Web Log Archives: April 27, 2003 - May 03, 2003
Saturday, May 3, 2003
Kaajal Wallia writes in The Times of India: "Sex seems to be the latest mantra for the hit-starved Hindi film industry. Inspired by the season’s only success story Jism starring the bold and beautiful Bipasha Basu, film-makers are on a sex overdrive: Six small budget films with a lot of flesh and some sex scenes are either under production or scheduled for release. But, is the recent trend solely driven by market economics or is the Hindi cinema finally growing up to sex? 'It is partly the Jism effect,' says film trade analyst Amod Mehra, adding that sex always sells."
Spencer Tunick hosted a mass nude photo shoot inside Selfridges department store in London last week. 600 models stripped and posed on floors and escalators. (At the end of the article, click "Gallery: Nude show at Selfridges" for eight photos in a pop-up window.)
UPDATE: Gavin of Take One Onion participated in the shoot and posted a personal account and his own photographs (taken before and after the main event, no nudity).
New York Times: Senator in Heated Exchange With Parents of Gay Children.
Four parents of gay children had a fiery private exchange tonight with Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania. The meeting did not go well, and Mr. Santorum, who has infuriated gays by likening homosexuality to incest and bigamy, left in a hurry, tripping over a chair, the parents said.
"What we tried to do in this meeting was reach him on a human level, and we found no humanity there," said Melina Waldo, a former constituent of Mr. Santorum who lives in Haddonfield, N.J. She said he was "condescending, belligerent, argumentative and arrogant."
How did I miss this? Yesterday was No Pants Day in Austin. (Link snagged from Excitement Machine.)
NYC porn shops may have relocated to Eighth Avenue, but Debra Hyde adds:
You know what the real current story about NYC sex is? The closings of just about every public dungeon in the city. Hellfire (aka The Manhole) closed months ago and although the management has worked to secure a new location, the silence in recent weeks tells me their attempts have failed. The absence of a website says a lot. The Lure closed just last month, citing an astronomical rise in insurance. And Paddles is fighting for its life after, if I remember correctly, being cited for code violations. Community fundraisers are underway to pay for its legal and architectural fees.
There's still plenty of private dungeons around, but the public venues where you could just drop by on a whim (OK, and a whip) are vanishing quickly. And with them goes a way of life, leisurely speaking.
Friday, May 2, 2003
Alabama legislators voted this week to keep the ban on sex toys in the state's obscenity law, even though a federal judge has twice rule the ban unconstitutional.
Catherine Zeta-Jones and Michael Douglas are threatening legal action against Clear Channel over paparazzi photos which show Zeta-Jones topless, pregnant and smoking. Most of Clear Channel's generic radio stations with generically wacky DJs have generically wacky websites, and many of those sites posted the Zeta-Jones nude smoking preggo pics. The Smoking Gun prints the letter to Clear Channel from Zeta-Jones and Douglas's lawyers. The couple also recently won a lawsuit against Hello! for publishing unauthorized photos of their wedding.
As Gawker points out, however, "despite Mrs. Jones' reminder that she and her 'cabana boy' spouse Michael Douglas won their lawsuit against Hello! it wasn't on the basis of a privacy violation. They had an exclusive contract with another publication for publication of their wedding photos, and Hello! ruined the exclusivity aspect." In this case, the photographer snapped them outdoors at a vacation resort, which hardly leaves them much ground to suppress the photos. So for the sake of free speech and much-deserved humiliation, here they are So for the sake of not being sued for several million dollars, here they aren't.
[At the request of Lavely & Singer, litigation counsel for Catherine Zeta-Jones and Michael Douglas, Daze Reader has agreed to cease and desist displaying these photos.]
Larger versions are still available at many Clear Channel station sites [links removed].
Thursday, May 1, 2003
Fun Onion review of The Real Cancun: "With the Internet, Girls Gone Wild tapes, and amateur Mardi Gras videos teeming with nubile exhibitionists, this may be a Golden Age for gleaming hardbodies, but one of the consequences is that gross inflation has caused skin to lose much of its erotic currency. So the idea of bringing an R-rated variation on MTV's The Real World to the big screen — complete with wet-T-shirt contests, body shots, and surveillance-cam hook-ups — has already lost most of its skanky cachet. . . . Save for the diminished allure of drunk, naked hotties, there's nothing of worth in The Real Cancun (or Pepsi Presents: Intercourse), which squeezes the spring-break adventures of 16 handpicked nitwits into 90 minutes of chaotic, borderline-experimental cinema."
Noah Shachtman reports that on p2p filesharing networks, smut trading outstrips tune swaps.
Bible Sex Stories — "The Bible includes countless tales of raw, forbidden sex. We've gathered some of the best bible sex stories here, filling in what you didn't learn in Sunday school."
Brilliant satire: Nasty Rick's Man-on-Dog Action!
Sodomy Tour 2003. Four Days. Four States. Four Infamous Crimes Against Nature. "In advance of the Supreme Court's decision, The Stranger sent David Schmader to tour the four states whose homo-only sodomy laws could soon be declared unconstitutional--and to commit some good old-fashioned illegal sodomy for perhaps the last time."
Sometimes3’s Banned Books has an amazing collection of vintage sexploitation paperback covers.
The books are for sale, though most are marked "sold" already. (Link snagged from Amorous Propensities.)
Wednesday, April 30, 2003
Lady Miss Kier of Deee-lite ("Groove is in the Heart") is suing Sega over the videogame Space Channel 5, claiming the game's lead character Ulala "bears a striking physical similarity and likeness to plaintiff."
William Dean looks at spring fertility festivals in various cultures and eras: the Kanamara festival in Japan, the Fastnacht in Switzerland, the Lupercalias of ancient Rome, the May Pole dance and more. Good selection of sidebar links.
Courtney Cox's Asshole is a hilarious short story about anal bleaching (not just, but that's the dazeworthy angle) by Jill Soloway. (Link snagged from Reverse Cowgirl.)
Reuters: "Circumcised men appear to have the same degree of penis sensitivity as men who are uncircumcised, a new study suggests -- in a finding that will probably just add fuel to the fire of a controversial subject debated for years. The findings are to be presented Tuesday by Dr. Arnold Melman at a meeting of the American Urological Society in Chicago."
UPDATE: Based on this new research, Moxie's chatsters are debating crewnecks vs turtlenecks (click on "comments").
Get your own personalized cam girl boobies shout-out. Woohoo, she likes me! (Link snagged from Quit That.)
Latest Santorum news:
Anti-Santorum punditry:
Pro-Santorum punditry:
The Young and Bawer pieces are the most worth reading.
Virginia Vitzthum writes about her experiences with an online dating site for singles age 40-60.
My status: Single. Age: 41. I'm not thrilled to join this demographic army, but since I have, I'm more than an observer tagging along. I hope to get in bed with a source.
We're all the same when we're filling out our online dating profile; it's a democracy of self-display in the little boxes for favorite books and movies, hobbies, pets, political affiliation. For "Body," I check "Slender," "Athletic," "Muscular," "Average" and "Could Lose a Few Pounds" to communicate the static of womanhood in America and still seem hot. My mature dream guy will get the joke. He'll also get my screen name: "barely legal."
World-famous sexpert Daze will be joining this demographic army later this year. (Note: this is a Salon premium article, but you can read the whole article by agreeing to click through a Flash ad for Mr. Personality, and c'mon who wouldn't want to watch that?)
New gaming company Valar Project is developing Book of Erotic Fantasy, "the first roleplaying game, compatible with the best selling Dungeons & Dragons fantasy roleplaying game, that deals directly with sex and sexuality." From the press release:
A generation of fantasy roleplaying game enthusiasts grew up wondering what the elf maiden looked like without those gauzy robes. . . .“The gaming community is mostly college age and up”, says Anthony Valterra, one of the founders of Valar Project. “For years the subject of sex in a fantasy world has been whispered about in private or the subject of Internet speculation. We are simply taking a subject that everyone is curious about and bringing it to life.”
Valar Project is sparing no expense in creating a product that is innovative in its design and in its imagery. All the images in the book use live models digitally enhanced from photographs. This process allows for realistic images of elves, fairies, nymphs and other standard fantasy characters. Readers will be captivated by this provocative look at the erotic side of medieval fantasy.
Valterra also works for Wizards of the Coast, the company which owns Dungeons & Dragons. They're not amused by Valterra's extracurricular enterprise.
Wizards of the Coast is in no way associated with the product, "The Book of Erotic Fantasy," referenced recently on [websites]. We find the subject matter distasteful and inappropriate and do not endorse, condone, or approve of its use with the Dungeons & Dragons game. While the [Open Game License] allows anyone, even our employees, to produce products that are compatible with Dungeons & Dragons, Wizards does not approve or control the theme of any third-party D20 product.
(Thanks, Vann.)
More fun with paper dolls: Hiromix (Japanese artist); Marlys (by Lynda Barry); Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen (for GameBoy).
Dave Patrick at Spectator reviews an exhibition by Rob Nay, "the hardest-working sex-industry photographer in San Francisco" (with fifteen thumbnailed photos).
Tuesday, April 29, 2003
David Mazzotta at Kuro5hin reviews Casino Royale, the first James Bond novel by Ian Fleming, published fifty years ago. Among his observations:
It will surprise no one that Bond is an unrepentant misogynist. When finding himself paired with a female agent - the lust-inducing Vesper Lynd - he is disgusted in spite of his sexual attraction to her. Bond firmly maintains that women are only "for recreation", and declares her to be a "stupid bitch" - although not to her face, gangsta rap having yet to make that fashionable. Yet, as a chivalrous woman-hater, he is compelled to go on a dangerous pursuit when she is kidnapped by the Evil Villain. This act of overt male heroism ends with Bond getting tortured by having his genitals beaten so badly that it takes him weeks in a hospital to recover. Upon recovery, he is consumed with a desire to bed Vesper Lynd in an effort to prove he can still, ahem, perform as man. Dwelling too long on the symbolism of this theme will make your head explode.
Discussion threads follow about cocktails, baccarat, whether SMERSH was a real organization, what it means to say Bond was a "Straight" and more. (Link snagged from Boing Boing.)
Monday, April 28, 2003
From summer 2001: naked inline skating in Golden Gate Park (photos). More articles, photos and tips in the guide to skating naked at skategrrl.com.
Great New York Times profile of Jane Juska, retired English teacher and author of A Round-Heeled Woman: My Late-Life Adventures in Sex and Romance. Four years ago, she placed this personal ad in The New York Review of Books:
Before I turn 67 — next March — I would like to have a lot of sex with a man I like. If you want to talk first, Trollope works for me.
Needless to say, she got plenty of responses. "It turns out that Ms. Juska did indeed have a lot of sex with a lot of men she liked, and still does, having seen one of them as recently as that morning. He's 35. Which might explain the lower-back problem."
Sunday, April 27, 2003
A West Yorkshire woman invented a small plastic clitoral stimulator that fits over the finger, for which she received a nomination for the British Female Inventor of the Year award. Alas she didn't win — the top prize went to the inventor of a lightweight ergonomic fork used for mucking out stables.
The annual Naked Mile at the University of Michigan has all but died out. UM administration and Ann Arbor police have cracked down on the end-of-semester midnight run in recent years, and many students have become disillusioned with the event. The lacrosse and rowing teams, which helped launch the event in the 80s, dropped their support in 2000 citing "the large crowds and the heavy emphasis on taking pictures for the Internet." The event used to draw nearly 1000 naked runners, but participation has dropped sharply over the last four years. Only five students ran in this year's Naked Mile, all of whom were arrested. The Michigan Daily ran several pieces before this year's Naked Mile night.
A 1998 Daily article discussed the issue of smuthounds videotaping and photographing the event for softcore videos and internet sites. Nakedmile.com has news links about past Naked Miles (and also sells very pricey videos). And Coccozella has a thumbnailed gallery of photos from the glory days.
In today's New York Times: The evicted Times Square porn shops have reemerged a few blocks away, on Eighth Avenue between Penn Station and the Port Authority. "Because there are no churches, schools or parks in the area, the porn places are legal, even under the strict quality-of-life laws instituted under former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani. Their owners are also willing to pay more than double market rents." And an article in the Fashion & Style section notes that "a certain clique of New Yorkers are happy that, despite all the attempts to burnish the city into a shiny tourist attraction, some of its traditional grime and grit seem to be returning. . . . It's an attitude — calling it a movement would be a stretch — that combines equal parts yuppie-go-home schadenfreude and a new middle-class sedition, a sense of rebellion that may best be typified by the surprisingly widespread defiance of the recent smoking ban."
This is one of the coolest sites I've seen in a while: the Unholy Army of Catholic School Girls, featuring the Unholy Army Dress Up Fun Page .
At Unzipped, "men who hook up in Internet chat rooms share their stories — the good, the bad and the ugly." One hooker-upper says, "Internet chat rooms are the best thing to ever happen to my sex life. I never liked the bars, was never good at approaching strangers, and I don’t like to drink. And I know that after I make a connection in a chat room, we’ll be sucking dick in an hour." Aside from that whole bigotry thing, gay guys have all the luck. (Link snagged from Banana Guide.)
