. . .Which isn’t to say there haven’t been noticeable changes, beginning in the late ’80s, when k.d. lang became an icon of lesbian chic. Nor is it to minimize the impact of ‘‘The L Word,’’ a tribute to the high testosterone level of gay babes, or to ignore hip same-sex Hollywood couples, like Lindsay Lohan and Samantha Ronson. It is to say rather that Sapphic archetypes tend to raise questions more than answer them, since both categories (butch and femme) borrow from gender-influenced dichotomies of beauty. There have, that is, always been women known for a sort of arrant handsomeness — like Gertrude Stein, who always struck me as resembling no one so much as Hadrian VII— or for their arresting exoticism, like the painter Romaine Brooks. And then there are the gay women, known as ‘‘lipstick lesbians,’’ who look like any other pretty young thing. Indeed, the power of lipstick lesbians relies precisely on the fact that theirs is an exclusively inner ‘‘outing’’; outside they are all mascara, blush and, yes, lipstick. Their allure is in their ability to mimic the normative language of sexual discourse while at the same time poking it in the eye.

Well, look again. Lesbianism has finally come into a glamour of its own, an appeal that goes beyond butch and femme archetypes into a more universal seduction. Her name is Rachel Maddow, the polished-looking, self-declared gay newscaster who stares out from the MSNBC studio every weekday night and makes love to her audience.

.

Posted at the request of Alana Lowe, who’s developing a documentary style, reality TV show for a major cable network about a group of friends, some of whom are part of the lifestyle:

Real swingers on TV?! The media portrays the lifestyle as a bunch of old, unattractive weirdos – but we all know the truth! I am developing a documentary-style reality series for a major cable network, that will open America’s eyes to what it really means to be in the lifestyle today.

I am looking for a group of friends that already exists, anywhere in the US, that includes some vanillas and some swingers, who are comfortable being ‘out’ about their lifestyle. Couples who go out and party, who hang out with their friends, who go out to dinner, who gossip about what happened last night, and, of course, who are sexy.

If this sounds like something you and your sweetheart are interested in or if you know anyone who might be, please pass this information along. Contact me for more information. alana DOT research AT gmail dot com. Credentials available upon request.

Violet Blue says that if you think “sex sells” then you’re not paying attention.

VB (Violet Blue): Does sex really sell?

SH (Steve Hall): According to some studies, the “sex sells” adage in misleading if not wrong. Several studies have found ads laced with sexual imagery of women targeted to women actually turn women off to the product. And it’s not a new conclusion about sex and advertising, either.

Initially sexual imagery can “sell” — when it comes to attracting attention to an ad. After all, humans are innately programmed to respond to titillating imagery and the possibility of sex. It’s just in our DNA. So it’s natural for marketers to use this attraction and for people to respond. But, it can be a lame cop-out used by marketers who lack imagination to create more compelling work that will sustain itself beyond the initial titillation. Despite studies minimizing its benefits, sex will continue to be used in advertising because it’s a quick and easy solution which doesn’t require much thought and can garner the immediate attention some marketers need for their promotional efforts.

. . .

VB: Should there be more sex in advertising?

SH: Yes and no. Yes, in the sense that sex is normal. It should not be taboo. It should be a normal part of everyone’s life and so therefore should be represented as such in advertising. No, because it’s just too easy and makes for too much bad advertising. And the sexual content in a sexually-laced ad can overshadow the product being promoted and therefore make it even more difficult to remember what the ad was actually promoting.

Link

1. Sex-slave conviction overturned
2. Murder-suicide autopsies: 3 died of gunshot wounds
3. ‘Booger Red’ Gets Life
4. This swinger feels persecuted
5. Study Suggests Polygamy May Lead To A Longer Life
6. For some, Gitmo interrogation techniques are a real turn-on
7. Court overturns conviction of NYC’s ‘S&M Svengali’

National Coalition for Sexual Freedom — Media Update

media@ncsfreedom.org

August 22, 2008

NCSF Media Updates represent a sampling of recent stories printed in US newspapers, magazines, and selected websites containing significant mention of SM-leather-fetish, polyamory, or swing issues and topics.

These stories may be positive, negative, accurate, inaccurate – or anywhere in between.

NCSF publishes the Updates to provide readers a comprehensive look at what media outlets are writing about these topics. NCSF permits and encourages readers to forward these Updates where appropriate.

Sex-slave conviction overturned
by Jeff Lipton
Nassau Herald (Nassau, NY)
August 21, 2008

A federal appeals court last week overturned the conviction of a North Woodmere man who was sentenced to nine years in prison last September for the sadomasochistic torture of a woman he met on the Internet.

In a 17-page decision on Aug. 14, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit granted Glenn Marcus, 55, a new trial in the sensational sex-slave case, which dates to 1998, when he first met the woman online.

Marcus was accused of sexually torturing the now 40-year-old woman, who has been identified only as “Jodi.” He also posted photos of sadomasochistic acts on a Web site that he forced her to operate eight to 10 hours a day without compensation between November 1999 and September 2001, according to
prosecutors.

Marcus was living in his parents’ North Woodmere home during the time he carried out what prosecutors described as his “horrific sexual abuses” from 1998, when he met the woman on the Internet, to May 12, 2005, when he was arrested.

Following a week-long trial in U.S. District Court in February 2007, a jury of seven men and five women found Marcus guilty of sex trafficking and forced labor, ruling that he violated the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA). District Court Judge Allyne Ross sentenced him to a nine-year prison term on Sept. 18.

But the three-judge appeals panel ruled last week since a good portion of the alleged crimes took place before the TVPA was enacted in October 2000, the conviction against Marcus should be thrown out.

The judges ruled that Marcus’s conviction violated the Constitution’s Ex Post Facto clause.

Marcus’s attorney, Herald Price Fahringer, who handled the appeal, said his client was “extremely pleased” with the court decision. He said that Marcus has been held in jail for about eight months, and Fahringer hopes to get bail set for him so Marcus can be released until his next trial. The date for the retrial has not yet been set.

“He’s elated over the results of the reversal,” Fahringer said of Marcus. “At least he’s not convicted anymore, and a trial means another chance.”

Marcus met Jodi in an online chat room devoted to bondage, dominance and sadomasochism, according to court records, and persuaded her to travel from her home in the Midwest to Maryland so they could meet, which they did in October 1998, court documents state. During the visit, Marcus whipped Jodi and carved the word “slave” on her stomach with a knife.

The slave-master relationship continued, and he punished the woman when she expressed a desire to leave him in January 2000. Marcus forced her into his parents’ basement in North Woodmere, placed a hood over her head, assaulted her with hypodermic needles and a knife and then posted these images on his Web site, authorities said.

In August 2001, when the victim once again asked for her freedom, Marcus took her to the basement of a Hewlett residence of a female acquaintance, bashed her head against a metal beam and bound her ankles and wrists to the ceiling, leaving her there for several hours, prosecutors charged. He then forced her to have sexual intercourse with him, photos of which he also posted on the Web site, prosecutors said.

When the woman finally managed to escape, Marcus threatened that if she went to the authorities, he would send the Web site images of her to her parents and to newspapers to humiliate her.

[continued]

To respond, write to: the author at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it or write to the editors.

Murder-suicide autopsies: 3 died of gunshot wounds
by Abby Simons
Minneapolis Star Tribune (Minnesota)
August 21, 2008

Sherburne County officials continued Thursday to interview friends of a Zimmerman man believed to have killed his wife and a man they met through an online swingers club and then himself.

An autopsy conducted by the Ramsey County Medical Examiner revealed Thursday that Gary Heald, 59, shot himself to death and that Deloris DeDe) Heald, 56, of Zimmerman also was killed by gunfire. Autopsy results
for Rory Scott Zitur, 47, of Buffalo, have not been released, but investigators have said that all three were shot to death.

Sherburne County Sheriff’s Capt. Don Starry said Thursday that interviews are still being conducted with those who knew the Healds, and that once the investigation is complete, more information could be released
regarding Zitur’s relationship with the Healds, and the “chat line” where they met.

“It should be part of the information that comes out,” he said. “Though a lot of that specific stuff had already come out.”

[continued]

To respond, write to: the author atThis e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it or the editors.

‘Booger Red’ Gets Life
by Casey Knaupp
The Tyler Morning Telegraph (Tyler, Texas)
August 21, 2008

Patrick “Booger Red” Kelly was found guilty Thursday of engaging in organized criminal activity and sentenced to life in prison for conspiring with other adults to force two young siblings to have sex with each other for a paying audience.

A Smith County jury of seven women and five men deliberated for less than two hours before convicting Kelly, 41, Tyler, of the first-degree felony for forcing a boy to have sex with his older sister during a doctor skit at the Mineola Swingers’ Club for his financial gain on Aug. 1, 2004.

He was sentenced to the maximum sentence of life in prison and a $10,000 fine by the jury in 241st District Judge Jack Skeen Jr.’s court after about 10 minutes of deliberation.

Four of the five child victims in the case also testified.  All of them identified Kelly, whom they know as “Booger Red,” as being part of a group of adults that taught them in “kindergarten” how to perform sex acts and then forced them to dance and perform for a paying audience at the club.

Kelly testified, denying he sexually abused the children or ever went to the club. He said he never held “kindergarten” at his house and never forced them to dance or perform sex acts.

Assistant Smith County District Attorney Joe Murphy said the case boiled down to who the jurors believed and asked if they believed the children. He said the defense wanted the jurors to believe a bunch of swingers and a man named David with a bunch of tattoos, which one of the victims described as being at the club, as well as the defense expert who didn’t look at all of the evidence in the case.

Murphy said another of the defense’s theories was that the case was a conspiracy with the Texas Ranger, Child Protective Services, the foster parents, therapists and the children. He said Mineola police did a one-day investigation and then shut the case.

Murphy said the swingers testified that kids weren’t at the club the four or five nights they were there out of four months it was in operation in 2004. He said the state never said the swingers were there watching the
kids, but he didn’t think they were being completely truthful.

Like Kelly, “no one is going to stand up and say yes, I did this,” he said.

According to defense attorney Thad Davidson “We found eight swingers” that testified that the club was open Friday and Saturday nights and the only people with keys to the building were Russ and Sherry Adams.

He said one of the rules of the swingers’ club was that no children were ever allowed; it was only consenting adults who were not pedophiles. The swingers testified they had never seen Kelly before.

Davidson said the only one who did a thorough investigation in the case and went to Kelly’s house was not Kemp, it was CPS Investigator Katy Wady. She found no evidence that Kelly sexually abused his son or the children victims in the case, he said.

Davidson said being a Texas Ranger is prestigious, but he was not qualified as an expert in sexual abuse cases. The techniques Kemp used when interviewing the children were improper because Ms. Cantrell was in
the room in some of them. The boy said 13 times he didn’t know what they were talking about when questioned.

[continued]

To respond, write to: opinion@tylerpaper.comThis e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it or comment at the bottom of the article

This swinger feels persecuted:
Owner of Sextasy wants license, fights eviction
by Joe Schoenmann
The Las Vegas Sun (Las Vegas, Nevada)
August 21, 2008

David Cooper says he and his wife and their girlfriend have for years been trying to find a “nice” establishment in which to have group sex with strangers.

He finally gave up on finding anything “where the walls don’t crawl” and decided to open his own “high-end” swingers club, Sextasy, in the Commercial Center shopping mall.

The Commercial Center, on Sahara Boulevard just west of Maryland Parkway, seemed like the right place for it. The valley’s oldest strip mall has a long history of housing controversial, adults-only businesses. For years it was home to the Apollo, which was known as a meeting place for gay men.  These days the mall has a bar for transsexuals and a phone bank for an outcall service.

And while it is also home to a nationally praised Thai restaurant, Lotus of Siam, the Commercial Center’s X-rated claim to infamy is the Green Door, which describes itself online as “the largest sex club in the
country!!!”

But, as with numerous other swingers clubs around the valley, the Green Door’s business license says it’s a restaurant, a health club/spa, everything but a sex club. Sex clubs, you see, are public nuisances, according to the county code. That means they are illegal.

So Cooper figured he could just go along with the wink-and-a-nod protocol and in February applied for a business license for a “restaurant” which he eventually named Sextasy.

Then he encountered what his former lawyer, Allen Lichtenstein, lambasted as bureaucratic hypocrisy, arbitrary code enforcement and, underlying it all, the county’s wish to get rid of Commercial Center once and for all.

For years the county has talked about its desire to redevelop Commercial Center, but has had a problem coming up with the money to buy out the dozens of business owners operating there.

One effective strategy would be to drive down the price by using the power of the government to get rid of the tenants first, Lichtenstein said. Lichtenstein said the county early on “made specific overtures to (buy)
specific businesses”.

“And that is what’s really going on here”, he added. “They want to buy the property”.

In February, in fact, the Clark County Commission approved the spending of up to $7.6 million by the county’s redevelopment agency to appraise and buy three adult-oriented businesses in Commercial Center, then relocate the businesses and knock down the buildings.

Cooper said he was in meetings with county officials when they offered tens of thousands of dollars for him to relocate. When the landlords of the three properties couldn’t come to an agreement, the buyout fell
through and the county came after Cooper, he said.

But Lichtenstein and Cooper say the issues go beyond the Commercial Center and its adult businesses.

At its core, Lichtenstein said, it’s a matter of the county’s selectively enforcing its rules when it comes to sex businesses. “They’re basically taking the position that they can decide which ones they will allow and
which ones they won’t allow”, he said.

Cooper points to recent activity by the county against a fetish club called Libertine that was located in a strip mall near Pecos and Sunset roads. The county denied the Libertine its business license in March, and
the district attorney’s office followed up in April with a complaint alleging the Libertine was a sex club. In July, District Court Judge Valorie Vega ordered the Libertine closed.

County spokesman Dan Kulin said the county is not targeting any business. “Speaking in general terms, when we find out about something that shouldn’t be going on, we take the appropriate action”, he said.

[continued]

To respond, write to: the author at
http://www.lasvegassun.com/staff/joe-schoenmann/contact/

Study Suggests Polygamy May Lead To A Longer Life
by staff writers
RedOrbit
August 19, 2008

New research suggests that men from polygamous cultures outlive those from monogamous ones.

Virpi Lummaa, an ecologist at the University of Sheffield, suggested that after accounting for socioeconomic differences, men aged over 60 from 140 countries that practice polygamy to varying degrees lived on average 12% longer than men from 49 mostly monogamous nations.

The research looks to solve the long-standing puzzle of life expectancy in human biology.

A phenomenon called the grandmother effect seeks to explain why women are able to live so long after the menopauseunlike nearly all other animals.

Lummaa says for every 10 years a woman survives past the menopause, she gains two additional grandchildren. It seems that doting on and spoiling grandchildren aids their survival, as well as furthering some of their grandmother’s genes.

By contrast, men can reproduce well into their 60s and even 70s and 80s, leading most researchers to assume this explained their longevity.

However, Lummaa and colleague Andy Russell wondered whether other factors explained the long lifespan of men.

The researchers then compared the lifespan of men from polygamous countries with those from monogamous nations.

The team then scored 189 countries on a monogamy scale of one to four – totally monogamous to mostly polygamous, taking into account a country’s gross domestic product and average income to minimize the effect of better nutrition and healthcare in monogamous Western nations.

“Our monogamy score is a crude first stab, and we’re working to find multiple ways to assess marriage patterns”, Lummaa said. She also added that the conclusions could evaporate under further analysis.

The study suggests that if female survival is the main explanation for male longevity, then monogamous and polygamous men would live for about the same length of time.

However, it seems that fathering more kids with more wives leads to increased male longevity. Men, then, live long because they’re fertile well into their grey years.

This could be both a social and genetic explanation.

Men who continue fathering kids into their 60s and 70s could take better care for their bodies because they have mouths to feed. But evolutionary forces acting over thousands of years could also select for longer-lived men in polygamous cultures.

Chris Wilson, an evolutionary anthropologist at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, who attended the talk, said the new study is a valid hypothesis and a good prediction.

[continued]

To respond, write to: http://www.redorbit.com/feedback/ or comment at the bottom of the article.

For some, Gitmo interrogation techniques are a real turn-on
by Lisa Rose
New Jersey Star-Ledger
August 18, 2008

It’s eerie dark in the exhibition hall at the New Jersey Convention Center
in Edison.

Usually, the room is reserved for trade shows. But this summer weekend, it’s been transformed into a 40,000-square-foot dungeon for sexual fantasy.

Welcome to The Floating World, three days of suspended reality geared toward those who explore extremes in carnality. The program encompassed bondage, sadomasochism and role playing — including Gitmo-inspired interrogator/detainee “torture” sessions.

The private event — no tickets sold at the door, no advertising anywhere but the Web — drew nearly 1,000 attendees of every sexual orientation, from Jersey and beyond. The registration fee for the gathering, which ran Friday through yesterday, was $125-$190.

The course catalog featured a mix of lectures about relationships and hands-on safety workshops. There were lessons in whipping, caning, roping, gagging, punching, burning, biting, spanking and “power flogging.”

“Education is really important,” says Dan Andersen, director of the Floating World, a nonprofit event launched last year and named for an Edo-era Japanese subculture. “If you take your education from the movies, you’re going to do a lot of bad things.”

A sign of the times, the course list also included “Interrogation and Torture Techniques.” The class, which outlined how to fetishize Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse, was taught by an instructor with a
military background. The core idea of torture play is to integrate topical imagery as a trigger to boost fear and stimulate endorphins.

“When we’re using those references, it’s to provoke a reaction,” says Susan Wright, founder of the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom and an author whose latest novel is titled A Pound of Flesh.

“Anybody who protests us should ask themselves why they are not protesting the reality of torturing prisoners. We’re consenting adults. We might get in a pool with each other and waterboard somebody, but the person can say, ‘No, I don’t like this.’ They have a safeword.” (Prearranged “safewords” are established as a stop signal.)

Some arrived at the convention center in plain vanilla street clothes, while others strutted their liberated stuff in body stockings, dog collars and shoes that could double as daggers. Scattered amid the cars in the
parking lot were carts for “ponies,” people saddled and harnessed like horses.

Classrooms corralled the dungeon, a maze of not-so-comfy chairs, benches and racks. Keeping watch were 22 dungeon monitors, eight medical techs and a dozen security guards.

[continued]

To respond, go to:
http://www.nj.com/contactus/

Court overturns conviction of NYC’s ‘S&M Svengali’
by Adam Goldman
Associated Press
August 16, 2008

NEW YORK (AP) – A federal appeals court has overturned the conviction of a man dubbed the “S&M Svengali” and ordered a retrial in a sensational case that involved mutilation and humiliation.

Glenn Marcus, 55, was convicted of breaking a law that wasn’t in place when some of the offenses happened, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said in a decision issued Thursday.

A three-judge panel said Marcus’ March 2007 conviction in federal court in Brooklyn violated the Constitution. The New York man was sentenced to nine years in prison for abusing a woman he photographed for his Web site, which reveled in sadomasochism. She was identified only as “Jodi.”

Authorities used the 2000 Trafficking Victims Protection Act to prosecute Marcus for incidents spanning from 1999 to 2001. Marcus’ attorneys argued that the law was applied retroactively, and the appeals court agreed.

Prosecutors claimed Marcus crossed the boundaries of both civilized society and the S&M community by holding his victim against her will.

The woman met Marcus in 1998 and agreed to be one of his “slaves.” He carved the word “slave” into her abdomen with a knife, shaved her head and systematically punished her, according to the appellate decision. He also forced her to write for the Web site while he kept every penny it earned through advertising and membership fees.

During their last encounter, he beat and whipped her while hanging her from a beam, then forced her to write about it on the Web site, the decision said.

[continued]
To read this entire article, go to:

HOW TO WRITE A LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Feedback letters are an effective way to convey a positive image ofalternate sexual practices such as SM, swinging, or polyamory. You canhelp to correct negative social myths and misconceptions about these types of practices. These letters help achieve the advocacy goals of the NCSF. Generally, for a letter to be published, it’s important to include your name (or first initial, last name), city and daytime phone (forverification only). For more information, see:

http://www.ncsfreedom.org/media/writelettertoeditor.htm

Please alert us to positive, negative or neutral stories about SM, swinging and polyamory at media@ncsfreedom.orgThis e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it . Comments to the editor of this Update may be sent to keith@ncsfreedom.org.This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
###
A project of NCSF and the Foundation of NCSF

According to OutSports.com, of the 10,708 athletes at the Olympics this year, just 10 have identified themselves publicly as being gay. Of the 10, Australian diver Matthew Mitcham is the only male gay athlete.

Yesterday, Mitcham won the gold in the in the 10m platform diving event, scoring an upset over the Chinese team, which was heavily favored to win. But as Maggie Hendricks at Yahoo’s Olympics blog notes, NBC never mentioned Mitcham’s orientation.

Link

A British take on the world’s oldest profession.

. . .when a number of high-profile memoirs have turned out to be, to some degree or in their entirety, not what they professed to be. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find them in the Ho section of my local Barnes & Noble (the subtitle of the American edition, earnest and accurate, is “Diary of an Unlikely Call Girl”), so I’ve seen only the Telegraph columns and short passages from the books. The writing I have come across seems not just fictional but false; there’s a lazy archness to the tone, a superficial intelligence, and a mere pose of thoughtfulness—all of which may be intentional, part of the joke. The diaries aren’t trying for greatness; they’re trying to make the cash register ring, and that they have done.

. . .Issues of authenticity fade away, however, when it comes to the TV series, because it’s not at pains to sell itself as the real deal. You don’t have to believe that the story comes from a true-life prostitute, just that the character you’re watching is believable.

. . .It’s not that much fun to watch an actress who, except for the occasional times when she lets loose one of her charmingly loud second-soprano laughs, seems always to be asking more of us than she’s giving, but “Secret Diary of a Call Girl” does get better as it goes along, although it doesn’t greatly distinguish itself from most other shows you’ve seen about young single women in the big city.

Link

Aren’t we past this, yet? Is this even a question? Are journalists so incompetent, so incapable of carrying out the most basic research, that they can only assume that sex, for us, is intolerable? Or are these journalists really just uninterested in sex themselves and can’t resist transferring their sex-is-gross attitudes to the women who do it by choice? And why aren’t they capable of parsing the differences among sex workers, between those who have financial leverage and those who do not, those who are trafficked and those who act out of choice, those who have options and those who do not, and so on? This isn’t rocket science. This isn’t even advanced sociology.

Link

That’s what a New York Post spokesperson, Howard Rubenstein, told Jeff Bercovici at Portfolio.com. Bercovici called the Post—and me—after the New York City tabloid ran a story in which they named the 67 year-old that almost choked to death in a bondage-scene-gone-wrong at the famous Nutcracker Suite last week. Not only did the Post name the man, a retired college professor, it also called his wife and told her the news. Says Bercovici:

Paying for erotic favors is okay, as long as your tastes are generic. That, in a nutshell, is the sexual ethic of the New York Post. How else do you explain a paper where the top editors hang out at strip clubs at night and spend their days shaming fetish-club patrons by name?

I refer to coverage of the 67-year-old man who had to be hospitalized after an accident at the hands of a dominatrix in a Manhattan establishment called the Nutcracker Suite. Today, the Post crossed into ethically murky territory with a story that named the man (citing “law-enforcement sources”), and described his professional history, hometown and family situation. For good measure, the Post’s reporters also took it upon themselves to phone the man’s wife and fill her in on the details.

Since the man is not a celebrity, politician or other public figure, it’s hard to understand what kind of news value the Post’s editors saw in printing his name, or what they accomplished beyond embarrassing him in front of his community and ensuring that the episode will forever be his top Google hit.

I tried to ask metro editor Michelle Gotthelf how she justified the decision, but she referred me to the paper’s spokesman, Howard Rubenstein, who offered this statement: “The Post will happily name every adult caught in a dog collar.”

Well, today the Post has another piece about this guy—and this time they’ve not only got the man’s picture, but an interview with him. The Post:

The kinky college professor who was almost strangled during an S&M session at a Midtown club told The Post yesterday he’s deeply ashamed and is finally through with the double life he’s lived since he was kid. “I don’t want this to spoil my marriage,” said Robert Benjamin, 67, still disoriented from the three days he spent in a coma but sitting upright in a chair in his room at St. Vincent’s Hospital.

“I don’t want my wife to leave me, but I have to tell her the truth,” he said. “I’m going to share everything with her. I think my family will forgive me.”

Where to begin? How about with the ethics of interviewing a man that’s still disoriented after three days in a coma? Or naming a man that isn’t a public figure, broke no laws, and hasn’t been charged with any crime?

It seems to me that if the Post is going to declare war on kinksters—they’ll “happily name every adult caught in a dog collar,” they’ll out you as a kinkster to your family, they’ll run triumphant pieces about how you’ve learned your lesson and you’re going to give up your kinks for good (as if it were that simple)—then kinksters ought to declare war on the Post. The Post is a large news operation in one of the most sexually liberated cities on the planet. Not only are there kinky people on the Post’s staff, but I’m thinking odds are good that more than one Post exec has has patronized the Nutcracker Suite. (Wealthy white men make up 99.9% of the Nutcracker Suite’s clientele, after all.) If a happy, healthy, pissed off kinkster out there has evidence that a Post exec or an exec at the News Corporation—Rupert Murdoch? one of his moderately hot sons?—has ever been “caught in a dog collar,” now would be a good time to share it with media.

Because, hey, if you’re kinky, then you deserve to be outed, shamed, humiliated, and bullied into pledging to give up your “addiction” to whatever your kinks might be—those are the Post’s standards. The people that run and own the Post ought to be held to ‘em.

link

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHEXzlNHC8Q

[via Fleshbot]

See also:
InDiggnation: New Fox News Porn Parody Banned By Online Community

THIS is the story of how a silly-sounding word reached the ear of a powerful television producer, and in only seconds of air time, expanded the vocabularies — for better or worse — of legions of women.

It began on Feb. 12, 2006, when viewers of the ABC series “Grey’s Anatomy” heard the character Miranda Bailey, a pregnant doctor who had gone into labor, admonish a male intern, “Stop looking at my vajayjay.”

(more. . .)

There is a noticeable shift in emphasis this season, a darkening of mood away from the premarital frolics of blind dates, Manolo Blahniks and Central Perk hookups to closely watched midmarriage malaise. Almost any television drama touches on connubial tension and sexual miscues; it crops up all over, in family melodramas like “Brothers and Sisters” on ABC, police procedurals like “Law & Order: SVU” on NBC and even courtroom thrillers like “Damages” on FX. But until now most series lacked either the interest or the patience to probe those intimacies too closely. The last time television took so unhurried and earnest a look at spousal relations was 20 years ago, on “Thirtysomething.”

Suddenly a renewed fascination with matrimony spans the spectrum from premium cable networks like HBO and Showtime to even the flimsiest of celebrity reality shows on VH1. Colder, unsentimental, almost cruel in their gaze, these shows have replaced the solipsistic pillow talk between Hope and Michael on “Thirtysomething” with tableaus of repression and neurosis.

(more. . . )

The Internet was supposed to be a tremendous boon for the pornography industry, creating a global market of images and videos accessible from the privacy of a home computer. For a time, it worked, with wider distribution and social acceptance driving a steady increase in sales.

But now the established pornography business is in decline – and the Internet is being held responsible.

The online availability of copious free or low-cost photos and videos has begun to take a fierce toll on sales of X-rated DVDs. Inexpensive digital technology has paved the way for aspiring amateur pornographers, who are flooding the market, while everyone in the industry is giving away more material to lure paying customers.

And unlike consumers looking for music and other media, viewers of pornography do not seem to mind giving up brand-name producers and performers for anonymous ones, or a well-lighted movie set for a ratty couch at an amateur videographer’s house.

After years of essentially steady increases, sales and rentals of pornographic videos were $3.62 billion in 2006, down from $4.28 billion in 2005, according to estimates by AVN, an industry trade publication. If the situation does not change, the overall $13 billion sex-related entertainment market may shrink this year, said Paul Fishbein, president of AVN Media Network, the magazine’s publisher. The industry’s online revenue is substantial but is not growing quickly enough to make up for the drop in video income.

Older companies in the industry are responding with better production values and more sophisticated Web offerings. But to their chagrin, making and distributing pornography has become a lot easier.

“People are making movies in their houses and dragging and dropping them” onto free Web sites, said Harvey Kaplan, a former maker of pornographic movies and now chief executive of GoGoBill.com, which processes payments for pornographic Web sites. “It’s killing the marketplace.”

(more . . . )

Apparently some Hampton Roads, Virginia parents are not too thrilled with their high school age kids penning a sex section of the school newspaper:

…Several said they were especially offended by a photograph of two women kissing under the headline, “Why men love women who love women,” a quiz question about anal sex, and an interview with an unnamed custodian who said he had found a vibrator in the girls’ shower.

“Those articles offended me personally as a parent,” said Venus Merrill, a school board member. “It’s not something you want to read with your 10-year-old and it’s not something that should be going home.”

Principal Randy Zito said the Winnachronicle had crossed the line of responsible reporting and that he had dealt with the problem privately. He also said he had pulled copies of the paper that normally would have been sent to middle schools in the cooperative school district.

The newspaper’s faculty adviser defended the editors’ decisions and said the February edition of the paper was intended to inform students, not shock people, although they knew it would stir controversy.

“The kids wrote the articles and came up with the topic,” said adviser Carol Downer. “They didn’t go out to cause controversy, but the Winnachronicle is also not a P.R. piece for the high school. This is a place for students to express their view and talk about issues that are troubling the student body.”

(Read more...)

…is dead, dead, dead!

That is all.

Are straight people allowed to say “faggot”? Are white people allowed to say “nigger”? Generally no. Our unwritten speech codes require that those words be used only by gays and blacks, respectively (black gays can say both). Which is just as it should be: minorities can reappropriate slurs if it empowers them or even if it just humors them — I think it’s funny when fellow gays sarcastically say “Hey faggot” to me. But it wouldn’t be so funny if, say, my heterosexual boss said it. Sorry, straight people: you don’t get to say “faggot.” (I can still be fired for being gay in most U.S. states, so you still have the better end of the bargain.) Speech codes are one of the many social devices that keep us from all murdering each other with our bare hands in the grocery aisle.

But speech codes deeply offend conservatives, which is the point Ann Coulter was making when she said this last week: “I was going to have a few comments about the other Democratic presidential candidate, John Edwards. But it turns out that you have to go into rehab if you use the word ‘faggot.’” (more…)