Web Log Archives: October 27, 2002 - November 02, 2002
Saturday, November 2, 2002
Still more insight into the Alabama Attorney General and his motives for pursuing the vibrator ban case to the bitter end.
One of my many alma maters, New York University, has a student BDSM club, which meets Wednesday nights at the student center. (Link snagged from Pursed Lips.)
Two sex advice columnists recently wrote very pessimistic responses about making polyamory work. Andrea Nemerson thinks most people aren't temperamentally suited to it and shouldn't kid themselves. "I used to be more idealistic (or less realistic), but my view of nonmonogamy has become increasingly jaundiced over time. It does sound great – what could be better than 'have cake, eat cake, and no cakes are harmed'? And done well (nobody's perfect), by people well suited to it, it is great. It's just that so many people who should never even think of trying to live that way do try it, which inevitably leads to public scenes, ashtray throwing, and letters to advice columnists." Cary Tennis doesn't think it's workable for anyone. "The dyad works because it combines the greatest strength with the fewest stresses. When you reverse that, adding stress and weakening the supports, you aren't designing for stability, you're designing for the excitement of a dramatic Las Vegas-style implosion."
Fireland held a contest to track down the sexiest sentence alive.
British newspaper The Observer ran a special section on sex last Sunday with several feature articles and personal stories.
Friday, November 1, 2002
Vann steered us to this "silly-ass Examiner article" about a weekly go-go dancing aerobics class in San Francisco.
Edie at A Mating Call in the Concrete Jungle has launched an experiment on the Nerve personals: "I created a fictional Nerve ad with a gorgeous woman and dumb answers and updated mine, which offers neither of those things." Their respective answers to the "Last great book you read" question:
ME - "I can't remember the last 'great' book I read. I can tell you that on my nightstand now are, The American Sphinx a biography of Thomas Jefferson by Joseph Ellis and Crime Classics, an interesting compilation of short mystery stories."
MODEL: "I don't read that much. Although I do read Cosmo and Marie Claire every month. I like some Danielle Steele, too, I guess."
Scroll up (ie, toward the more recent entries) for running commentary on the results.
Guardian correspondent Jon Henley surveys political debates in France over pornography and prostitution.
In his spotless if somewhat sweaty studios near République, John B Root, one of France's leading porn producers - and, under another name, a bestselling children's novelist - was full of righteous fury. "No other western country is taking this route, trying to kill off a legitimate creative industry appreciated by millions of French adults," he said. "This is a step back into the dark ages, a misguided and anti-democratic family-values campaign taken way too far."
A bill presented to the cabinet last week would create a new offence called "passive soliciting," essentially ending France's longstanding legalization of prostitution. Prostitutes' groups are planning a national demonstration on November 5 against the recent crackdown and proposed law.
Best headline I've seen in a while: Officials try to rid area of hookers; prostitute on roof symbolizes problem.
According to a recent poll conducted by IKEA, guys with messy sock drawers have sex more often than those who organize their socks.
An Alfred Kinsey biopic is in development, with Liam Neeson in negotiations to play the pioneering sex researcher. The screenplay is by Bill Condon, who previously wrote Gods and Monsters. Also mentioned in the potential cast: Laura Linney as Kinsey's wife, Ian McKellan as "a composite of real characters as the film's host," and Chris O'Donnell as fellow sex researcher Wardell Pomeroy. (Link snagged from World Sex News.)
More on the very persistent Alabama Attorney General who is appealing the circuit court decision that overturned the state's dildo ban.
Thursday, October 31, 2002
The Attorney General of Alabama has appealed a federal court ruling that overturned the state's ban on selling vibrators and other sex toys. (When I first visited this page, it had a sidebar campaign ad urging you to "vote for Jerry Tingle." You can't make this stuff up. Tuscaloosa News uses a banner rotation system, so you probably won't see the same ad, but check out the screen capture.)
Ooooh, this would rock. Ewan McGregor and director Danny Boyle are both interested in doing a film adaptation of Irvine Welsh's Porno, aka Trainspotting 2. Boyle believes he can get all the actors from Trainspotting to reprise their roles in the new film.
Another federal appeals court heard arguments Monday about a Virginia state law which would make it illegal to display any "file or message" that is "harmful to juveniles" on the Internet. The civil liberties group People for the American Way is challenging the law. Law-blogger John Smith gives his take on the case here.
The Child Online Protection Act (COPA) is back before an appeals court in Philadelphia. COPA would restrict commercial Web publishers from allowing minors access to sexually explicit material that has no scientific, literary, artistic or political value and that is offensive to local "community standards." This same appeals court overturned COPA in 1998 based on the problems of applying "community standards" to the borderless Internet, which would allow any one restrictive community to censor content for the whole country (and world). The government appealed to the Supreme Court, which sent the case back to the appeals court for further review.
The Spectator has lots of new material posted, including this timely piece on vampires in porn by Chris Hall.
Wednesday, October 30, 2002
Dinitia Smith glosses recent scholarship about transsexuality, most notably How Sex Changed: A History of Transsexuality in the United States by Joanne Meyerowitz.
With apologies to Debra, the New York Times gives the new off-Broadway musical version of Debbie Does Dallas a pretty good review. "There is nothing consequential or even particularly clever in the book, the music or the lyrics. Some of the dirty jokes are very witty; some are decidedly not. Some are obvious. (There are a lot of bananas, for example, and one big red candle.) Some are downright revolting, though granted that's a matter of personal taste. As for the onstage gymnastics, they are not subtle in their suggestiveness, but the only nudity, oddly enough, is male."
The reverse cowgirl interviews Chloei, webmistress of NakkidNerds.com.
Ellen Goodman talks about the difficulty of talking to your kids about sex. The column begins with the telling irony that Joy of Sex author Alex Comfort "stirred the international pot of sexual liberation. But he didn't exactly do any home schooling. Sex ed for his son Nick consisted of one awkward 'talk' after the son's headmaster said the boy needed to know about personal hygiene. That was about it."
Interesting bit of scientific research on the effects of teen sex: "The earlier a woman has sex, the less stressed she is as an adult, scientists have discovered. When they questioned women about their sexual history and tested them for levels of a stress hormone, they found that the lowest levels were among those who had sex the earliest. A similar but smaller effect was found for men." Of course, just because it sounds more sex-positive than "sex before marriage will KILL you" claptrap doesn't make it true or good science.
Another of my favorite writers, Jerry Stahl, offers a creepy, funny look at sex and heroin, sex on heroin and sex while kicking heroin. "That's the thing about sex and heroin: it takes work to get you hard, but once you are, it takes an A-bomb to get you soft again. And coming, whatever that is, is pretty much out of the question. After the brain-splattering ecstasy of a serious dope rush, orgasm is redundant." (From 1999, labeled "Classic Nerve" here.)
Lynn Yaeger thinks raunchy fashion designers intent on pushing the envelope every season could learn something from MoSex. "Well, if you're thirsty for inspiration, you could stop by the fabulous new Museum of Sex at 27th and Fifth, in the former headquarters of a place called the Perfume Palace, not in itself a bad name for a sex museum. If the gallery's current exhibit, 'How New York City Transformed Sex in America,' proves anything, it's that looking sexy isn't just a matter of shoving pussy dresses in everyone's face. At the museum lots of unlikely stuff, from Victorian dressing gowns to gay liberation lambda T-shirts, manages to look pretty alluring."
Good Vibes editor Violet Blue runs her own site called Tiny Nibbles, devoted to oral sex in all its delicious varieties.
Tuesday, October 29, 2002
From February: Bill Moyers talks to Katie Roiphe about the news that major corporations have been quietly moving into pornography distribution.
Julie Burchill, one of my favorite writers, disses those "Power Lists" every magazine seems to be running these days, mostly because she hates the ideal of masculine power that underlies them.
Well, the whole dirty, neurotic point of these lists is to try to deny any idea of males being judged on a sexual basis - unlike women, of course, who only ever figure in media charts in terms of their sexual attractiveness. . . . There's a reason why Henry Kissinger said, "Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac" because, let's face it, who on earth would have sex with an ugly mass murderer if it wasn't? But the only sort of man who values his "power" over his girl-appeal is a sad, bad lay - and the only sort of woman who values male "power" over personality and/or prettiness is the silliest sort of prostitute; that is, one who doesn't know it yet.
Christina Aguilera is on the cover of Rolling Stone wearing nothing but thigh-high boots.
Dan Savage recounts his appearance on The O'Reilly Factor.
O'Reilly pounced. "I want to go to a gay bathhouse!" he barked. "I want to go to a gay bathhouse!" I was stunned. There I was, sitting across the table from the darling of the American right, and... and... he was shouting at me about wanting to go to a gay bathhouse.
The Stranger asked Scotty Crane, a Seattle record producer and radio personality, to review Auto Focus. His review is entitled "Raging Bullshit: Auto Focus is Not My Dad's Story".
Monday, October 28, 2002
The Daze Reader home office is listening to the Red Hot Chili Peppers' Blood Sugar Sex Magik this afternoon. From "Sir Psycho Sexy" (parental advisory: explicit lyrics):
Deep inside the garden of Eden
Standing there with my hardon bleedin'
Theres a devil in my dick and some demons in my semen
Good God no that would be treason
Believe me Eve she gave good reason
Booty looking too good not to be squeezin'
Creamy beaver hotter than a fever
I'm a givin' 'cause she's the receiver
I won't and I don't hang up until I please her
Makin' her feel like an over achiever
I take it away for a minute just to tease her
Then I give it back a little bit deeper
* * *
I got stopped by a lady cop
In my automobile
She said get out and spead your legs
And then she tried to cop a feel
That cop she was all dressed in blue
Was she pretty? Boy I'm tellin' you
She stuck my butt with her big black stick
I said "what's up?" now suck my dick
Like a ram getting ready to jam the lamb
She whimpered just a little when she felt my hand
On her crotch so very warm
I could feel her getting wet through her uniform
Proppin' her up on the black and white
Unzipped and slipped "ooo that's tight"
I swatted her like no SWAT team can
Turned a cherry pie right into jam
* * *
Descending waves of graceful pleasure
For your love there is no measure
Her curves they bend with subtle splendor
Now I lay me down to sleep
I pray the funk will make me freak
If I should die before I waked
Allow me Lord to rock out naked
Bored by the ordinary time to take a trip
Calling up a little girl with a bull whip
Lickety split go snap "snap"
Girl gettin' off all in my lap
The tallest tree the sweetest sap
Blowin' my ass right off the map
Ooo and it's nice out here
I think I'll stay for a while
Anyone else think the last couple minutes of this song sounds like Pink Floyd circa Atom Heart Mother? Not that there's anything wrong with that. OK, back to the news.
Annie Sprinkle questions the concept of "sex addiction". "Sex addiction often makes a disease out of what is often quite reasonable sexual behavior. It emphasizes negative aspects of sex. It takes away some of the personal responsibility for sexual choices and blames problems on a disease. It offers simple solutions to complex problems. Marty Klein points out that 'Sex addiction legitimizes sex-negative attitudes and supports sexual guilt.' It can make people feel bad if they simply have an active and varied sex life."
Things overheard at the STD clinic, a list compiled by nurses at a health clinic in St. Paul. "I have reason to believe my penis was exposed to LSD. When I ejaculate I have flashbacks."
German condom manufacturer Condomi is offering British college students $150 per semester to test and rate its products.
Mousemusings has many links with information on and opposition to the Dr. David Hager nomination.
Elaine Galloway writes, "Forget romance - the key to a lasting relationship lies in getting a good night's sleep. As the nation prepares for an extra hour in bed when the clocks go back this weekend, experts say the days of sharing a bed with a partner could well be numbered. Research has shown that our desire for undisturbed sleep is starting to replace our desire for intimacy, with 19 per cent of people questioned admitting they would love to sleep in separate beds - if only their partner would suggest it." The article continues with this bit of marsvenusery: "The study, which looked at the bedtime behaviour of more than 1,000 couples, found that almost half complained of being woken up at least six times a night. The most popular causes among women were snoring, while men complained that their partners hogged the bedclothes." At the end of the article, Galloway notes, "Despite the complaints, 89 per cent of people still felt sharing a bed was essential to keeping their love alive."
