- The Case Against Drop-down Identities | Smarterware – Human beings and their relationships are complex and nuanced, so the software that attempts to describe them must accomodate a wide range of expression.
- Dickinson College students protest school’s handling of sex assaults – Philly.com -
- HTTPS Everywhere | Electronic Frontier Foundation – HTTPS Everywhere is a Firefox extension produced as a collaboration between The Tor Project and the Electronic Frontier Foundation. It encrypts your communications with a number of major websites.
- Planned Parenthood: House Bars Planned Parenthood From Federal Funding – On February 18, 2011, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to bar Planned Parenthood health centers from all federal funding for birth control, cancer screenings, HIV testing, and other lifesaving care.
- 6 Surprising Bad Practices That Hurt Dyslexic Users – UX Movement – When dyslexic users read text, sometimes they can experience visual distortion effects [5]. These effects vary in degree from person to person, but they can make reading text that much harder. Below are six bad practices that are likely to cause these visual distortion effects for dyslexic users. These bad practices can also make reading difficult for non-dyslexic users. But the effect they have on dyslexic users is much worse.
- ACLU intervenes in Gay-Straight Alliance dispute, protest underway – Since Monday’s report, the local newspaper has editorialized that the district has placed themselves in a difficult position and the ACLU has gotten involved on behalf of the student seeking to for the club. More details after the fold…
- Open Marriages – Galleries – The Daily Beast
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- OSU Cancels Keynote Speaker Payment for LGBT Conference | KEZI – News video, with interviews with Tristan Taormino and OSU Modern Sex Organizer Rachel Ulrich
- Tristan Taormino, Ann Coulter, And The Disgrace Of Oregon State University | violet blue ® :: open source sex – Oregon State University is doing a huge disservice to its students. Not only in missing the opportunity to have Taormino speak (an already-vetted speaker at dozens of universities) – but in assuming the students are ignorant about how taxpayer-speaker money is spent. Tristan Taormino takes private money to make pornography (among other sex ed products). OSU does not give speakers money to make products – unless OSU has something they need to tell us about paying for the creation of Ann Coulter’s 2002 book “Slander: Liberal Lies About the American Right.”
- Sex Conference Un-invites Keynote Speaker For Being Too Racy? | The Bilerico Project – There is speculation that the reason for the cancellation is due to her work in the porn industry. If so, the university has overstepped significantly in this case. First off, the talk is not about porn whatsoever and to make hiring decisions based on a contractor’s other unrelated employment sets a dangerous precedent around academic freedom. Secondly, if there was ever a conference where it is appropriate to invite a feminist pornographer to talk about their work, it would be a feminist conference titled Modern Sex. And finally, to turn away a feminist pornographer while allowing Playboy to annually spend a week on campus recruiting for the “Hottest Girls of the Pac-10″ smacks of a horrific double standard.<br />
<br />
The ironic part is that while Tristan’s speech was not about feminist porn, I will be presenting at the conference on that exact topic – and showing clips.
- Pucker Up – OSU Press Release – Sex Educator And Speaker Tristan Taormino, Set To Give Conference Keynote, Uninvited By Oregon State University Because Of Her ‘Resume And Website’
- Tristan Taormino, Modern Sex conference organizers weigh in on OSU controversy – National Sex & Relationships | Examiner.com – Oregon State University’s Intercultural Student Services (ISS) and Office of the LGBTQ Outreach and Services are presenting Modern Sex: Privilege, Communication, and Culture on campus, February 14-16, and controversy around the conference and its invited speakers came to a boil this week. Since my own coverage of the hubbub around Tristan Taormino’s canceled keynote lecture — and the university’s response — has been garnering significant attention, I took the opportunity today to speak at length with Taormino and Rachel Ulrich, co-organizer of the Modern Sex conference, for more on the story.
- Oregon State U Shuts Tristan Taormino Out | Charlie Glickman – Second, it’s not clear to me how making porn invalidates Tristan as an educator or as a speaker. She is a porn producer AND a sex educator. And from talking with her, I know that each informs the other. But if anything, that makes her a better speaker on the relationships between feminism, sex and porn than most people. (Which is absolutely not meant as any slam against Tobi Hill-Meyer, who is also one of the best folks to talk about these topics.)
- State Budgets, Higher Education, and Sexual Freedom | Sex In The Public Square – When experts are rejected because their work is controversial, we should be worried not only about sexual freedom but also about academic freedom more broadly. There are places where evolution is the hot-button issue, or where the politics of Israel and Palestine is the main cause of political concern. We can’t ignore this instance of self-censorship simply because it has to do with sexuality. Once “we can’t afford to offend the legislature” becomes a widely accepted rationale for canceling or refusing to fund programs, we can expect to see many more threats to the foundation of public higher education in general.
- Got a WordPress blog? This plugin tells you if any of your readers are on the Gawker hacker list | TNW – With Shared User Checker, WordPress admins are now able to detect which users have been compromised, making their own sites more secure but also giving the option to alert the users that they may have had their details stolen in the Gawker attacks.
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gawker,
Oregon State University,
passwords,
plugins,
pornography,
privacy,
Tristan Taormino,
tristantaormino,
wordpress
- The Female Gaze Does Not Exist? – I think my frustration also occurs because decrying terms like “porn for women”, “female friendly” and “the female gaze” (however flawed they are) can have the effect of denying straight women their own space in the pornosphere. As I said in this post two and a half years ago, these phrases are about creating a space in an overwhelmingly male-dominated industry.
- How to get birth control privately when you’re a teen & keep condoms from breaking | Scarleteen – To review, you are old enough to seek health services at a clinic and obtain hormonal birth control options without parental consent, for potentially reduced cost. Plus, we had a bonus discussion about correct condom use because it is important to keep on protecting yourself against STIs even if you have another method of contraception, and condoms make a great birth control backup if something goes amiss with your other method.
- Gmail Gains Delegation Feature: Who Wants To Answer All My Email? | Techcrunch – By way of a new feature in settings, you can grant another Google account holder access to your email account. This allows another person to both send and receive emails on behalf of your account.
- It is not just violent clients who hurt sex workers | Audacia Ray | Guardian.co.uk – In Uganda and many other countries, they are denied access to HIV treatment, stigmatised by authorities and brutalised by police
- Transsexuals Are Edging Into the Mainstream – Is 2010 the Year of the Transsexual? – NYTimes.com – Not since the glam era of the 1970s has gender-bending so saturated the news media. The difference now is that mystery has been replaced with empowerment, even pride.
- Sarah Mei » Disalienation: Why Gender is a Text Field on Diaspora – The “gender” field in a person’s profile was originally a dropdown menu, with three choices: blank, male, and female. My change made it an optional text field that was blank to start. A wide open frontier! Enter anything you want.
- Why you shouldn’t give to the Salvation Army this holiday season | The Bilerico Project – While many think of the group as just another charity, in truth the group is a religious sect that is notoriously anti-gay; you shouldn't give to the Salvation Army this holiday season if you support gay rights.
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condoms,
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email,
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Uganda
- On the Internet, Nobody Knows You’re Vanilla | Midori | CarnalNation – So are people having sex and kinkier adventures than you? Sex creates enough inadequacy issues for most people and the net just feeds those fears. The truth is that some are, but most aren't.
- For those who cannot see, erotica in 3-D – thestar.com – Her book Tactile Mind, which she hand-crafted herself, is meant to be felt up, to be precise. It is an erotic book for the blind and visually impaired, though it can be enjoyed by the sighted as well.
- How to reclaim your privacy by disabling Facebook’s “Open Graph” – Simple Help – This very brief tutorial will show you how to disable Facebook’s latest “has some privacy issues” service, Open Graph…You can find a very nice summary of it here. What I will do is show you the steps required to block this new “feature” – which is enabled by default.
- Kate Bornstein: When Bad Movies Happen To Good People | Out.com Features – In the hands of a better filmmaker, the '70s exploitation campiness would have made Luna’s point: Hate crimes suck. But, he failed. He wound up making a film that a large part of his potential audience considers a hate crime in and of itself.
- Why You Should Never Pay For Online Dating « OkTrends – Today I'd like to show why the practice of paying for dates on sites like Match.com and eHarmony is fundamentally broken, and broken in ways that most people don't realize.
- Rethinking Virginity Conference, 5/3 – Is there a sex-positive way to teach abstinence? What are the historical and cultural origins of the virginity ideal? How does a queer person lose their virginity? Does anyone even know what virginity really is?<br />
<br />
From debunking myths to defying norms, the Rethinking Virginity Conference will feature scholars and experts speaking about gender, sexuality, and the elusive concept of virginity.
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dating,
erotica,
Events,
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harvard,
Midori,
movies,
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sex,
sexuality,
transgender
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cyberstalking,
documentary,
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Events,
facebook,
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legal,
movies,
nyc,
porn,
privacy,
software
- Buzz off: Disabling Google Buzz | Webware – CNET – Instructions on purging your profile, blocking followers, then turning off Google Buzz.
- Google Says Buzz Needed Wider Testing, Issuing Fixes This Week – google buzz – Lifehacker – In one week, Google's Buzz social network has moved through a splashy launch, a quick fix, a major clean-up, and now, an apology.
- Official Gmail Blog: A new Buzz start-up experience based on your feedback – We've heard your feedback loud and clear, and since we launched Google Buzz four days ago, we've been working around the clock to address the concerns you've raised. Today, we wanted to let you know about a number of changes we'll be making over the next few days based on all the feedback we've received.
- Love Bites An S&M Coming-Out Story by Clarisse Thorn | Time Out Chicago –
- The Rape of American Prisoners – The New York Review of Books – Prisoner rape is one of this country's most widespread human rights problems, and arguably its most neglected
- AIMSS – 2010 Asia Internet MSM Sex Survey (January 1 to 28 February 2010) – f you are a man who has sex with other men, or a transgendered person, we invite you to participate in our community-driven survey. Participation is open to all those living in Asia. It is completely anonymous – no names are recorded – and takes less than 10 minutes to finish. The results will give us critical information in understanding why HIV and other sexually transmitted infection rates are rising so quickly in our community, and help us design better programs for you.
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googlebuzz,
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rape,
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- Man on Man: The New Gay Romance (LA WeeklyO – In many ways the growing popularity of gay romance represents nothing less than a tectonic shift in a culture that says women don’t (and shouldn’t) consume porn. Hot and steamy gay-romance literature is to women what Internet porn is to men: They get off on it, mostly in secret, and keep coming back for more.
- Canadian Minister Calls for Regulation of Adult Sex Toys | Cory Silverberg – The letter (which you can download here) calls out phthalates and BPA in particular, pointing to what little research has been done on sex toys, and suggesting that there is an "urgent need for responsible regulation in the adult toy industry." The minister wants products to be safety tested before they can be sold, and the chemical composition of all sex toys to be made publicly available.
- Fantasy On Trial (Again) | Dr. Marty Klein – I’m on my home from Denver, where I testified as an expert witness at a deeply troubling trial—a trial that’s become way too common in America.
- Porn For Women Retrospective 2009 | Ms. Naughty – The year is drawing to a close and thus it’s time again to take a look back at all the newsy and interesting things that have occurred in porn for women in 2009. Overall it’s been a big year with plenty of media attention and what appears to be a growing recognition within the adult industry itself that yes, women do enjoy porn.
- Reality and Faux Ho Bloggers | Monica Shores | Carnal Nation – Sex worker web journals generally fall into two camps: marketing tools used in conjunction with a work name and website, or anonymous confessionals in which the writer discloses details about her personal life and clients. (For the purpose of this article, only female bloggers are examined.) These blogs are uniquely positioned to complicate the discourse around sex work in both negative and positive ways. They're capable of revealing rifts and commonalities in sex worker communities while also influencing the public's perceptions of and reaction to those who sell sex.
- Netflix Spilled Your Brokeback Mountain Secret, Lawsuit Claims | Threat Level | Wired.com – An in-the-closet lesbian mother is suing Netflix for privacy invasion, alleging the movie rental company made it possible for her to be outed when it disclosed insufficiently anonymous information about nearly half-a-million customers as part of its $1 million contest to improve its recommendation system.
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Blogging,
censorship,
cybersex,
erotica,
gay,
internet,
legislation,
porn,
privacy,
romance,
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sextoys,
sexuality,
sexwork,
socialmedia,
women
- Facebook’s “Privacy Fiasco” Reaches New Milestone With FTC Complaint – Unfortunately for Facbeook, a group of ten privacy and consumer groups announced today that they have filed a complaint with the FTC, alleging that the the privacy-policy changes violate federal law.
- Facebook | Updates on Your New Privacy Tools –
- Project ‘Gaydar’: An MIT experiment raises new questions about online privacy – The Boston Globe –
- Facebook’s Privacy Move Violates Contract With Users | ReadWriteWeb – Your name, profile picture, gender, current city, networks, Friends List, and all the pages you subscribe to are now publicly available information on Facebook. This means everyone on the web can see it; it is searchable.
- Dark Odyssey Winter Fire 2010: Presenters list – Since its inception, Dark Odyssey events have featured over one hundred different presenters from all over the United States and Canada as well as Germany, Switzerland, and South Korea. We have confirmed our line up of nationally acclaimed authors, award-winning educators, and incredible presenters from all over the United States. We are proud to feature these new folks who will present at Dark Odyssey for the very first time.
- D.C. Council approves same-sex marriage bill – The analysis, created in the weeks leading up to Tuesday's historic council vote, estimates that 2,000 gay couples who live in the District will marry shortly after the law takes effect. But the bulk of the weddings, which could pump millions of dollars into the regional economy, would probably be out-of-state couples unable to marry in their own states, according to the analysis, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Post. It concludes that at least $5 million, and perhaps as much as $22 million, would be generated by same-sex weddings in the District over the next three years.
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(…) What it took me years to realise is that while I’ve changed a lot since writing these diaries – my life has moved on so much, in part thanks to the things that happened then – Belle will always be a part of me. She doesn’t belong in a little box, but as a fully acknowledged side of a real person. The non-Belle part of my life isn’t the only ‘real’ bit, it’s ALL real.
Belle and the person who wrote her had been apart too long. I had to bring them back together.
So a perfect storm of feelings and circumstances drew me out of hiding. And do you know what? It feels so much better on this side. Not to have to tell lies, hide things from the people I care about. To be able to defend what my experience of sex work is like to all the sceptics and doubters.
Anonymity had a purpose then – it will always have a reason to exist, for writers whose work is too damaging or too controversial to put their names on. But for me, it became important to acknowledge that aspect of my life and my personality to the world at large.
I am a woman. I lived in London. I was a call girl.
The people, the places, the actions and feelings are as true now as they were then, and I stand behind every word with pride. Thank you for reading and following my adventures.
Love, Belle
via Link
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(…) A better example of someone operating on her own terms it’s hard to imagine. Anonymous bloggers everywhere can read Belle’s story and take heart in the fact that it really is possible to be both successful and anonymous in the Internet age.
There’s just one problem: it isn’t.
Let’s give Belle and the Sunday Times the benefit of the doubt and assume that Magnanti really did approach them, and not the other way around. There’s no reason to doubt Magnanti’s version of events, but it’s worth remembering that the Sunday Times has a particularly grubby history when it comes to anonymous bloggers.
(…) But, despite the fact that the print version of Magnanti’s Times’ interview is illustrated with a photograph of her wearing glamourous evening-wear, let’s assume this was an entirely consensual encounter. Knight also mentions in the interview that Magnanti has an ‘ex-boyfriend with a big mouth’ and that she had decided to go public before the decision was forced on her. Again, let’s assume that the ex-boyfriend hadn’t already contacted the Sunday Times.
Even assuming all of that, the existence of the big-mouthed boyfriend neatly illustrates the biggest problem with becoming a successful anonymous blogger. As your hidden life takes over more and more of your normal life, there comes a point where you have to share your secret with someone you trust. Batman had Alfred the butler, Deep Throat had Bob Woodward and, as any child of the 80s will tell you, three people shared He Man’s secret – his friends the Sorceress, Man-at Arms, and Orko. In Belle’s case, there came a point in forming serious relationships where she had to confess her lucrative hobby to her lover. From that point on she was just one bad breakup away from being exposed.
Link
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Blogging,
privacy
These are my links for October 25th through October 26th:
- Scary Sex Toys – 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 there’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 – I’m receiving a startling number of correspondences lately from older men and their partners, highlighting the sexual difficulties of the aging process. It’s not surprising that these people are noticing the changes in their sexual response cycle as they age, but it is astonishing that they haven’t attributed the changes to andropause.
- Editorial – Oklahoma vs. Women – NYTimes.com – What persuaded the judge was not the affront to women’s rights, but a technical defect: the law addressed disparate issues in one bill in violation of the state’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 they’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.
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Gallery Carre
