culture

Bookmarks for October 29th

by Viviane on 10/30/2009

160 Handy Twitter Tools and Resources | Social Media Strategies and Tools Explained –
FWD/Forward – FWD (feminists with disabilities) for a way forward
Richmond High School gang rape: Cops arrest 2 in attack on Calif. teen girl; Bystanders did nothing | NY Daily News – The 15-year-old Richmond High School student hospitalized in stable condition after the attack, which happened while as many as 15 people, all males, looked on but didn't help or call police, investigators said.
Pam’s House Blend:: Is It Transphobia Or Just Bad Journalism At Seventeen Magazine? – The thrust of the article, from the article headline to the bolded and highlighted text, seemed to be that female-to-male transsexuals are really females who are deceiving others. This isn't supported by "Sheri"/Jessica Press's use of proper pronouns throughout the piece, but it is accomplished in the headline chosen for the piece, and the highlighted and bolded call-out boxes for the piece.
The jealousy issue – Times Online – Catherine Millet wrote a book about her own sexual adventures, so it was a shock when she grew obsessed with her husband and his lover. “It was then that I realised I was taking enormous masochistic pleasure in the jealousy, and particularly in the fantasies I conjured up of Jacques and other women. I had become a voyeur.”
Mate debate: Is monogamy realistic? – CNN.com –
Testimony of an Abortion Addict | Bitch Magazine – Irene Vilar’s extraordinary and incendiary new memoir, Impossible Motherhood: Testimony of an Abortion Addict, is a potential launching pad for a discussion about abortion that is more personal than political. Having terminated fifteen pregnancies in sixteen years, Vilar turns her experiences into a reminder that the complexity of abortion extends beyond the scientific and political arenas.
Hate Crimes Bill Signed Into Law 11 Years After Matthew Shepard’s Death | Huffington Post – President Obama signed major civil rights legislation on Wednesday, making it a federal hate crime to assault people based on sexual orientation, gender and gender identity. The new measure expands the the scope of a 1968 law that applies to people attacked because of their race, religion or national origin. The U.S. Justice Department will have expanded authority to prosecute such crimes when local authorities don't.
Interview with S. Bear Bergman (The Nearest Exit May Be Behind You) — Genderfork – I managed to get a copy of the book, and I need to tell you: it’s wonderful. It’s about life in the middle-ground of gender, and all the many ways the world around us hiccups as we try to live our lives. It’s encouraging and honest, and you should go buy it right now. There are very few people out there who are telling our story well in a mainstream medium. But Bear is one of them.
How Journalists Can Use Twitter Lists to Customize, Discover and Curate | Poynter Online – E-Media Tidbits – The most powerful element of discovery is being able to follow other people's lists. In one click, all the users on that list will appear on your home page and Lists page.

Tagged as: abortion, blogs, books, culture, disability, feminism, jealousy, law, legislation, lgbt, lists, monogamy, politics, polyamory, queerstudies, rape, relationships, socialmedia, tools, transgender, Twitter, violence, women

Bookmarks for October 25th through October 26th

by Viviane on 10/27/2009

in del.icio.us, sex

These are my links for October 25th through October 26th:

Scary Sex Toys â€“ Sex Toys That Are More Scary Than Sexy | Cory Silverberg – the sex toys below are ghoulish not just in their looks, but in misguided conception, poor design, and sometimes obvious danger.
Social Networking – Legal and Ethical Issues for Lawyers and Investigators | Private Investigator Public Records Internet Search Privacy Reporting – PI Buzz – Much of the discussion concerned access to profile content, – the difference between civil and criminal (where thereâ€™s the familiar prosecution/defense imbalance) cases – whether certain information should be private even if it can be viewed by unintended parties.
Kids and Sexy Costumes: The Problem With Halloween | BlogHer – Without a doubt, Halloween is a survivor; one that sticks around by absorbing the qualities of the culture in prominence where the holiday is celebrated. The truth of the matter is that Halloween is not a holiday for kids. The shift to kids is a very recent thing in its epic history, and I think the emergence of more and more sexualized costumes is both a reflection of our culture’s attitudes toward sex and an attempt to take the holiday back.
Dr. Dick on Demand: Sex and the Aging Male – Iâ€™m receiving a startling number of correspondences lately from older men and their partners, highlighting the sexual difficulties of the aging process. Itâ€™s not surprising that these people are noticing the changes in their sexual response cycle as they age, but it is astonishing that they havenâ€™t attributed the changes to andropause.
Editorial – Oklahoma vs. Women – NYTimes.com – What persuaded the judge was not the affront to womenâ€™s rights, but a technical defect: the law addressed disparate issues in one bill in violation of the stateâ€™s Constitution. Still, the victory for reproductive freedom is heartening.
How to Talk to Kids About Pornography – Tips for Parents on Talking to their Kids About Pornography | Cory Silverberg – If I could only give you one reason why you should at least think about talking to your kids about pornography it’s that, if statistics are to be believed, they are likely to encounter some of it before they reach an age where theyâ€™ll be able to critically understand what they are seeing.
Google Docs Batch Export – Now you can export all your documents, spreadsheets, presentations and PDFs from Google Docs in a ZIP archive.
Time to boycott Scholastic Books? Lauren Myracle’s ‘Luv Ya Bunches’ banned from school book fairs – Last week theSchool Library Journal and other sources reported that Scholastic Books is banning Luv Ya Bunches (a young adult novel by Lauren Myracle) from its book fairs because one of the main characters has gay parents and thus fails to “meet the norms of the various communities that host the fairs.”
Rainbow Response Coalition – Welcome to the home page of Rainbow Response, a grassroots coalition that brings together organizations and leaders from the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Questioning (LGBTQ) communities, along with traditional domestic violence service providers and government agencies. We collaborate to increase the awareness about Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) amid the relationships of LGBTQ individuals, educating within the LGBTQ communities and beyond.

Tagged as: abortion, backup, culture, domestic+violence, facebook, google, googledocs, health, legal, legislation, lgbt, men, parenting, politics, privacy, relationships, sexed, sextoys, sexuality, socialmedia, tools

Mollena and I were on the Kink On Tap podcast. You can watch it here. We talked about the news of the week, and a few other things ;-D . Â There’ll be an edited episode and link references up later in the week. Thanks, MayMay and Helio Girl!Â That was fun!

Tagged as: culture, podcast, sex

Reading Playboy For the Articles (Thomas Roche; Blowfish blog)

by Viviane on 03/07/2009

in Playboy

. . .Playboy provided, Iâ€™m just going to say it, some frigginâ€™ great articles. Back when dinosaurs ruled the Earth, plenty of us really did read Playboy for the articles. Playboy was legendary for the audacity of its interviews. It was for Playboy that Roots author Alex Haley interviewed Martin Luther King and Malcolm X. In Playboy, Jimmy Carter admitted he had committed adultery in his heart. John and Yoko appeared in a Playboy article on the stands at the time of Lennonâ€™s murder in 1981. These things, clearly, were relevant.

Playboy occupied a sacred place in the world where classy cultural understanding met old-world charm and style. Lest you think I offer this appreciation with my eyes closed, however, please consider that it was not an entirely functional niche â€” it was created by the standards of British colonialism, where the wealthy white man ruled the world and got all the spoils of Empire. Anyone admitted to his exclusive little club had only to become â€œthe Playboy man,â€ with his expensive suits and his almost constant consumption of highballs and female flesh.

More. . .

Tagged as: culture, Playboy

Arse Elektronika 2008

by Viviane on 08/29/2008

in Events, Fetish & Kink, sex, technology

Arse Elektronika 2008 — “Do Androids Sleep with Electric Sheep?” — will take place at CELLspace (San Francisco). September 25 thru 28, 2008.

Susan Mernit and I will be doing a panel:

Avoiding the Emily Gould Effect
Susan Mernit & Viviane

“Oversharing”, sex blogging & erotica. How to successfully manage your online identity, whether you’re pseudonymous or right out there. As the legions of bloggers sharing personal stories of sexuality, erotica and adventure grow and as sex & relationship blogs become big business we hear both stories of bloggers who regret what they’ve shared (Emily Gould) and survived a tawdry outing (Zoe Margolis), and those who’ve parlayed sex & erotica blogging into far more mainstream careers (Rachel Kramer Bussel, Melissa Gira Grant, Violet Blue. How do you manage your online persona so you’re in control of your story? What to do if you get outed?Â Join Viviane, leader of The Sex Carnival, and Susan Mernit, sex and relationships contributing editor at Blogher, in a discussion of sharing, oversharing, and the best ways to put it out there. A hand out of tips for beginners and getting started will also be provided.

Full schedule here.

About AE

Critical Perspectives on Sexuality and Pornography in Science and Social Fiction

Taking up where the successful conference in autumn 2007 left off, this year’s Arse Elektronika stands under the motto “future” — and the ways in which the present sees itself reflected in it. Maintaining a broadened perspective on technical development and technology while also putting special emphasis on its social implementation, this year’s conference focuses on Science and Social Fiction.

The genre of the “fantastic” is especially well suited to the investigation of the touchy area of sexuality and pornography: actual and assumed developments are frequently depicted positively and approvingly, but just as often with dystopian admonishment. Here the classic, and continuingly valid, themes of modernism represent a clear link between the two aspects: questions of science, research and technologization are of interest, as is the complex surrounding urbanism, artificiality and control (or the loss of control). Depictions of the future, irregardless of the form they take, always address the present as well. Imaginations of the fantastic and the nightmarish give rise to a thematic overlapping of the exotic, the alienating and, of course, the pornographic/sexual as well.

Tagged as: Arse Elektronika, bloggers, Blogging, culture, Monochrom

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