Hey guess what? I'm hosting my very first Sex-Posi blog carnival!
Send me your nominations by August 20th, and let's knock everyone's eyes out...
This carnival, inaugurated in March, has a very long name:
The Feminist Carnival of Sexual Freedom and Autonomy!
Some of my favorite bloggers have been hosting this year's editions so far... here's the emmient list. Take a look around for inspiration, but please note that we can stretch all boundaries!
I'm giving my edition a nickname:
It's The SexPosiFemiNisty Carnival With Sticky Treats and Prizes!
Readers are the key to any Carnival's success. I may be annotating your nominations, and throwing in my two cents, but there's no substitute for your roving eyes and critical insights.
Please email me any sexual-politics-related blog stories you've read this summer that you thought were well-written, original, funny, touching, outrageous, furious—and again, WELL WRITTEN.
It can be visual, too, come to think of it. Floor me!
You can certainly send me more than one link... I love seeing your tastes. You can also post your nominations below, in the comments. I'll tak'em by bird, plane, any mode you choose.
I'll read all your suggestions, and pick my favorites to feature and write about. I'll publish the winners the first week of September!
And one more thing: If you suggest a "winning" blog post, not only will I credit and link to you with admiration, I'll also send you the latest ebook of Best American Erotica. —I told you it was sticky! Send me your URL if you want to be praised with a link.
Thank you so much to Caroline Shepherd for inviting me to do this in the first place...
I found out from Paul Krassner that George Carlin's daughter, Kelly, quoted my obit during her family memorial.
I'm so touched! It's just not the same without him around.
Carlin had the most perfect last words on dying:
"The most unfair thing about life is the way it ends. I mean, life is tough. It takes up a lot of your time. What do you get at the end of it? A Death! What's that, a bonus?
"I think the life cycle is all backwards. You should die first, get it out of the way. Then you live in an old age home. You get kicked out when you're too young, you get a gold watch, you go to work. You work forty years until you're young enough to enjoy your retirement. You do drugs, alcohol, you party, you get ready for high school. You go to grade school, you become a kid, you play, you have no responsibilities, you become a little baby, you go back into the womb, you spend your last nine months floating......and you finish off as an orgasm."
On my audio show this week, I reminisce about Carlin, and then— on another subject!— talk about the past and current state of "inter-racial" porn, which is like The Theater of the Absurd, antebellum-style:
To my amazement, John McCain has decided to make his entire TV campaign about stimulating the imaginary, yet titillating "horror" of Obama sullying the specter of white, and particularly, blond, womanhood. Any one of his ads that juxtapose Barack with Paris or Britney feel like they came right out of a peep show arcade. It's out of the Karl Rove playbook, to be sure. This is the guy whose entire "oeuvre" consists of perverse race and sex baiting. Focus on the other guy's cock, and your election is in the bag. I can't wait 'til he dies, and the "Rovian Porn Archives" are revealed. I'm sure his rivals the Vatican's.
Finally, in my Try This at Home" mailbag, I get a letter from a listener who asks, "Hospital Sex. Am I crazy, or does it really happen? Is it weird to be horny while recuperating from surgery?"
Darling, it's the most natural thing in the world...
Don't forget, you can send your confidential questions and feedback about the show to susie@audible.com. (Episode 352, Aug. 8, 2008)
Photo Credit: Laurel & Hardy in The Battle of the Century, 1927. Over 4000 real pies were employed in the climactic battle of the custards.
Tristan Taormino, Vivid Video's celebrated movie maker, author of Ultimate Guide to Anal Sex for Women and editor of the Best Lesbian Eroticaseries, has done it again: she's written a hands-on book, titled Opening Up, A Guide to Creating and Sustaining Open Relationships— about how to deal with all the issues that come up with non-monogamy.
Susie puts Tristan to the test! What if your lover throws a jealous fit at every play party and then denies it? How do you have kids and stay the course in a poly family? What if one partner is on the prowl and the other couldn't care less? Why do monogamous folks think they're doing any better? These two get a little carried away.....
If you like this sample and want to hear more, you can subscribe (for $2 a show) to my weekly show at Audible.com. I'm offering a 12-episode season on iTunes to give new listeners a taste.
Painting by: John Weiss. I got a wild hair to illustrate this story with photo stills of the old TV show, "Three's Company," but this portrait by popped up in my search. They're so much deeper.
Today, on my In Bed podcast, we
look into the politics of AIDS, and why "telling the big lies" is endemic to every funding and policy opportunity.
I interview author and epidemiologist Elizabeth Pisani about her new book The Wisdom of Whores: Bureaucrats,
Brothels and the Business of AIDS— a bracing look at how AIDS is perceived, sexually and politically, around the world.
I asked Elizabeth, if "number of partners" really does count, in certain situations, how do you do prevention education that isn't religious, moralistic, or hypocritical?
Finally, in my Try This at Home mailbag: What do you say to a listener
who asks; help, my new husband is forty years old and he's completely
in the dark about sex!
Don't forget, you can send your confidential questions and feedback about the show to susie@audible.com. (Episode 350, July 25, 2008)
Yesterday I heard from a feminist PhD candidate who is looking into the history of black actresses in porn.
To my amazement, she'd discovered that a million years ago (1986!) I'd written a story about the phenomenon of "black and inter-racial" videos in the porn biz for Adult Video News. She asked me if I could dig up a copy.
In traditional porn parlance, "inter-racial" used to imply "Black And White." Period.
Before the 90s, you didn't have any such thing as "multi-culturalism" in porn. There weren't any scenes with a Latina actress/Asian actor— or a bi-racial triad. This was before the amateur explosion, before the Internet, before DVDs.... you know, the Jurassic Age. "Black" sex movies were a tiny niche that were primarily sold to regional markets; no one talked about them.
All the directors of these films, at that time, were white— often people who dreaded their assignment:
Drea remembers her astonishment when she found out that a lot of her viewing audience assumed that she was black. In fact, Drea is a blonde who grew up in a segregated Chicago neighborhood. She remembers, "When Harold Washington first got elected (Chicago's first black mayor), my father was going to get a gun and shoot himself."
"After every black video I'd make," says Drea, "I'd always say, 'I'll never shoot another Black video again. Never.'"
In porn starlet interviews from these early days, they'd pose questions like, "What Won't You Do on Camera?"
The most common reply from a blond ingenue would be, "I don't do anal, and I don't do blacks." Instead of greeting that statement with laughter or disbelief, everyone would just say, "Oh yeah, of course."
As for black actors, the situation, as you'll read in my story, makes Blacksploitation film look like William Lloyd Garrison's Liberator.
And... the real treat in all this, if you hunt around, is the single "Black Power" porn film that was made in 1974, called Lialeh. It was produced by Aretha Franklin's drummer at the time, Bernard Purdy. Purdy furnishes a soundtrack that puts most porn films to shame, as you can imagine. (See video clip here). Classic Woodstock Soul Meets The Panthers! I can watch this cult classic today and still get the biggest kick out of it.
When I started researching the story, I was taken aback by the prejudices and superstitions in the business. Everyone was so frank about their own racism, frustration, and cynicism. Porn biz people were outspoken about what Hollywood people had learned to keep to themselves, and off the record. If any of it blows your mind, don't imagine that these industry diehards were exceptional!
In 1987, no one wrote about porn for the mainstream press. I was the first to interview many of these people on any topic, let alone politics. AVN was produced in Pennsylvania at the time, just a small operation, and they were horrified by what I turned in. They killed the original story, and ran an aborted-version instead. It's a trade magazine, designed to promote and champion the industry— they weren't interested in critical views. I was... 20-something, naive, crushed.
So here it is, the quaint original... I hope you'll forgive my youthful stylings and typewriter errors, but it sure has a lot to savor:
Today, on my In Bed podcast, I've made a special hour and a half compilation of my most personal interviews and oral histories of women in the porn business.
It starts with my memories of Linda Lovelace, whom I encountered in some of those "Only in LA" moments that define the 1970s for me. I witnessed her crowning stage moment at Cal Jam 1 on my first acid trip, in 10th grade...just for starters! The phenomenon of her career and my own early impressions of porn are inseparable. I recorded this before her untimely death.
Another personal history here is my memories of Traci Lords. I covered Traci as a Penthouse film critic, (and, bizarrely, appeared with her in the same movie, The Grafenberg Spot), before her revelations that she was working as an underage performer.
The other audio segments are frank interviews with my friends about their personal and professional lives in the sex business.
I've been sisters and colleagues with these women for many years... we don't put on an act, or dress up the facts. There's no politically-correct, cheerleading for porn—trying to make it cute for the mike. You may have never heard women talk about sex this way, and if you have, you're going to feel in very good company!
Don't forget, you can send your confidential questions and feedback about the show to susie@audible.com.
Photo Credit: Honey Lee Cottrell, 1984, Kathy Andrew's first leatherwork studio, for On Our Backs
Today, on my In Bed podcast, I take a look into the darker side of the Sex and the Cityphenomenon.
You know, I wouldn't care so much if those four neanderthal-ettes showed you how to shop for sexual insight— if that's their forté— but they even fail at that.
An unintentional erotic moment in the movie makes the point quite bitterly: three of the girlfriends realize that their fourth, Miranda, has neglected to shave her bikini line.
The camera shows a close-up of a couple of errant bright-red pubic hairs curling out from Miranda's upper thigh.
Her BFFs excoriate her: How can she destroy any hope of a sex life by refusing to shave! She must be turning her back on men altogether!
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, this is what red cunt hair, the most prized of all genital details, has been reduced to.
When the film debuted, I spoke to Susannah Breslin at Salon, about the nausea of SATC:
"Did you see the recent New Yorker essay, "The Fall of Conservatism," by George Packer? It paraphrases social theorist Eric Hoffer: 'Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.'
"Sex and the City is the 'racket' part of what once was recognizable as the sexual self-emancipation of the feminist movement... I can't watch these women, you know, make asses of themselves and be so petty and small-minded about sexual possibility. I take it too personally."
In the second half of my show, a news story in France catches my eye- can a traditional marriage can be
annulled because the wife isn't a virgin?
And finally, in my Try This at Home mailbag, I answer a letter from a worried mom: "My son is way too sexually precocious, and it's causing me alarm..."
Don't forget, you can send your confidential questions, and feedback about the show, to susie@audible.com. (Episode 347, July 4, 2008).
Photo Credit: This image is the top hit when you search Google for "Merchandising."
While cleaning out my desk this past week, I discovered a wonderful "sex shock" news clipping that a friend in Boston found for me in her collection of early 20th century newspapers.
There is no annual date on the story. I'd guess it's from the late 20s, given the use of flapper language like "getting tight" and "tipplers."
If you recognize the newspaper or can pin down the year, let me know!
The culprit in this tabloid shockeroo was The Jester, a campus humor magazine, founded in 1901. But that the student editors published this survey at all, given the era, was quite scandalous: Girls Answer Quiz on Purity
Barnard Students Admit Necking and "Soul Kissing"
New York, Oct.22— Answers to an amazingly frank "purity test" taken by girl students at Barnard College were published in the Columbia Jester at the university today. Shocked professors immediately ordered the magazine suppressed.
Within 45 minutes, however, the ban was lifted by Dean Herbert E. Hawkes. He made no explanation.
The test went to the ultimate of candor— and in publishing it, the authors of the Jester article inferred that some of the questions were too hot to print.
They reported that: 51% of the 70 girls considered "one or more propositions to be contrary to their honor; that more than 50% indulge in necking; that 34% practice the "soul kiss"; that 49% had kissed ten different men; than 29% have gone out with other women's husbands, and that no one would answer the question: "Have you ever swum nude in mixed company?"
Of the group, the authors reported that 80% were smokers and 66% tipplers. Answering the question: "Have you ever been tight?" 38 wrote "no," 32 wrote "yes." Of those answering in the affirmative, 14 said they had been tight once, 14 said they had been tight often, and four said that they were "usually tight."
When it comes to turning boys and girls upside down, and shaking up every orgasmic assumption you ever had, no one does it better than transgender author, playwright, and performance artist Kate Bornstein.
If you've ever wanted to hear the un-cutesy truth about how people stay alive when all seems lost, this is it.
If you like this sample and want to hear more, you can subscribe (for $2 a show) to my weekly show at Audible.com. I'm offering a 12-episode season on iTunes to give new listeners a taste!
Susie talks with feminist author Katha Pollitt, one of the mothers of American women's liberation, and notorious for her Nation magazine column "Subject to Debate".
Susie and Katha talk about how sexual liberation got separated from women's liberation, "Virginity or Death!" the sexual licks of the male ego, and global feminism at its most provocative.
If you like this sample and want to hear more, you can subscribe (for $2 a show) to my weekly show at Audible.com. I'm offering a 12-episode season on iTunes to give new listeners a taste!
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Today, on my In Bed podcast, Tristan Taormino and her lover Colten, along with Pal Joey, came to Santa Cruz— lured by my promise of "the best hot fudge sundae you ever had"— to talk to me about TT's new book, Opening Up: A Guide to Creating and Sustaining Open Relationships.
I was determined to stump Tristan on non-monogamy, but I give up! She has fucking heard it all!
Tristan and I tear into all the non-polite questions of open relationships!
Reconsidering the so-called "sexless marriage"
What to do with a lover who monopolizes your vagina at the play party... Cock-blockers!
“I’m not very jealous in real life, but my fantasy life revolves around competition... What gives?”
The visceral experience of jealousy
Your family-of-origin experience— doesn’t make any damn difference!
Porn star poly savvy
Reconsidering the so-called "Sexless Marriage"
So, what do people actually do at Tristan's "Open Relationship" workshops?
Monogamy— yes, monogamy!— as a radical choice
If I’m poly, do I have to say "yes" to everyone to prove a point?
When your lover’s getting all the action, and you’re sitting there fuming....
How kids feel about their “swinger” moms and dads? Or any mom and dad, for that matter...
How do you deal with the all-consuming crush part of a new, additional love, besides having faith you can ride it out?
My favorite part of TT's book are her interviews with dozens of lovers, who give you a real sense of the variety of human love. This is no single stereotype, like the "hip young triad splitting their espresso tab and licking each other in a daisy chain."
It's people with kids, it's people who did one thing for five years, and then changed it up— and then transitioned yet again. It's kinky, it's vanilla, it's long-distance, it's high school sweethearts, it's grandma, it's genderfuck. There is no one poly person or one poly question!
Tristan is also keeping a blog of her Opening Up book tour and workshops— that's how I'm keeping tab on her! Plus, all those cute doggie pictures...
Don't forget, you can send your confidential questions, feedback about the show, and requests for free show coupon cards to susie@audible.com. (Episode 345, June 20, 2008)
Click link above to listen to the whole interview...
If Betty Dodson didn't invent female masturbation, she was the first woman to wave the pink flag. This 78-year-old is not afraid to tell it like it is.
Susie and Betty discuss the G-Spot, inter-generational sex— and what it was like when Betty's mom first asked her daughter about her clitoris.
This special INWSB show for iTunes is part of a twelve-episode free sampler we've produced for iTunes Podcast fans, in their Health:Sexuality category. Thanks to Lorax and Kidder for all their help!
(If you're already an In Bed listener, this is your chance to turn on your skeptical friends, with a free taste! Then let them be seduced into the depravity...)
If you are intrigued with this sample and want to hear more, you can subscribe to my weekly show at Audible for less than 2 crackers a week...
Even some of my heterosexual friends are getting in on the action, because no one wants to miss the groovy free-love-and-a-license party down at City Hall.
There are some spoilsports, of course. The County Clerk of Bakersfield, (our Country-Western music epicenter!), has outlawed ALL wedding ceremonies so she wouldn't have to face the horror— the horror, I tell you!— of watching a groom and a groom kiss each other with tears in their eyes.
Or, maybe her phobia is dykes in tuxes. She says she "doesn't have the resources" to perform marriages of any kind, but behind everyone's back, she was writing a right-wing freaker group begging for solace and legal support.
I can't believe someone this ignorant is still hanging around the State bureaucracy, a gay enclave if there ever was one.
Del and Phyll are so frail, at their age, it makes you choke up to think of how they've been together since the 1950s, asking for nothing more than a little respect. They are more radical than young people a third their age!
In one California local newspaper after the next, we see the photo story behind gay marriage: it's largely an elderly revolution. These are couples who've been together for decades, coping with the health and legacy issues than any old person does, wanting their beloved to be by their side without harangue and humiliation.
I remember when Newsom first declared San Francisco a "get married!" zone; it was Valentine's Day and the whole city spontaneously broke out in red balloons and pink garlands. You couldn't walk down the streets without people smiling at you like they'd just been dusted with sugar and kissed by the Easter Bunny. It felt as if, for one day, Love Prevailed. And that was a real love, not a romance, because we were celebrating a long-overdue social justice that would not be denied.
Newsom's wedding licenses were subsequently scrapped by the state, under pressure from the homophobic evangelical lobby— and for the five zillionth time, marriage activists went back to the drawing boards... how many times do we have to say, Yes, I Do?
This time, even Arnold Schwarzenegger, our improbable governor, cannot put on the pretense that he gives a shit about the Haters. (This is a guy who gave Oui Magazine an interview in 1977, his weightlifting prime, boasting that American men were too uptight about getting their dicks sucked by other guys; that it's not such a big deal in Austria... really!)
So, marriage licenses for all, freshly minted, are finally here. It's already a fact in life in so many states and countries; soon the only hold-outs are going to look antediluvian.
However, there are good friends and lovers... who just don't wanna get married. They are all for justice under the law— and toasting the bride next door— but they don't want to be swept into the nuptial tent themselves.
One of our readers, Chris, commented on a previous post:
What should I do about my long-term lesbian relationship? My wife keeps saying she wants to get married, and I don’t, because I think marriage is bullshit. It's propagated by a misguided human delusion that we won’t die alone and that we can belong to someone—or whatever people who believe in marriage think.
Chris isn't the only one to wring her hands and hide from the bouquet toss.
I'm not married myself. I never thought twice about getting married, to a man or a woman, for the first few decades of my life. It was never part of my parents' scheme for me, nor did I feel any peer pressure in the 70s, when I was first falling in love. I came of age at a time when weddings were seen as square, anti-feminist, state-pimping bullshit.
My friends who did tie the knot, squirmed as they made their announcement, apologized profusely, and choked out explanations that their parents were putting in the screws.
I patted them on the back and said, "Hey, don't worry about me; I'm your friend no matter what!" As if they had admitted war crimes!
Marriage was seen, in my milieu, as a bourgeois millstone, likely to end in divorce, that was better left uncommented upon, for the sake of sparing everyone the humiliation.
I never went to a family wedding... how bizarre, in retrospect! My single (divorced) mom must have been more of a bohemian than I realized. She certainly rolled her eyes every time the topic came up.
The first wedding event I ever attended, I was 30, and it was an "illegal" lesbian ritual. (And yes, they split up in less than a year). I remember how corny I found the ceremony; we were supposed to sing their one-syllable names out loud, like a chant, as I sweated and stared into my lap to hide my mortification.
I especially get vexed about marital vows. I hate vows that invoke God; I hate vows that insist the betrothed renounce all others— I always take that personally, even though I'm not supposed to.
I hate the part where someone says they've never loved like this before, and they never will again. Is love really that small and exclusive?
Mostly, I rue those vain promises that are utterly impossible to keep. I feel like screaming into the chapel, "How are you going to live with yourself when you fail? What do you do when you find out this is a child's fantasy?"
The romantic delusions are what twist my gut, and leave me anxiously awaiting the other shoe to drop. The best thing to do, I've found, is politely decline all wedding invitations, and just send my best. I'm always the first person the newlyweds call when they're fighting like cats and dogs.
And yet...
I may someday get married, if it becomes financially or legally beneficial, and I can't negotiate a fairer solution. So far I've worked my way around it, through other legal declarations!
I've already blustered my way into hospitals when my lover was injured at work, saying I was "his wife," because there was no way I was going to endure a roadblock.
At those times, I worked myself into an inner hysteria, thinking about the discrimination I'd face if we were a same-sex couple.
When Chris wrote her question, it made me think, "What does her lover really want, what does she want?"
For some people, a marriage proposal, more than anything else, means, 'I Love You, Above All Others, You are My Destiny." What they want, more than anything, is that emotional dedication. They will find temporary succor in a wedding, but if they're captive to their own demons, that insecurity will never leave them.
How do you make your lover feel secure— and what part is their responsibility? You can never reassure an insatiable lover enough; and conversely, there are spouses who are such liars and cheats that they would put King Solomon on edge with their antics.
Some lovers, who are in a financially unequal relationships, want legal security. They don't want to be discounted as a SAHM or dedicated muse, if the shit hits the fan.
Then there's the unexpected illnesses, deaths, suicides, that beg for the protection of lover-positive law. Some of the most brutal cases of injustice I've witnessed were instances when one partner lost her beloved suddenly, and the long-estranged "blood family" came swooping in, and took everything away, from snapshots to the family car.
For all these reasons, I embrace an evenhanded marital law, the one decent thing a wedding provides.
Justice is direct; it's rather beautiful to behold— but the romantic bundle that often goes along with people's hitching papers is another beast entirely. It's probably worth a few heart-to-hearts to get to the bottom of it.
"What do I want this marriage? What are my worst fears— and most delicate hopes?" If you can't bare your breast about these things, it's probably a bad time to get married.
I, personally, was always attracted to the wedding dress. The party of it all. Then I realized that anyone could buy one, wear several, and march down the street in the Doo-Dah Parade.
I also envied the way that weddings make your long-lost friends come out of the woodwork. There are people in my life, miles away, who I miss terribly, and yet the only time they travel to California is when some high school pal is getting married. I could fucking give birth to a chicken and it wouldn't inspire them to budge an inch. Only weddings get their ass on the tarmac. Weddings.... and funerals— and I really hope it doesn't come to that!
Which brings us back to dying alone. I love the existential certainty of that fact— I don't want to die crowded.
But from the other side of the deathbed, I know that being a fierce advocate for my dear ones, to keep them out of pain, to speak for them when they can't, to rattle the cage when they are too weak— that's something I'll always treasure, and fight to protect. It doesn't mean "marriage," per se, it means legal respect for the diversity of our chosen families. You can keep the cake-topper; I'll take the equality.
Update: Arnold's Oui interview used to be on the Internet in its entirety, perfectly scanned. I read it during his gubernatorial run. I remember chuckling over his exasperation with North American men's homophobia, as opposed to his "easy cum, easy go" attitude that he credited to his European background. Anyway, all that remains for the Google searcher is The Smoking Gun's partial summary of the wide-ranging interview, which is the link I provided. They took down the pages they had scanned before. My guess is, the material is owned by Playboy, who owned Oui. PB probably issued an injunction. You can also find pricey copies of this issue for sale on Ebay!
My favorite part of my audio show is my
mailbox: the letters, secrets, and sex questions I get make me feel like
a priestess in a liberated confession booth.
This week, on
my show, I catch up with a stack of correspondence that I couldn't
delay another minute:
A female erotic film fan asks, "What are the best "Netflix"-style places to find porn rentals... with no bullshit, no spam?"
Listener James B. asks, "How do porn stars 'stay healthy'?"— and I ask, "Why do people NOT in the sex trade keep asking this question?"
The mainstream assumptions health issues in the sex and entertainment trade are astray from the reality— they say more about the spectators' fears, than the actor's bill of health...
Next, a husband and wife are looking into commiting themselves to a "female-led relationship," and from hubby's description of where they're at now, I wonder, how much is sexual deprivation part of this plan? It's no fun eroticizing domination and submission if you rarely, if ever, get off. When do kinky contracts become drudgery?
One of my favorite fans asks, "Will female ejaculation help a woman keep tight as a drum?" vanquishing all incontinence? One happy camper testifies, and I put in my two cents...
Finally, how can a interested client read between the lines of "masseuse ads,"
to find the the truly transcendent practicioners? Mere pedicures or
shiatsu will never live up to this! This one listener's story made me drool:
Devoted wife, Charla Muller, wanted to give her husband an unforgettable present for his 40th Birthday. This is what she came up with: sex, every single night, for 365 days.
This is a Southern, Christian couple with three kids and a life that, as Charla describes, had become increasingly "blah" in the sex dept.: "My cheese was every so slowly slipping off my cracker..."
She is funny. She is also clever, and hass written a book about this unusual year, called 365 Nights: A Memoir of Intimacy, which chronicles her husband's reaction, how they really made out for the next year, and what she gave him for his forty-first birthday: golf clubs.
I'd still like to pry a few more of the X-rated details out of her:
On the second half of my audio show, I have a science question: What are the erotic possibilities of hell freezing over, as opposed to the sexual consequences of hell boiling over?
A radical professor in Oklahoma asked his engineering students to define Hell, and only one of his students got an "A" for his answer— read here to see if you could do any better!
Finally, in my Try This at Home mailbag, a listener asks: "how can a menstrual cup bring my experienced vagina to a complete standstill?!"
Don't forget, you can send your confidential questions, feedback about the show, and requests for free show coupon cards to susie@audible.com. (Episode 342, May 30, 2008).
Today, on my In Bed audio show, I look at an exposé from reporter
Debbie Nathan, who just got back from a research convention of The
Academy of Forensic Sciences to discover what the geeks at the FBI have learned about the relationship, and potential, between
"real" and "computer-generated" (CG) pornographic images.
The police's particular interest, in this case, is child abuse. Sexualized images of real
children are illegal, but computer-generated images are not prosecuted in the U.S., as yet, because
they don't show actual kids.
This debate has gotten hotter, because it's now difficult to tell what's real— computer-editing programs
are facile enough to turn anyone, theoretically, into an amateur touch-up artist.
Many questions arise from
the Feds' investigations. Do virtual pictures attract people with ill intent or actions toward children? Or is this a bizarre, if preferable, method of harm reduction?
Back in the 1990s, the government outlawed CG images of
sexualized children.
But a few years later, ruling in a case called
Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition, the Supreme Court said CG child porn
is legal... the general consensus was that the
technological state-of-the-art for CG human images wasn’t so good
anyway.
If you concocted a CG image of a child having sex, the thinking
went, it wouldn’t fool anyone, because it was too low-tech to seem real.
Within a couple of years, though, people caught with child porn images
were going to court and claiming they didn’t have anything real, only
CG — and that if the government thought otherwise, it would have to
prove it.
The government developed several responses. One: find the actual child
depicted in the pornography, and bring that real child into court, or
bring in the cop who handled her case. This would show beyond a doubt
that the defendant’s material was not CG.
Another strategy is to match
the images in evidence to others previously collected by the feds, then
show that the whole set dates to pre-Photoshop times, back when
anything that looked like a photograph of a real kid really was real.
But what if child victims and old photo sets aren’t available? A third
government technique is to tell courts that the average person (an FBI
agent, a jury member) can still distinguish what’s real and what’s CG,
just by looking with the naked eye.
Is this true? The government would like us to think so. But in point of
fact, the boundary between real and CG is getting fuzzier by the year –
and the feds are nervous.
Check out Debbie's site to see more incredibly realistic (G-rated! of course) CG images, and to read the rest of her story... it's a science fiction novel come to life:
"After [the experts'] presentations, it seemed clear that the
technology exists to make real child porn look fake. And — much more
significantly — to make CG porn which looks genuine enough to fool
ordinary people.
An obvious question that comes to mind, then, is: how
much of this sophisticated child CG is already on the Internet?
My sense from attending the workshops is: Probably hardly any.
But the
scarcity has little to do with technology. The digital world is now
rife with graphics professionals and hobbyists who spend lots of time
creating reasonably real-looking virtual people as still images –
adults and kids. CG adults (especially women) often look “sexy.”
Sometimes they’re even having sex. But virtual kids are not portrayed
sexually (though teen girls often look “come hither”). CG kids remain
chaste, probably, because there’s no commercial market for child porn
and thus no significant money to be made by doing virtual renditions of
the stuff.
Hobbyists, of course, don’t need money to pursue their
passions. But even they are probably reluctant to do CG child porn.
It’s not like they can post it on graphic arts websites and get props
from fellow artists.
Plus, virtual child porn is legal in the US, but
it’s outlawed in many other countries. If an American’s CG smut got
emailed overseas, he could get in big trouble.
Given the above, I bet most defendants and their attorneys who raise
the CG defense are bullshitting. They’ve probably been caught with the
real thing..."
Also on my show, today, I get the dirt on a couple of cranky citizens from the Greek Island of Lesbos who aren't happy sharing
their name with lesbians.
A court date
has been set to stop a Greek gay rights organization from calling themselves
lesbians... it seems Jerry Falwell's spirit lives on, in every nook and corner.
Let us quote Sappho, the most famous Lesbian citizen of all, in both senses of the word:
I have not had one word from her
Frankly I wish I were dead When she left, she wept
a great deal; she said to me, "This parting must be endured, Sappho. I go unwillingly."
I said, "Go, and be happy but remember (you know well) whom you leave shackled by love
"If you forget me, think of our gifts to Aphrodite and all the loveliness that we shared
"all the violet tiaras, braided rosebuds, dill and crocus twined around your young neck
"myrrh poured on your head and on soft mats girls with all that they most wished for beside them
"while no voices chanted choruses without ours, no woodlot bloomed in spring without song..."
Frankly, I'd be honored to live in a place inspired by her work, and I'm sure many Lesbians and lesbians, are!
Last, in my audio show mailbag, a listener writes in who's having a hard time meeting girls in the cadre ranks of the anti-porn, anti-violence campaign he belongs to.... I've been this lad's shoes, myself!
Don't forget, you can send your confidential questions,
feedback about the show, and requests for girly cards to
susie@audible.com. (Episode 341, May 23, 2008)
Photos: Computer-Generated examples from Debbie Nathan's story.Sappho bust from Musei Capitolini.
The next guilty teenage boy you see on the street... buttonhole him, and whisper, "You're not doing it ENOUGH! You better beat off
like your life depended on it!"
A new study shows that regular
masturbation can reduce the risk of developing prostate cancer. Seriously.
The
Australian researchers who carried out the tests found men who
ejaculate more then five times a week were better off then men with
more modest numbers. And the younger you start, the better the results.
Also on today’s show, I take a look at one literary author's secret success in
writing erotic novels. Writer Rupert Smith takes on the "nom de porn"
as James Lear as he writes steamy gay porn fiction.
I think that erotic literature serves the same purpose as other genre fiction, but with a more literal outcome. A good crime novel, be it by Agatha Christie or Alexander McCall Smith, provides a failsafe formula of crime, investigation and solution. The porn parallel is encounter, seduction and sex. While a whodunnit plots this pattern across an entire book, a porn writer must repeat it several times within one novel, allowing the reader time to recover before revving up the engines again. The reason why dirty books remain in the shadows is very simple: the book trade is not comfortable with masturbation. Books in which children are abused, women murdered and men brutalised crowd the shelves of WH Smith. Books in which consenting adults enjoy each other for the healthy entertainment of literate wankers do not.
Finally, in my Try This at Home mailbag, a listener reminisces about her debauched youth in New Orleans, in our continuing conversation about why we love this city so much!
Don't forget, you can send your confidential questions, feedback about the show, and requests for free show coupon cards to susie@audible.com. (Episode 340, May 16, 2008)
When my good friend, and mentor, Sally Binford, died in 1994, I thought I knew the entire story of her life.
Sally was one of the gate-crashing feminist sexual liberationists of her generation; I couldn't get enough of that! She was a great storyteller, and I loved to listen to her.
But sometimes it feels like you never really get to know anyone... until they're gone. They tell their story to someone else, and you learn something altogether new.
When Sally was 50, she decided to "live life to the fullest" and then arranged to "checking out," at age 70, regardless of her health. That was 1994.
That decision, to plan her own death, was my first experience with someone choosing their own exit without any, as they say, suicidal tendencies. She let all her dear friends and lovers know her intentions, and wrote a letter to us the night before she said adieu.
Now, years later, I've discovered something more, a detailed story of Sally's life I hadn't heard before.
All the subjects of Janet's book are the kind of largely-unsung heroes who made leaps in American history that still take your breath away.
Sally, for example, is famous as an era-changing anthropologist, but her life as a feminist and sexual pioneer was perhaps, more revolutionary in her time.
From Sally's Interview:
“Not a Jewish princess”
“I was born in Brooklyn in 1924. My parents became upwardly mobile and moved to Long Island when I was nine. I was supposed to be a Jewish princess, but something went wrong. It never quite worked out that way.
"I went to a very small private school from fourth grade through high school. Played a fair amount of field hockey, studied a lot of French and Latin.
"When I was in the second grade in public school in Brooklyn, this little boy and I had a real crush on each other. We were caught passing notes back and forth. When the teacher came to dinner at our house, I remember hearing her and my parents laughing, their being so amused and snotty about it, because this little boy, whom I had a crush on, was Chinese. I was just furious. What was wrong with his being Chinese? ....
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