Gloria's Oversexed Mind

Open call: GLBT Arts Festival in NYC

My friends at the Fresh Fruit Arts Festival in NYC just set a date for their 2010 event and have issued their annual call for participants.

Yes, Fresh Fruit is a colorful and healthy snack. But it is also an inclusive International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Cultural & Arts Festival held in Manhattan each July! All Out Arts' and New Village Productions' Fresh Fruit Festival feeds the spiritual and artistic souls of the LGBT and artistic communities.Fresh Fruit's mission is to share the LGBT community's unique perspective, creativity and diversity and to build links between the LGBT, local, national and international artistic communities as well as to the general public.

Visit www.freshfruitfestival.com for details and an application to participate in the 2010 event.

Bengal's boner

Thanks to Bruce for sending the link to this perplexing career move.

In addition to being one of the league's best wide receivers, Chad Ochocinco is also an entrepreneur. The latest proof: during HBO's "Hard Knocks" this summer, he made reference to developing prophylactics. And on Friday he revealed the prototypes via Twitter.

via backporch.fanhouse.com

Can't get enough Cleo

This week will bring another spectacular essay from Cleo DuBois in her ongoing autobiographical series about the ups and downs, ins and outs, of the SM lifestyle -- its joys and passions, its dark moments and doubts. All of exquisitely illustrated with precious photos from her and Fakir's private collection.

A perfect moment, then, to share the excellent video she recently posted to youtube, describing her educational mission in creating Academy of SM Arts.

If the video isn't popping up in your email reader, click here to watch Cleo on youtube

Erotographica Presents: Edvard Munch

Time again for my favorite feature of the week. The youtube video we prepared for you this time is devoted to erotic paintings and nudes by Norwegian symbolist artist, Edvard Munch. Hope you enjoy, and that you like my choice of music for this one. Long ago and far away, I dreamed of being a concert pianist. This Mendelssohn selection from "Songs Without Words" was one of the pieces I performed in my teens.

If you can't see the video above, via watch it now on youtube.com.

Blog-Topical Books

From now through the holidays, I'll include a list of all the blog-related books I've recommended for the week as gift ideas.

Here's what I've recommended for the last week of November 2009:

Post-Industrial Barbiedollatry

Religious people believe that an infallible God made everyone.  At the same time, they rail against people who weren't made the way they were made.  If God creates every human, and does everything for a reason, why do religious people get so irrational about those God created to be gay, lesbian, kinky, trans or bi?  If they believe in an all-powerful God, why do they reject His variations? 

I think attitudes towards human differences and variations were fundamentally different before industrialization.  Industrialization created a new phenomenon: the ability to reproduce things that were identical down to the last detail.  When all products depended on individuals to hand-craft them, variation was the norm.  Just as no two quality Persian rugs will ever be identical -- because normal human labor inevitably produces variations in stitchings -- pre-industrialized products were expected to show nominal variations, even when carved by the same carpenter using all the same tools and materials.

Nowadays, factories and manufacturing devices are only as good as their ability to eliminate variations from products.  We all want the exact features, working the exact same way, as the next person gets.  We want predictability, because it is the best guarantee of reliability.  It satisfies our competitive urge; it makes us feel equal.  There's nothing wrong with those feelings either.

But somewhere along the way the whole notion of variations as a natural part of life was misplaced.  In 1790 when a little girl received a doll, its facial expression, clothing, and other aspects were likely one-of-a-kind, even if the doll was professionally made in a factory which created numerous examples of a specific model.   Today, if you give a kid a doll whose features are different from her friends' Barbies, you can expect to hear her bawl that it isn't good enough or it isn't REAL.  We have all come to believe that there are states of perfection to which all things must adhere in order to be "real."  We pay higher and higher prices for the privilege of owning that parcel of reality.  In the end, what we are really paying for is the illusion that we are exactly like other people, because we have all the same products they have.

Has this psycho-social transition affected more than economics but even the belief systems of the religious?  Have they bought so far into industrialized society that they see people as widgets, with God the foreman, consistently disappointed that His identical creatures go to hell the minute they're outside the factory door?

Classic: Finley by Leibovitz

Controversial performance artist and sexual revolutionary Karen Finley shot by controversial lesbian photographer Annie Leibovitz.

Please note: no yams were harmed in the making of this photograph or any other Finley art. That said, I highly recommend you visit Karen Finley's official website where's doing some mighty fine things with honey.

Desirable objects: original kinky art for the holidays

As is my wont at this season, I'll be making some recommendations on holiday gifts for the sexually adventurous set.   And since the economy SUCKS, most suggestions will be of the low-budget variety.

One of the coolest ways to save money this season but still give someone a spectacular gift is by re-purposing or altering stuff you already have or things you can pick up on the cheap at a yard sale, thrift store or low-end retail shop.

If you've ever visited Etsy you know there are thousands of people out there who are selling stuff they simply modified. You'll find people who take plain hats and dress them up with trim, braids, or pins, or took a cheap purse and hand-painted them. If you have any craft skills whatever you can alter or modify virtually every decor item, and quite a lot of clothing too. If you're handier with power-tools than craft supplies, consider altering furniture or building something cool.

These days, there are so many craft supplies and do-it-yourself kits that even if you have two left hands you can find something you're good at.  A glue-gun works wonders too.  The key is to give yourself enough time to get it done. Put another way: START NOW. Also, don't get overly ambitious: budget your time carefully and put yourself on a crafting schedule. While others are at the malls fighting crowds, you could be merrily crafting kinky presents in the comfort of your own home.  Egg nog optional.

My first E-Z and inexpensive suggestion of the season is to gift your kinky friends with original dungeon decor in the form of hot and kinky wall art.

You can pick up original bondage photos and vintage postcards on eBay for reasonable prices.  Once in your possession, you may manipulate it into art of all types: blow it up to poster size and mount it on foamboard; photocopy it for use as a notebook cover or make a mousepad; colorize it in PhotoShop and do an Andy Warhol-type set of copies.  See how easy?

   

Depending on your own creativity, your pervy friends will think you're a genius if you present them with a one-of-a-kind piece of SM erotic art history.   Or use the image as is and do something fun with the frame -- bits of chain, rope, barbed wire, etc., can transform a cheap frame from the dollar store into an original work of BDSM art.

To get you started, here are a few eBay vendors who specialize in rare erotic photographs and postcards.

Chambre Close: Vintage French postcards

Lusitania: Vintage nude postcards

Xotique: Original vintage BDSM pictures

Postcard Pigs: Risque gay pictures

FOUND: Date App

Vintage postcard. Now where's the one you fill out for an SM partner?

FOUND: Trojan Horse