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Viviane

Cinekink NYC/2012

by Viviane on 02/04/2012

02/07/2012

02/12/2012

CineKink NYC returns for its ninth annual appearance on Tuesday, February 7th, bringing with it a specially-curated program of films and videos that celebrate and explore a wide diversity of sexuality. In addition to screenings, plans for the festival also include a short film competition, presentations, audience choice awards, a fund-raising kick-off gala and a concluding afterglow party.

For a closer look at the entire line-up and information on ALL of the hot works in the schedule:
http://cinekink.com/programs-and-events/nyc/cinekink-nyc-2012

But we’ve got so much great programming jammed into CineKink NYC this year–and with under two weeks to go–a headliner overview of the schedule might give you a firmer grasp on how you’re going to be spending February 7-12!

KICK-OFF! – Tuesday, 2/7 @ 8:30 pm
Put on your shiny finery and come help us kick off the eighth annual CineKink NYC in proper style! An evening to embrace fantasy and a pansexual celebration of epic proportions, in addition to sexy performances, our opening night gala will feature a cadre of spectacular cinematic morsels–LORD CLYSTER’S PLAN, SLOW BURN and, featuring the Extra Action Marching Band, BURNING WIGS OF SEDITION. And with all proceeds going to support the continuation of CineKink’s sex-positive and kink-friendly program mission, it’s mixing and mashing for a good cause!

Katwalk
2 W. 35th Street, (bet. 5th and 6th)
Suggested donation – $15/$10 advance

CINEKINK NYC SCREENINGS
The festivities then move to Anthology Film Archives (32 Second Avenue, NYC), Wednesday, February 8 through Saturday, February 11, with several different film and video programs scheduled for each day.

*WEDNESDAY
Among the headliners, first up on Wednesday, February 8 at 7:00 PM, the festival’s CineKink Season Opener screening is Erika Lust’s CABARET DESIRE which, inspired by New York’s real-life Poetry Brothel, uses “poetry courtesans” to weave together several erotic vignettes.

And at 9:00 PM, AFTER FALL, WINTER is a sexy, funny and darkly poignant story about two lovers who desperately crave intimacy, yet fiercely resist revealing their true sexual selves … even to each other.

*THURSDAY
On Thursday, February 9 at 7:00 PM, it’s (A)SEXUAL, a documentary look at what it’s like to be without sexual desire in a society that is otherwise obsessed.

And at 9:10 PM, KINK & KINSHIP is a program of short works that celebrate the special sense of community our shared kinks tend to engender.

*FRIDAY
On Friday, February 10 at 6:30 PM, the lives of several people are turned upside down when they meet sexy Cecile, a character who symbolizes DESIRE.

At 8:45 PM, the shorts program COUPLINGS is a hot mess of twosomes, threesomes and more-somes!

And in SEXUALLY FRANK, at 10:40 PM, a group of long-time friends finds that sex is no less befuddling now than it was during puberty.

*SATURDAY
Kicking off Saturday, February 11 at 12:30 PM – and our matinee porn trilogy aka “Pornopalooza!!” – many hijinks ensue in SWEET PRUDENCE & THE EROTIC ADVENTURE OF BIGFOOT, when the mythical beast is spotted at a remote nudist resort.

At 2:45 PM, a special industry showcase, BRING IT!, features a dazzling array of talent from today’s adult cinema, all stepping up with a hot sampling of their recent creative endeavors.

At 5:00 PM, STAGE BROTHER follows the cross-county quest of a young, New Jersey woman who dreams of making it in the world of adult entertainment.

At 7:15 PM, in SIRWIÑAKUY, two Bolivian strangers participate in their own kinky version of a sirwiñakuy, an indigenous tradition where a man brings home a trial “wife.”

And, closing out the festival’s regular screening schedule at 9:45 PM, the romantic drama “3” tells the story of Hanna and Simon who, on the brink of their 20th anniversary, separately become enamored with the same younger man.

CINEKINK AWARDS CELEBRATION – Sunday, 2/12 @ 6:00 pm
Be sure to come out and drink a toast to this year’s fantastic crop of CineKink filmmakers! Featuring encore screenings of jury-selected best shorts from the festival, along with presentations of the annual CineKink Awards. (FREE admission; location tba)

CINEKINK AFTERGLOW PARTY – Sunday, 2/12 @ 9:00 pm
But wait, there’s more! You’ll definitely want to make plans for our popular AfterGlow Party, one last chance to meet, mix and mingle with your fellow CineKinksters and enjoy a few more select screenings, this time in a relaxed play party setting. Lounge on the sofas, find yourself a private nook or recline across a spanking bench and settle in for one final evening of CineKinky goodness unfolding all around you. Not to be missed! (Please note that a limited number of advance purchase admissions — $30/individuals, $40/couples, $50/triads — will be released; priority VIP admission will be given to CineKink NYC All-Access Pass holders.)

TICKETS AND PASSES ON SALE NOW!
Save big with a discounted CineKink NYC All-Access Pass, including admission to all 12 regular film programs, PLUS the Kick-Off Gala, the Awards Celebration and – priority VIP entrance to! – the AfterGlow Party. Price is $80/general admission; $70/members of any sexuality-focused organization; $60/students & seniors; $45/CineKinksters and Friends w/Benefits!

Individual movie tickets are $10 door/$9 advance (fees included); $7 seniors & students.

For more info and to buy now:
http://cinekinknyc2012.eventbrite.com/

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Ravenous Nights: A Full Roster… of BDSM! Leather! February 3rd!

by Viviane on 02/03/2012

in Events

02/03/2012
8:00 PM

Location: Happy Ending Lounge, 302 Broome Street, New York, NY 10002
Tel: (212) 334-9676
Cost: Free

Lolita Wolf discovered the BDSM scene back when “online” meant the phone sex lines. An activist who defends sexual freedom for all consenting adults, Lolita spreads the word about BDSM, sex and poly, and helps the community grow and flourish. Yet, her goal remains to have fun. Known

for a fun and entertaining style that packs a lot of information into a short class, she has authored two books with videos: Spanking and CBT in a Nutshell, and is featured in the Details of Flogging DVD. Her writing has appeared in On Our Backs, Prometheus, and Rachel Kramer Bussel’s Lust Chronicles. She also a chapter in the soon to be published Ultimate Guide To Kink edited by Tristan Taormino. Lolita was featured in the New York Times One in 8 Million series: http://is.gd/RIbuhN Her website can be found at http://leatheryenta.com.

Angel Propps is a sex-positive femme leatherdyke and Ms. SouthEastLeatherFest 2011. She is an often-published writer of lesbian BDSM erotica and horror, a poet who has appeared in art journals, and the author of many nonfiction essays and articles on sexuality and feminism. She grew into her kinks during her years as a Riot Grrl and, later, the manager of a gentlemen’s club. Angel was a member of the International Ms. Leather Seduction Team 2011 and is a puppy who has written much about the subject, most notably in a series run by Leatherati.com. She is the founding member of both a Riot Grrl band (The Southern Helles) and an outreach program for the homeless in Columbus, GA. Angel has presented nationwide on Bratting, AgePlay, Puppy Play, and Lap Dancing. When not traveling with her butch dyke Daddy (OB of Owhips) she lives in rural North Carolina.

Sara Eileen is a writer, editor, marketer, artist and event coordinator. Her journalism, non-fiction, and award-winning short fiction has been published internationally. Sara holds a BA in English and Art from Columbia University, and a Masters of Creative Writing from the University of Sydney. She has been writing about kinky things on the Internet, in various forms, for the past 5 years.

Laura Antoniou is the author of the best selling Marketplace series of BDSM novels, about a realistic, modern day slave training world. In addition to writing a ton of other erotic material, she has edited over a dozen anthologies and is collecting stories for even more right now. For over twenty years she’s been teaching and ranting at the kinky and alt-sex communities, and her contribution to Tristan Taormino’s The Ultimate Guide to Kink: BDSM, Role Play and the Erotic Edge is a rare example of her non-fiction work. Naturally, it’s all about how to train a slave. She can be found at lantoniou.com and on Fetlife and Facebook.

Elizabeth Thorne began writing erotic stories when she started working in a place known as The Sex Lab. It was an act of desperation since, ironically enough, studying sex kept her too busy to meet anyone larger than a mouse… and unlike Cinderella she doesn’t actually swing that way. These days, Elizabeth spends her time sitting around in her PJs writing popular science during the day and erotic romance at night. You can sometimes find her haunting NY delis at 2 a.m., looking for chocolate chip cookies and wondering why people are staring at her fuzzy pants. She has contributed to more than ten anthologies of erotica and erotic romance and is proud to be the author of “The Gingerbread Dungeon,” a collection of BDSM fairy tales. You can find her online at withbatedbeth.com.

New layer…

Tagged as: Angel Propps, bdsm, Elizabeth Thorne, Events, laura antoniou, leather, Lolita Wolf, nyc

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Bookmarks for 1-30-2012

by Viviane on 01/30/2012

in del.icio.us,sex

L.A.’s porn Mistake | Lorelei Lee (Salon.com) – What performers like Hartley and I are equally opposed to is being condescended to by hypocritical zealots like Weinstein and Lubben who are obviously motivated by a concern for something other than our health and safety. Who have, in fact, shown a “blatant disregard” for the health and safety of industry workers by making it more difficult for us to use the protections we already have in place when their actions led to the closure of AIM.
Making a Fist of It: The Law and Obscenity | Freedom in a Puritan age – On Friday 6 January 2012, a historic case came to a conclusion in Courtroom 7 of Southwark Crown Court. Michael Peacock was unanimously acquitted, after a four-day trial that saw the outdated obscenity law of England and Wales in the dock…Peacock had been charged under the Obscene Publications Act 1959 for allegedly distributing ‘obscene’ ‘gay’ DVDs, which featured fisting, urolagnia (‘watersports’) and BDSM.
Ask Tristan: Sex Toys and the Law • Pucker Up – [Ed. note: For this question, I turned it over to my legal expert, Davis from Sexquire.] So what does all of this litigation mean to sex shop clerks? First, unless you are in Alabama, you have no reason to fear being arrested on obscenity charges for providing sex education about or selling these products as other than novelties.
Porn Star Activist Jiz Lee Talks About When and How Sex Workers Can Give Consent – San Francisco Art – The Exhibitionist – The ethics of consent is becoming a hot, vital topic of discussion in alternative sexuality communities. While talking about consent is something that never quite goes away, especially in BDSM communities, a lot of the dialogue doesn’t stray much beyond making sure that everyone is over 18 and knows his or her safeword. A few months ago, local activist bad-asses Maggie Mayhem and Kitty Stryker talked to us about their attempts to speak openly about abuse in BDSM and build “consent culture.” As they prepare to take those ideas on a cross-country tour, plenty of other people are continuing the conversation here in the Bay Area.
Kate Bornstein reading excerpt from her new book, “A Queer and Pleasant Danger”
The Case of Loving v. Bigotry – Slide Show – NYTimes.com – “In 1958, Richard & Mildred Loving were arrested in a nighttime raid in their bedroom by the sheriff of Caroline County, Va. Their crime: being married to each other. The Lovings…were ordered by a judge to leave Virginia for 25 years. The International Center of Photography is mounting a show of Grey Villet’s photographs of the couple in 1965 (January 20-May 6, 2012).
Eric Holder Expands FBI’s Narrow, Outdated Definition Of Rape- MANCHESTER, N.H. — U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has revised the way the FBI defines rape, the first update to the federal definition in nearly a century.The FBI’s Uniform Crime Report has defined rape as the “carnal knowledge of a female forcibly and against her will.” This definition was narrower than the one used by many police departments around the country, and women’s rights advocates said it led to the under-counting of thousands of sexual assaults each year.
Rape definition broadened to include men | CNN – The crime of rape will now be defined as “penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or object, or oral penetration by a sex organ of another person, without the consent of the victim,” the Justice Department said.

Tagged as: Beyond+Visibility, britain, consent, crime, health, Jiz, jiz+lee, Kate+Bornstein, kink, legal, legis, legisl, legislation, loving+virginia, marriage, memoir, obscenity, porno, pornography, racism, rape, sex, Sexquire, sextoys, supreme, supreme+court, transgender

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Lesbian Sex Mafia presents The Fine Art of Dirty Talk with Amy Jo Goddard

by Viviane on 01/30/2012

in Events,nyc

02/17/2012
8:00 PM	to	10:00 PM

Feeling shy about talking dirty? Have a lover who wishes you would, but you sometimes clam up or struggle with obstacles to saying those sweet nasty things? Wish you could open the door to dirty words without shame? This workshop will be a fun exploration of dirty talk, why we like it, what we want from it and how to incorporate it with partners and make our scenes hotter. There is no one size fits all, so you’ll explore and practice what feels good for you, how to find common ground with your partners, and walk away with a bigger dirty vocabulary. Attendees can decide how much to participate but it will be guaranteed fun! C’mon’ say it like you mean it!

Where: LGBT Center, 208 West 13th St. (7th/8th Ave)
Cost: LSM Members: $5/Non Members: $10

About Amy JoGoddad

Amy Jo Goddard dedicates her life’s endeavors to helping people explore and improve their sexual lives. She has written and produced her plays about the vulva and dominatrixes, she has hosted web programs on women’s sexuality, she has taught first graders to college students about sexuality, and has been featured in Betty Dodson videos. A professional trainer of sexuality professionals, medical students, college students and youth for fifteen years, she has taught courses relating to sexuality at the City University of New York and the University of California at Santa Barbara and has presented internationally at conferences and kink community events like Dark Odyssey. She launched her intensive program for women in 2010, the Women’s Sexually Empowered Life program. She is co-author of Lesbian Sex Secrets for Men and her article about queer performance artists and activism was published in 2007 in the Social Justice Journal. She is director/producer of the forthcoming documentary, At Your Cervix. Amy Jo maintains a private sex & relationship coaching practice and travels to colleges and universities speaking about sexuality. She was chosen by GO! Magazine as one of “100 Women We Love” in 2010. She can be found online at www.amyjogoddard.com.

About Lesbian Sex Mafia

Membership in Lesbian Sex Mafia is open to all women 18 years of age or older including gay, straight, bi, and transsexual and intersexed women who live their daily lives as women, and all female-born transgendered persons who have a connection with and respect for the women’s community. For membership information and benefits please visit www.lesbiansexmafia.org.

LSM reserves the right to deny admission to non-members it has reason to believe will not abide by the LSM principles of safety, consensuality and confidentiality.

For ASL interpretation request please email LSMNYC@hotmail.com.

No member is turned away from an LSM event based upon ability to pay. Please contact us in advance to request a scholarship.

Tagged as: Events, nyc

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NYC Pleasure Salon – February

by Viviane on 01/25/2012

in Events,nyc

02/01/2012
6:00 PM	to	10:00 PM

Celebrate Valentine’s Day with us on Wednesday, Feb. 1st. This month we’re raffling off passes to Cinekink, the Kinky Film Festival, and we’ll be giving away a grand prize of two tickets to Dark Odyssey Winter Fire – the alt sex event of the season!

Location: Happy Ending Lounge, 302 Broome St. (Pink awning says “Xie He Health”)
Cost: FREE
Dress code: STREET
Fetlife RSVP: https://fetlife.com/events/79831/v2

The Pleasure Salon has been created to build community, allowing sex-positive activists to cross-pollinate. Our gatherings bring together members of the BDSM, swinger, alternative gender, LGBTQ, sex-activist, sex educator, nudist, sex-magic, polyamory, Pagan, radical faerie, tantra, dark odyssey, sex-blogger, porn, pervert and sex-worker communities, and others whose passion is sex. (Let us know if we missed any one of you!) Through building networks in the sex-positive community, The Pleasure Salon hopes to help create a sex-positive world. It is a place for the open exchange of ideas and sensual expression.

Join us in building New York’s pleasure positive community, and bring your like-minded friends to this social gathering. The Pleasure Salon embraces respect, acceptance, and non-judgmental support in this public space.

Please friend “Patricia Selina Mark” on FaceBook or join the Pleasure Salon group on Facebook or FetLife to communicate with other attendees.

In pleasure,

Patricia Johnson, Selina Fire & Mark Michaels

Tagged as: Events, nyc

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Toy 4 Two – Tegan and Heather

by Viviane on 01/24/2012

in video

Tagged as: video

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The Loving Story

by Viviane on 01/09/2012

in marriage

45 years ago, interracial marriage was a crime. It wasn’t until the Supreme Court overturned the miscegnation laws in Loving vs. Virginia (1967). The plaintiffs were Richard Perry Loving, a white man, and his wife, Mildred Loving, a woman of African American and Native American descent, who had been arrested for miscegenation nine years earlier in Virginia. I’ve noted Loving Day (June 12th) for a few years now, and remember reading Mildred Loving’s obituary in the New York Times.

This year, there is both a photography exhibit and documentary film examining the couple behind this case.

The Loving Story

The Loving Story, a documentary film, tells the story of Richard and Mildred Loving to examine the drama, the history, and the current state of interracial marriage and tolerance in the United States. The documentary was filmed in High Definition video and 16mm film. It is intended for a wide audience through theatrical release, festival screenings, community screenings, national television broadcast, web-based broadcast, and DVD and educational distribution. The film has enjoyed sold-out screenings at festivals and special events since its World Premiere at the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival in April 2011.t’ll be shown on Valentine’s Day, February 14th on HBO.The Loving Story is an Augusta Films Production. It was directed by Nancy Buirski, produced by Nancy Buirski and Elisabeth Haviland James, and edited by James. The documentary is fiscally sponsored by Living Archives, a 501 (c) (3) non-profit organization, created by legendary documentarian DA Pennebaker, and by the Southern Documentary Fund.

Grey Villet, [Richard and Mildred Loving with their children Peggy, Donald, and Sidney in their living room, King and Queen County, Virginia. Estate of Grey Villet

The Loving Story: Photographs by Grey Villet (International Center of Photography)

Forty-five years ago, sixteen states still prohibited interracial marriage. Then, in 1967, the U.S. Supreme Court considered the case of Richard Perry Loving, a white man, and his wife, Mildred Loving, a woman of African American and Native American descent, who had been arrested for miscegenation nine years earlier in Virginia. The Lovings were not active in the Civil Rights movement but their tenacious legal battle to justify their marriage changed history when the Supreme Court unanimously declared Virginia’s anti-miscegenation law—and all race-based marriage bans—unconstitutional. LIFE magazine photographer Grey Villet’s intimate images were uncovered by director Nancy Buirski during the making of The Loving Story, an HBO documentary debuting on February 14, 2012. The exhibition, organized by Assistant Curator of Collections Erin Barnett, includes some 20 vintage prints loaned by the estate of Grey Villet and by the Loving family. This exhibition was made possible with public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council. This exhibit runs at the International Center of Photography January 20-May 6, 2012.

If you can’t get to the ICP exhibit, there’s Times has a beautiful slideshow of Grey Villet’s photography, ” The Case of Loving v. Bigotry.”

Tagged as: law, Loving v. Virginia, marriage, racism, Supreme Court

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Lesbian Sex Mafia presents Negotiation for the Hopelessly Shy and Terribly Awkward with Mollena Williams

by Viviane on 01/06/2012

in Events,nyc

01/20/2012
8:00 PM	to	10:00 PM

Negotiation of scenes can be tough on people who are adept at bargaining, expressing their needs, wants, and desires. so how is this gauntlet to be run by those of us perverts who are super shy or kind of awkward when it comes to saying “I need…” or “I won’t…” or giving the dreaded “No”??Join Mollena Williams, Closeted Shy Freak ™ as she shares some techniques that can help even the most awkward kinkster battle their own personal hurdles and insure that your needs are met, your expectations expressed more clearly, and that your scenes are satisfying for all parties! Bring your questions (jot ‘em down if you are to shy to ask!) and we’ll brainstorm ways to help you on your own journey to openness, clear communication and awesomeness!

LSM is having a members-only drawing for 2 tickets- you and a guest- to Dark Odyssey Winter Fire (#DOWF12).**

Become a member or renew your existing membership today!

Newbie promotion: These comp tickets may only be given to someone who’s never attended a Dark Odyssey event before.

Where: LGBT Center, 208 West 13th St. (7th/8th Ave)
When: Friday, January 20, 2012; 8:00-10:00PM
Cost: LSM Members: $5/Non Members: $10

About Mollena Williams

This “Delicate, Trembling Flower of Submission” © is a NYC born and raised writer, actress, BDSM Educator and Executive Pervert. She is extremely honored, humbled and proud to have served as International Ms Leather 2010. She is also thrilled to have been named Ms. San Francisco Leather 2009 after that contest’s decade long slumber.’s Woman of the Year AND Northern California Regional Awards!

With over 12 years of experience in the BDSM and Alternative community she frequently travels nationally, teaching Leather Lifestyle Classes. Her work has been published by the Society Of Janus Newsletter, The Eulenspiegel Society’s magazine, Prometheus, as well as the online magazine at ALT.COM and Bondage.com. She was interviewed for The Bottoming Book, ColorLines Magazine, and the award winning documentary Vice & Consent. She also get all tied up in the instructional video, “Jay Wiseman Teaches Rope Bondage.“ Her essay entitled “BDSM and Race Play” was published in Best Sex Writing 2010.

Her background includes a lifetime of training and involvement in the performing arts, which include spoken word, classical theater, dance, performance art, and all manner of stagecraft.

A founding member of Crowded Fire Theater Company, Mo blogs on http://mollena.com and is the author of the “Toybag Gude: Taboo Play.” Her essays appear in 2 anthologies curated by Rachel Kramer Bussel: ”BDSM and Race Play” appears in “Best Sex Writing 2010,” and “Kiss my Boots” is featured in ”The Lust Chronicles.” Her challenging essay on “race play” is featured in“Spirit of Desire: Personal Journeys in Sacred Kink” edited by Lee Harrington. Not one but two essays commissioned by Tristan Taormino will be appearing in the upcoming book, “The Ultimate Guide to Kinky Sex.” Mollena is pleased and delighted to be a featured educator with The Kink Academy, where you can see clips of her speaking on various and sundry topics!

About Lesbian Sex Mafia

LSM reserves the right to deny admission to non-members it has reason to believe will not abide by the LSM principles of safety, consensuality and confidentiality.

For ASL interpretation request please email LSMNYC@hotmail.com.

No member is turned away from an LSM event based upon ability to pay. Please contact us in advance to request a scholarship.

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Auld Lang Syne (Old Long Ago)

by Viviane on 12/31/2011

in holidays

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And auld lang syne!For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne.
We’ll take a cup o’ kindness yet,
For auld lang syne.

Best wishes for peace, prosperity, happiness and serenity to our readers, fans, supporters, and colleagues.

Happy New Year, perverts!

(Thanks to baal_bill for the photo of Jayne Mansfield)

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Bookmarks for 12-28-2011

by Viviane on 12/28/2011

in del.icio.us,sex

Sexual Obituaries 2011 (Cory Silverberg) – People who choose to work around sexuality and gender often don’t get the acknowledgment from the mainstream media or from society as a whole that they would if their work was in another field. Every year, I feel this absence when I read the lists of famous people who died. Since 2006, I’ve tried to change that by sharing some of the sex and gender activists, educators, artists, and outlaws we lost in the year that is ending. Here is a list of sexual losses in 2011.
Director Dee Rees And Star Adepero Oduye Talk Coming Out & Coming Of Age In ‘Pariah’ | indieWIRE – Pariah is the story of Alike (Oduye), a black lesbian teenager living in Fort Greene and navigating between the aggressive gay nightclub scene preferred by her butch best friend Laura (Pernell Walker) and a closeted life at home, where her tightly wound mother Audrey (Kim Wayans) tries to dress her in pink cardigans and quizzes her about who she’s taking to the school dance.
Bondage Sex And The Liberation Of Culture – ErosBlog: The Sex Blog – For anybody with an interest in cultural history — and especially, aspects of cultural history that have ever been covert or officially suppressed, like porn — it’s this “everything floats up to the surface and becomes visible, in time” aspect of the Internet that is most miraculous. It’s far from complete, mind you — we have many centuries of recorded culture that have yet to be digitized and brought up from their buried layers of stone and canvas and paper and cellulose and vinyl and magnetic tape.
2011 Top Ten Sex Questions (Cory Silverberg) – I don’t dig into my statistics all that often, but once a year I like to see which questions and answers were the most popular…These ten questions are from the 105 Sex Questions that I’ve answered on the About.com site.
Navigating Love and Autism – NYTimes.com- Only since the mid-1990s have a group of socially impaired young people with otherwise normal intelligence and language development been recognized as the neurological cousins of nonverbal autistic children. Because they have a hard time grasping what another is feeling — a trait sometimes described as “mindblindness” — many assumed that those with such autism spectrum disorders were incapable of, or indifferent to, intimate relationships. Parents and teachers have focused instead on helping them with school, friendship and, more recently, the workplace.Yet as they reach adulthood, the overarching quest of many in this first generation to be identified with Asperger syndrome is the same as many of their nonautistic peers: to find someone to love who will love them back. [via Violet Blue]
When Will a Gay Pro Athlete Finally Come Out? — New York Magazine – “Something has happened in the last year,” says Jim Buzinski, co-founder of OutSports, an advocate for and chronicler of gay sports issues for more than a decade. “It’s almost like homophobia is no longer considered cool in sports.”
Australian Passport Gender Options: ‘Transgender’ Will Be Included | HuffPo – Australian passports will now have three gender options – male, female and indeterminate – under new guidelines to remove discrimination against transgender people, the government said Thursday.

Tagged as: activism, African-American, culture, harassment, health, history, lesbian, movies, politics, sex, sexuality, sports, statistics, transgender, women

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Lesbian Sex Mafia presents Leather Storytelling with Sassafras Lowrey

by Viviane on 12/06/2011

in Events,leather

12/16/2011
8:00 PM

Leather Storytelling is about taking ownership of why we find solace, and pleasure in the things that we do, and coming out of the shadows to make our voices heard. This workshop is designed for all variety of folks who find leather to be a driving force in their lives regardless of context or dynamic(s). The workshop is not specifically about writing porn/erotica though of course sexually explicit themes are welcome, but rather this is focused on telling the stories of our dynamics, of our communities, and of ourselves. Leather Storytelling is focused on exploring what it means to tell our stories when as leather folk we are often silenced, and pushed out of even the most progressive spaces who deem us as inappropriate or obscene. Through guided writing exercises, workshop participants will discover the transformative power of storytelling and how it can be used to break down divides, foster and preserve community, and build coalitions within leather community and beyond.

Let’s celebrate the holidays with a kinky grab bag ($5/max per item) and some light refreshments!

Where: LGBT Center, 208 West 13th St. (7th/8th Ave)
Cost: LSM Members: Free admission with grab bag gift ($5 max). Non-members: $5 with grab bag gift.

About Sassafras Lowrey

Sassafras Lowrey is an internationally award-winning storyteller, author, artist, and educator. Ze is the editor of the Kicked Out anthology, which brought together the voices of current and former homeless LGBTQ youth. Hir prose has been included in numerous anthologies and ze regularly teaches LGBTQ storytelling workshops at colleges and conferences across the country. Sassafras and hir Daddy live in Brooklyn with two dogs and two cats. To learn more about Sassafras and hir work, visit www.PoMoFreakshow.com

About Lesbian Sex Mafia

Lesbian Sex Mafia (“LSM”) is a social and educational organization for women and transfolk who have a positive personal interest in BDSM with other women. Our tenets are safety, consensuality, confidentiality and the right of women to explore their sexuality as they choose. Membership in Lesbian Sex Mafia is open to all women 18 years of age or older including gay, straight, bi, and transsexual and intersexed women who live their daily lives as women, and all female-born transgendered persons who have a connection with and respect for the women’s community. For membership information and benefits please visit www.lesbiansexmafia.org.

LSM reserves the right to deny admission to non-members it has reason to believe will not abide by the LSM principles of safety, consensuality and confidentiality.

For ASL interpretation request please email LSMNYC@hotmail.com.

No member is turned away from an LSM event based upon ability to pay. Please contact us in advance to request a scholarship.

Tagged as: Events, Lesbian Sex Mafia, nyc

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NYC Pleasure Salon – Secret Santa!

by Viviane on 12/06/2011

in Events,sex

12/07/2011
6:00 PM	to	10:00 PM

We hope to see you December 7th at the Happy Ending Lounge. We’re there the first Wednesday of every month. This event is free.

Bring a gift to exchange with your naughty and nice friends!

Please friend “Patricia Selina Mark” on FaceBook or join the Pleasure Salon group on Facebook or FetLife to communicate with other attendees.

In pleasure,
Patricia Johnson, Selina Fire & Mark Michaels

Location: Happy Ending Lounge, 302 Broome St. (Pink awning says “Xie He Health”)
Cost: FREE
Fetlife RSVP: https://fetlife.com/events/79688/v2
Facebook RSVP: https://www.facebook.com/events/291060560934816/

Tagged as: Events, nyc

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Crash (I Shot Myself)

by Viviane on 12/06/2011

in galleries

Tagged as: galleries, tgp

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Ravenous Nights’ Holiday Heat!

by Viviane on 12/01/2011

in Events

12/02/2011
8:00 PM

Forget the mistletoe. Never mind the eggnog. Let’s celebrate the season with stories of spice and erotic mirth! Join hostess Lori Perkins as she welcomes Andrew Grey, Indigo, Tobly McSmith and others to our December 2nd Ravenous Nights. Let’s stir those embers under the yule log and heat up the night!

Where: Happy Ending Lounge, 302 Broome Street (Pink awning says “Xie He Health”)
(212) 334-9676
Cost: Free
More info: ravenous.journurl.com
Fetlife RSVP: https://fetlife.com/events/79377/v2

Authors of the Evening

Indigo is a black poly kinky feminist queer dyke; writer, teacher, artist and aspiring sex education/blogger. She’s about liberating the woman, questioning the man and fantasizing about all folks in between. She reads, questions, wonders, writes and hopes the art leads the way. Her blog, Indigo’s Theory, explores being in a loving poly relationship, having sex in great spaces, learning to love her skin, belly, hair, etc. and coming into her kinky queer self.

Andrew Grey grew up in western Michigan with a father who loved to tell stories and a mother who loved to read them. Since then he has lived throughout the country and traveled throughout the world. He has a master’s degree from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and works in information systems for a large corporation. Andrew’s hobbies include collecting antiques, gardening, and leaving his dirty dishes anywhere but in the sink (particularly when writing) He considers himself blessed with an accepting family, fantastic friends, and the world’s most supportive and loving partner. Andrew currently lives in beautiful, historic Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

Tobly McSmith loves sex. She has reviewed over 50 sex toys for SexHerald.com, is a sex expert on CherryTV.com, and has written award-winning BDSM erotica. When Tobly isn’t performing in her sketch group Beaches2, or playing in the band Pretty Pony Party, or writing her self-help book, she is collecting commemorative plates of dead people on ebay. Tobly is currently writing erotica and having sex with her red-hot, red-headed, burlesquing girlfriend.

Tagged as: erotica, Events, kinky, nyc, poly, queer

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Submit To Laura Antoniou!

by Viviane on 11/02/2011

in erotica,submissions

It’s twenty years since I started to collect stories for the original Leatherwomen, and anthologies have refused to die. With the explosion of e-book publishers of erotica, there has never been a better time to get your stories out into the world – and after twenty years, I’m eager to collect all sorts of delicious smut. From sweet and romantic to edgy and kinky, show me what you’ve got!

Not all of these have been placed with publishers, which is why rights/money might be vague. I’ll be looking at the best options for each book and will finalize offers as I make the deals – the minimum for any story will be $25. Some books might offer a royalty share; others will be flat fee only. No simultaneous submissions, please! However, you may submit more than one story per anthology or you can send me stories for them all, you prolific demon, you! Reprints must be more than seven years out of print from the last publishing.

Submission Guidelines

Please indicate WHICH ANTHOLOGY you are submitting for in your subject line.

For all submissions – send a MS Word .doc (NOT .docx) or a .rtf file to AntoniouEdits (@) gmail (dot) com. Do not paste the story into the body of an e-mail. Include your full contact information, e-mail address and mailing address in both the e-mail and on the attached document. Format neatly according to professional guidelines, and include a brief personal bio.

I prefer a story length between 3000-7000 words. Shorter? Then that story better pack a punch. Longer? Maybe you should consider publishing a novella.

These are erotica collections, so make sure your stories contain sex. Sex is defined as any activity that increases the potential for orgasm; so by all means do not limit yourself there. While your story might be dark or edgy for a particular book, please do not include murder, suicide or unhappy endings. Do not expect an answer until after the deadline has passed, although I reserve the right to answer earlier if I want to.

The Best of Leatherwomen: Deadline – Dec 31, 2011

Did you write for me back in the day? You’ve moved, changed your name, changed your gender, come out of the closet, gone into the closet. You’re older and wiser and still the same, though completely changed; married with kids or living on the lam in Ecuador. And all I had for you was an actual physical address! Find me, please! We’ll make a combined collection from all three of the groundbreaking Leatherwomen anthologies and you can get paid again for work you so long ago we all rode dinosaurs to the play parties.

Additional Guidelines – you wrote the story for me before. If you don’t have the original file, relax, I’ll have it re-typed.

Leatherwomen 2012 – Still Kicking: Deadline – January 31, 2012

Is leather dead? Hell no! But it has changed and so have leatherwomen. Celebrate the thrill of skins and kink and the hot women who embody the name leatherwoman in this new universe of kinky potential. The bars might be closing, the gay men might be heading off to cyber hookups, and the bike clubs are out of gas, but there will always be strong, defiant, perverse, sexy, demanding, blood-letting, fist-pumping, fetish-exploring, no-limits women waiting to embrace the experienced pervert or seduce the curious newcomer. These…are their stories.

Like the previous Leatherwomen anthologies, stories may contain characters of any physical, emotional and sexual identity you believe falls under the name leatherwoman. BDSM, latex, punk, heterosexual, queer, single, couples, poly, orgies – if you believe your story and your characters belong in this crew, then convince me. Extra points for non white/American/party-going/lifestyle characters and situations, and much love for pushing the boundaries of identity and politics. Make it romantic or ironic; sweet or scary. But fill it with power and presence and desire.

Other guidelines: No poetry this time around. These stories can be dark & sinister and edgy, but not depressing, please!

Hot Butches/Hot Femmes: Deadline – December 31, 2011
Two companion volumes, one goal – to celebrate the classic identities of butches and femmes, those who love to play with gender!

Your story must feature at least one butch or femme (depending on the volume) matching the title description. They can be the point of view character, the protagonist or the lust object of the story.

From there, the field is open. Mix and match from the classic pairing of one butch + one femme, or spread the love. Two butches wrestling for top? Three femmes on a steamy trip to a spa? Training up a new baby butch? Romancing the flirtatious femme? Seducing a stone butch? Play with the tropes and stereotypes and poke at the boundaries. Characters do not need to be cisgendered, monogamous, or anything else “assumed.”

And make it romantic. Don’t dial back the sex – keep it hot and spicy! But these are celebratory books, so I am looking for happy endings. Kink/leather/BDSM themes welcome, but not required – the flavor here is gender and gender expression.

Complimentary submissions for each book are also welcomed; turn the narrative voice around and show me different chapters in the story of your characters lives. (But please don’t tell the same story two ways unless it’s very different; the bar is higher if you try that.)

Other guidelines: Happily ever after endings, or at least happy-for-right-now.

No Safewords – A Marketplace Collection: Deadline – February 28, 2012

Do you have what it takes to enter The Marketplace? For the first time since The Academy, I am opening the doors to my exclusive playroom, for this first collection of fan fiction!

Yes, you can write a Marketplace story – and this is your chance to really push the limits! Use any character, any setting. Delve into the online Marketplace wiki (http://marketplace.wikispot.org/) to brush up on existing characters or create your own. Fit the story to what already exists or imagine a sort of alternative universe to my alternative universe. You can even add elements that do not exist in the books – want to make it paranormal? Set in the past/future? Care to slash together characters you thought should have hooked up? Do you think there should have been more gay/lesbian/straight/rubber/steampunk/food fetish/Canadian/sexy accountant stories in the books? Now is your chance to write one!

I am the sole owner of the Marketplace series and all derivative works set in that universe. Therefore, I reserve the right as the owner/creator of the universe to refer to or use any character that an anthology contributor introduces, but by the same token, you the writer also keep the right to use that character yourself in your future work, although the MP setting will not be yours to continue to play with. Neither of us would have the right to stop the other from using a version of the character or name in future work. Fair ’nuff?

Submission Guidelines and additional details on all of the Calls for Submissions can be found on my Calls for Submissions Page: http://blog.lantoniou.com/?page_id=1455

Tagged as: erotica, laura antoniou, leather, submissions, The Marketplace

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