Web Log Archives: September 01, 2002 - September 07, 2002
Saturday, September 7, 2002
Arizona State University may discipline student Brian Buck for showering with porn stars in his frat house, an event caught on camera for Shane's World 29: Frat Row Scavenger Hunt 3. At the local alt-weekly, Robert Nelson belittles the administration's hysterical overreaction.
ASU administrators don't appreciate that Brian and Calli just want to make ASU one of America's great party schools again.... Instead, ASU's administrators can't stop blithering sanctimoniously that rowdy partying will no longer be tolerated because ASU is now "a Research 1 university" -- not a party school. Which is geek-speak for the fact that ASU is now considered by some to be slightly above average. Whoopee.
Two weeks ago, ASU's new wallflower spaz of a president, Michael Crow, said he would do everything in his power to expedite the punishment of Brian Buck. Crow said he's talked to Janet Napolitano's office about what recourse he has, and said he felt confident he could quickly and legally rid the campus of Buck. Mike, word to the wise: Relax and shut your hysterical piehole. And don't be so proud of your ability to destroy the lives of faculty and students with the help of the Attorney General's Office.
Nelson also interviews pornstar Calli Cox about the ASU campus video shoot. "It sounded really different, really exciting. It was refreshing, because doing these movies can get sort of redundant after a while."
Earlier stories about the ASU frat porn incident:
The Wall Street Journal claims that bachelorette parties are getting racy. "Now, it's the 'Sex and the City' era, and prospective brides and their friends have claimed the rights to the wildest behavior in the nights leading up to the nuptials. Many men have toned down the randy side of their last nights of freedom, forgoing exotic dancers in favor of golf, baseball games, fishing or even cooking school. Women, meanwhile, have developed a whole new set of rituals that are bawdy enough to make men blush." So what does WSJ consider wild and bawdy? "The men were barred entry to the upstairs portion --where the bride danced on a table with the bartenders and, at one point, with a group of Danish tourists." Oh ... my ... god!!!
From Moby's online diary: "oh, we (a friend and i) invented a new word today. see, we feel that a weak point in the english language is the lack of an antonym for 'aphrodisiac'. so we put forward 'apathadisiac' (someone or something that inspires complete sexual apathy) and 'pathosadisiac' ( someone or something that tries to turn you on but just makes you depressed.)."
Nerve's Em & Lo expose the inherent evil in The Rules for Online Dating. "Yes, if you don't want to be brazen, funny, interesting, have a good time (or sex), or meet someone other than a big fat stupid meathead — then by all means listen to them."
Friday, September 6, 2002
Texas Triangle reports on a Houston sex shop sting in which a clerk was arrested for selling a dildo to an undercover officer. Both clerk and officer are female. The clerk and her activist lawyer are fighting the charges in hopes of getting Texas's ban on selling "obscene devices" overturned. (This article is dated four weeks ago; I'll post an update if I can find it.)
Nerdslut wonders what life would be like if girls came with resumes. "Just as you wouldn't hire someone without at least some minimal reporting of their employment background, we at Nerdslut think a little knowledge, while perhaps still being a dangerous thing, nonetheless may help avoid some of the more traumatic and expensive relationships (whether in terms of time, money or emotional stability.)" Also hilarious, things you think about on bad dates.
Thursday, September 5, 2002
John Sutherland looks at the evolution of the London Review of Books personal column, which the highbrow literary journal introduced four years ago. "Doubtless its editors thought that readers would use the classifieds to advertise first editions of Jacques Derrida, slightly foxed.... The LRB personals became, amazingly, an outlet for the country's most intelligent sexual maniacs.... Over the years, the ads have become cleverer and more outrageous. They are half Hustler, half Times crossword puzzle and very un-LRB."
Gummy Dongs come in apple, watermelon, strawberry and peach. Also Gummy Cock Rings and Gummy Suckers. While you're there, check out the latest installment in "The Continuing Adventures of the Gummy Dongs" Flash animation series.
The Age has a lengthy feature article (with no byline) about the original publication of The Joy of Sex by Alex Comfort in 1972.
The Joy of Sex set out to demystify lovemaking, but also to allow it to be regarded as something else: a recreation. It was not to be regarded any more as a duty, a guilty secret, a quick one at the end of an evening, a stab in the dark or a silent embarrassment. From now on, Comfort decided, it was going to be something more akin to a banquet. It was subtitled A Gourmet Guide to Lovemaking and divided into small chapters like a succession of dishes - ingredients, appetisers, main courses, sauces . . . The book suggested that having sex involved a great deal more than, well, having sex; that making love was not, as commonly perceived, two-and-a-half minutes of frenzied activity followed by an apology and a cigarette, but should be a sensuous excursion - part ballet, part workout - lasting several hours and reaching several levels of rapture.
Comfort was a stylish writer with a gift for the breezy one-liner. . . . It wasn't just the wit that surprised the reader, but his warm, benign tone of voice, with its occasionally crackpot enthusiasms (Comfort was terribly keen on group sex and the Californian "swinger" mentality), its muttered warnings about things he didn't like or found distasteful (he was never very keen on homosexual anal sex, which he thought best avoided), and its glancing political asides.
This piece includes lots of fascinating behind-the-scenes detail, including the identity of the models in those notorious soft-pencil drawings. (Link snagged from World Sex News.)
Larry Clark's new film Ken Park premiered at the Venice Film Festival in the experimental "Upstream" competition. The film's explicit sex scenes, including incest and intergenerational sex, have reportedly "sent ripples through" the festival. "The story of four dysfunctional families in the skateboarding hotbed of Visalia, California had hard-core sex involving adults and teen-agers which will keep the film out of most cinemas.... 'But I didn't want to cut a single frame,' the cult film director and photographer told a crowded news conference. 'All my life I've seen the camera turn away, but these scenes are part of the reality ... of this porno-generation.'" Local Venice paper Il Gazzettino reported, "Among the scenes that have caused the biggest sensation is one of oral sex between a mature woman and an underaged boy." More and more.
Howard Stern talks about the St. Patrick's Cathedral sex stunt that got rival shock jocks Opie and Anthony fired. "They deservedly got fired because - even I know, as whacked out as I am - that you can't encourage people to do something illegal. The reason I've been successful is I kind of know the difference. I'm able to rationally go: 'If I do this, I will never be on the radio again'."
In Sweden, Christian Democrat Teres Kirpikli is advocating pornography on television to help remedy the country's low birthrate. The 35-year-old mother of three told Expressen, "I want more porn on TV. For example every Saturday, all day. That will give people the lust to have sex."
The Christian Science Monitor has a longer, more nuanced report on that study showing relationships with mothers influence teenagers' sex decisions.
Atlanta prosecutors have dropped disorderly conduct charges against 102 people arrested for watching a live sex show at Club Zinc in July. However, they're proceeding with charges against three organizers and ten performers.
Wednesday, September 4, 2002
Videogame maker Tecmo has won a lawsuit against Westside, a small software company that had been selling a modification to the fighting game Dead Or Alive 2. The now-banned hack allowed players to remove the clothing from the character Kasumi and have her fight naked. You can check out nude Kasumi screen shots from the hacked DOA2 here and here, or get really kinky with Dead or Alive hentai and doujinshi.
From The Onion, America's finest news source: Daughter thinks it's time to have sex talk with parents. "After months of procrastination, Sara Lister, 13, decided Monday that it is 'finally time' to sit her parents down so they can discuss sex with her. . . . Lister, who already has a good sense of what sex entails, sees the conversation with her parents as a chance to ease their growing anxiety about her coming into womanhood."
Clean Sheets editor Susannah Indigo reviews The Sexual Life of Catherine M.
CNN reports on a research study published in Journal of Adolescent Health: "Teenage girls who have close relationships with their mothers wait longer to have sex for the first time.... The same impact was not found for mothers and sons, and researchers concluded that other influences, such as friends, simply may be stronger for boys."
From BBC News: "Teenagers are more likely to engage in underage sex if their parents smoke, drink or don't wear seatbelts in cars, a study suggests. Researchers in the United States [at Southwest Texas State University] have found a strong link between what they describe as risky behaviour by adults and teenage sex. They also believe there is a link between parents who smoke and drink heavily and children who get involved with drugs or crime." However, "The researchers found no evidence to suggest that risky behaviour by parents increased the chances of their children practising unsafe sex."
The fine art nude photography site Michelle 7 has a gallery of self-portraits by Heather Corinna this month.
Susannah Breslin has joined blogworld with the reverse cowgirl's blog, subtitled "wherein a writer attempts to justify the enormity of her porn collection." And ooooh, she's hot for Daze.
Tuesday, September 3, 2002
Funky erotica zine Suspect Thoughts just posted a new issue full of naughty fiction, poetry and interviews.
Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff insists on continuing to fund the state "porn czar" position created two years ago and held since by Paula Houston. The state legislature's budget analysts recommended eliminating the Obscenity and Pornography Ombudsman Office, which has done very little under Houston's leadership. I love this part:
But lawmakers agreed to let the position continue as long as Shurtleff could come up with the funding. He did so, and promised he would move Houston toward a more aggressive role in prosecuting cases. He also promoted a Web site, still being developed, where anyone could access the most frequently asked questions regarding pornography and obscenity laws.
Hell, if they need someone to write a Pornography FAQ, I'd be willing to do it freelance for a lot less than $120,000.
A French watchdog group wants to ban hardcore pornography on late-night TV, a cultural tradition since 1984.
Long, fascinating memoir by a woman who decided to get breast implants at age 28. "I went to war with myself in a battle between feminism and femininity. Did artificially enhancing myself mean I was nothing more than a victim of societal programming? Would I lose credibility as an intelligent woman? Did I really want to go the rest of my life not knowing what it was like to have cleavage?"
The latest issue of gay culture zine Beardburn pays to straight guys and super women, with articles about Dolly Parton, Charo, Judy Garland, Traci Lords, Ben Vereen, Robert Goulet, Lucky Vanous, Prince and others.
Trade site Editor and Publisher covers the increase in sex advertising in mainstream daily newspapers. "Welcome to the world of 'adult' advertising, or, to put it more plainly, sex ads: the classified and display ads for strip clubs, 'massage' parlors and spas, 'escorts,' phone-sex lines, 'domination' services, pornographic video and bookstores, 'model' agencies -- even 'erotic' bakeries. It's a newspaper advertising category that for decades has been owned lock, stock, and fur-lined handcuffs by alternative papers. But now increasing numbers of daily newspapers are coyly succumbing to the many seductions of sex ads."
Neasa MacErlean looks at changing attitudes toward workers' rights and labor organizing in the sex industry.
Sasha offers advice to college boys looking to make some money in the sex business. "To be blunt, there is virtually no market for mediocre or even quirky-looking guys in the dance biz, and this goes for gay and straight clubs. You need to be buff, smooth, plucked, shaved, capped, cut and kumquat-coloured. . . . An average boy wedded to his straight identity but still willing to stretch it a bit for his academic advancement does have a few options in sex work, and they exist most straightforwardly on the internet." (Link snagged from Banana Guide.)
According to an article in one of the supermarket tabloids (picked up here in a South African newspaper), Britney loves lesbian porn and has become buds with pornstar Jenna Jameson.
Jeanette Winterson gives a rave review to Once More, With Feeling, Victoria Coren and Charlie Skelton's account of trying to make the greatest porn film ever. Winterson calls it "a laugh-out-loud book, absolutely inoffensive, a sort of Carry On Pornography."
You will not read a funnier account of shooting a porn movie. Poor Michael — the illegal innocent, I mean immigrant — is almost as naive as Charlie and Vicky, which is maybe why she falls for him. In the dungeon scene, while henchman Karel has veins standing out “like wisteria on a monastery wall”, Michael’s reluctant genitals in Karel’s mouth look to Vicky like “feeding a Wotsit to a mountain lion”.
Coren and Skelton also have their own website at thenaughtytwins.com (their film is called The Naughty Twins) with more information and a message board.
Monday, September 2, 2002
Nerd sex humor: the iBrator, the iCock and the iPlug.
Sunday, September 1, 2002
Eminent jazz critic Francis Davis ponders why the jazz world is so uncomfortable with homosexuality, performers, audiences and critics alike.
In jazz the rule remains "Don't ask, don't tell." This attitude is ironic because the jazz subculture has been notoriously free and easy, ahead of the beat on most social issues. Safety in numbers may have as much to do as sensibility with drawing gay men to certain professions, like hairdressing and floristry. In general, the performing arts are another area in which the news that someone is gay hardly comes as a shock. But there are ways in which jazz and all of popular music have more in common with baseball than with theater or dance. (Jazz even has its own body of statistics, in the form of discographies, recording dates and musical lineups.) Despite a growing number of female instrumentalists, the audience for jazz remains overwhelmingly male, which perhaps explains why jazz itself remains an enclave of machismo.
Davis talks to several gay jazz musicians about their experiences, including vibraphonist Gary Burton, pianist Fred Hersch and singer/pianist Andy Bey.
At the New York Times, Jamie Malanowski laments the desexing of Austin Powers in the latest installment.
The Bond of "Dr. No," "From Russia With Love" and "Goldfinger" was a truly revolutionary character: charming, sexy, ruthless, hedonistic, materialistic — a character who spoke to the fantasies and nightmares of his period. He has evolved into comfort food, a reliable tour guide through the latest package of gadgets, girls, puns and stunts. Something very similar seems to be happening, and more quickly, to Austin Powers.
And that's too bad, because Austin Powers is a revolutionary character. It's hard to think of him that way, with his bad teeth and glasses and bearlike chest hair and bubbly silliness, but he is. Or at least has been. The reason is simple: he likes sex. He is an extravagant, exuberant, enthusiastic heterosexual who wants to have sex because he thinks it's fun. Not dark, not dangerous, not perverse, not exploitive, not compulsive, not something that's going to give you a disease, not something that's going to admit a killer into your home.
Triumph the Insult Comic Dog has issued an official statement about his encounter with Moby and Eminem at the MTV Video Music Awards.
I would like all of you to know that I am fine, that the scuffle at the MTV awards involving Eminem, Moby and Eminem's trusty friend who threw my pooping paper in the air did not result in permanent injury. As soon as Christina Aguilera came out, I licked myself as a test and my pink thing was perfectly functional. You will be glad to know that Moby also licked himself and all systems were go.
It was unfortunate that such an incident had to happen, especially on Michael Jackson's birthday, a day when we should all be embracing one another and humping our chimpanzees. The tone had been set for a lovely evening by Britney Spears, who is now hanging with Michael, thus ensuring she will remain a virgin indefinitely. as you now, my goal is never to set off scuffles and controversy, only to poop on and humilate others. I only wish Eminem could relax and enjoy all he has: his unique talent, and his smooth white hair, which brings to mind a beagle's nutsack. He should lighten up...I mean, my mom was a bitch too, but I don't go writing sings about it.
Eminem really needs to pull that bug out of his ass. His music is pretty cool (though I think Slim Shady LP was his best record and The Eminem Show his worst), but he fully deserves his laughingstock status. There's something really pathetic about proving your badass gangsta credentials by picking fights with Moby, N'Sync and now a puppet. You can watch a clip of the incident at the MTV website. Page Six reports that Eminem's "posse" confronted Moby off-camera yelling things like "We're going to get you after the show." Pathetic.
Moby discussed the VMA events at his website. "the truth is that i honestly, in all sincerity, thought that the whole eminem thing was done in some semblance of humor until eminem called me a pussy (that was off camera) and then threatened to beat me up. . . . and i was more concerned for triumph's well-being. if eminem wants to pick on someone, fine, pick on me, but don't diss the dog-puppet."
MTV.com also has a followup piece by Triumph with riffs on other celebrities he met at the awards show. "Justin Timberlake looks good. He has facial hair now. He looks really tough now that he's getting some tail. It's nice. After two years of just having to lick himself like the rest of us, it's good to see him up there. But Britney, I understand, you know, she's got her thing, she's saving herself. Yeah right, and I poop Godiva chocolate." And some final digs at Eminem: "Eminem is so street, I guess that's why I feel so comfortable pooping on him."
Groovin' Granny sings her hit single "Do Your Boobs Hang Low?" (Flash required).
Michigan Attorney General Jennifer Granholm (also the Democratic candidate for Michigan governor in the November election) announced that her office had served cease-and-desist letters to six companies which provide subscription processing services to adult websites: iBill, CCBill, BillCards, CardBilling, LancelotSecurity, and Trust-Bill. Granholm's office accuses the companies of providing billing services to child pornography sites. But at least some of the websites identified in the cease-and-desist letters are clearly not child pornography, but legitimate porn sites with legal-age models. Three Adult Video News writers provide a long, thorough analysis of the case and how different companies and site owners have responded. . . . MSNBC reported on Granholm's crackdown earlier this week, but made no attempt to verify Granholm's child pornography accusations. . . . This cypherpunks mailing list posting includes an angry response from webmaster Frank Bongiorno, whose site Frankie's Angels was cut off by iBill on the basis of Granholm's letter. He insists that every model on his site is over 18 and that he's got documentation to prove it.
Clean Flicks, a Colorado/Idaho video chain that rents movies with the sex, violence and swearing edited out, has filed a preemptive lawsuit against Steven Spielberg, Robert Redford, Robert Altman, Steven Soderbergh, Martin Scorsese and other Hollywood directors to defend its practices. The Directors Guild of America recently announced plans to sue Clean Flicks and other companies involved in re-editing Hollywood films without authorization, but hasn't actually filed the suit yet. Clean Flicks insists it has a First Amendment right to excise foul language, sexual content and violence from videos destined for private use. . . . UPDATE: More on the Clean Flicks suit and the threatened DGA suit from Wired.
The J. Holmes Institute for the Sexually Gifted has a collection of erotic book reviews, divided into classic, modern and anthologies.
