Web Log Archives: March 16, 2003 - March 22, 2003
Saturday, March 22, 2003
Simon Doonan in the New York Observer claims that "the latest fad beauty treatment from the West Coast" is anus bleaching. "Whispers and innuendoes about this shocking new procedure—and the celebs who bleach—were jump-started by a snippet in the now-defunct Talk magazine. The Richard-Gere-gerbil-rumor-like frenzy has unfairly (I hope) zeroed in on ultra-thin thespian Lara Flynn Boyle. The wicked Web rumor mill has caused the talented and lovely star of The Practice to be ordained as the official Internet patron saint of anus-bleaching."
My first response was "Ow!" My second response was "Ick!" My third response was "this sounds bogus", so I did some googling.
There are several earlier mentions of anal bleaching, but that could just mean that Doonan picked up on a longstanding hoax or urban legend. Spraggwoman wrote last July about the anal bleaching phenomenon, which she heard about from a British magazine editor who heard about it from a staffer. The following month in the Sunday Times, Maria McErlane mentioned hearing "speculation about celebrity anal bleaching" at a London party. The Talk item appeared in the October 2001 issue. The earliest mention I could find was an August 2000 Usenet post from New Zealand, again in the "I heard somewhere that ..." vein.
If you're so inclined, you can read Usenet mentions of the Lara Flynn Boyle rumor here and here and here. (Warning: if you don't want the image of "having anal sex with Jack Nicholson" stuck in your head, don't click these links. Oops, sorry, too late.)
Doonan appears to be exaggerating when we says "Web sites focus instead on bleaching tips, as if sharing ingredients for an apple-pie recipe." The only instance he mentions, and the only instance I found via Google, is an "Anal Advisor" column by Tristan Taormino answering a reader question, "Is there any way of making my anus more pink or lighter in color? Mine is dark and I hate it — any suggestions?" This column doesn't exactly offer "bleaching tips." Taormino mentions some products commonly used to bleach skin, but firmly advises against using those products on your anus. If there are other websites sharing tips and ingredients for do-it-yourself anal bleaching, I couldn't find them via Google.
All sounds like an urban legend to me.
Amy Roe looks at the rise of Suicide Girls in Portland's alt-weekly. "With an image more evocative of an indie record label than an adult entertainment company, Suicide Girls has become the code word for a new, sex-positive brand of cool. And within a certain stratum of 18- to 25-year-old women, being a SG commands considerable bragging rights. Suicide Girls doesn't do model searches or solicit participants--there's no need. In just 18 months it has become the club every hipster chick worth her ripped fishnets wants to join."
At Nightcharm, John Calendo riffs on the Michael Jackson-Martin Bashir affair. "What you are about to see is bizarre, unsettling ... and riveting." Indeed. (OK, this is old news by a matter of weeks, but a fun worthwhile read.)
The work of aristocratic bohemian writer Edith Templeton, now 86, is undergoing a revival. Last year Pantheon published the collection The Darts of Cupid and Other Stories, the title story of which appeared in The New Yorker in 1968. And earlier this month Pantheon reissued Templeton's novel Gordon, an autobiographical account of a sadomasochistic affair first published pseudonymously in 1966. Laurie Stone reviews Gordon (LA Times registration required) and compares Templeton to other notable women writers about sex.
To hear Templeton's voice is to realize how rare it is and how valuable. Compared to the assured, swaggering male sexual memoir, the female sexual story is just learning to walk, and for the most part it has ventured forth with decided leanings. Jean Rhys and Marguerite Duras list toward entrapment and melancholy. Anais Nin withholds candor. Pauline Reage writes from inside the trance state rather than about it. More recently, in "The Sexual Life of Catherine M.," memoirist Catherine Millet prettifies her appetite for debasement as a form of sacrifice and spiritual longing. Performance artists Holly Hughes and Karen Finley celebrate female parts and practices to defy their being veiled. Templeton has no political, moral or clinical agenda, no grievances, no record to set straight. She stands so squarely in the light, she doesn't cast any sort of shadow, and this allows the reader freedom to enter her world, a realm where precise description is everything, where we understand the way her speakers feel from the way they see things.
The SF Chronicle has a less positive review. Debra Hyde provides invaluable historical background on the early publication and censorship of Gordon and the recent Templeton revival. "Yesteryear's foul smut is today's literary work of art." You can read the first chapter of Gordon at the New York Times. (Links snagged from the always excellent Pursed Lips.)
Thursday, March 20, 2003
The Guardian: "Italians will soon be able to play at being prostitutes in a Monopoly-style board game in which players must dodge police raids, turf wars and serial killers to earn a living. In Puttanopoly (which roughly translates to Whoresville), eight players become immigrant prostitutes enslaved by the mafia. The game, created by the Committee for Prostitutes' Civil Rights, aims to raise awareness of the growing problem of sex slavery."
Gay City News: "The Black Party, an institution in New York gay life for more than two decades that will draw thousands of men––fetishists, leather aficionados, weekend warriors, and ordinary party boys––to the West Side’s Roseland Ballroom on March 22, has come under fire for the principal image chosen to promote this year’s event. The image, a Polaroid shot of a young, handsome, full-featured man with a seriously blackened eye, a split lip, damp hair, and neck marks that could be hickeys or might be bruises, was used as the invitation to the party sponsored by the Saint at Large." Those of you who weren't invited can see the controversial invitation image at the Saint at Large website. (Thanks, Gary.)
The reverse cowgirl presents a great comic (graphic memoir?) about one man's lifelong relation to porn: "Porn Again" by Peter Kuper. Honest and brilliant.
Wednesday, March 19, 2003
Wyyrd offers tips on how to protect your porn in time of war.
At Clean Sheets, William Dean reviews Patrick Califia-Rice's new book, Speaking Sex to Power, a collection of essays from the last decade. "They span, unapologetically, the period when he was identified as a lesbian, a leather-dyke, and through his transsexuality. They are not -- be warned -- the sort of reading that will wet your panties or make a tent in your jeans. Instead -- hopefully -- these essays will make your mind a more sexually aware place, charge up the synapses with both questions and answers, and broaden your vision about sex altogether."
Dick Smothers Jr., son of half of the Smothers Brothers, has launched a career in porn. Dad says, "My first reaction was, 'What name are you going to use?' ... He says he's going to use his name, and I said, 'Wait a minute. That's my name. I had it first.'" Cmon, if your real name is Dick Smothers, why bother to make up a fake porno name?
Tuesday, March 18, 2003
My mother's penis is hot pink. Vibrator poetry by Carissa Neff.
Another barbie porn gallery, nicely designed but not all that imaginative. The prominent copyright notices on every page are a hilarious touch.
PayPal will no longer handle payments for adult content. "In a new series of guidelines governing 'mature audiences,' PayPal said it will process transactions for pre-1980 adult-oriented items bought at online auctions and the like, but it will no longer process memberships to adult Websites or payments for sexually oriented videos, magazines, or photographs made after 1980." This article at GuluFuture notes, "The PayPal move on 13th March is a significant change of policy. Adult porn sources confirmed to GuluFuture that around six months ago webmasters of larger adult sites received solicitations from account managers at PayPal to use their service for adult material. PayPal representatives also attended the 2002 Phoenix Forum -- a premier conference for webmasters of adult sites." (Tinfoil helmet alert: If you scroll down the page, you'll find a link to another GuluFuture article claiming that Bill Clinton was involved in the 9/11 terrorist attacks.) (Thanks, Shan.)
Porn industry to get state regulation in California? "Los Angeles County health officials are urging the state to more vigorously regulate the local adult-film business in order to reduce public health and workplace safety problems in the industry. The move comes after the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors ordered an investigation by its health department into the industry, which is predominantly based in the San Fernando Valley. . . . Health officials recommended that the Board of Supervisors seek state regulations that would specifically require adult-film actors to use condoms and be tested for a variety of communicable diseases, including HIV and hepatitis."
Pornblography offers hilarious, mostly discouraging advice to aspiring male pornstars.
Declan McCullagh provides a more in-depth account of last week's Congressional hearings on porn on peer-to-peer networks. Molelog has a sensible followup.
Monday, March 17, 2003
The NYU student new media magazine Read Me profiles alt-porn entrepreneur Lux Nightmare, a 20-year-old college student and founder of That Strange Girl. "I don't think porn is degrading. The bulk of alternaporn is just, like, 'Look! Cute girls who don't have implants!' I want people to look at my site and have sex, as opposed to the 'normal' Internet porn-patron, for whom online porn is a solo indulgence."
Shocking revelation in Congressional hearing! "The same technology used to download music from file-sharing sites makes it possible to trade pornography, tech experts testified at a Capitol Hill hearing Thursday." Just wait til they find out about Usenet.
Rude Food collects photos of items with unintentionally (and usually unappetizingly) suggestive brand names. Like Wacky Packages, only real.
I love the internet. (Link snagged from Presurfer.)
The Icelandic Phallological Museum touts itself as "probably the only museum in the world to contain a collection of phallic specimens belonging to all the various types of mammal found in a single country."
Probably. (Link snagged from Geisha asobi.)
