Posts tagged as:

legal

  • 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 Michael Peacock was unanimously acquitted, after a four-day trial that saw the outdated obscenity law of England and Wales in the dock…Peacock had been charged under the Obscene Publications Act 1959 for allegedly distributing ‘obscene’ ‘gay’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.

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by Viviane on 10/23/2010

in del.icio.us,sex

  • The Downfall of Alexa Di Carlo | Charlie Glickman – But I do take exception when someone creates false credentials in order to dupe the gullible. I worked hard to get a doctorate in sex education and many of my colleagues, whether they have academic credentials or not, have dedicated years of their lives to learn about sexuality in order to provide good information. I feel a lot of anger when someone pretends to have done the work in order to make it seem as if they know what they’re talking about….It also upsets me when people misrepresent sexwork. Usually, people make it seem as if it’s much a much worse career than it might be, especially when they want to ban it. But it’s also problematic when people glorify it because it creates a misrepresentation of the challenges and difficulties that sexworkers face. In turn, this romanticizes the profession and makes it more likely that people will decide to try it out without knowing how to protect themselves.
  • Law.com – ‘Cached’ Pages May Be Evidence in Child Porn Case, Panel Says | Law.com – In a case of first impression in New York, a Brooklyn appellate panel has held that temporary files automatically “cached” by an Internet browser may serve as evidence of promoting and possessing child pornography…The Appellate Division, 2nd Department, looked at similar cases from other jurisdictions and concluded that their “consistent thread” was the need to distinguish “inadvertent” acquisition and possession of child pornography from “knowing” and “intentional” acquisition and possession.

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by Viviane on 10/13/2010

in del.icio.us,sex

  • Reader Stories: My Experiences with Sexuality During Cancer – Most people aren’t encouraged to think about sexuality when they’re living with cancer. And yet we are all sexual beings and many of us don’t want to give up on sex. Share your story of keeping connected to your sexuality and sex life while living with cancer.
  • Judge orders military to stop enforcing ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ – CNN.com – U.S. District Judge Virginia Phillips’ permanent worldwide injunction — praised by gay rights organizations — orders the military “immediately to suspend and discontinue any investigation, or discharge, separation, or other proceeding, that may have been commenced” under the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.

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by Viviane on 09/30/2010

in del.icio.us,sex

  • The future of sexology comes to San Francisco with the Arse Elektronika conference | io9 – . I love this array of crazy science fiction/science/sex presentations that straddle the line between academic credibility and outright perversion.
  • Dr. Logan Levkoff: Sex Educators Unite to Support University Sex Weeks | Huffington Post – Though Brooks appeared to be concerned for students' and colleges' reputations, she offers no voice for the student organizers of these events or their faculty supporters (and hints at no discussion with them either). In an effort to present their voices, I reached out to sex educators, college student groups, and faculty members from various universities. Every educator and group contacted was frustrated by Brooks' mischaracterization of their events and their work. Many of them were outraged that the individual leading the charge against sex-themed programming was an economics professor with no experience in sexuality education. We decided to respond and together composed a Letter to the Editor of The Chronicle of Higher Education. It was sent it to the editors on September 16th.
  • Assistant attorney general blogs against gay student body president – CNN.com – For nearly six months, Andrew Shirvell, an assistant attorney general for the state of Michigan, has waged an internet campaign against college student Chris Armstrong, the openly gay student assembly president at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
  • Sexy Books: Celebrate your freedom to read during Banned Books Week | Examiner.com
  • Internet Pornographers Now Suing Pirates | Mashable – The producers have targeted users who downloaded titles that prominently feature transsexuals and “barely legal” 18-year old girls. Since the lawsuits are on public record, the defendants’ porn-viewing habits would be exposed.
  • Why Folsom St. Fair is Fun, Sexy and Important | Charlie Glickman – One of the key pieces of sex-positivity can be summed up by the acronym YKINMKBYKIOK, which stands for “Your Kink Is Not My Kink But Your Kink Is OK”. Once you realize that your turn-ons and your squicks come from within you, once you realize that it has less to do with what someone else is doing or saying than you think, you can discover much more sexual freedom within yourself.

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by Mark Fass

A Manhattan judge has ordered the New York City Police Department to shine a light on the hazy legal line separating bondage, domination and sadomasochism from prostitution.

In a decision last week, Supreme Court Justice Carol R. Edmead directed the NYPD to provide the Urban Justice Center’s Sex Workers Project with documents regarding police investigations of several Manhattan bondage, domination and sadomasochism clubs between 2006 and 2008.

The judge, however, ruled that the police department is not required to turn over a copy of a confidential Vice Enforcement Division manual, which sets forth the procedures used by undercover agents to identify, engage and arrest suspected prostitutes.

“Disclosure of this information…would ‘furnish the safecracker with the combination to the safe,’ as it would alert the potential violators of the prostitution laws to the unique factors and methods the undercover police officers are likely to use to communicate with the other members of the team,” Justice Edmead wrote in Urban Justice Center v. New York Police Department, 400988/2010 (Subscription reqd).

The Sex Workers Project, which provides legal services and policy advocacy for people who work in the sex industry—exotic dancers, dominatrices and pornography actors, among others—considers the contested documents essential to understanding how the NYPD interprets and enforces New York Penal Law 230.00, the single-sentence statute that prohibits engaging in “sexual conduct” for a fee, but fails to define “sexual conduct.”

Since NYPL 230.00 was enacted in 1969—”prostitution” had previously been treated as a form of vagrancy, according to the annotated McKinney’s Penal Law—the definition of “sexual conduct” has slowly been teased out by the courts. Homosexual intercourse is “sexual conduct,” courts have ruled, though “lap dancing” is not—so long as the person providing the lap does not touch the dancer’s naked breasts or buttocks.

The case law provides scant guidance regarding bondage, domination and “fetish for a fee” services. Only a single reported opinion, the 1994 Brooklyn Criminal Court decision People v. Georgia A., 163 Misc.2d 634, addresses whether such acts constitute prohibited “sexual conduct.”

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by Viviane on 09/05/2010

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  • Craigslist Censored: Adult Section Comes Down | TechCrunch
  • Court won’t force state to defend Prop. 8 | SFGate – The outlook for the legal defense of Proposition 8, California's ban on same-sex marriage, grew cloudier Thursday as a state appellate court refused to order Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Attorney General Jerry Brown to appeal a federal judge's ruling overturning the measure.
  • Conservative Group Foiled in Attempt to Mandate Defense of Prop. 8 – Law Blog – WSJ – On Thursday, a state appellate court in Sacramento without comment refused to order Schwarzenegger and Brown to appeal a federal judge’s ruling overturning the measure.
  • Bering in Mind: Polyamory chic, gay jealousy and the evolution of a broken heart | Jesse Bering | Scientific American – Unless you have the unfortunate luck of being coupled with a psychopath, or have the good fortune of being one yourself, broken hearts are not easily experienced at either end, nor are they easily mended by reason or waved off by all the evolutionary logic in the world. And because we’re designed by nature to be not only moderately promiscuous but also to become selfish when that natural promiscuity rears its head—again, naturally—in our partners, “reasonable people” are far from immune to getting hurt by their partner’s open and agreed-upon sex with other parties. Monogamy may not be natural, but neither is indifference to our partners’ sex lives or tolerance for polyamory. In fact, for many people, especially those naively taking guidance from evolutionary theorists without thinking deeply enough about these issues, polyamory can lead to devastating effects.
  • American Academy of Pediatrics: ‘The media have become one of the leading sex educators in the U.S.’ – National Sex education | Examiner.com – In a policy statement released yesterday, the American Academy of Pediatrics weighs in on Sexuality, Contraception, and the Media, calls for a national task force on children, adolescents, and the media, and advocates for comprehensive sex education, noting that "It is unwise to promote 'abstinence-only' sex education when it has been shown to be ineffective and when the media have become such an important source of information about 'nonabstinence.'"
  • One Woman Explains Her Journey From Anti-Porn to Pro-Porn | Our Porn, Ourselves – After working with her former boss and mentor for an unspecified amount of time, female research intern Beth Brigham completely disagrees and now openly disputes with Gail Dines anti-porn claims. Brigham and has since worked in porn and so now can speak firsthand about what’s true in Dines’ porn statements about porn and its performers, and what is not.

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by Viviane on 08/13/2010

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  • Will The Right Sacrifice California to Save Marriage Amendments Elsewhere? | Right Wing Watch – there is some talk on the Right of not appealing or fighting the Prop 8 ruling and letting California have gay marriage in order to keep the case away from the Supreme Court and thereby saving the marriage amendments in all the other states:
  • Gay Protest Signs: The Greatest Hits | gay.com
  • Appeals Court Asked To Block Start Of Gay Weddings : NPR – The judge said he's not sure the proponents have the authority to appeal since they would not be affected by or responsible for implementing his ruling. By contrast, he said, same-sex couples are being denied their constitutional rights every day they are prohibited from marrying…Proposition 8 supporters "point to harm resulting from a 'cloud of uncertainty' surrounding the validity of marriages performed after judgment is entered but before proponents' appeal is resolved," he said. "Proponents have not, however, argued that any of them seek to wed a same-sex spouse."

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by Viviane on 08/12/2010

in del.icio.us,sex

  • Judge Allows, but Delays, Gay Marriage in California – NYTimes.com – Just a week after ruling that Proposition 8 — a 2008 voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage — was unconstitutional, a federal district judge lifted a stay on his decision on Thursday, opening the door for untold numbers of gay couples to marry in the nation’s most populous state. But he delayed implementation of the order to lift his stay until Aug. 18.
  • Who I Am: A Cadet Leaves West Point | Pam’s House Blend – In her own words, here is a video of Cadet Katie Miller discussing her decision to resign from West Point because of life under DADT.
  • Dissecting Decontextualization: Donna M. Hughes’ Happy Endings? | Maybe Maimed but Never Harmed › – Having examined how the sex-negative “scare” tactic is perpetuated, let’s look at the pernicious “confuse” tactic. This tactic relies on an audience not to fact-check, as it includes outright lying, omitting important facts (“de-contextualizing”), and even creating false contexts. In this way, the tactic is identical to Andrew Breitbart’s famous example: take the facts, strip them of context, and present them in as emotionally charged a way as possible.

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U.S. Distrist Court website, Perry et a. v. Schwarzenegger

#728 Final Stay Order:

PERMANENT INJUNCTION. This action having come before and tried by the court and the court considered the same pursuant to FRCP 52(a), on August 4, 2010, ordered entry of judgment in favor of plaintiffs and plaintiff-intervenors and against defendants and defendant-intervenors and each of them, Doc #708, now therefore: IT IS HEREBY ORDERED, ADJUDGED AND DECREED that: Defendants in their official capacities, and all persons under the control or supervision of defendants, are permanently enjoined from applying or enforcing Article I,  Sec 7.5 of the California Constitution.

That judgment shall be STAYED until August 18, 2010 at 5 PM PDT at which time defendants and all persons under their control or supervision shall cease to apply or
enforce Proposition 8.

#716 Memorandum in Opposition re 705 MOTION to Stay Pending Appeal filed byEdmund G. Brown, Jr.
#717 Memorandum in Opposition re 705 MOTION to Stay Pending Appeal filed byMark B. Horton, Arnold Schwarzenegger
#718 Memorandum in Opposition re 705 MOTION to Stay Pending Appeal filed byCity and County of San Francisco, Paul T. Katami, Kristin M. Perry, Sandra B. Stier, Jeffrey J. Zarrillo

Perry et al. v. Schwarzenegger opinion (U.S. District Court of California, Northern District)

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by Viviane on 08/09/2010

in del.icio.us,sex

  • Mistress Matisse’s Journal – Um, yeah, since you asked – you’re snobs, ladies, and you are indeed pretty ass-backwards. The one-line disclaimer you tagged on at the end about how, oh, okay, you’ve learned your lesson and you won’t make fun of those crazy swingers anymore? I’m unimpressed. You are not qualified to write knowledgeably about a minority sexual community, because your outlook is provincial, your research is shallow, and you don’t even try to hide, let alone really examine, your bias. Stick to tips on blowjobs and pubic hairstyles, that’s about your speed.
  • Porn School: The problem with learning about sex from porn | Bish – So lots of young people learn about sex and relationships from porn. The problem with this is that they can learn good and bad things. The legal age for watching porn is over 18, I think this is a good thing. I think that you need to be old enough to understand some of the things going on.
  • Hong Kong transgender woman fights marriage ban | SF Gate – The case underscores the uncertainty of marriage law when it comes to people who have changed their biological gender in the socially conservative ethnic Chinese community.
  • Early Struggles of Soldier Charged in Leak Case – NYTimes.com – He spent part of his childhood with his father in the arid plains of central Oklahoma, where classmates made fun of him for being a geek. He spent another part with his mother in a small, remote corner of southwest Wales, where classmates made fun of him for being gay.

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by Viviane on 08/08/2010

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by Viviane on 08/06/2010

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  • Vaughn Walker, Prop 8 Judge, Has Personal Life Debated After Gay Marriage Ruling | Huffington Post – William G. Ross, an expert on judicial ethics and law professor at Samford University in Alabama, said that a judge's sexual orientation has no more relevance to his or her ability to rule fairly on a case involving gay marriage than it would for a deeply religious judge or a judge who had been divorced multiple times…"Under the logic of the people challenging the judge's fitness to rule on a case involving gay rights because he or she was gay, one would have to find a eunuch to serve on the case, because one could just as easily argue that a heterosexual judge couldn't rule on it either," Ross said.
  • Prop 8 Trial Tracker | A Project of the Courage Campaign Institute – The Prop 8 Trial Tracker is a project of the Courage Campaign Institute, which is a part of the Courage Campaign’s online organizing network of more than 700,000 supporters in California and across the country… The primary contributors are Rick Jacobs, Chair of the Courage Campaign Institute, and Robert Cruickshank, Public Policy Director of the Courage Campaign Institute. California-based bloggers Paul Hogarth and Brian Leubitz also contribute legal analysis and other content to the Prop 8 Trial Tracker. Eden James, the Courage Campaign Institute’s Managing Director, is providing strategic and promotional support as well as adding occasional content.
  • N.Y. Appeals Court Affirms Lesbian’s Duty to Pay Child Support | NY Law Journal – "This Court has previously employed the 'implied promise-equitable estoppel approach' … to preclude a man with no biological or adoptive connection to a child from disavowing a relied-upon, implied promise to support the child, thus preventing the man from leaving the child without the support of two parents, as originally contemplated," the 2nd Department observed in an unsigned, unanimous ruling.

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by Viviane on 08/05/2010

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by Viviane on 07/22/2010

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  • N.Y.U. Doesn’t Want Film of Larry Rivers’s Naked Daughters – NYTimes.com – After it came to light last week that films and videotapes made by the artist Larry Rivers included footage of his two daughters naked, New York University informed his foundation that it did not want those materials included as part of the archive it was purchasing, said John Beckman, a spokesman for N.Y.U.<br />
    <br />
    That leaves the question of what to do with the films and tapes, which are now in the hands of the Larry Rivers Foundation and which Mr. Rivers’s younger daughter, Emma Tamburlini, wants turned over to her and her sister, Gwynne Rivers. Mr. Rivers died in 2002.
  • Buttman v. The Man: D.C.’s First Big Obscenity Trial in Decades Fails to Determine the Obscenity of Milk Enemas – The Sexist – Washington City Paper – But after the trial, jurors were more concerned with what wasn’t in Milk Nymphos: Violence. Rape. Bestiality. Kids. “These people were adults and they were willing. No one put a gun to their head,” Crawford said. “Had they brought a child out in pampers, then we would have been like, hell no,” Mordecai added. In opening arguments, the defense emphasized that the only entity forcing anyone to watch porn is the government. “The movies are not—and are not meant to be—distributed to these 14 strangers sitting in a federal courthouse,” defense attorney Paul Cambria said. The films feature “adults putting on a performance…for another adult, who would make that choice [to watch it] if that were his or her cup of tea.”
  • Stagliano Case: A Pyrrhic Victory? « Blogging Censorship – Not prepared to alienate anybody, Holder told a panel of congressmen that he will pursue, with limited resources, obscenity cases that have the “greatest potential for harm” while being aware of First Amendment considerations.
  • District To Pay Lesbian Teen $35K Over Prom Dispute : NPR – A school district in rural Mississippi that canceled its prom rather than allow a lesbian student to attend with her girlfriend has agreed to pay $35,000 to settle a discrimination lawsuit the ACLU filed on her behalf.

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by Viviane on 07/16/2010

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  • Love in the Age of the Pickup Artist | Stendhal Among the Seducers | The Point Magazine – In other words, it is not enough that playfulness be taken up in the service of seriousness; the seriousness must always be present alongside the playfulness, bound up with it in a constant synthesis. This means that the lover will have to show his hand every once in a while, even if he is quick to hide it again. And this also means that love will always bring with it some portion of terror. Because his heart is at stake, the lover will feel the terror of losing the beloved, even in the moment she gives herself to him. This is the terror the seducer believes he has bypassed. Maybe he has—but in doing so the chance for love has slipped through his fingers. Because he does not sow, he cannot reap. There is no way around this.
  • Study: Fish-oil supplements may cut breast-cancer risk | Seattle Times Newspaper – Researchers at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center surveyed more than 35,000 postmenopausal women in Western Washington and found that those who took omega-3 fish-oil supplements had a 32 percent lower incidence of breast cancer, but senior author Emily White doesn't recommend that women begin taking the highly touted capsules.
  • Star Witness Makes a Liar out of Stagliano’s Prosecution – Reason Magazine – The prosecution can no longer vouch for the integrity of its own star witness. FBI Special Agent Bradley is the only one to testify that he watched the entire content of the films in question and deemed them obscene, so if the prosecution has serious doubts about the honesty and accuracy of his testimony, the government has a responsibility to not present that testimony to the jury. And there are good reasons for doubting Bradley.<br />
    <br />
    In Thursday's proceedings, Bradley claimed that prosecutor Pamela Satterfield told him to review the movies before the trial began at the behest of Judge Richard Leon, so that he could recall better on the witness stand basic elements of the movies, including action and dialogue. If Bradley's statement is true, it would be a shocking breach of ethics by Judge Leon—you can't have impartial arbiters helping the prosecution prepare witnesses.
  • What turns women on: less kitsch, more context – The Globe and Mail – Swedish filmmaker Erika Lust favours everyday hook-up scenarios and modern apartment settings over Mafia dons on yachts.<br />
    <br />
    Female-friendly erotica features the guy next door and showcases the bed linens, says filmmaker Erika Lust

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