Call for submissions: Best Sex Writing 2008
To be edited by Rachel Kramer Bussel
Publication date: November 2007
Deadline for submissions: May 1, 2007
Email: bestsexwriting2008@gmail.com
Editor Rachel Kramer Bussel is looking for personal essays and reportage for inclusion in the 2008 edition of Best Sex Writing, which will hit stores in November 2007. Seeking articles from across the sexual spectrum, covering alternative sexuality, reproductive rights and sexuality, sex work, sex and aging, sex and parenting, BDSM, polyamory, gender roles, sex and race, sex and disability, etc. These topics are just starting points; any writings covering the topic of sex will be considered. Personal essays will also be considered.
Previous editions of the annual series have featured authors such as Susannah Breslin, Susie Bright, Stephen Elliott, Tristan Taormino, Virginia Vitzhum, and others. See Best Sex Writing 2005 and 2006 for examples of the types of writing being sought. I’m especially looking for reported pieces that are political, timely, intelligent, surprising, and insightful about sex in American culture (and its many subcultures). (more…)
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Nearly one in four teens communicated hourly with his or her partner by cell phone or text messaging between midnight and 5 a.m., according to a survey conducted by Teenage Research Unlimited, a research organization specializing in research on teens and young adults.
Shaina Weisbrot, now a sophomore at Rutgers University, says as a teenager she was in a controlling relationship that eventually turned violent. She recalls staying on the phone until 5 a.m. some nights, arguing with her boyfriend. “I’d be in my room. I’d pretend to be sleeping. I’d shut the lights and I’d be quiet, and no one would know the difference because all you had to do was hide your cell phone.”
About one in three teens surveyed who have been in a relationship said their partner had text messaged them 10, 20 and up to 30 times per hour to find out where they are, what they’re doing, or who they’re with.
Dr. Jill Murray, a psychologist who specializes in teen relationship violence, says that kind of questioning goes beyond casual conversation and amounts to controlling behavior. “The technology sets up the opportunity for constant stalking, for constant communication, for constant intimidation and threatening behavior, ” Murray said at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. “So we’re seeing an increase in teen dating abuse and I believe that this is a good part of it.”
(more . . .)
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…Primary among the reasons mothers to be choose to become impregnated by a known donor who remains part of the family is a reluctance to raise children in the shadow of anonymous heritage. As one donor dad, an East Coast lawyer named Guy, told me, his lesbian co-parents “felt like it was important for their kids to know as much as they could about their story. When there’s an anonymous donor, it’s not always an ideal situation for the child.†As for why lesbians often choose donor fathers who are gay, Judith Stacey and others told me that many prefer gay men for reasons of “solidarity.†“They think that gay men will be more sympathetic, more amenable to agreements they might create and stick by,†Stacey says. And finally they — along with the straight women who choose to use gay donors — say they feel that gay men simply come with less baggage. Heterosexual sperm donors are more liable to marry and father children of their own, which has the potential of causing jealousy and competition among the children and their mothers.
Link
gay, lesbian, parenting, pregnancy
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From the Huffington Post:
Episode 1: The T-Shirt Epiphany
Fuck you, you fucking fuck.
If you are offended by that sentiment, don’t blame me. Blame the T-shirt.
From the minute I saw it, I had to have that exact T-shirt, displayed prominently in the window of the store in the Castro section of San Francisco, because I am fucking gay. And I got fucking gay married. I even had kids in a fucking gay way. Of course, we live, my partner and I, with the kids in the fucking gayest neighborhood of the fucking gayest city in the world. Our two sons, though only four years old and 18 months old, are not–as far as I can tell–fucking gay. But I digress.
Back to me, riveted to a slogan that I would normally avoid, almost as much as I have tried to ignore the sex-oriented products featured in too many stores in the Castro. That has seemed to become especially true ever since I had kids, when I suddenly started to actually notice exactly how many pictures of buff men in ass chaps were prominently arrayed in window throughout my neighborhood as I wheeled them by in their strollers. Recently, in fact, my four-year-old even began to offer assessments of these ripple-muscled chests. “Is he stronger than Popeye?” he queried me. “Because he sure looks like he eats a lot of spinach.” Of course, I had no words once again, as it had been two years before when I once paused in vague admiration at a plaster-caster kit to create a real-life statue of your penis, and considered it as a Christmas present for my older brother; it was a reverie broken immediately when Louie pointed to the shiny set of anal beads featured nearby and asked if he could have them to play with. (Parenting tip #1: Say no to any toddler request to turn sex toys into, well, toys.)
(Read more…)
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About a fourth of the readers of Babytalk, a parenting magazine, were upset by a cover showing a woman breastfeeding her baby. What an emotionally unhealthy bunch.
“I was shocked to see a giant breast on the cover of your magazine,†one woman from Kansas wrote in reaction to the picture in Babytalk, a free magazine for young mothers. “I was offended and it made my husband very uncomfortable when I left the magazine on the coffee table.â€
I wonder exactly why hubby was uncomfortable? Did he yearn to be the baby?
Bare breast needs cover-up, not front cover
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By REBECCA BREEDEN
2theadvocate.com staff writer
A Jewish porn star and an abstinent Christian debated pornography Wednesday night, exciting some 1,200 college students at the LSU Union Theater.
Fire marshal codes prevented hundreds of other students from entering the free event featuring celebrity Ron Jeremy, a 27-year veteran of the porn film industry, and Michael Leahy, a self-proclaimed recovering sex addict and author of “Porn Nation: The Naked Truth.”
The twosome didn’t bicker much, but the so-called debate summoned more laughs than the David Duke/Edwin Edwards debates of 1991.
Jeremy and Leahy both blamed sexual addiction on individual responsibility and parenting, saying some content is not X-rated but still can sexually arouse people.
“You cannot blame porn,” Jeremy said. “When I was young, I used to masturbate to Gilligan’s Island.” (more…)
[via Fark.com]
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‘Willful barrenness,’ avoiding parenting, is a moral rebellion with a new face
According to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Joe and Deb Schum of Atlanta aren’t worried about baby proofing their house or buying a car seat. As a matter of fact, the couple doesn’t ever intend to have children, and they are proud of their childlessness. According to the newspaper’s report, “the Schums are part of a growing number of couples across the country for whom kids don’t factor in the marriage equation.”
The paper also pointed to the fact that the nation’s birthrate fell last year to an historic low of 66.9 births per 1,000 women age 15-44. That represents a decline of 43 percent since just 1960. “Many childless couples,” according to the report, “revel in their decision, despite badgering from baffled mothers and friends. Others struggle with the choice before keeping the house kid-free.”
The Schums just don’t want kids to get in the way of their lifestyle. They enjoy cruising to the Georgia mountains on their matching Harley-Davidson motorcycles. They love their gourmet kitchen, outfitted with the very latest stainless steel appliances and trendy countertops. Deb Schum explains, “If we had kids, we would need a table where the kids could do homework.” Clearly, children aren’t a part of their interior design plan.
This pattern of childlessness has caught the attention of others in the media. The left-wing internet site Salon.com actually published a series of articles entitled, “To Breed or Not to Breed.” This series of articles featured couples and individuals who have decided that children are not a part of their chosen lifestyle. (more…)
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Gallery Carre
