porn

Bookmarks

by Viviane on 10/14/2010

in del.icio.us, sex

  • Prostitution “Experts” Versus Prostitutes: Why Don’t All Sex Workers Deserve a Voice? | Monica Shores |Huff Po – This ugly display of disrespect is unwarranted and near inexplicable. Why would these women be so threatened by sex workers organizing for themselves, gaining national attention, and working to influence public perception? Is the abolitionist narrative or abolitionists’ prominence as experts more important than the people they’re purporting to help? The poor thinking and outright bigotry exhibited by some anti-prostitution figures can no longer go unchallenged. Sex workers of all ages and genders deserve better advocacy than this, and thankfully, as the recent VAMP example proves, their demands for more honest discussion may no longer go unheard.
  • How Obscene is This! The Decency Clause Turns 20 — NCAC – In September 2010, the National Coalition Against Censorship, in partnership with the Vera List Center for Art and Politics at The New School and the BFA Department of Visual & Critical Studies at the School of Visual Arts, held a series of programs to highlight the effects 1990s attacks on culture continue to have on art and society and to reassess the state of art funding, censorship and self-censorship today. The programs included panel discussions, film screenings and event-specific videos.
  • PEEP SHOW Interview w/ Tristan Taormino, Part One « FilmSnobbery – Tristan’s written several books, including The Ultimate guide to Anal Sex for Women, and served as an editor for many others. She was a syndicated columnist for the Village Voice for almost ten years and currently writes an advice column for Taboo Magazine. Between her writing, her teaching, and her TV appearances, we feel lucky to have gotten her to answer our Peep Show questions.
  • Trve West Coast Fuck-Up Lit: Protection | Danny Wylde – Anyone who’s been a part of the adult industry for any significant amount of time has no doubt heard countless rumors about who’s an intravenous drug user, who escorts (a polite term for an upscale hooker), who has gay sex in their private life, and who has sex with transsexual women. Some of them are baseless, but a portion always turn out to be true. Each of the above stated behaviors could be considered “high risk,” and each are practiced by performers within the straight “side” of the industry. So when going to work, every performer puts themselves at risk. It’s a part of being a sex worker. Surely, no one wants to increase that risk, but finding a scape goat is the worst possible way to address the issue.

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Bookmarks

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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Arse Elektronika San Francisco 2010: “Space Racy”

by Viviane on 09/08/2010

in Events, sex, technology

09/30/2010to10/03/2010

arsebanner Arse Elektronika San Francisco 2010: Space Racy

Conference, film festival, machines, workshops and performances

A conference near and dear to my heart – I was at the first two, and my talk with Susan Mernit is in the anthology from the 2008 conference:

Love hotels. Swinger club design. Phallic architecture. The gentrification of Times Square, kicking out all the peep shows, and similar anti-sex gentrifications and battles. Kids making out in the back seats of cars, and people fucking in parks. Housing for unconventional family units. Augmented reality sex spaces. Furniture for sex. Room design. Creating new environments. Gendered spaces, and gender in the creation of space. Architecture by women, and the potential for the construction of a feminist architecture. Actively gender-segregated spaces, as both empowering and oppressing. Queer-segregated spaces, similarly. The acts of human intimacy, sexual intercourse, and procreation in weightlessness and the extreme environments of space. Erotic space tourism. The visibility of sex, genders, and relationship structures in various spaces. Spaces of sexual control and permissiveness. Sexual subcultures as spaces of social division. Spatial enforcement of relationship structures and gendered power structures. Geotagging as an expression for kinks. The sexual reading of architecture, especially around historical and modern styles and concerning ornament and detail. The eroticization of buildings — architecture for whorehouses, the Las Vegas strip, people who want to sleep with buildings. What makes design “sexy” and the construction of “sexy” as an architectural category as a comment on late heteronormativity. The terabyte gloryhole. The space in which the male gaze occurs and the space it defines.

Heterosexism, misogyny, and heterocentrism reinforce the dominant cultural structure and contribute to the oppression of large sectors of society. Sexuality, sex, gender, and related constructs are heavily implicated in and reproduce space, and are also constrained and restricted by it and by heterosexism. Let’s explore this space of interactions

Johannes Grenzfurthner/monochrom (Conference organizer)

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Bookmarks

by Viviane on 09/05/2010

in del.icio.us, sex

  • 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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Bookmarks

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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Bookmarks

by Viviane on 07/26/2010

in del.icio.us, sex

  • Samuel Steward’s Life in ‘Secret Historian’ – NYTimes.com – When the author Justin Spring finally tracked down the executor of Samuel Steward’s estate, he had no idea what this sexual outlaw and little-known literary figure had left behind after his death in 1993…So he was taken unawares by the 80 boxes full of drawings, letters, photographs, sexual paraphernalia, manuscripts and other items, including an autograph and reliquary with pubic hair from Rudolph Valentino, a thousand-page confessional journal Steward created at the request of the sex researcher Alfred Kinsey, and a green metal card catalog labeled “Stud File,” which contained a meticulously documented record on index cards of every sexual experience and partner — Rock Hudson, Thornton Wilder, “One-eyed Sadist” — that Steward said he had had over 50 years.
  • Interrogating Sexual Intentions on Mad Men | Cory Silverberg – Whatever the season brings I plan to follow Don's lesson about sex to Peggy; "Sex doesn't sell. You are the product. You feeling something is what sells." Watching characters we know have sex, particularly the ones we think are hot, may be fun, but it's what the sex makes them feel, makes us feel, that's far more interesting.
  • The Lesbians Who Love Male Gay Porn – The Daily Beast – “I wouldn’t have guessed lesbians would want to watch porn that didn’t have women,” said a straight woman who recently saw the Lisa Cholodenko comedy.
  • Prohibitionists, where are the answers when comparing sex work and straight work « Bound, Not Gagged – I have been far more harmed by “straight jobs” than I ever was as either a stripper or an independent escort.
  • GLAAD – Publications – Network Responsibility Index: 2009 – 2010 – The fourth annual GLAAD Network Responsibility Index is an evaluation of the quantity, quality and diversity of images of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people on television. It is intended to serve as a road map toward increasing fair, accurate and inclusive LGBT media representations.<br />
    <br />
    Primetime programming on the five broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, The CW, Fox and NBC) was evaluated as well as 10 highly-rated cable networks (A&E, ABC Family, FX, HBO, Lifetime, MTV, Showtime, TBS, TNT and USA). Based on the analysis, a grade was assigned to each network: Excellent, Good, Adequate, or Failing.

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Bookmarks

by Viviane on 07/20/2010

in del.icio.us, sex

  • Grab Your Dick and Double Click : Librarian Hot – It should come as no surprise that I really enjoyed the Blue and Lust books, while I wanted to throw the Jensen and Paul books across the room (or out the window, or off of a really big cliff). I do agree with them about a few things: for one, that pornography addiction is real, and it can cause serious damage to relationships (as can, of course, any addiction or compulsive behavior). I also agree that most mainstream porn is indeed extremely misogynistic. But do you know what I find even more demeaning to women? Anti-porn crusaders’ tired gender essentialism arguments.
  • How the Media Should Treat the Sexual Assault Allegations Against Al Gore | The Nation – A handful of feminist blogs, including Feministing, precede me in decrying the media's haste to impugn the credibility of the accuser. As they rightly observe, almost all other media coverage of the story has given the rest of us permission to giggle, when what we really need is a sober dose of reality: that these are credible charges against a very powerful and influential man. It's in our shared interest to take them seriously, evaluate them based on whatever information comes to light and demand answers and accountability.
  • The New Abortion Providers – NYTimes.com – This abortion-rights campaign, led by physicians themselves, is trying to recast doctors, changing them from a weak link of abortion to a strong one. Its leaders have built residency programs and fellowships at university hospitals, with the hope that, eventually, more and more doctors will use their training to bring abortion into their practices. The bold idea at the heart of this effort is to integrate abortion so that it’s a seamless part of health care for women — embraced rather than shunned.
  • For Women, Social Media is More Than "Girl Talk" | Mashable – It turns out that sociolinguists have found women to be innovators when it comes to communication, especially with new forms of languages. … The practical benefits that social media affords, combined with its emotionally fulfilling features make it likely that women will not only continue to engage with social media, but with future related innovations, as well.

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Bookmarks

by Viviane on 07/16/2010

in del.icio.us, sex

  • 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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Bookmarks

by Viviane on 07/15/2010

in del.icio.us, sex

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Bookmarks

by Viviane on 06/25/2010

in del.icio.us, sex

  • Vibrator Use Among Gay and Bi Identified Men – About.com Guide to Sexuality Cory Silverberg highlights findings by scientist Michael Reece, who recently published data about vibrating sex toy use among gay and bisexual men. "Along with Debby Herbenick and colleagues at Indiana University's Center for Sexual Health Promotion, Reece has managed to find the funding and time to conduct basic research on sex toy use that has long been needed," Cory writes.
  • Gay Workers Will Get Time to Care for Partner’s Sick Child – NYTimes.com – The new ruling indicates that an employee in a same-sex relationship can qualify for leave to care for the child of his or her partner, even if the worker has not legally adopted the child.<br />
    <br />
    The ruling, in a formal opinion letter, tackles a question not explicitly addressed in the 1993 law. It is one of many actions taken by the Obama administration to respond to the concerns of gay men and lesbians within the constraints of the Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman as husband and wife.
  • The Myth of Lesbian Bed Death (Village Voice) – But where did this idea of “lesbian bed death” come from? Thank sociologist Pepper Schwartz, who, in her 1983 book American Couples, asserted that lesbians have less sex and intimacy than other couples. Although her methodology and results were later challenged, the idea of lesbian bed death has taken on a life of its own, with damaging results.
  • Talking Sex, With Kink Educators and Anti-Porn Activists | Amanda Hess (Washinton City Paper) – If KinkForAll and “Porn Harms” have one thing in common, it’s an obsession with airing taboos.

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Bookmarks

by Viviane on 06/07/2010

in del.icio.us, sex

  • Kids With Lesbian Parents Do Just Fine – US News and World Report – When compared to teens of the same age, adolescents raised by lesbian parents are doing just fine socially, psychologically and academically, new research finds.<br />
    <br />
    Not only that, they have fewer social problems, and less aggressive and rule-breaking behaviors than other teens.
  • Americans’ Acceptance of Gay Relations Crosses 50% Threshold (Gallup) – There is a gradual cultural shift under way in Americans' views toward gay individuals and gay rights. While public attitudes haven't moved consistently in gays' and lesbians' favor every year, the general trend is clearly in that direction. This year, the shift is apparent in a record-high level of the public seeing gay and lesbian relations as morally acceptable. Meanwhile, support for legalizing gay marriage, and for the legality of gay and lesbian relations more generally, is near record highs.
  • Just How Bad Is Porn, Anyway? : The Thoughtful Animal (Jason Goldman) – This is meant to review some of the research that's been conducted on whether or not there is a reliable causal relationship between pornography and various Bad Things.

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Our Porn, Our Selves – offering balance to the anti-porn feminist agenda

by Viviane on 06/06/2010

in pornography, sex

ourpornourselves Our Porn, Our Selves offering balance to the anti porn feminist agenda

Our Porn, Our Selves is a resource that aims to create an alternative and constructive conversation on the use of pornography by women, and in turn offer balance to the anti-porn feminist agenda. It was formed by Violet blue in response to the Stop Porn Culture conference. Violet Blue has now set up a Facebook page and website as resources. There’s also a Twitter hashtag: #proporn

Read more about the Stop Porn Culture organization.

One of the speakers is Prof. Donna M. Hughes, who slandered MayMay for his role as an organizer of KinkForAll, and conflates his role as an organizer with human trafficking.

You should also watch Violet’s video, in which she talks about women, anti-porn feminists and porn. She’s also running a contest – make a video that you are pro-porn.

Pro-Porn Principles:

WE who declare that organizations such as Feminists Against Pornography do not speak for us.

WE who want the world to know that organizations such as Feminists Against Pornography do not represent feminists as a group.

WE who believe that every woman has the right and power to enjoy her sexuality as she decides.

WE who believe that to tell a woman how she may or may not enjoy her sexuality in any way is to deny that woman of her rights over her sexuality.

WE who state that any woman who attempts to control the way another woman enjoys, explores or expresses her sexuality is in fact creating a world that is harmful for all women.

WE who state that we are women, and we like pornography.

WE who state that as women, we are not harmed or threatened by the creation or viewing of pornography, and we wholly support the rights of any gender to view, create and enjoy pornography without judgment.

WE who want a world in which pornography is simply a sex toy enjoyed by all genders and sexual orientations, where women and men view porn within their own self-defined healthy sexuality, without being considered sick, twisted, wrong or mentally ill, and that men who enjoy pornography are no more likely to beat their wives, rape women or become peadophiles than anyone else in society.

WE hereby declare ourselves as adult women capable of making our own choices about our bodies and enjoyment of explicit visual stimulation for our sexual health and well-being.

WE hereby demand that our voices be heard.

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Bookmarks

by Viviane on 05/06/2010

in del.icio.us, sex

  • Paid Porn Is Backdooring Into the iPad, But It’s Not Going to Get Far | BNET Technology Blog – The only way larger porn companies can differentiate themselves is not by pushing Web content, but by creating original apps with features unique to that platform.
  • Entry to clubs "on the basis of … testicles" |Yawning Bread – A group of transgender women (i.e. MTF transgenders) launched a campaign called Sisters in Solidarity (SIS) with a press conference on 5 May 2010. They felt the time had come to put an end to discrimination against their community. This move was triggered by the experience of Marla Bendini being thrown out of China One, not once, but twice. China One is a club in Clarke Quay, a nightlife district along the Singapore River.
  • Chief Targets of Student Incivility Are Female and Young Professors – Chronicle of Higher Education – The study looked beyond the classroom, asking faculty members about their experiences with student incivility in the course of any class-related activities. The types of student incivility it covered included passive behavior, such as sleeping or texting in class; more actively disruptive behavior, such as coming to class late or talking on cellphones in the classroom; and behaviors that appeared directed at the instructor, such as open expressions of anger, impatience, or derision.
  • "Queer Sex Doesn’t Count" And Nine Other Myths Uncovered- And Debunked- at the Harvard "Rethinking Virginity" Conference – Feministing – The conference was organized by Lena Chen, blogger extraordinaire and recent Feministing Five interviewee, and brought together an incredibly diverse and impressive group of feminists, who dropped some serious knowledge on all things virgin-themed. One of the most interesting parts of the panel was learning how much misinformation exists around issues of virginity, sex, and our bodies. This isn't exactly breaking news- in fact, our very own Jessica Valenti wrote an entire book about it. But the quest to educate and rethink harmful cultural norms and standards is never finished. So I've compiled ten myths we uncovered- and debunked- at yesterday's conference
  • Rethinking Virginity—And Examining Our Assumptions About Sex | Lux Nightmare | Jezebel – I spent yesterday thinking through these questions, and many more, while at Harvard's Rethinking Virginity conference. Organized in response to statements made by True Love Revolution (Harvard's abstinence group), the conference featured a wide variety of speakers (including myself), all hashing through the thorny issues of sexuality, identity, and the notion of "purity."

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Michele Capozzi Boat Benefit

by Viviane on 04/14/2010

in Events

04/25/2010 7:00 PMto04/26/2010 1:00 AM

boatbenefit Michele Capozzi Boat Benefit

Presented by the Pleasure Salon, The Porno Jim Show and Selina Fire

Location: The Slipper Room, 167 Orchard Street (corner of Stanton), Lower East Side. NYC
Google Maps http://bit.ly/d1axdI
Cost: $20

Please join us in supporting Michele Capozzi, famed director of Pornology New York, a mainstay of the New York classic porn community. Recently he lost his houseboat at the NY Boat Basin, where he’s been living for three decades. This fundraiser aims to help him get a new boat, and thus continue to live here in New York City as a valued member of our community. Many key members of the porn and sex-positive community know and love Michele, and we’ve gathered together to help one of our own in his time of need.

At the event we’ll have host Porno Jim with an amazing presentation of porn clips and burlesque performers, an exceptional silent auction with classic porn memorabilia and performances from some of our most famous porn stars and sex-positive activists. We’d love you to attend what promises to be a wonderful party, for this worthy cause.

The show is going to be great. The funny and charming Porno Jim will MC, with an array of clips of classic porn, including films Michele produced, co-produced and directed, interspersed with burlesque performances. Veronica Vera and Kate Bornstein have also agreed to perform during the show, which we’re thrilled about.

For more information, you can also visit our web page at http://www.boatbenefit.com

Facebook: http://bit.ly/a1lVJ1
Fetlife: http://fetlife.com/events/15917

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Bookmarks

by Viviane on 04/08/2010

in del.icio.us, sex

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