Web Log Archives: September 22, 2002 - September 28, 2002
Saturday, September 28, 2002
The New York Times has a good-natured profile of Nick Comfort, son of The Joy of Sex author Alex Comfort. "Nick was in his mid-20's and married to his first wife when 'Joy' came out (his father did not follow his only editorial suggestion, that the book should be printed on wax paper). Sadly, he did not find it much of a babe magnet." The younger Comfort played a big role in preparing the new edition of his late father's book.
Two Phoenix swingers clubs raided by police last weekend are taking the offensive. The owners of Club Chameleon and Encounters have filed a $15 million lawsuit against the city for violating their and their patrons' constitutional rights.
The market is crowded with herbal supplements claiming to boost sexual performance, but there's little or no scientific evidence behind those claims. And according to this study by the commercial testing company ConsumerLab.com, many don't meet FDA guidelines for accurate labeling. Some misidentified ingredients, others contained much lower quantities of the active ingredients than stated on the labels.
A loyal Daze reader thinks I was too quick to dismiss the Circuit, the alleged nationwide brothel network busted by the FBI and federal prosecutors. "While I've got no direct experience with it myself, I know someone who claims she used to work the Circuit for a time, and her description matches the description given in the first article almost dead-on. I've no idea the extent of it but i've no doubt that it exists." Here's another detailed article about the racketeering indictments handed down in August, an article about the New Orleans brothel shut down earlier this year, and an FBI press release about the case.
Friday, September 27, 2002
Erotic retailer Ann Summers is recalling 150,000 Rampant Rabbit vibrators. One customer had her Rampant Rabbit break during use — a latex covering on the base split and "sensual beads" that rattle up and down inside the shaft fell out. The Rampant Rabbit had been Ann Summers' best-selling toy and was mentioned on Sex and the City once.
Earlier this month, the student newspaper at Southern Utah University ran an article criticizing the university's restrictive policy on condom distribution at the student health center. The same issue included an editorial entitled "Sex happens, even at SUU" criticizing the policy. The article and editorial caused an uproar at SUU. The university's president blasted the "offensive graphics, questionable headline and one-sided article" and "the Journal's poor taste and bad judgment." A university trustee, the brother of Utah's governor, also blasted the newspaper and its faculty advisor. The chairman of the school's communications department criticized the president's and trustee's aggressive responses: "I see this as micromanagement, and the federal courts see it as censorship. The chilling effect already placed on SUU faculty, staff and students over the last two weeks is de facto censorship." The president and trustee both deny any attempt at intimidation or censorship. The newspaper's editors and a newly formed Student Association for Free Expression are requesting the administration make clear its position on censorship of student-run media.
Thursday, September 26, 2002
Sex, sex, sex in The New Yorker this week. Peter Schjeldahl reviews The Victorian Nude exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum, while Louis Menand pens a shocking exposé of T.S. Eliot's sex life.
Moxie isn't impressed with The Bachelor or its eponymous prize. "Arrogant, bland, hick, immature, promiscuous, jock-ish, goofy…you name it and it most likely fits at least one of the finalists highlighted on Wednesday’s show. What makes the executive producers think any of these men could capture the heart of 25 women let alone the more discriminating group, the teevee audience?"
Evolutionary biologist Olivia Judson takes a humorous survey of animal mating practices in her book Dr. Tatiana's Sex Advice to All Creation, reviewed here at National Geographic. A sidebar presents fun facts from the book. For example, did you know that the fruitfly Drosophila bifurca "is only three millimeters (about one-eighth of an inch) long from the top of its head to the end of its abdomen, yet it produces sperm that are 58 millimeters (2.3 inches) long. If a human male made sperm on a similar scale, they would be as long as a blue whale."
Michelle Tea explores the strange, scandalous power of the hickey. "Hickeys are the physical proof of passion's violent nature – that strawberry-stippled blemish was caused by internal bleeding, an alarming phrase that conjures images of car crashes, not liquid hours of heavy petting, a persistent suck at your throat giving you a shivery thrill. It's a hard sensation to pull away from, even when you know that for the next week you'll be rocking turtlenecks, inventing odd new neckerchief fashions, and telling '80s-era lies involving curling irons."
Based on an intensive FBI investigation, federal prosecutors have indicted 25 people for their alleged involvement in a nationwide brothel ring called "the Circuit". According to one former New Orleans-based madam who copped a plea, "More than 50 years old, the Circuit may involve over 100 brothels — many of which might still be in business." Sounds to me like the feds have been reading too many Jackie Collins novels. An earlier article about this case quoted several New Orleans attorneys who considered the charges trumped up and "an incredible waste of federal resources."
After some success in Ohio, social conservatives are expanding their campaign of pressuring hotels to stop offering pay-per-view adult movies to hotel guests.
Wednesday, September 25, 2002
This billboard for Austrian lingerie company Wolford is too racy for Times Square. (Link snagged from World Sex News.)
The new issue of Abercrombie & Fitch's quarterly catalog/magazine offers more playful sleaze and gauzy softcore. The cover tagline reads, "180 pages of sex and Xmas fun! Heidi Klum adds inches, Spike Lee catches it on tape, Larry Flynt breaks tapes, Heidi Fleiss gets what she wants, street corner Santa brawls and more!"
The South Korean film Too Young to Die chronicles a love affair between two septuagenarians who meet at a senior citizens center. The film is making the rounds of international festivals, but the Korea Media Rating Board has declared it "unfit for public viewing" in domestic cinemas. The KMRB objects to an explicit seven-minute scene showing the elderly couple making love, which director Park Jin-pyo refuses to delete or blur. More.
Jeanette Winterson took an assignment to write about Bond girls, so she rewatched all the Bond movies. Instead, she noticed how effeminate James Bond can be, and decided that the "best Bond Girl has always been Bond himself." This column is filled with wry observations.
He's got more outfits than Barbie. The hand-made clothes, beautifully tailored, are not exactly a he-man pursuit.
Bond has his own espresso machine. Now he is beginning to sound like a homosexual. Nobody had their own espresso machine in the 1970s except James Bond and Quentin Crisp - and, of course, Harry Palmer.
And take a look at that manicure... The hands on the steering wheel are not those of an action-hero. Since when did Terminator buff his nails? Bond drives like a girl. Every time he reverses he crushes someone's bonnet.
Bond makes love like a girl. Whaaaat?? Watch it for yourself. He flirts, he likes kissing necks and shoulders, he sometimes keeps his pyjamas on, he holds hands, he banters in bed, and he makes breakfast. Bond loves pleasure and beauty and softness, and he doesn't just take these things; he offers them. His legendary prowess in bed gives us a clue, because of course, only girls can really keep it up all night long.
Tuesday, September 24, 2002
150 Ottawa residents volunteered to have their genitals filmed for an upcoming TV series hosted by sex therapist Sue McGarvie. "Ms. McGarvie says the most common problem men have when they come into her office is a worry their penis is too small, while women worry their vagina is abnormal. The purpose of the two episodes is to help people feel more comfortable about their genitals by broadcasting images of ordinary people's private parts."
The Directors Guild of America has filed a lawsuit requesting a permanent injunction against several companies which distribute unauthorised versions of films that have been re-edited to remove "objectionable" content (nudity, sex, violence, swearing, etc.). The most prominent such company, CleanFlicks, filed its own lawsuit against the DGA last month. The New York Times ran a long article surveying this copyright and censorship battleground.
MSNBC exposes the latest sleazy ploy used by porn spammers — placing fake ads in online personals, then steering respondents to porn sites or phone sex.
Her online personal ad said she liked the outdoors, camping, hiking, biking, blading, and “yes, even fishing.” Don was online looking for love, like millions of other men, and thought “Amyloov” was sexy, so he dropped her a note through Yahoo.com’s personals. But finding out if Amyloov was “the one” came with a price tag — $4 a minute, in fact. Amyloov turned out to be just a cleverly disguised advertisement for a pay-per-minute sex line.
This is actually the third article in an MSNBC series on online dating and personals. The first article looked at the business of online personals services; the second article, entitled "a generation of unabashed flirts," looked at some people who use online personals.
Declan McCullagh wonders, "What is it with state attorneys general trying to stamp out Internet vice around election time?" He examines asinine political ploys by AGs running for governor in Michigan and Pennsylvania.
Monday, September 23, 2002
The number of American women getting breast implants is increasing rapidly. "At first slowly, and now quite eagerly, many American women have turned to the saltwater-filled alternative to silicone implants. The two breast implant manufacturers in the United States recently reported record sales and profits for their spring quarters, and plastic surgeons say the operation has reached a level of social acceptance unimaginable not many years ago. And not only are more women choosing implants, but they are choosing ever-larger models -- from an average of 250 cubic centimeters in the 1980s to about 350 cubic centimeters today." This article cites concerns about longterm health effects and shady practices by the largest implant manufacturer.
Miss Universe has been fired for refusing to make public appearances. One pageant insider says, "She's an unbelievable beauty, and an unbelievably spoiled bitch. She doesn't want to do anything."
Ain't It Cool News has an advance review of Auto Focus, the movie about Bob Crane's post-Hogan's Heroes kinky sex life and eventual murder (directed by Paul Schrader, starring Greg Kinnear). The anonymous reviewer raves about the film but calls it "perhaps the most ICKY film ever made."
The New York Times previews the Museum of Sex, which opens this week at Fifth Avenue and 27th Street. "Though carefully located at least 500 feet away from any church or school and exhibiting enough pornography to draw condemnation as MoSmut from the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, it bids to be taken seriously, say its organizers, who call it the first institution in the United States to bring the study of sex to a popular audience."
Phoenix police raided four swingers clubs and arrested their owners Friday. The four clubs had banded together to wage a legal challenge to a 1998 city law banning live sex acts in businesses. One owner believes the raid and arrests were retaliation for the legal challenge.
Ian Hodder explains how to keep your porn surfing secret. This hardly seems like Slate material, but some good advice nonetheless. (Link snagged from Reverse Cowgirl.)
In the New York Times Sunday Magazine, Margaret Talbot argues that "the push to educate boys and girls separately rests on dubious science - and betrays a fear of social complexity."
Sunday, September 22, 2002
The Fortean Times has an archival photo of "American medium Margery (Mina Stinson Crandon, 1889-1941) producing a teleplasmic hand from her vagina." (Link snagged from Aberrant News.)
A Long Island couple and the hubby's brother gave new meaning to riding the rails yesterday when they treated stunned commuters to a raunchy three-way sex romp on the Babylon line of the Long Island Rail Road. The conductor notified LIRR cops, who arrested the three when the train stopped in Merrick.
The Spectator has a photo-report on the Dore Alley Street Fair in San Francisco. "The annual fair, affectionately known as 'Up Your Alley,' is a smaller, more intimate version of the Folsom Street Fair (read fewer tourists and more passionate pervs), packing two south of market blocks with plenty of leather men (demonstrating their own impressive packing abilities), drag queens, nudists, and fetishists. There were also lots of het, bi, lesbian, and transgender BDSMers, as well as various other sex- and life-affirming folks."
Tuscon Weekly has a feature article on transgenderism by Joni Mausse.
Taiwan authorities are cracking down on scantily-clad young women selling betel nuts. "Intense competition between betel nut sellers has led to the women shedding more and more clothes in order to attract customers. Drive down any suburban road in Taiwan and you are more than likely to spot a semi-naked young woman sat in a glass cubicle." The nuts are stimulants which when chewed provide a "buzz similar to drinking six cups of coffee."
From the Weekly World News: Lightning struck a Scottish family's satellite dish, and they started picking up XXX extraterrestrial porno flicks! "We were watching Touched by an Angel with the children when -- kaboom! -- there was a frightful thunderclap. The lights flickered for a moment and the TV went blank. When it came back on, we saw a beastly new show that looked like an X-rated alien movie."
