A ban on sex toy ads, in Birmingham, Alabama? No, Beijing:
China has banned television and radio ads for push-up bras, figure-enhancing underwear and sex toys in the communist government's latest move to purge the nation's airwaves of what it calls social pollution.
Regulators have already targeted ads using crude or suggestive language, behavior, and images, tightening their grip on television and radio a few weeks ahead of a twice-a-decade Communist Party congress at which some new senior leaders will be appointed. ...
"Illegal 'sexual medication' advertisements and other harmful ads pose a grave threat to society," said the [State Administration of Radio, Film and Television] notice, issued in the past week and posted on the administration's Web site.
"They not only seriously mislead consumers, harm the people's health, pollute the social environment, and corrupt social mores, but also directly harm the credibility of public broadcasting and affect the image of the Communist Party and the government," the notice said.
China has already also issued strict rules for TV talent shows, including the banning of "American Idol"-style mass audience voting by mobile phone text message or the Internet.
A few weeks ago, SARFT ordered 11 radio shows off the air in southern and central China for talking too explicitly about sex or for broadcasting material of an "extreme pornographic nature."
Regulators have also banned television shows about cosmetic surgery and sex changes, and a talent show that they deemed coarse.
It's not just the Chinese, or Communists. This is what would happen in America if we didn't have a Free Speech clause and a functioning, independent court system.
More and more vanilla sex toy merchants are featuring bondage toys. This girly-style pink satin bondage sash caught my eye. I can't imagine using something like this. It's so....bland. I don't want a sub to be able to get out of whatever I'm tying on. I want him to be able to struggle fiercely and then surrender in defeat. But I guess it's not a bad first step for people trying to gently introduce a vanilla partner to lightweight bondage.
Oh come on. It's cheating if you have to use your hand.
Olga Braude (R) looks on as artist Tim Patch (L), who calls himself 'Pricasso', paints her picture using his penis ....Patch has painted portraits of some of the worlds most famous people including George Bush and Queen of England. link
Soon as I saw it, I knew it was going to be trouble: Yep, that's a rubber hand for anal fisting, a wood paddle, and leather bonds. Of course, the rightwingers went nuts. Syndicated columnist and TV commentator Michelle Malkin:
When last I wrote about Miller Beer, the company was cluelessly sponsoring illegal alien protests and spinning furiously. Doesn’t look like they learned to stay away from radical politics. Miller went ahead and sponsored the “Folsom Street Fair” in San Francisco…billed as the “world’s largest leather event.”
Here’s the Catholic-denigrating promotional poster for the Miller-backed fair via CNSNews.com, depicting the Last Supper as a gathering of S&M enthusiasts. ... Take a closer look. The bread and wine at the supper table are replaced with sex toys. Swell.
As per usual, they go after the sponsors:
The question isn’t whether the Folsom organizers should be allowed
to promote their bacchanalia however they want. Go right ahead with
your bullwhips, dildos, and chains. Knock yourselves out. Really.
The question is one of corporate responsibility. The question is
whether a mainstream retailer ought to be lending its name year after
year to a fringe group bent on alienating a majority of Americans who
happen to be people of faith.
Radical fundamentalist Christian Bill Donohue, head of the Catholic League:
“Miller Brewing will now be known as S&M Miller,
and that is because it has apparently decided to drop anchor with the
sadomasochistic festival that it is proudly sponsoring on Sunday at the
Folsom Street Fair in San Francisco. It still refuses to pull
sponsorship of this obscene event, knowing full well that it is making
a financial contribution to an anti-Catholic group, the Sisters of
Perpetual Indulgence; the Sisters is one of the beneficiaries of the
street fair. And last night in San Francisco, the Sisters held a mock
Last Supper, ridiculing all Christians.
“Yesterday, we sent all eleven members of the company’s Executive Committee a sample of the kinds of sick behaviors (click here) S&M Miller is sponsoring; the packet was sent by overnight mail to the all-male committee.
Some of the pics that Donohue masturbated to focused on were pretty cool: Depraved, isn't it? He's smoking a cigarette and drinking a Red Bull. What will we tell the children? Oh yeah, speaking of children, Malkin is making an issue of this Fair policy, too:
Q: I'm 20 years old (or 17, 18 or 19), can I come to the fair?
A: Of course you can. We look forward to seeing you. While we don't have any age restrictions at the gates we do inform attendees of the adult oriented nature of our events. We also strictly enforce the 21 or over restriction on beer and liquor sales. So if you are under 21, please don't try and purchase alcohol. We will card you.
To which Malkin says:
Miller Lite: Beer of leather fetishists and their underage guests!
Now, I point to this as another example of how conservative politics derives its power from sexual fear. Malkin's claim that the Fair "should be allowed" is just pro forma; what her audience really thinks quickly becomes pretty clear:
These freaks need their own island somewhere. ew factor off charts. If I chose to have a brew it wont be a Miller product.
Avoid San Francisco ( which I hate to say because I love that city for it’s beauty )
And keep up this outrage whenever we, the White Christians are demeaned or not taken seriously.
We, the White Christians. See, what this is about is the majority wants to tell the minority to shut up and sit down. That they don't deserve anything like a corporate sponsorship, because that implies equality, and nothing scares a (nominally) straight, white, middle class, right wing Christian more than the suggestion that others who are unlike him are entitled to equal respect. He needs to be constantly reassured that he is superior, because of all of the daily, concrete evidence to the contrary. And that's why he needs to support aggressively exclusionary politics, domestically by pursuing policies that benefit him and harm racial and sexual minorities and women, and in foreign policy by pushing for war. He needs enemies, someone to despise.
Paradoxically, maybe, that's why I am not too worried that anything bad will actually result from this boycott of Miller Brewing. The right needs to preserve its enemies so that they continue to have something to be against. They don't want Miller to stop sponsoring the Fair, so they'll have something else to rail against every September.
German impressionist Hugo Hoppener (known as Fidus), 1868-1948, is a fascinating character in art history, both for his influence on psychelic hippy art of the 1970s and for his pivotal role in the Life Reform Movement which encouraged naturism and a more primal relationship with nature in the first decades of the 20th Century.
The book illustrator, painter and publisher Hugo Höppener was known as “the artist of the illuminable”. Born the son of a confectioner in Lübeck, he demonstrated his talent as a painter at any early age. During a study of art in Munich, he met the “apostle of nature” and painter Karl Wilhelm Diefenbach (1851-1913). The latter had been condemned to eight days imprisonment for public nudity and Höppener served this sentence for the older master, earning the name Fidus - the “faithful” – from Diefenbach.
Fidus’ work is also characterised by motifs such as naked human figures in natural settings. His illustrations appeared in numerous magazines, books and other printed material. His perhaps most popular work, “The Prayer to Light”, became an icon of the Life Reform Movement. Fidus designed the poster for a congress on “biological hygiene” that took place in Hamburg in 1912, where he also delighted listeners with a slide lecture on his art of “rising life”. His poster shows a “Nordic” man in the process of breaking his bonds and rising up to the stars.
After the First World War, interest in Fidus’ work as an illustrator ebbed, although he hoped for a comeback when Hitler came to power. However, the effusive expression of his images did not interest the Nazis, and when Fidus died in 1948, his art had been almost forgotten. It was not until the seventies that it was rediscovered.
Fidus' art is a feast. My very favorite is the last work in this show.
It's always fascinated me how one person's kink is another person's vanilla sex and vice versa. I've done radio call-in shows where listeners are invited to ask me their kinkiest question. Inevitably, someone asks about how to get a blow job because that's the kinkiest thing he can think of.
In the work of John Kacere, I think any of us in the Scene can immediately get what he's about. Let's just say that this artist's mind did not stray far from the subject of panties. And once he realized that art collectors would actually pay him huge sums to indulge his fetish, he apparently churned out one after another after another realistic image of panty-clad asses, with the occasional crotch-shot for diversity. No matter where I looked, all I could find were Kacere's panty pictures. Obviously at some point Kacere realized that asses got more attention than abstracts and he never looked back.
How did someone so monomaniacally fetishistic develop such an incredible reputation? Were his works collected by wealthy panty sniffers? Is there some kind of billionaire boy's club of ass lickers? (And, if so, why aren't they calling me up?) Or is it possible that vanilla people just didn't find it odd that an artist would paint asses again and again and again. And again.
Looking at the painting of the girl in transparent panties below, I wondered if Sofia Coppola was paying homage to Kacere or just outright stealing the image in Lost in Translation (for those of you who remember Scarlett Johansson's delectable panty-clad bottom and, really, what pervert could forget)?
YMMV, but after seeing all these headless/footless bodies, I started to get a tad queasy. It's kind of serial-killer-y. As in, "Agh! Where's the rest of her - . . . and is it wearing lingerie too?!" *quiver* (OK, I know, I watch too many forensics shows.)
Still, would that all fetish artists could be so widely embraced and so well-rewarded for putting their inner truths on canvas. No matter how depraved.
Before the photos, a couple of link. First, a biographical snip on Kacere from a gallery which sells his work:
John Kacere Biography
1920 – 1999. American abstract and photorealist painter, best known for his depiction of women. After starting his career as abstract painter (1950 to 1963), John moved on to a REALISTIC style. Since then, he has been regarded as a major Photo-realist or Hyper-realist.
And here's Wiki's entry on Kacere's technique:
Photorealism is the genre of painting based on making a painting of a photograph, recently seen in a splinter hyperrealism art movement. However, the term is primarily applied to paintings from the US-American photorealism art movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Several years back, I went through a sort of mid-life crisis which involved sexual adventure rather than buying a two-seater. At the time, I decided that I would shoot for the following year to be my Year of Debauchery, during which I would go to three events where I could get my freak on: Rio Carnival in February, Burning Man in late August/early September, and Fantasy Fest in October. Why those three? They were the ones I had heard of.
It didn't turn out exactly as I had planned. The only one I got a chance to attend is Fantasy Fest. While talking to a friend recently, I realized that many people haven't heard of it. There's a story on the official website about the festival's creation:
"In 1978, on Halloween Day, Joe Liszka asked me to accompany him to the intersection of Front and Duval Streets. He asked me to look up Duval Street and tell him what I saw. "What was I supposed to see?" "No cars moving, no people walking, lots of store fronts boarded up because the retailers take their vacation in this slow season?"
"How is the weather," he asked. "Well, it is a typical beautiful day in Paradise, warm, with bright sunshine." "That's what's wrong," he told me. " Here it is the most beautiful weather day of the season and the town is deserted. Workers are laid off. Business owners have a tough time paying their expenses. It is a disaster season for the Key West economy."
"I understand", I replied, "but what can we do about it?" "We need a fest, a carnival, a celebration, something that will entice people to change our moribund season to one of great fun; a party that will bring many people to understand that this season is one of our best," he replied.
It being Key West, of course, they couldn't just have a festival. They had to have 10 days of partying and nakedness. For several years, things were pretty much completely unregulated. The area around Duval St. was "anything goes" during the fest. Now things have gone a bit more corporate, and the level of nudity and, uh, chemical refreshment going on right on the street has been dialed back. Inside private residences or any of the many fine drinking establishments in town, though, the authorities have not extended their reach. As for the atmosphere, think Mardi Gras but with fewer drunken frat boys and more buff gay men on E.
This year I am going to Fantasy Fest again, and I can't wait. I hope to blog the experience beginning October 19th, if I am not too busy with other activities.
Just joined Sugasm's fine feed. The rest is self-explanatory. Enjoy!
Sugasm #98
September 24th, 2007 by Vixen | Updated: September 25th, 2007
The best of this week’s blogs by the bloggers who blog them. Highlighting the top 3 posts as chosen by Sugasm participants. Want in Sugasm #99? Submit a link to your best post of the week using this form. Participants, repost the link list within a week and you’re all set.
Note: Details of the Sugasm #100 celebrations will appear in Tuesday’s post request.
This Week’s Picks Anal, her perspective
“This entire anal sex episode had started some months earlier, on a theoretical level.”
Fetish-wear is making a come-back on fashion runways. Only this looks like someone has a fetish for making women look like crap. Don't know about you, but I see a girl in a Hefty bag flanked by Mad-Max wannabes.
Maybe that balloon dress comes with a helium tank so you can fly away when your date is done. At least that would make it practical.
When we first discovered the fragrance Vulva, the "beguiling vaginal scent," we thought it was some sort of weird German art project. But no! It's a legit business that bottles pussy stank in those '80s Less Than Zero cocaine vials and calls itself not a perfume but a "smelling substance for your own pleasure."
(Thanks to Mike for pointing me to Weird Bathrooms, the source of these and several other unique plumbing fixtures. I'm particularly fond of the tuba pissoir.)
I used to worry about dying when I was a little girl. Obsessively. Once my father reassured me that with all the advances in science and medicine, he was sure that by the time I grew up, they would have discovered the secret to immortality. I kind of knew he was lying but it made me feel a lot better anyway.
We're still a long way from immortality but there's no doubt that people today are living longer and, perhaps more importantly, enjoying a better quality of life in old age than ever before. What's the secret? Diet? Exercise? Modern medicine? Regular habits? A positive attitude? Staying active? Luck of the genetic draw? I tend to think it's all of the above. See what scientists are discovering about the secret to long life at the website, New England Centenarian Study.
Amazing to think that longevity has so improved in America that we now have organizations devoted to the study of centenarians. When they were young hormonal lads and ladies, they were aroused by naughty cabinet cards like this.
OK, everyone, I know you've been dying for an updated photo of me. So here I am on MY bed, enjoying a little cuddle time with my most favorite girl in the world: Mommy!
She's not bad for a great ape...but look at ME! ME! The poodle! I am ALL THAT!
signed,
the poodle
(woof woof to my submissive boyfriend, Shepsl, for snapping me at my poodly best)
His management claims it's Photoshop. The lady in the picture claims Oscar's just..well, one of the girls. You decide. Read the full story at: Deadspin.
Let me be clear: I admire vegetarians who refrain from eating meat out of kindness to animals. But despite being a rabid animal lover, pet protector, and the owned property of a mini-poodle and a border collie (and thus their political mouthpiece), I LOVE meat. Especially red meat. I am a complete hypocrite in that regard too. I prefer purchasing meat at a market where it is near-bloodless and neatly wrapped in shiny plastic so that it looks as innocuous as lumps of raw meat can.
"Where do you think your meat comes from?" my partner Jen will occasionally snap, usually after I've shouted down her suggestion that we shoot a deer for venison (living in the woods, we could eat venison all year long), or raise farm animals for the table.
I just can't. I won't. If we had goats or chickens or sheep, I would have to name them. I'd probably give them names like "Fluffy" and "Snowflake." It wouldn't take them long to realize that they owned me. And before you know it, I'd be their political mouthpiece too.
One more thing I should state up front. I am an American. This prohibits me, at times, from grasping the full cultural context that permits rituals and practices in other places that strike me as weird, bizarre or horrific.
So with all that said, from my meat-eating contextually-challenged American POV, this is just some of the most fucked up shit I've ever read.
Lurking underground in the heart of Tokyo's trendy Roppongi is a true heart of darkness - a members-only club that combines forbidden sex practices with the art of fine dining.
Now, I know what you're thinking - if I didn't read about this in Japan's respected Mainichi Daily News, I would not have believed it - and I'm not sure I want to believe it .
The gist of it is, members pay a hefty fee at the door to be allowed to... have sex with the animal of their choice - which is subsequently killed, cooked and served to the violator and his party for dinner!
Most people think that animals have sex only for procreation or, in the case of certain donkeys, profit. While some legends are in fact valid (for example, all swans are indeed rapists), it's just not that easy to apply human horniness to every living thing.
Generally, the more socially advanced a species is, the more likely it is to have sex for reasons other than reproduction. Consider the bonobo, or pygmy chimpanzee, whose inclination to have sex for favors, pleasure, social positioning, and food places it a notch above us humans, who will do anything for a piece of cake. And let's not forget the dolphin, who's been caught trying to copulate with seals, sharks, turtles, eels, and even some Floridians for an extra fee. However, would the Shaw's jird, a sort of gerbil-y animal that copulates up to 240 times in an hour, be considered horny, or just efficient?
I knew there was a reason I liked dolphins.
Interesting that smaller primates have sex to achieve social position. Puts gold-diggers in a whole new context, no?
Very rarely does one get to have the cut-and-dried experience of the Miami Metrozoo's own Ron Magill, zoologist and creator of the "Sex & the Animals" show there, who recounts his own experience with one particularly beguiling little otter:
"Every morning, I would go out and turn on the pool spigot, and she would come out, and she'd look at me and she'd squat on that little spray of water going into her pool, and after just 15 seconds of positioning herself perfectly on that spray of water, she would go into this little quiver and convulsion and tip over. And it's a beautiful thing." But unfortunately, as usually happens with lower species, she simply won't stop calling.....
Oh shit, I'm cooked now. The poodle read this and says she wants a Sybian. Do they make them extra-extra-ultra-super-small?
I have lots to blog about today but first...O.M.G. I'll probably be staring at this every time I take a break today. Hell, I'll probably take some breaks just so I can stare at this! Too funny.
3) If you email me, please attempt to write decently. Use full words.
If you can't be bothered to type out the entire three letters of the
words 'you' 'one' and 'are', I'm going to assume you're too lazy to do
so. If you're too lazy to type out a three letter word, I'm going to
assume you're too lazy to put effort into sex. And I won't have sex
with you. I'm not expecting Dante or Shakespeare from ya'll.
Addendum:
If you can't spell it, you can't do it. - If you can't spell the sex
act which you want us to engage in, I won't do it. If you can't spell
the body part you want to see, I won't show it to you. Honestly. I've
had emails where the word 'fuck' was spelled wrong....
I totally agree. Having been on Alt and AFF and suchlike for a long time, I know that my literary expectations can't be too high, but if you take the trouble to contact someone, put a little effort into it.
This part of rule 3 was funny, too:
Addendum: Emailing me and asking if you can 'beat that pussy' doesn't cut it. Even if you do 'et
it'. Beating my pussy doesn't sound in any way appealing. Not even in a
kinky way. It sounds rather like something I may have heard on Law and
Order: SVU. I don't like to think about SVU when I'm having sex.
Ok. That's kind of a lie. Sometimes, I like to think about having sex with Christopher Meloni. But I'm not technically thinking about SVU then. Usually, the setting is The Oswald State Penitentiary. He's still Det.
Stabler, however, and I've been very very bad. There are handcuffs
involved. Possibly a leather belt. But that is TOTALLY different.
Oh, and Det. Tutuola and Det. Munch. I like them. Ice-T can take me down anyday.
Any woman who thinks Munch is sexy has to be a lot of fun.
Thanks to my slaveyboy Shepsl for directing me to this sacrilegious musical smack-down between Devo and Jesus. You'll need a youtube account to view it.
I was totally mad for this show when I was a little girl. MAD, I tell you. Especially crazy about Ilya Kuryakin, though Napolean Solo was deliciously HOT too. It took me until I was out in the SM scene to realize just WHAT it was about the show that had obsessed me. See if you can figure it out from this vid.
Alicia Silverstone has shot an ad for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals in which she briefly appears nude: Jessica Valenti at Feministing finds it distasteful, and her commenters are puzzled at the logic of the ad. Why is she naked? I think the (tenuous) idea is obvious: If you don't eat meat, either you will
look like Alicia Silverstone or look so good Alicia
Silverstone will want to fuck you. Because you're stupid and have never met an overweight vegetarian.
This is an old stunt by PETA. Several years ago here in Pennsylvania, they held a demonstration in the state capital in which a woman appeared in a cage, seemingly naked except for body paint which made her look like a tiger. (I didn't see the demonstration, but I hope they hung a sign on the cage that asked, "Would you eat me?") Actually, the woman was wearing a thong and pasties, cleverly hidden by the paint.
Why does PETA do this? Using nude women gets attention. That's all it needs to do. I have no idea if it causes people to convert to vegetarianism, and I doubt PETA cares. What it does is cause PETA members to contribute money to the organization. In the nonprofit issue-advocacy world, garnering attention is (wrongly, I think) considered by most people the same as being "effective", which motivates your supporters to support you even more. It's cynical, but that's the way it goes: All publicity is good publicity. Hey, they got me to talk about it, didn't they?
Experts predict same sex marriage will lead to
same sex separation and divorce, due to same sex lack of communication and commitment. Other factors cited were same sex boredom, same sex disregard for one another's feelings, same sex financial difficulties, same sex constant bickering, and a lack of same sex sex. Experts further predict that same sex divorces will mirror those of their differently sexed counterparts, featuring same sex bitterness, same sex child custody battles, same sex spousal support, same sex legal fees, and, often, same sex bankruptcies...it is speculated, however, that same sex division of property may perhaps be made slightly more contentious with the added complication of division of same sex clothing and accessories.
Not to mention the post-divorce division of same sex friends.
Another artist whose work and biographical information have been difficult to track down on the Net is the 19th century French painter, Paul-Jacques-Aimé Baudry (1828 - 1886). He does, however, have a very decent Wikipedia entry that provides a respectable amount of info.
I saw one of Paul Georges' images many months ago while looking up another artist. It made a deep impression on me and I instantly wanted to showcase him here. Casual research, however, yielded few results beyond his dates of birth and death (1923–2002).
This week, I finally set my mind to finding out more about this American figurative painter but results were not exactly satisfying. I hate to think that George and his work could sink into obscurity. His nudes speak to me. Do they speak to you?
Here are a couple of the little bits of biography and criticism I could find.
Found an obituary:
Paul Georges, 78, figurative painter, died Apr. 17 in Normandy, France, of a heart attack. In the late `40s and early `50s, he studied with Hans Hofmann in Province-town, Mass., and Fernand Leger in Paris. Best known for his large-scale allegorical canvases, lush landscapes and flower paintings, and mocking self-portraits, he stubbornly clung to his figurative style throughout his long career in the face of contrary trends. Possessed of a gruff and blustery personality, Georges was alternately rejected and embraced by critics and the art public over his subject matter and style. His satirical streak got him into trouble in 1975 when he was sued for libel by artists Anthony Siani and Jacob Silberman. In Mugging of the Muse (1974), Georges had depicted these artists as masked, knife-brandishing attackers confronting an almost nude woman and a putto. Georges lost the case in 1980, but the decision was overturned two years later. - LINK
Having just read an article the other day about brilliant actor Hugh Laurie's battles with depression, these gorgeously dark and intense images of him make me wonder what I'm really seeing.
"Sixty-five million Americans have an incurable STD. Three million unwanted pregnancies a year -- half of which end in abortion," said Mr. Daniels. "And yet you can advertise Viagra all you like, and Valtrex for [genital] herpes, but not advertise the condoms that would go on the erections that prevent herpes." ...
And now there are hair whips. It's a little weird, granted, but, wow, what a conversation piece for your next SM play date. Wonder what it feels like -- looks like it'd be more sensual than stinging. I wonder.
This has nothing to do with my regular blog fare but my brilliant friend, John Hancock, has co-produced and is currently directing two critically acclaimed plays, on stage in Chicago now through November 18th. Do me, but especially yourself, a favor and go see it. You don't have to trust my judgment alone: the reviews have been fantastic.
"The Brother" was written by John; the second play, "'Night Mother," was written by Marsha Norman and stars John's wife and frequent collaborator, the eternally beautiful actress, Dorothy Tristan.
GET INFO! BUY TICKETS! SUPPORT THE ARTS!
What Critics have said about The Brother
“About as good as it gets. An absolute must see.” —Hardwick, ChicagoCritic.com
“A galvanizing piece of theatre...skin-prickling emotional power” —Sullivan, Pioneer Press
“Explosive... compelling... recommended” —Weiss, Chicago Sun-Times
“Stars Steppenwolf member Robert Breuler in one of the best performances I’ve seen him give, richly textured and simultaneously compelling and creepy... (with) fine supporting performances...” —Williams, Chicago Reader
“Pick of the Week. Incredibly powerful, exceptional, not to be missed.” —Kleinman, WBEZ
FYI and FWIW, a little bonus for Mind readers: can also check out an interview on film-making with John Hancock that I did back in 1994. BE FOREWARNED: haven't touched the html on that page in 13 years! UGH. Set your browser to get rid of that awful background or your eyes will go buggy just looking at it.
And finally, forgive this rant (or skip it) but I just gotta get it off my chest:
If you (like me) have felt a creeping disgust at how much media attention is wasted on celebrity airheads, bimbos, felons, and drug addicts, then we have to seriously, collectively SUPPORT THE ARTS. The REAL ARTS. Plays that mean something. Actors who care about their craft. Writers who put their hearts and souls into their work. Media are destroying the arts by fawning over talentless mediocrities. We Baby Boomers so desperately need to reclaim the Arts and restore them to the dignity they once had. We need to make a point of standing up for serious theater made by passionate artists for adult audiences. Attending plays like this is one way to start.
Apparently it had an American run under the title "The Libertine." Equally apparent, American prudery dictated that they market it softly.
Of course, with a famous French movie star like Jean-Louis Trintignant, this one gets an IMDB entry
Here's a list of the countries where it was released, and the different titles. It's like a sexual mores comparison. In Germany it was called Huckepack, which an online translation services says means "piggy-back." In Spanish it's "A Wild Widow." I assume the French is some idiom I don't know - the literal ranslation is, er... "love in the style of a horse"? HUH?
Also Known As:
Änka i trosor Sweden
L'Amour à cheval, France
Huckepack West Germany
Nuoren lesken eroottiset seikkailut Finland
The Libertine USA
The Matriarch International UK
Una Viuda desenfrenada Spain
Meanwhile, if anyone knows why the title required four whole words in Finland, PLEASE let us know. Translations of the Swedish would also be MOST welcome.
Saw and couldn't resist snagging this pic of Diana Rigg in her fetishistic prime. I bet it brings back a lot of fond old memories for some of you guys.....
I guess there's a market niche for everything...but oh, the tedium. Still, I'd love to be a fly on the wall during their editorial meetings. And wow, what an understanding mom. If I was a mom, I hope I'd be the kind of mom who enjoyed helping junior with his business ventures too.
"What's the count, Ma?"
"That'd be 4 tits and a hoo-hah, son."
Jim McBride has made it his life's work to know how much naked female flesh appears in movies -- an obsession apparently shared by millions of people.
So far McBride, a.k.a. Mr. Skin, and a staff that includes his mother, who works as a "skintern," have chronicled nude women in more than 25,000 movies and television shows.
It is all recorded on his Web site, www.mrskin.com, which has been running for eight years, and on Saturday McBride launched into print, publishing "Mr. Skin's Skintastic Video Guide" to "the 501 greatest movies for sex and nudity on DVD."
A federal prosecutor flew to metro Detroit with a Dora the Explorer doll, hoop earrings and petroleum jelly for a 5-year-old he planned to have sex with, police say.
John David Roy Atchison -- who prosecutes civil and criminal matters as an assistant U.S. attorney in the Northern Florida District -- appeared on the other side of the law Monday in Detroit federal court. Atchison, 53, of Gulf Breeze, Fla., was charged with enticement of a minor using the Internet and knowingly traveling interstate to engage in illicit sex.
According to court documents, during an Internet chat with an undercover officer, Atchison described himself as "very much a family man." He initiated the online chat Aug. 29 with the officer posing as a mother interested in letting men have sex with her children.
During continuous conversations, he expressed a desire to engage in oral, vaginal and anal sex with her fictitious daughter. Money was not part of the discussion.
In the chats, he also suggested he previously had sex with minors....
We at Castle Bramenstein usually spend a chunk of our weekends catching up on TV shows, documentaries and movies we didn't have time to view during the work week. On this weekend's agenda was "Inside Deep Throat," a 2004 documentary which chronicles one of the 1970s' most controversial and bizarre episodes - the rise and subsequent demonization of porn marketed to the masses, as epitomized by the campy crappy sex flick, "Deep Throat."
"Deep Throat" wasn't the first porn movie to play in movie theatres. It wasn't the first porno to make a controversial public splash either. In 1969, the Swedish movie I Am Curious Yellow shocked, outraged and (of course) titillated movie-goers around the US. (IMO, one of the flaws of "Inside Deep Throat" is that, while it very briefly mentions the Swedish film, it doesn't acknowledge that it paved the way for its tacky American cousins of the 1970s.)
But in its day, "Deep Throat" forced a confrontational debate between people who believe in the First Amendment and those who place personal and religious beliefs above the Constitution. The documentary did an admirable job of gathering research on the key figures involved (including interviews with the film's director, Gerard Damiano, and its sacrificial lamb-cum-leading man, Harry Reems). Linda Lovelace died before the documentary was made, but there is plenty of footage on her through various stages of her life.
The filmmakers interviewed some of the FBI agents and prosecutors who worked feverishly to save America's soul from sex, including the now-disgraced Charles Keating. One of the most interesting subjects was Larry Parrish, a Tennessee prosecutor who says he was mentally scarred from watching "Deep Throat." Equally fascinating was the infamous "Deep Throat" debate between Hugh Hefner and Susan Brownmiller. 30 years later, it's clear that both sides lost. As in YUCK!! Playboy v. Women Against Pornography. It makes my feministic flesh crawl. (Brownmiller's rhetoric was one of the reasons I drifted away from organized feminism in the early 80s.)
The documentary has its flaws. Though some of the interviews were brilliantly edited, I'm dubious about some choices of interview subjects. Like - why Dick Cavett, who claims he never saw the movie? Or Norman Mailer and Gore Vidal who were, at best, on the outer fringes? Perhaps they wouldn't agree to be interviewed but I wonder what Warren Beatty or Jack Nicholson - two high-power celebs who stood up for Harry Reems in the 70s - feel today about their involvement back then. I would have loved to see more 70s porn stars talk about events that directly impacted their lives and fortunes. (It was great to see Georgina Spelvin and my buddy Annie Sprinkle - but I wish they'd added some more pioneering porn stars, like Marilyn Chambers, Gloria Leonard or Jamie Gillis.) And I really truly wish there had been a lot less Erica Jong and Camille Paglia, neither of whom added much of anything to the discussion.
I really loved the scary 70s flashbacks: the tawdry weirdness of American culture back then was deliciously captured in this film. The documentary also showed that some of the same people who hounded Reems, Damiano and others into poverty and despair are still pounding the same beat. Only now they're trying to hound Internet sex-businesses out of existence. As Larry Parrish implies at the end of his interview, if only those pesky terrorists would go away people like him could get back to next most pressing issue in America: ensuring our moral purity by suppressing porn.
Priceless.
The filmmakers did a great job of catching up with the key characters. At the end, they interviewed contemporary porn stars, like Mary Carey, who were cheerfully oblivious to the history of their biz. It's a bitter-sweet statement on how this hugely important moment in pop cultural history has been lost on those who benefit the most from it.
Personal note: I was but an itty-bitty baby perv (17 or so) when an older friend snuck me in to see "Deep Throat" in its original run at the World Theater. Even then I found it howlingly bad and, worse, boring and silly. You could not make me sit through it again: but that's what I loved about this documentary. It offers the only clips worth viewing from the original film, including footage showing Ms. Lovelace's infamous talent for
"In 1978, on Halloween Day, Joe Liszka asked me to accompany him to the intersection of Front and Duval Streets. He asked me to look up Duval Street and tell him what I saw. "What was I supposed to see?" "No cars moving, no people walking, lots of store fronts boarded up because the retailers take their vacation in this slow season?"
It being Key West, of course, they couldn't just have a festival. They had to have 10 days of partying and nakedness. For several years, things were pretty much completely unregulated. The area around Duval St. was "anything goes" during the fest. Now things have gone a bit more corporate, and the level of nudity and, uh, chemical refreshment going on right on the street has been dialed back. Inside private residences or any of the many fine drinking establishments in town, though, the authorities have not extended their reach. As for the atmosphere, think Mardi Gras but with fewer drunken frat boys and more buff gay men on E. 
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