stroller along the docks of any considerable sea-port would occasionally have his attention arrested by a group of bronzed mariners, man-of-war's men or merchant-sailors in holiday attire ashore on liberty. In certain instances they would flank, or, like a body-guard quite surround some superior figure of their own class, moving along with them like Aldebaran among the lesser lights of his constellation. That signal object was the "Handsome Sailor" of the less prosaic time alike of the military and merchant navies. With no perceptible trace of the vainglorious about him, rather with the off-hand unaffectedness of natural regality, he seemed to accept the spontaneous homage of his shipmates. A somewhat remarkable instance recurs to me. In Liverpool, now half a century ago, I saw under the shadow of the great dingy street-wall of Prince's Dock (an obstruction long since removed) a common sailor, so intensely black that he must needs have been a native African of the unadulterate blood of Ham. A symmetric figure much above the average height. The two ends of a gay silk handkerchief thrown loose about the neck danced upon the displayed ebony of his chest; in his ears were big hoops of gold, and a Scotch Highland bonnet with a tartan band set off his shapely head.
It was a hot noon in July; and his face, lustrous with perspiration, beamed with barbaric good humor. In jovial sallies right and left, his white teeth flashing into he rollicked along, the centre of a company of his shipmates. These were made up of such an assortment of tribes and complexions as would have well fitted them to be marched up by Anacharsis Cloots before the bar of the first French Assembly as Representatives of the Human Race. At each spontaneous tribute rendered by the wayfarers to this black pagod of a fellow- the tribute of a pause and stare, and less frequent an exclamation,- the motley retinue showed that they took that sort of pride in the evoker of it which the Assyrian priests doubtless showed for their grand sculptured Bull when the faithful prostrated themselves.
Arkansas parents who operated a suggestive but non-nude "modeling site" for their 12-year-old daughter have been convicted of child pornography charges. The conviction resulted not from the provocative photos of the young girl they posted on the Web, but from three homemade videotapes showing her nude that were found during a search of the couple’s home. The couple and daughter insisted those videotapes were just modeling practice sessions, but authorities believe they intended to sell them.
Fans bonk to the music festival beat; "these carnivals of composition are really more like fiestas of fornication."
Monday, August 5, 2002
Chuck Palahniuk wrote a piece called "Monkey Think, Monkey Do" for a recent issue of Gear magazine (the one with Jamie Bergman on the cover). It's a fascinating little philosophical piece arguing against both transgression for the sake of transgression and the desire for absolute security from the world's evils. Palahniuk's suggested alternative: "stop living as a reaction and start living as a force for what you say should be." The opening paragraphs present striking examples of real-life and fictional transgressions.
This summer a young man pulled me aside in a bookstore and said he loved how in Fight Club I wrote about waiters tainting food. He asked me to sign a book and said he worked in a five-star restaurant where they monkey with celebrities' food all the time.
"Margaret Thatcher," he said, "has eaten my sperm." He held up one hand, fingers spread, and said, "At least five times."
Just try to get that image out your mind. (Unfortunately, Gear doesn't put any of its content online. The magazine's website takes minimalist design to an odd extreme.) . . . UPDATE: Palahniuk has "Monkey Think, Monkey Do" posted at his personal site.
Elizabeth Hayt looks at one major trend in the abstinence movement, a period of abstinence during engagements for previously sexually active couples. "These days, a period of 'secondary virginity,' as it is sometimes called, is increasingly the norm for many brides-to-be across the South, an accommodation to the modern reality of premarital sex and the traditional disapproval of it in the Bible Belt. Whether fresh out of college or older, Southern women say the decision of when and how long to stop having sex — as little as a month or as much as a year — has become standard girl talk at sorority houses and bridal showers." One single woman interviewed at a wedding party says, "It's about being prim and proper and perfect. It's an ideal we live up to. I've grown up thinking that you're not supposed to sleep together, but since everyone does, you stop when you get engaged for two to three months before the wedding. I'll probably do it. Just for the tease."
The war on terror may make porn surfing more difficult in Pakistan.
These Web-savvy young Pakistanis differ little from young people elsewhere in the world. They are drawn to the anonymity of the Internet to make friends, play video games, read news and explore their interest in the opposite sex. But now some worry that a new government measure keeping tabs on Internet cafe users, all in the name of fighting terrorism, could threaten that privacy.
Starting this month, cybercafes will be required to ask patrons for proof of identity and to keep records of users. The previously unregulated Internet cafes also must start registering with the government. Authorities say the new regulations will promote security in a country threatened by terrorist attacks. But patrons like Umar say reporting their names will make them more cautious about visiting certain Web sites, robbing the Internet of some of its allure.
An Ohio anti-pornography group is pressuring hotels to stop offering adult pay-per-view movies to guests. Their tactics include urging local prosecutors to file or threaten obscenity prosecutions against the hotels, and they've succeeded in convincing two hotels in Cincinnati and Mason to shut down their porn channels. An outspoken Ohio ACLU counsel calls the group "fundamentalist, right-wing wackos ... trying to apply the lowest, most restrictive standards to something that is broadcast around the world. It's appalling. It's clearly a pressure tactic and it's anti-First Amendment and anti-personal autonomy."
Sunday, August 4, 2002
Maintenance workers have tried without success for a month to eradicate the image of male sexual organs on the hillside behind a Connecticut high school. The 25-foot penis was apparently etched into the grass with weed killer.
Rachel Kramer Bussel interviews M. Christian about his new erotica anthology Speaking Parts: Provocative Lesbian Erotica.
Japan Today reports a police survey of forty teenage prostitutes picked up this year. Among the findings, 29 of 40 said they "do not have a sense of guilt in being paid for sex."
