Web Log Archives: March 09, 2003 - March 15, 2003
Saturday, March 15, 2003
Last month, Daze linked to Betty Dodson's critical piece on The Vagina Monologues and the V-Day phenomenon. "That's the main problem with 'V-Day': Women end up celebrating sexual violence and not the creative or regenerative pleasures of erotic love. Ending violence is a worthy cause and I'm all for it. But consistently equating sex with violence offers no solution." Marcy Sheiner wrote a powerful rebuttal called "Give V-Day a Chance" (originally published in the Spectator, reprinted here with the author's permission). "Betty Dodson's tirade against The Vagina Monologues and V-Day represents the worst thinking of the 'sex positive movement.' Like many sex radicals, Dodson can see no further than the clit or the tip of the penis. She certainly has the right to criticize any distortion of her own work in Eve Ensler's play — and it sounds as though Ensler was responsive to her critique. Beyond that, though, Dodson's essay is, in my opinion, misguided, self-serving and mean-spirited."
Friday, March 14, 2003
Spain's tourism board has withdrawn this ad — part of an international campaign with the slogan "Spain marks" — after complaints that it was sexist.
Turespana spokeswoman said, "We asked the Women's Institute what they thought, and they said it was positive, not sexist. In fact, there is also a version in which a man appears, so it is a balanced campaign."
Thursday, March 13, 2003
Still more fallout from the fake Puma ads here and here.
AP: "Pressure from uncomfortable skiers and other tourists has prompted the Grand Targhee Ski and Summer Resort [in Wyoming] to cover the second half of the name of one of its mountains. Mary's Nipple is now just Mary's, and signs with the word 'nipple' have been covered with tape. New signs were to arrive in about two weeks." (Thanks, Cowgirl.)
Ad Rag has more discussion of the fake Puma ads, plus an amazing (and possibly even real) blowjob-themed ad for Flirt Vodka.
Business Week asks, Will "french kiss" be next to go? "Why limit our name changes to food? French everything has to go. French horn? The freedom horn! French doors? Let-freedom-swing doors! French kiss? Now that's a tough one. How about the Kiss of Newt, in honor of the fallen House Speaker from Georgia, Newt Gingrich? Or the Clinton kiss? Yeah, that's the ticket."
More fallout from the fake Puma ads. If you missed them the first time, you can see the fake ads here with the trademarks photoshopped out.
Byron Beck interviews gay pornstar Jeff Stryker about his new side career as a country singer, his childhood and his renowned penis. "It's the same circumference of a late-model Cadillac radiator-hose...it's a trunk."
The Day I Will Never Forget is a documentary on female genital mutilation in Kenya. The title comes from a poem written by then eight-year-old Fouzia Hassan after her mutilation. "But it was at Sundance that the documentary created a storm, aided to a considerable extent by the presence of Fouzia and another central character in the film, Fardhosa Ali Mohamed, a health-care provider who works with the Somali immigrant community in the town of Eldoret. At a packed screening in Park City, Utah, Fouzia stood dignified and composed in her 'party frock' as the audience — many of them with tears still streaming down their cheeks — gave the two Kenyans a standing ovation." HBO plans to air the film later this year.
"Fifty years ago, George Mansour was arrested for having sex with another man behind closed doors at a private party. What was it like to have your name smeared across the true-crime tabloids at age 19?" At the Boston Phoenix, Michael Bronski looks back on the case and interviews the older, wiser and very funny Mansour. (Link snagged from Uffish Thoughts.)
Wednesday, March 12, 2003
Last week Daze linked to a story about plans for a dog brothel in Germany. Blogger Daniel Radosh points out that this is probably a prank based on a classic 70s prank perpetrated by culture jammer Joey Skaggs, who placed an ad in the Village Voice touting a "Cat House for Dogs featuring a savory selection of hot bitches." Outrage and hilarity ensued.
Tristan Taormino profiles fellow anal guru Adam Glasser, aka Seymore Butts, in her biweekly column.
OK, I'm as patriotic as the next guy, but this is getting ridiculous. An anonymous Daze reader sent me this photo of a Nevada brothel "menu" taken yesterday.
Unreal.
Tuesday, March 11, 2003
Turns out those nasty Puma ads were indeed fakes.
Another giant snow penis. Dude, help me, I'm stuck!
The Cheeky Girls are sort of the Tatu of Romania, except twin sisters rather than lesbians. At their official website, you can download the video for their hit single "Cheeky Song (Touch My Bum)", or play the Touch My Bum flash game. (Link snagged from Six Different Ways.)
Iranian Women Rally for Equal Rights. "Hundreds of Iranian women marked International Women's Day on Saturday with a demonstration demanding equal social and political rights to men, a first in this conservative male-dominated country since the 1979 Islamic revolution." Photo.
Nancy San Martin in the Miami Herald reports on an abortion controversy in Nicaragua.
The story of [nine-year-old] la niņa Rosa began when she became pregnant as a result of a rape in Costa Rica. When they found out, her parents brought her back to Nicaragua. Doctors performed an abortion, even though abortions are generally against the law here.
On Monday, the attorney general announced that the abortion was therapeutic -- thus, legal -- but that is unlikely to douse the fires of controversy. The Catholic Church plans to fight hard to do away with the abortion law entirely, eliminating exceptions to the ban. Activists say they will lobby to broaden current legislation to make abortions legal in cases involving sexually abused minors such as la niņa Rosa.
For god's sake, she's nine! Not allowing a safe, legal abortion in extreme cases like this would be barbaric.
The latest Vanity Fair has a photograph of pornstars Jenna Jameson, Taylor Hayes and Savanna Samson splashed across two pages, shot by David LaChapelle. The accompanying text reads in part, "Take the old studio-contract system, update it for pornography--Louis B. Mayer, meet Larry Flynt--and voila: more adult-film stars than there are in heaven! That was the inspiration behind the Vivid Entertainment Group, said to be porn's biggest company, which markets its actresses the way MGM used to sell Judy Garland and Ann Rutherford." (Quality scan and transcription courtesy of the Reverse Cowgirl.)
Sex in Prehispanic Times is a fascinating online exhibition of works from Ecuador's Central Bank National Museum.
This piece is entitled "Whistle with disproportionate phallus."
Monday, March 10, 2003
An inevitable offshoot of the stripper memoir trend: David Steinberg reviews a new book about strip club patrons, G-Strings and Sympathy: Strip Club Regulars and Male Desire by Katherine Frank.
Fetish Diva Midori explains why objectifying women is a turn-on. "These days it’s easy to explain why flogging, bondage, and even heavier play such as piercings are such a turn-on: We blame it on the neural chemicals and other physiological effects. It seems biologically accountable, and this makes us feel comfortable. We find justification of sexual acts in theories of organic pre-determinism of pleasure. Nonphysical taboos, such as sexual arousal from objectification of others or being objectified, still makes us nervous, because we can’t explain it away. Because it’s still politically incorrect, even within the SM/Leather/Fetish community, to acknowledge that we do things to strip away humanity from a person for pleasure and play." Accompanying this essay are three photos from Midori's rope bondage classes.
The Santa Fe New Mexican profiles Anita Stansfield, pioneer of the Mormon romance novel. "Crack open most romance novels and you'll find sex within the first 100 pages, then something sexual in nearly every chapter. Then there's the Mormon romance novel, where there's no sex at all and the first kiss is likely to come after the wedding engagement." Stansfield says, "I have always felt the long, detailed sex scenes are an insult to our intelligence because we all know how it works. The women I talked to ... they want the romance, but they don't want to read all the pornographic details."
