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Web Log Archives: October 19, 2003 - October 25, 2003 Saturday, October 25, 2003
Cyberporn has become the raunchy wallpaper to these respectable lives. A 43-year-old trader at a prominent firm spends much of his downtime trading porn—everything from unauthorized photos of Hollywood stars to twisted S&M pics—with his colleagues. “It’s just something to amuse you when you’re bored,” he says. “It’s just there—like white noise.” [...] Over beers recently, a 26-year-old businessman friend shocked me by casually remarking, “Dude, all of my friends are so obsessed with Internet porn that they can’t sleep with their girlfriends unless they act like porn stars.” A 20-year-old college student who bartends at a popular Soho lounge describes how an I-porn-filled adolescence shaped his perceptions of sex. “Looking at Internet porn was pretty much my sex education,” he says. “I mean, in school, it was just, ‘Here’s a gigantic wooden dildo, and now we’re putting a condom on it,’ whereas on the Internet, you had it all. I remember the first time I had sex, my first thought as it was happening was, Oh, this is pornography. It was a kind of out-of-body experience. I was really uncomfortable with sex for a while.” In her more nuanced, less anecdotal article "The Porn Myth" Naomi Wolf writes: [Andrea Dworkin] was right about the warning, wrong about the outcome. As she foretold, pornography did breach the dike that separated a marginal, adult, private pursuit from the mainstream public arena. The whole world, post-Internet, did become pornographized. Young men and women are indeed being taught what sex is, how it looks, what its etiquette and expectations are, by pornographic training — and this is having a huge effect on how they interact. But the effect is not making men into raving beasts. On the contrary: The onslaught of porn is responsible for deadening male libido in relation to real women, and leading men to see fewer and fewer women as “porn-worthy.” Far from having to fend off porn-crazed young men, young women are worrying that as mere flesh and blood, they can scarcely get, let alone hold, their attention. There's a kernel of truth here, unnecessarily blown up into a cultural panic by both Amsden and Wolf. Porn is a pleasureable vice, and all pleasureable vices can become compulsive and self-destructive pursuits, usually when one is unhappy in life generally. But the vast majority of people find a way to balance indulgence of pleasureable vices with other aspects of life. Carly at Pornblography righteously rebuts Naomi Wolf at greater length. What I do agree with in Wolf’s article is that massive porn consumption does desensitize the viewer to some extent, in the sense that the more porn you watch the longer it takes for you to get turned on or get off. I definitely identify with this, and I’ve bemoaned the fact somewhat regularly here. . . . What disturbs me, though, is that Wolf claims that regular porn consumption actually makes men not want to have sex with real life women, as they didn’t hold the same interest that porn did. [...] To say that men are giving up on having sex with regular women due to porn consumption is the funniest damn thing I think I’ve ever read, and once again, blames porn for something that is a deeper seeded issue than what Wolf has originally lead the reader to believe… an issue that is outlined in the following excerpt: “The young women who talk to me on campuses about the effect of pornography on their intimate lives speak of feeling that they can never measure up, that they can never ask for what they want; and that if they do not offer what porn offers, they cannot expect to hold a guy. The young men talk about what it is like to grow up learning about sex from porn, and how it is not helpful to them in trying to figure out how to be with a real woman. Mostly, when I ask about loneliness, a deep, sad silence descends on audiences of young men and young women alike. They know they are lonely together, even when conjoined, and that this imagery is a big part of that loneliness. What they don’t know is how to get out, how to find each other again erotically, face-to-face.” That’s right, say it with me: insecurity. In cases where it affects one’s social interactions with others, rampant porn consumption is the symptom of insecurity, not the result. Great essay, right on target. Go read the whole thing. Heather Corinna also responds to Naomi Wolf. "You fucking yutz, Naomi." There's lots more, but that's the gist. Friday, October 24, 2003
Unlike Woody Allen's Orgasmatron, the device doesn't produce orgasms -- it just gets a woman ready for an orgasm, the company claims. Applied 10 to 20 minutes before sex, the company says the device's gentle, pulsating current brings its wearer to a state of sexual readiness, where the "slightest touch" can trigger an orgasm. Tech TV interviews a company exec and explains in more detail how it works. The device, sold largely over the Internet for just less than $200, looks nothing like a traditional sex toy. Women who use it stick two rubber plastic pads on their ankles and then plug the pads into a handheld control box the size of a Walkman. In theory, say the engineers, Slightest Touch stimulates accupressure points that link up with a woman's sensual nervous system. The company's FAQ insists that the machine is not a sex toy, but rather an "electronic device for human sexual pleasure." I'm guessing this weird hairsplitting is a Texas legal dodge.
The black rappers he watched in the Detroit clubs took on personae in their act, "rapping," as Bozza says, "a cocktail of serial killer-ology, black comedy, and ultra-violence." And comedy is the key to all this: any true reckoning of Eminem's forebears would include Lenny Bruce, Bill Hicks, and Richard Pryor, American comedians who were apt to make people's stomachs turn while they laughed up a storm. "Slim Shady," the character Eminem invented to speak filth and revenge on his behalf, is a dark-hearted comic: his pathology and nihilism is taken seriously by politicians, who have their own reasons for taking such things seriously. But I doubt the millions of people listening to the hell-bent ravings of Slim Shady are taking it the same way: they are loving the sound of it, admiring its smartness, its relevance. [...] Eminem's violent jokes and crudity are based on an understood distance between words and deeds that fans take for granted. He plays with those distances, for sure, and he puts pressure on the boundaries, but I'm all for that, given his skill with the microphone. Eminem can make the language dance and he can summon a wealth of true moments. Blogger Matthew Yglesias links to the piece, calling it "quite thoughtful" but taking NYRB to task for quoting the "radio version" of "My Name Is" rather than the original version. Actually it's more complicated than this. There are three (at least) versions of "My Name Is" in circulation: the original version, the CD version and the radio edit. Here is the contested verse in the original version: My English teacher wanted to have sex in junior high There were complaints about these (and other) lyrics before the Slim Shady LP was released. Eminem, Dr. Dre and the record company agreed to change the lyrics for the CD. Maybe the original version appeared on a single or early versions of the CD; I don't know. But if you buy the CD, you get this version (which NYRB quoted): My English teacher wanted to flunk me in junior high I've had an mp3 of the original version forever, and felt cheated when I bought the CD and heard this inoffensive, unfunny version. And then there's the radio edit (which is probably also what you'd hear on the "clean" CD release): My English teacher wanted to flunk me in junior high Then there are the various remixes, mashups and parodies floating around.
Once I got to Montreal, an evil acquaintance of mine planted some very bad information in my head, which would not come out: He said the Raelians hold wild sex parties filled with beautiful single women. Though I might not fully believe humans were created in a laboratory by aliens, I can always appreciate French-speaking hotties who like having unattached sex. A little paranoid, I made sure others knew where I’d be for the next hour and a half.
Heather Havrilesky: "Like a cross between 'Dynasty' and Baz Luhrmann's 'Romeo & Juliet' both in terms of style and content, the pilot of 'Skin' dashes at light speed over a gossamer-thin web of story lines, weaving the content of two suspense thrillers into one hour of flashy television. The story centers on a love affair between a pornographer's daughter and the D.A.'s son, but you probably know that already from one of the clumsy promos, in which mean D.A. daddy bellows, 'Can you imagine what will happen if the press gets ahold of this? The D.A.'s son and the pornographer's daughter? It could ruin me!' See how D.A. daddy only cares about his image? That jerk! See how porn daddy is ethnic-looking and thus much warmer and more human despite his naughty, naughty (but fun to ogle) empire? These are snippy cartoon characters spouting hopelessly literal lines that not even the most disciplined performance can save from the 'Mr. Toad's Wild Ride' of melodrama." Noel Holston: "'Skin' deals with the skin trade, albeit with an epidermal explicitness more reminiscent of a hot-tub frolic on 'The Bachelor' than a Penthouse pictorial. . . . In flesh-merchant Goldman, Silver has perhaps the most interesting, morally ambiguous TV character this side of Tony Soprano, and he makes both the doting father and the tough, shameless businessman credible. If Anderson is less successful, it's largely because his character, the vengeful D.A., isn't very believable as written. Indeed, the character undermines the show." James Poniewozik: "Is America ready to make a pornographer into the next Tony Soprano? Leonard and his stars say yes, on the grounds that porn is more 'mainstream' than ever. . . . Of course, if porn were truly mainstream, it would cease to be dirty and thus cease to be porn. . . . Perhaps because the producers want to avoid glamorizing porn with too light a tone, Skin is so high-mindedly determined to depict porn as a scourge or a big-money business that it forgets that porn would not exist if it wasn't also, for someone, pleasurable. Skin does an admirable job of showing us the politics, the culture, the angst of sex. Would the sexiness of sex be too much to ask for?" Alessndra Stanley: "One of those contrivances that are at once shameless and completely satisfying — the television equivalent of the designated hitter or Double Stuf Oreos. . . . Fox has pulled off a slick, clever melodrama that holds one's attention even when pole-dancing, thong-snapping adult entertainers are off the screen." David Kronke: "Fox's latest provocation, 'Skin,' is pretty ingenious, managing, as it does, to combine in its description of the program both the words 'Shakespearean' and 'pornography.'" Tim Goodman: "Did they really have to name him Adam Roame and her Jewel Goldman? Was the Romeo and Juliet hammer not hitting us with enough velocity?" Despite the megahype, the first episode's ratings were abysmal, so abysmal that the show will probably get cancelled within weeks. Fox is rerunning that first episode tonight. Wednesday, October 22, 2003
David Allsop and Stuart West, of the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, studied dozens of species of sex-changing creatures such as fish, worms, shrimp and mollusks and all of them followed the same rule when altering their gender. "Ninety-eight percent of the variation in the size at sex change across 121 species can be explained by this rule of 72 percent of maximum body size," Allsop, an evolutionary biologist said in an interview. Spontaneous sex change is relatively common in lower aquatic species with simple reproductive systems. Half of the creatures will change from male to female and the rest will switch the other way. Regardless of which way they change, the gender-altering creatures can still successfully reproduce afterwards. "They are mother and father in the same lifetime. That is the staggering thing about it," he added.
Talking sex in gay chat rooms and meeting teenage boys was just a way to bring young people to Jesus, says a South Florida youth minister arrested for luring children over the Internet, police say. [...] Police say they found a 15-year-old boy, whose name is being withheld, who they spotted walking away from Bennett's car. The boy told them Bennett asked for directions to his house and demanded he get in the car. The boy said he gave him a fake address and ran. The boy also told investigators he had communicated with Bennett in a gay chat room, where Bennett disguised himself as a young male, police say. A [Broward Sheriff's Office] press release states that the boy said Bennett told him online that he "wanted to come over and have anal sex. And teach me different sexual positions." Police say Bennett admitted that he talked sex with children online, but they said he told them he described sex acts only to gain their trust, then he could tell them about Jesus. Because the children are our future.
UPDATE: Susannah got a nice writeup in the New Orleans alt-weekly.
The internet has something for everyone who likes naked girls. (Links courtesy Geisha asobi, Indie Nudes and an old friend.)
The highlight of a Cuffs meeting this week was the film "Secretary," about an attorney and his assistant who find a common bond in masochism, or inflicting physical pain for pleasure. Howard and a dozen other students watched it in a small room at the ISU Memorial Union. Instead of popcorn, they snacked on "S&M's": a mix of Skittles and M&M's candies. OK, I try to be openminded about alternative sexualities, really I do . . . but Skittles and M&M's together?!? That's just disgusting. Tuesday, October 21, 2003
Here is what the health brochure says: "Findings from some studies suggest there is an increased risk of breast cancer among women who had an abortion, while findings from other studies suggest there is no increased risk." This implies an active debate on the issue, when in fact there is a consensus among eminent scientists that no link exists. Last February the National Cancer Institute brought together more than 100 of the world's leading experts on the subject to review all of the existing research. Their finding was unequivocal: "Induced abortion is not associated with an increase in breast cancer risk." This and other deceptive revisions to the brochure sparked criticism earlier this month.
The country as a whole had only 927 girls to every 1,000 boys in the 0-6 age group, at the dawn of the 21st century. This is in contrast to the world average of 1,045 females to 1,000 males. [...] The factors responsible for this scandalous trend are several. The technology for pre-birth sex determination is one, and this has led to the proliferation of female foeticide. More subtle methods of sex selectivity, such as discrimination in food and medical care for the girl child, have been pervasive over the years and may have got worse. Consequently, the infant death rate is relatively much higher in females. Social evils like the dowry system (and bride burning) and what is perceived as the lower income-earning capability of women (female labourers get lower wages) are also responsible for the poor care of female children. BBC News looked at the problem earlier this year. India Today has links to many articles from mostly Indian media sources about female infanticide and foeticide.
People have been telling me that cum gets rid of zits since I was sixteen years old. I remember my best friend Caroline saying, “It works. Look at me, I always get it on my face and I don’t have any zits.” She also insisted that if she didn’t have a boyfriend after a while she would break out. The verdict was that swallowing it was pretty good but nothing got rid of zits like getting it on your face. After years of standing by said rules I have decided to rent a tractor trailer and call a big, gigantic, heaping, six-thousand-million ton pile of bullshit on that school of thought. To prove it, my good friends Nick and Lisa put cum on one side of their face and moisturizer on the other FOR AN ENTIRE MONTH. (In my opinion, the use of shouting caps was unnecessary overkill there. That sentence had already built up a good wallop.) They took photos every week to document the experiment. Monday, October 20, 2003
Using two genetic testing methods, the researchers compared the production of genes in male and female brains in embryonic mice -- long before the animals developed sex organs. They found 54 genes produced in different amounts in male and female mouse brains, prior to hormonal influence. Eighteen of the genes were produced at higher levels in the male brains; 36 were produced at higher levels in the female brains. [...] "Our findings may explain why we feel male or female, regardless of our actual anatomy," said Vilain. "These discoveries lend credence to the idea that being transgender --- feeling that one has been born into the body of the wrong sex -- is a state of mind." At least for mice. Abstract. Sunday, October 19, 2003
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