Gloria's Oversexed Mind

Wish you could change your yard? Consider the possibilities.

This was our house when we first moved here in 2002.

Two years later, in 2004, we had the house painted and the garden was beginning to take shape.

Snapped today, April 30, 2008. The bench and planters so visible above are now sheltered by shrubs.

Today's garden events: a new bird sighted at the feeders by Jen, who quickly shot this photo! Check out the one with black wings and a red throat -- it's a rose-breasted grosbeak. Great joy: this is the very tip of its North American range, so not a common sight in the area, and the first time we've ever seen one.

Newly blooming this week, our mock orange bushes and some early roses.

April 30, 2008 in Pleasures of the Garden | Permalink | Comments (1)

Oh how I love old mechanical toys -- any kind, really, but the erotic ones are particularly sweet. Found this for sale on eBay

April 30, 2008 in Sex and Arts | Permalink | Comments (0)

April 30, 2008 in Sexual Humor | Permalink | Comments (0)

What is it about Meerschaum pipes that inspire craftsmen to lavish them with explicitly sexual themes?

April 30, 2008 in Sex and Arts, Sex and Culture | Permalink | Comments (0)

All I can say is hmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Australian politician admits sniffing woman's chair

An Australian political leader broke down at a news conference Tuesday as he admitted that he had sniffed the chair of a female colleague.

Apparently he is a repeat offender too.

Buswell has previously admitted to snapping the bra of a staffer for the Labor Party.

April 30, 2008 in Sexual Strangeness | Permalink | Comments (2)

I've been too bummed to blog but coming out of it now. Late Friday, exactly one week, almost to the hour, after Bobo died, my mother-in-law passed. She was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer almost 16 months ago, and so we knew it was only a waiting game. It was a hard and long wait, further complicated by a lot of very complicated family history but I loved my mom-in-law. She was more of a mother to me than my own mother: she listened; she cared; she accepted. Even though I rarely got the chance to let her know, I hope she did -- I think she did. Will is handling it well -- we've been expecting this news for over a year, alas, and he was very reconciled. He is amazingly stoic when it comes to life to death.

Meanwhile all these existential shifts in the nature of our familial realities has driven me to direct emotions and energies at the garden. Everything is feeling so good and so right out there. So many plans, made so long ago, are coming to fruition. Shrubs planted as scrappy pathetic little seedlings, which stood in a limp row like disaffected orphans, are now turning into the hearty, fecund bushes of my imagination. Dead sandy gunk where even weeds wouldn't grow is sweet, wormy loam now, swelling with lush perennials. From a few seeds scattered five years ago, which refused to find purchase in the soil of old, there is now a jungle of yarrow, some already beginning to blossom. Plants I gave up on have decided to live after all, and are putting up robust new stems and leaves. From three tiny primrose starts which barely survived the first year, their third-generation babies have colonized a central bed, poking pink heads up through azaleas and around blueberries.

In trying to bring order to the chaos of the woods here, I opted for something one might call Darwinian Gardening. It was all about the survival of the fittest. I planted thousands and thousands of things out there, in every possible stage of life, from seeds to mature shrubs. The first year was pretty disastrous because almost everything I planted failed or looked unhappy, including mature plants I'd dug from my Atlanta garden and which had been super-reliable for me there. By year two, I realized I could not make any assumptions about the soil, water or light conditions here, and reconciled myself to continuing to lose plants until I amended soil throughout the 2 acre garden area. Years three and four were pretty much dedicated to that effort. I still haven't achieved perfect soil everywhere but I have definitely learned a lot about the land.

Meanwhile, I kept planting and planting and planting, experimenting with everything I could find that I thought might enjoy living in this ecosystem. Once established, though, plants received only minimal care. Weeding, occasional fertilizing (or composting), light trimmings, and dead-heading -- but no fussing. Species that failed more than twice here were never planted again. Everything got a chance to be moved to at least one other spot but if they still couldn't make it, they got crossed off the list. To live here, you have to be a survivor: independent, vigorous for your own reasons, determined to adapt. I've visited home gardens where you can tell that each and every plant has received loving daily care, carefully coaxed to flourish. Not here. I kept my focus on improving living conditions, and let the plants worry about the rest. Embarrassing but true, I had any number of hellaciously scraggly looking suckers out there, and was kind of waiting for them to die to try other species in their spots. Some did crap out, but others (particularly two mock orange bushes I planted as twigs and which had done absolutely nothing but get slightly taller for four years) are now all pumped up with leaves and buds and ready to bloom.

I switched to organic gardening a few years ago and don't use fertilizers or weed-killer. A steady supply of leaf mold, courtesy of the mixed hardwood forest, helps: plants are thriving on "forest food." Anything and everything organic gets added to the soil, from bone meal and lime brought home in giant bags to coffee grounds and shredded newspapers carried out of the house (aka "lasagna gardening", where you layer organic materials on your beds). We keep an eye on bugs but try to stick with organic methods of control. Honestly, I don't mind chewed up leaves here and there, so tend to be lenient unless they get out of control. Probably my favorite form of organic bug control is to send Jen on a canna leaf-roller killing expedition. The girl just loves to crush those little leaf-rolling worms....with a demented look of glee in her eyes, I should add.

Anyway... it's becoming a naturalized garden, which is what a forest garden should be. Formal would look bizarre in the midst of woods with a country-style house. I figured that plants that weren't quite right for these conditions needed to die, leaving room for the plants that love it here. Those species have finally taken over and I'm hoping for a spectacular summer show.

In the comments section, someone mentioned the link between gardening and sex and dominance. Yes. Flowers are sex organs and that is part of the thrill of it. So beautiful, so strange, so fragile, so intoxicating: so very deeply sexual to be in a garden. So alive. There's a link to my dominant side too and the power to create positive change. In five years, you can take a barren woodland clearing and transform it into an oasis. It requires a lot of hard work, a deep focus, and commitment. You control the life and death of not just the thousands of visible plant lives, but a million seldom seen or invisible lives. Everywhere you stick a shovel these days, you find wriggling worms and a dozen other fat little creatures of the soil. Everywhere you go there are frogs and lizards and insects and rodents and garden snakes who have taken up permanent residence. Hundreds of wild birds visit our feeders. Sulphurs and swallowtails are dancing all over the sunny sky. At twilight bats excitedly careen overhead. The satisfaction of this, the feeling of "wow I made this happen" is a lot like the high I get from dominating.

But there is a crucial difference. Gardening keeps you humble. You may have created a garden but to the garden itself you are only the help: the real gardener, unseen and mystical, has done you a favor by giving you the opportunity to serve. You are there to provide, to guide, to assist. But your power is limited. Your success depends on a confluence of events that will always remain beyond your control -- climate, predators, pests, diseases, and, sometimes, the depredations of time.

April 27, 2008 in Autobiographical Urges, Pleasures of the Garden | Permalink | Comments (4)

I noticed both artists featured today also have books filled with their fabulously fetishistic work. Visit Amazon to browse their sizzling graphic novels.

April 25, 2008 in Sex and Arts | Permalink | Comments (1)

The second artist in the ObsessionArt.Com galleries that I'm showcasing today is Michael Manning. His work looked so familiar to me when I first glanced at it, and then I discovered why. He has contributed to some of the most beautiful European fetish magazines ever published, including the legendary Marquis. His high-quality, fantastic fetish art left a lasting impression on me and, I hope, you'll feel the same after seeing this selection of his work.

To see more exquisite work by Michael Manning, or to purchase prints of these amazing images, click and follow this banner:

April 25, 2008 in Sex and Arts | Permalink | Comments (3)

Sometimes surfing for erotic art yields wonderful little surprises - and stumbling upon an Internet fine art print vendor who specializes in erotica was one of those lucky finds. I was immediately drawn to the work of Nik Guerra and contacted the people behind ObsessionArt.Com for permission to feature him and another artist or two in my weekly show. Not only did they extend very friendly consent to show work from their galleries but they also invited me to join their brand new affiliate program. You'll see their banners now running here in the side columns, and I am also going to direct link to the artists I select (look for the banner at the end of the show) so that you can check out the rest of the artist's work on the Obsession site, plus order any prints.

Over the next couple of weeks I plan to feature several more of their wonderful fetish artists in my shows. Hope you will check them out, or at least take a gander at their large selection of kinky art prints. Thanks again to the generous folks at Obsession for partnering with me in sharing fine erotic art with discerning pervy adult.

April 25, 2008 in Sex and Arts | Permalink | Comments (0)

Wake up, dear. It's almost time for the Erotic Art Show.

April 25, 2008 in Sex and Arts | Permalink | Comments (0)

OMG. How is the poor thing even able to walk? 35 lb cat (though it looks even bigger).

First saw it on cuteoverload, then hopped over to Ananova to read the story of the "real life Garfield". It sure doesn't look real, though.

April 24, 2008 in Pets and Animal Love | Permalink | Comments (1)

Well WOW. Fascinating. Better than stem cells! I wonder what other research doors this study will open.

The monthly discomfort many women see as a curse could pay off someday as Japanese researchers say menstrual blood can be used to repair heart damage.

Scientists obtained menstrual blood from nine women and cultivated it for about a month, focusing on a kind of cell that can act like stem cells.

Some 20 percent of the cells began beating spontaneously about three days after being put together in vitro with cells from the hearts of rats. The cells from menstrual blood eventually formed sheet-like heart-muscle tissue.

The success rate is 100 times higher than the 0.2-0.3 percent for stem cells taken from human bone marrow, according to Shunichiro Miyoshi, a cardiologist at Keio University's school of medicine.

Scientists say menstrual blood can repair hearts s

April 24, 2008 in Sexual Science and Medicine | Permalink | Comments (1)

I guess today's meme is "sexual civil liberties," because this is another story about a situation where what people want, and what doctors/lawyers believe is appropriate for them, clash.

It's a strange little ruling about a very peculiar case. Pervs may enjoy the nonconsensual SM medical scene twist to it, but the ethics of this case bothers me a tad.

N.Y. jury rejects lawsuit over rectal exam man didn't want

A hospital did nothing wrong when it tried to examine the rectum of a construction worker who had been hit on the head by a falling wooden beam, a jury found Monday....

Marrone said Persaud, 38, was injured while working at a construction site in midtown Manhattan on May 20, 2003. Persaud received eight stitches for a cut over his eyebrow at the hospital, but denied emergency room staffers' request to examine his rectum, the lawyer said. He said doctors told Persaud the exam could help determine whether the accident caused spinal damage.

When Persaud resisted, staffers held him down while he begged, "Please don't do that," Marrone said. Persaud hit a doctor while flailing around, so the staffers gave him a powerful sedative and performed the rectal exam, he said.

Hospital witnesses testified at trial that the exam was never completed, but Marrone said that when Persaud woke up he was handcuffed to a bed and had an oxygen tube down his throat and lubricant in his rectum.

My first reaction to this story was that it sounded like an episode of House, where a patient is forced to undergo a test or treatment s/he doesn't want because brilliant diagnostician House knows what's best and will act accordingly, in the name of science. It makes for a very entertaining premise on a TV show -- and clearly it stands up in court. But ethically? Morally? I think there are some open questions here.

I'm guessing that hospital staff saw a head injury, assumed that someone with a head injury might be raving or delusional from said injury, particularly when he started flailing and trying to stop them from saving his life, and would then knock him out and do the test anyway, knowing it was the standard medical care for anyone with a head injury. No doubt they were in line with hospital guidelines and my guess is the jury believed the docs behaved ethically as well.

BUT. Who really owns your ass? I mean, once you step into a hospital setting, do you also automatically cede your right to your ass (or balls, vagina, penis, breasts)? Should doctors sedate you to perform a test you explicitly said you didn't want? Perhaps this guy had some kind of homophobic complex. Perhaps he had horrible hemmorhoids. Or maybe he had some other, more traumatic association with anal penetration that doesn't make sense to other people but does to him. In fact -- what if he'd rather die than have anyone anally examine him?

It may sound nutty but it isn't. We all have our emotional quirks, our crosses to bear, our hidden traumas. I know from clinical experience that people do develop phobias and traumatic associations with intimate areas of their body; for some the trauma of undergoing certain tests or procedures is more frightening to them than the risk to their life if they don't. It isn't logical but that doesn't make it any less legitimate: human emotions matter. Or they should. As do individual liberties and the right to decide what happens to your body.

In the end, this guy was anally raped twice: by a medical staff which plainly needs a lot more training in bedside manner; and by the courts which apparently did not take his emotional suffering seriously. I hope the poor guy gets some sympathetic counseling and can get on with his life, without feeling too scarred by the experience. My fear is that if he's ever in an accident again, he will refuse to go to a hospital altogether.

April 24, 2008 in Post-Modern Pop Culture, Sex Laws and Crimes, Sexual Science and Medicine | Permalink | Comments (2)

Thailand has recently decided to outlaw "cosmetic castration" (meaning elective castration), making it more difficult for ladyboys to transition.

story link

Thailand's health chiefs barred hospitals and clinics from castrating would-be "ladyboys" amid growing concern about the operation being seen as a cheap and quick alternative to a full sex-change.

In a letter to 16,000 private health units, the Public Health Ministry said doctors performing the operation outside formal sex-change therapy -- which requires rigorous physical and mental evaluation of the patient -- faced up to six months in jail....

Thailand is home to a large number of "ladyboys," or "katoey" in Thai, a term that covers anything from a transvestite to a man who has undergone a full sex change.

The tolerance shown towards the "third sex," as it is often referred to, has led to the country becoming a world leader in sex-change surgery.

However, at the lower end of the market, clinics have responded to demand from teenage boys to look more like girls by posting Internet advertisements offering castration for as little as 4,000 baht ($125).

Not sure what to think about this. On one hand, I don't see why -- in a world where people are getting bizarre cosmetic surgeries of every possible kind without governments seeming to care -- the Thai would suddenly target castration. Surgically speaking, it's far less risky than a boob job or face-lift.

On the other hand, I share their concern about teenagers getting the surgery and thus making a decision in adolescence that they might profoundly regret later in life. But then couldn't they just set an age limit on this and not target the surgery itself?

It has been a standard of professional care that a transitioning TS has to go through a 1-2 year long process of counseling and "real life experience" (in the sex one is transitioning to) before a complete surgical sex change is okayed by medical authorities. I'm not sure, however, whether this necessarily means we should institute laws to govern this.

I suppose a therapist shouldn't throw this out there, but then, I'm not your typical therapist. So here's my question: should adults have a right to fuck up their lives or is it up to the government to see that we don't?

April 24, 2008 in Sex and Culture, Sexual Health, Sexual Politics | Permalink | Comments (0)

While getting the first cup of coffee of the day, I was blown away by blue at the feeder.

Indigo Blue.

image via Ms. Lume@flickr

It was so so blue, so tiny, so beautiful. A few things I just learned about this charming little bird.

The Indigo Bunting migrates at night, using the stars for guidance. It learns its orientation to the night sky from its experience as a young bird observing the stars. All About Birds

A group of buntings are collectively known as "a decoration of buntings", "a mural of buntings", and a "sacrifice of buntings." Whatbird.com

Despite the appearances of monogamy, recent advances in genetic analyses have revealed that 20-40% of the buntings born in a season are fathered by males other than the holder of the territory in which the young are born. Another fly in the pudding of nuclear family life is that about 15% of breeding males will have as many as four females on their territory, either simultaneously or over a season. The Smithsonian

They're polygamous star-guided lovers! Wish I could see a flock of them, so I can say I saw a sacrifice of buntings.

(OTOH, that might make some people think I witnessed some strange voodoo ritual......)

April 24, 2008 in Pets and Animal Love, Pleasures of the Garden | Permalink | Comments (0)

I thought this was a spoof at first but, no, modern science (or at least quacks looking to make a buck off it) has devised a DIY forensic kit for insanely jealous men.

Some of the ad copy, and a picture of the product.

Do you suffer from the nightmare of suspicion and doubt caused by the infidelity of a cheating spouse? Find out what's really going on, the quick and easy way with CheckMate.

CheckMate is a patented home use semen detection test kit that instantly detects traces of dried semen that can be found in a woman's underwear after sex.

from Spygadgets.com

Sure, by all means: start looking for spoo samples in your wife or girlfriend's underwear. In fact, why limit its applications? Want to make sure your daughter isn't fucking every yahoo in the neighborhood: make her give you her panties. How about your Mom -- you don't want interlopers getting too close to your Sainted Mother, much less your sainted inheritance. And how about that woman at work who just beat you out of a promotion and you think it's because she's fucking the boss!. Yeah. If you could land your hands on her undies, you might get the hard evidence to prove why you got screwed.

It's the perfect gift for violent, abusive men with hair-trigger tempers, don't you think?

April 23, 2008 in Post-Modern Pop Culture, Sex and Relationships, Sex and Technology | Permalink | Comments (3)

April 23, 2008 in Sexual Strangeness | Permalink | Comments (0)

In case any leather people, or folks who like to keep up with goings on in the organized Scene, missed this, a nice little piece -- with pictures of organizers and speakers -- about the Leather Leadership conference in SF, by the inimitable Mister Marcus. I wonder how the food was. Hmm.

Check out:

Success! We love success!

There can be no less than tons of accolades for the local coordinating committee of the 12th annual Leather Leadership Council. It took place in San Francisco last weekend....

First off, the attendance of some 335 registered delegates is the highest ever for the Leather Leadership Conference. Add three dynamic and spirited speakers (Race Bannon, Richard Thorn, and Patrick Califia), dozens of expert panelists in a score of interesting and important tracks, and an avid number of people thirsting for the knowledge, expertise and experience to make themselves better candidates for future leadership roles in the "alive and well" leather/BDSM world.

April 23, 2008 in Sex and Sadomasochism | Permalink | Comments (0)

Though the study, or at least this report about the study, doesn't go there, one logical inference is that the men are hard-wired for prostitution.

Men's brains found to link sex, money

Using brain scans, researchers from Northwestern and Stanford universities, have shown that when young men are shown erotic pictures they are more likely to make a larger financial gamble than if they were shown a picture of items like a snake or stapler.

One of my personal gripes about sex laws is how stupidly sexist it is to target prostitutes while letting johns walk free. I've always said that if you're going to make a normal consensual adult sexual behavior a crime, you should at least enforce it justly. (Ok, ok, of course, I think it's disgusting that consensual adult sexual behaviors of ANY kind are crimes: sex laws are just another way for a government to force religious ideology down the throats of the sheep-like.) BUT the reality is that we are all subject to these laws. So is it too much to ask that the government at least dispense its obligations in a fair and just manner, and not limit itself to punishing the vulnerable class (sex-workers) while giving the monied class (clients) a free pass?

This study suggests that the root of such things as prostitution -- and the whole notion of money for sex -- may well be a genetic feature of male psychology in the first place. Though Western society is wedded to the notion of the evil woman (you know, just like the chick who made Adam chomp an apple in Eden), maybe behind every evil woman is a man whispering "fuck me and I'll give you a diamond ring," because he was genetically programmed that way. And perhaps women have been reacting to the male fetish all along -- and not, as so popularly believed in our culture -- because they are, by nature, ruthless gold-diggers. Of course, now I would love to see a study showing whether women are wired to enjoy getting money for sex the way men enjoy giving it for sex. Maybe it is our biology that makes us want men to spoil us with gifts?

The study raises a bunch of interesting questions about the phenomenon of "money slavery." There are different terms for it, but in brief it's the fetish for giving dominant women money as part of your service to, or ownership by, them. Its watered-down BDSM version is to be found in the "tribute" ritual, where pro dommes ask for gifts and cash beyond the fees they already charge. Vanilla-wise you see it when girls advertise for sugar-daddies, not to mention all the ones who accept rent money in exchange for a sexual relationship. Should I even mention all the ladies who will only marry rich? Maybe not.

But in its most extreme and harmful versions, money-slaves can easily be exploited or extorted to the point of bankruptcy and self-hatred. Sometimes it's with the slave's knowing and self-destructive consent but more often through criminal manipulations on the part of the sex-worker/con artist.

Are men hard-wired, to some degree, to want or need to give women money when aroused? Apparently so. Is a hardcore money fetishist, therefore, someone who, through the luck of the draw, got a little more of this or a little less of that in the genetic roll of the dice? If so, does that make it different from other fetishes -- or is this beginning of discovering that genetic pre-disposition plays a substantial role in the development of all fetishes?

April 23, 2008 in Sexual Science and Medicine | Permalink | Comments (0)

Oh dear God, it's time for yet another stolen-penis panic in a third world country. Every few years this story crops up, in Africa or India or elsewhere, and mass hysteria strikes otherwise normal people.

Police in Congo have arrested 13 suspected sorcerers accused of using black magic to steal or shrink men's penises ...

Link: Lynchings in Congo as penis theft panic hits capital

Just ONCE, I'd like to see a local government do something useful. Instead of the validating the mass hysteria by re-enforcing the belief that sorcerers are to blame, it would be so very very nice if someone made the effort to educate people out of this comical-to-us but pretty-damn-terrifying-to-them myth.

It's easy for Westerners to scoff but we have our own nonsensical beliefs and bizarre religious myths. The Congolese probably laugh when they hear about all the people in North America who think they see the Virgin Mary in a tree-knot or a piece of toast. And I guess that hailing from a country where we encourage children to believe in Santa Claus, I've got a lot of hair to suggest that the Congolese need to grow up and get over the belief that magic can steal your genitals or change their size.

Guess I'm hairy, because I do. It's time for local politicians and helping professionals to take action against some enduring social myths, such as that one's manhood could be stolen through the malign magic of witch-doctors. Imagine if you were raised with that belief. Imagine if you were afraid to leave the house because your very socio-sexual identity could be stolen from you if you do. Hard to fathom the emotional panic and stress of believing such a thing. It isn't the penis per se, but what it must mean to them socially: a black magic that can, at any time, make them romantically undesirable, socially outcast, sexless, a laughingstock, unable to reproduce and perhaps unable, therefore, to marry.

Could someone PLEASE help these people, for goodness sake? If locals think it's too difficult to re-educate people or try to change their spiritual beliefs, maybe a little old-fashioned American elbow grease would do the trick. I'd love to see Jenna Jameson and Nina Hartley head up a special envoy of charitable American porn stars to fluff these men in their hour of need.

April 23, 2008 in Sex and Spirituality | Permalink | Comments (0)

Come take a walk through our gardens with us. Will took all these shots earlier today with our nifty new Canon PowerShot A590.

First, a view of the house as seen from a row of very vigorous blueberries.

Some friends gave us a Buddha Dog for the garden (thanks R&C!), and he now occupies a shady little shrine outside the front door. Behinds him (in pots) variegated ivy and a variegated creeping hydrangea.

I was working on a planter when a bright red light flashed in my eye. I realized I was staring into the psychedelic neck feathers of a hummingbird. He recognized me as friend. If he'd recognized me as foe, he would've dive-bombed my head. Hummers are as viciously territorial as they are beautiful. I've planted a ton of things to lure them here.

The old canna bed, now about one fifth its original size with some of the giant rocks Will dug up. For scale, the cannas are about 2 ft. tall now.

One of the new canna beds, at the edge of the woods. Same cannas, same height, in a new sunny area we had cleared last year. They can grow and grow into a wall now. One day, there will be a huge pond back there

Close-up of my favorite irises

Same irises, with blue lobelia in the boxes behind them (and daylilies and yarrow surrounding them)

Heavenly bamboo berries.

A now-destroyed red ant hill. It was massive -- this is after I chopped it down with a shovel. It ate one of our lights.

These euonymous were about one foot tall and scraggly when I planted them. Now they are beginning to overgrow the azalea they're surrounding.

Some fruit-bearing trees that Jen planted: fig trees and, on the right, a paw-paw.

A leather mahonia, ripe with berries. The red behind them are lorapetalum.

Native phlox (in a weedy tree box) beside an oak. The irises will be blooming soon.

Some photinia we planted near the wood's edge.

Happy pieris in a box by the front deck. The boxes out front were filled with rocks and sterile soil when we got here.

Potted geranium between pots of sedum.

Red azales in full bloom.

Small bed of annual salvia, filling in where mums will take over later this year.

View to the garden shed, past azaleas and hydrangeas.

Shady rock bed at the end of the deck.

Geraniums don't feed hummers but the flowers draw them in. They love to see red flowers in a garden and will move in early if you put some out.

And, finally, Bobo's peaceful grave

April 22, 2008 in Autobiographical Urges, Pleasures of the Garden | Permalink | Comments (1)

Thanks to Mike for finding this surrealistically strange, award-winning ad for "Marathon Endurance" condoms. Give this artist all due props -- and another well deserved dose of shrooms.

link

April 22, 2008 in Sex and Arts, Sex and Culture | Permalink | Comments (0)

Here's an image that totally classes up the NY Post's Page Six: the lovely Natalie Portman getting anointed by someone who wants to make her his bitch. (And, really, who wouldn't want to?)

NATALIE PORT-A-POTTY

April 22, 2008 in Pets and Animal Love, Post-Traumatic Tabloid Disorder | Permalink | Comments (0)

Somehow I feel this says something about us as a culture. On the other hand, it was probably made in China, so maybe it says something about the Chinese. On the third hand, it was probably made it for an American company which provided the designs and specs. (making one wonder what the Chinese factory workers were thinking as they produced this...) On the fourth hand, who among us (dominants who like humiliation, that is) doesn't wish they could make their submissives learn to do this as a party trick...And on the fifth hand...well, wtf, just give this gnome a hand for doing something I'm sure someone in Internet-Land wishes they could personally perform for a youtube audience.

GARDEN BUBBLE BLOWING GNOME NEW IN BOX

April 22, 2008 in Post-Traumatic Tabloid Disorder | Permalink | Comments (1)

Men! Get your lube out and show this to anyone in your life who disapproves. I've been saying this for years (based on previous studies which suggested same) but now the HARD facts are in: jerking off is one of the best daily health routines a man can perform to stave off that demon cancer.

Masturbation may prevent prostate cancer

Frequent masturbation may help men cut their risk of contracting prostate cancer, Australian researchers have found. It is believed that carcinogens may build up in the prostate if men do not ejaculate regularly, BBC News reported on Wednesday. The researchers surveyed more than 1,000 men who had developed prostate cancer, and 1,250 men who had not. They found that men who had ejaculated the most between the ages of 20 and 50 were the least likely to get cancer. Men who ejaculated more than five times each week were a third less likely to develop prostate cancer.

Sexual intercourse may not have the same effect because of the higher risk of contracting a sexually transmitted disease...

April 22, 2008 in Sexual Health | Permalink | Comments (7)

It's a perfect day in Athens. Absolutely perfect. I went into the garden a couple of hours after waking, just walked in to check voicemail and email, and plan to go back out and stay there until the sun sets or I run out of energy, whichever comes first. Moving and dividing the gigantic canna bed yesterday was very labor-intensive so today I'm focusing on a hundred smaller projects I've been meaning to get to. Among other things, even though I didn't even grow coleus last year, some plants from two seasons ago reseeded so freely I've got a gezillion coleus seedlings popping up in a path, right through the gravel. Jen pointed it out to me last week and I groaned: excavating 2-3 inch seedlings from gravel, not a whole lotta fun. But it wasn't as hard to do as expected, and I salvaged a few dozen. Which is good cuz our lawn men arrive this week and would no doubt have killed them.

There's still about 50-100 cannas out there to move (agh!) but they'll wait until our backs are more rested. Anyone in or near Athens who would like to join me in this madness is welcome to come and cart off enough plants to get an entire small garden going. Want cannas? Ha. It's gotten utterly redonkulous how much we've got to give away!

Blooming now Chez Brame: irises of all types, azaleas and rhodies, some very late perverted tulips (way too warm for tulips yet here they are), lorapetulum, dicentra (aka bleeding hearts), creeping rosemary, the blue flowers whose name I always forget, vinca (the big vining groundcover), phlox, and a handful of bulbs that should've finished by now (anemones, muscari, especially) but are still pretending it's early spring. I won't count the annuals I've recently stuck hither and yon for early color since my real goal is to make the garden all perennial all the time. Otherwise, there are about a thousand plants out there coming in so strong I can't wait to see what it looks like here in a month. Did I mention I've got tons to give away? :)

I'll get back to sex soon.

April 21, 2008 in Pleasures of the Garden | Permalink | Comments (1)

Jen found two fantastic quotes about dogs
"You think dogs will not be in heaven? I tell you, they will be there long before any of us" ~ Robert Louis Stevenson

"I have sometimes thought of the final cause of dogs having such short lives and I am quite satisfied it is in compassion to the human race; for if we suffer so much in losing a dog after an acquaintance of ten or twelve years, what would it be if they were to live double that time?" ~Sir Walter Scott

We're doing much better. We gardened ourselves to the point of exhaustion yesterday and came in feeling happy and whole. Will undertook the monstrous task of excavating a stand of giant cannas that were about to eat the garden. Some of the original bulbs were about 16" in diameter (!!). We then relocated them (significantly divided) to a new, tilled bed by the driveway, and to another stretch of newly tilled soil at the edge of the woods, behind our burn-pit. Last year some of these cannas were about 8 feet tall. I'm hoping they'll be even more robust in their new spots. My rural community is known as "city of cannas" and, with any luck, this year anyone driving by will see our community spirit.

We have lots more work to do out there--I've let most everything mature in its spot for 2-3 years and the reward now is that everyone is super healthy -- so healthy they've wildly outgrown their spaces. This will be a season of dividing. I've reached the point where I no longer NEED to buy new plants to fill in the scape. Now I've got to move everything around and fill in spare spots with overflow perennials. It's been five years in the making but my original vision for the garden is finally starting to emerge.

Meanwhile, Jen's vision of an edible paradise is about to bear fruit, literally. It's been a great spring and the garden is loving it. Looks like we are going to have amazing crops of figs, blueberries, raspberries, strawberries, and asparagus this year. We are totally stoked!

More gardening today. The weather is divine. I feel Bobo in the garden with me. I can almost see him running around, keep an eye on me, with that oddly perverted grin on his face that sometimes made him look like a dirty old man.

It's all good. I'm starting to feel good that I had the chance to live with such a great, kooky dog.

April 21, 2008 in Autobiographical Urges, Pets and Animal Love, Pleasures of the Garden | Permalink | Comments (0)

A few more things I need to say and then Will and I are going out to the garden to work as hard as we can.

On the last day of his life, when I gave him the last walk I'll ever give him, Bobo stopped to smell all the pretty new flowers planted outside the vet's office -- and made sure to pee wherever other dogs had peed, with a truly gleeful look on his face.

On the floor of the operatory, I managed to scoot around and position myself so Bobo could rest his head on my chest. I told the vet it was his favorite thing in the world, what I call "the boobie hug." Yes, when it came to human ladies, Bobo was totally a breast man, and totally loved burying his head in my rack (and Jen's too). Then, softly in his ear, so only he could hear, I sang him his favorite song, one I've sung a thousand times since he was a little pup: "You Are My Sunshine." I always change the last line from "please don't take my sunshine away" to "please don't take my Bobo away." Though he was barely conscious, he smiled and sighed when I did. Will believes that Bobo said his goodbyes to us then.

I thought we'd have Bobo cremated but Will wanted to bury him on our land, near Malachi, our darling cat who also died unexpectedly last year. Will wanted a grave to visit, and wanted to dig it himself. When we got home, my Herculean husband (if you've never seen Will, well, he's a cross between a bear and a weight-lifter in frame) took a pick-axe and a shovel, and asked me to pick a spot. I chose one between Malachi's grave and a flowering dogwood. Then I had to go inside and talk to some clients, as I had a long-standing appointment scheduled. When I was finished, I came back out: Will had dug an enormous hole in the tough Georgia red clay, and had also excavated some boulders to build a cairn. We put Bobo's favorite toys (including a few he'd eviscerated as a puppy, and which I'd saved), his collar and tags, and his favorite treats in the grave with him. I said a prayer and threw down a handful of dirt (as Jews do when they bury their dead), then we shared the work in filling in the grave and covering it with rocks. It is a very fine grave, in a spot in the woods that Bobo often visited. And then the sun broke through the clouds that had covered the sky all morning, and the garden glittered with light.

Bobo died as the sun set and Passover 2008 began. As a lapsed/non-practicing Jew, and a person who doesn't believe in organized religion altogether, Jewish holidays are not very important to me. But I am still a Jew -- and much of my Jewish identity derives from my family's history, as survivors of the Nazi Holocaust. Bobo died on Passover. But more importantly he died on the eve of April 19th. This is the date of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (April 19, 1943); a date which has always held profound meaning for myself and my parents, who were born and raised in Warsaw and were friends with some of the martyrs who died in a spontaneous, doomed effort to defy Nazi occupation. The confluence of Pesach, April 19th and Bobo's passing was emotionally overwhelming. Life and death and survival: all wrapped up in 24 hours of grief.

Blogging about Bobo helped. The kind words on the blog, and phonecalls and emails, helped beyond all reckoning. Gardening a little yesterday helped. But what seemed to help more than anything was therapy. Some clients in crisis needed extra help this weekend, plus I had some regular therapy sessions to deal with as well. Helping other people -- shutting down my own grief, focusing on the living, on people who have needs in the here and now, giving me something useful and positive to do in taking care of them -- was balm to my soul. Helping them helped me more than anything else I could have ever done for myself.

And finally....and to me, maybe the most poignant and bittersweet and mystical thing of all....

Among the many things we offer the wild birds is a small hand-made cage containing fluff and hair and other tiny bits of softness the birds can use to cushion their nests. This year, I saved a big ball of Bobo fur and stuffed it in the cage, figuring they would be delighted by it. It sat out there totally neglected for months. When we got home from bringing Bobo in for surgery I glanced out the window and noticed a little bird holding a ball of his fluff in its beak before flying off. I looked at the cage and was amazed and delighted to see it had been picked clean. OMG. When did that happen? I check it almost every day. Pretty soon baby birds wild be born into a world made soft by Bobo fur. I was so happy about it. After he died later that day, I couldn't stop thinking that little bird. Even though he is gone, Bobo will still be protecting a new generation of the little creatures who live here.

April 20, 2008 in Autobiographical Urges, Pets and Animal Love | Permalink | Comments (2)

Bobo's death hit me hard not just because the death of someone you love is so painful, but because I was so completely invested in believing that the surgery would extend his life and that he would be home with us in a few hours, feeling better than he had in many months.

In his honor, two naked posts today, naked in the sense of personal and emotional.

I haven't gone through all five stages of grief -- there was no bargaining -- but my grief did track the Kubler-Ross model.

Denial: even as we held him in our arms, even though he was so obviously sinking rapidly, struggling for every breath, I couldn't believe he would die. If we gave him just a little more blood, a little more time, I was sure he'd pull through. When the vet called to say there was no longer any hope I still asked her to give him one more hour, sure that there was still a chance for him to rally. And when she called to say he had passed on his own, a part of me believed it couldn't be true, that he would surprise her and suddenly move again, and that by tomorrow, we'd be laughing and celebrating (as we have many times before) his magical mysterious power to keep on going even when all the odds were against him.

Anger: though we saw the vet just working her heart out for him, doing everything and more that could be done, I blamed her. She had killed my dog. The operatory was a pigsty. He should have had more pre-surgery tests. There should have been a more human standard of health care. She killed him. I hated her, I hated her office, I hated her staff, and I hated the fact that veterinary care is so inferior to the lengths we go to to save human lives. I fantasized about building vet hospitals where animals are treated like people, with soft cozy beds and sterile conditions.

Depression: there was nothing anyone could say that could change how I felt. We're all going to die, and maybe as suddenly, unexpectedly, as Bobo. Maybe on the drive home our car would jump the road and land in a ditch. What was the point of anything? While we were hugging Bobo, a rescue lady brought in a miserable elderly stray beagle with an inoperable tumor. The vet sobbed when she put him down, mascara running down her cheek as she knelt on the floor with us to check Bobo's heart-rate for the millionth time.

Acceptance: it was Bobo's time. Maybe he'd been trying to tell us that for the last few weeks. Maybe he had tried hard to keep going just for us, despite the pain he was experiencing. He was the most loyal devoted dog in the world. Maybe he did what I've always feared he would: keep going because he knew Mom and Dad couldn't let him go. He was not scared of dying. We were the ones who were scared. He was as brave and dignified and loving in death as he had been throughout his life. I had to accept his death the way he did: it was his time. It was okay. Death is a part of life. He knew that. He was much wiser, more mature, more stoic, than I will ever be.

The step I skipped was "bargaining." There was no time to bargain, though while I held him I did beg God for one thing: on the eve of Passover, please let death pass over my Bobo and go to another door.

April 20, 2008 in Pets and Animal Love | Permalink | Comments (1)

Too sad for words. This is how I will always remember him.

April 18, 2008 in Autobiographical Urges, Pets and Animal Love | Permalink | Comments (19)

We just spent a couple of hours at the vet's. Bobo had a significant set-back requiring a blood transfusion, and we had to race there to be by his side, just in case. Lots of encouragement and cuddling and reassurances...can't say for sure that they helped but he finally stabilized. He was responsive to our love, and definitely recognized us. Maybe it helped him. When the call came, we literally raced out the door so we're back now for a little bit to feed/walk the furry babies. (Jen is out of town for the weekend, alas, so isn't here to help.) The doctor will call if anything changes; we'll head back once we've fed everyone (including ourselves). It's going to be a long night of watching and waiting. We haven't lost hope. I'll log back in when I know something more concrete. (And thanks in advance for any good vibes you can send Bobo's way.)

April 18, 2008 in Autobiographical Urges, Pets and Animal Love | Permalink | Comments (4)

If you don't know who John Lennon is (or was), then I can't help you.

Considered outrageous and pornographic at the time, the erotic visual art Lennon created or collaborated on through drawings and posed photographs remains a remarkablly individualistic artistic statement on sexuality. Many of his nude poses were political in nature (particularly the time he and Yoko shacked up in a hotel room, inviting the press in to photograph them lounging under the sheets as a personal protest-cum-performance-art to protest the war in Vietnam). He knew the personal was political. And he grasped the power of nakedness: if nothing else, it makes people look. One may infer that he likely took pleasure in exhibitionism and frightening the (straight) horses. One should also infer that he had extraordinary courage to make himself so vulnerable to critics. He was true the only experimental artist among the Beatles, the one who pushed the envelope to the limit on his own terms. His art garnered lots of attention -- and lots of hostility too. To my bemusement when I was researching this show, I kept stumbling upon religious zealots who, to this day, see Lennon as an anti-Christ because of his nude, love-child, peacenik ways.

As best I could discern from attempts to pull together a good collection of his erotic drawings, his estate holds a tight rein on his work. I am always sympathetic to the efforts of living artists to control their own copyrights but less so when it comes to estates which maintain so morbid a grip over a dead artist's work that they force it into obscurity. Maybe Ono is embarrassed now by the explicit drawings of their sex life. Perhaps she's bitter about people other than herself making money off his memory. One thing for sure: if Rembrandt or Van Gogh's heirs had been as litigious as contemporary artists' heirs are, all their most famous paintings would be accessible only to collectors and auction houses. Yes, one can argue the relative merits of his talents, and whether he was a better musician than artist. That's not the point. You can't talk about John Lennon without talking about his political consciousness; and his visual art was inextricably linked to that consciousness. This suppression, repression or perhaps jealous shielding of John Lennon's erotic art amputates his artistic legacy and the true history of his life. Put in plain English: ohhhhhhhhhhh Yoooookoooooooooooo, let it go already. John Lennon belongs to history now.

Anyway, after the cut, a dozen or so of the drawings I did find, and a few more images of the artist and his wife in their salad days. Here they are, giving peace--and marriage--a chance.

photographer: Bob Gruen

photographer: Annie Leibovitz

A few of Lennon's famous doodles

From "Bag One," a portfolio of erotic drawings by Lennon

April 18, 2008 in Sex and Arts | Permalink | Comments (1)

The vet just called. He's awake! Said Bobo had no problems coming out of anesthesia. Yay!! The downside: it was a long and difficult surgery because the tumor was "very vascular." He lost a LOT of blood and is very woozy, so can't come home until this evening. They warned me that he is a total Frankenpuppie too, since they had to staple him like crazy. Also, apparently he's going to ooze disgustingness for a while, so now we're trying to figure out how to protect carpets, furniture and bedding. Bleh. But woozy, oozy, who cares as long as he will recuperate to enjoy his life fully again. I'll update again when he's home safe and sound.

April 18, 2008 in Autobiographical Urges, Pets and Animal Love | Permalink | Comments (2)

My apologies to anyone disappointed that I didn't get my usual Thursday late night "intimations of immorality" image up. I've been going back and forth in my mind on whether or not to run an erotic art show this week. I'm feeling kind of bummed. Our eldest dog, Bobo, the first dog I've ever owned, is undergoing cancer surgery today. In fact, the vet is probably working on him right now. It isn't the cancer I'm worried about -- fortunately, is very slow-growing and this surgery is a "debulking" of the tumor to relieve the pressure (and thus give him more years). But he's going under general anesthesia. Bobo's getting to be a pretty old fellow and older dogs don't always do too well with that. He has been through an astonishing number and intensity of medical interventions, starting at age 4, when he nearly died from a ruptured disk. He has always been a real champion about his seemingly endless series of afflictions, bouncing back every time and wagging his tail through most everything. At the ripe age of 11 1/2, though, I can't help feeling all kinds of anxious about whether he has the will to keep fighting.

He was acting pretty pitifully a couple of weeks ago (his seasonal allergies have been through the roof this year -- as you'll see below by the damage he's done to himself with incessant chewing and licking). But the vet put him on pain medications and antibiotics, and he's been acting sprightly and happy again the last few days. So we're hopeful that he still has lots and lots of fight left to get through many more years of life.

my poor old baby

All this to say that I didn't feel as jovial as usual last night, and didn't feel like forcing myself to kid around on the blog.

But after much thought this morning I've decided to go ahead with the art show anyway. Thinking about Bobo and where he'd be today, at first, made me feel like brushing off the show. But thinking about Bobo also always makes me remember how NOTHING, not even dire illnesses that must cause him the most hellish of discomfort, have EVER kept him down. I'm going to do a show. And with luck, by the end of the day, will be able to report that our little old baby is home.

April 18, 2008 in Autobiographical Urges, Pets and Animal Love, Sex and Arts | Permalink | Comments (0)

A couple of readers have asked to see some new pics of our pups...as if I needed the encouragement :) These were snapped the other night. (Apricot poodle is Venus, and the black & white chinese crested is Apollo; our eldest dog, Bobo, was camera-shy). Hard to believe Apollo's only been here a few months. He and Venus are as inseparable as litter-mates. They have so much in common now, they even agree that our television choices are BORING. BTW, my feet are totally anchored under that cozy faux fur blanket that they love to snuggle on. Every night they make sure to claim some part of me as a pillow or bed before passing out. I can't move a muscle without waking them. Which, of course, is their diabolical plan. Keep the Mother Figure in helpless dog bondage!

Apollo a.k.a. Cujo, our enfant terrible, at rest.

Perhaps a bit more exciting was this trippy-dippy lunar moth that affixed itself to our kitchen window a couple of nights ago. Will got this incredible shot of the beautiful green beastie:

April 17, 2008 in Autobiographical Urges, Pets and Animal Love | Permalink | Comments (2)

In case the Marilyn tape left a bad taste in your mouth, here's something truly delicious to refresh your palate.

(Anyone know who the artist might be?)

April 16, 2008 in Sex and Arts | Permalink | Comments (0)

Several people have emailed me (thanks guys) about this year's weirdest dead celebrity story, asking my opinion about the news that a secret sex tape showing Marilyn Monroe sucking someone off was sold to a private businessman for $1.5 million by the son of an FBI insider who claims it came from Hoover's (no-doubt plentiful) stash of illegal tapes.

Here's my opinion: a curse on Hoover. I only wish he (and Roy Cohn, too, by the way) had been completely outed in their lifetimes so the American public would have understood the depth of their hypocrisy and sociopathy then, when these men could have been stopped.

As for poor poor Marilyn, who once said of herself, "Big tits, big ass, big deal," and who was profoundly conflicted about her role as America's sex kitten, I feel tremendous pity that she continues to be so widely exploited by exactly the kind of people she feared and mistrusted in the first place. It disgusts me that somone earned $1.5 million off a tape that should never have been made in the first place. If he had any decency he would have destroyed it, not sold it. It saddens me that there was a bidding war for this ugly and completely non-consensual leer into her private life and that its sale gave the American public another opportunity to bask in the sunlight that apparently still shines for them out of poor Miss Monroe's long-decayed vagina. It is reassuring to know the businessman doesn't plan to sell copies on the Internet -- but neither is he destroying it. Which adds its own level of creepiness to the tale: what DOES he plan to do with it? Jerk off while watching it? Get a thrill of power from knowing HE has a piece of Marilyn's sexuality that no one else possesses? Creepy, creepy, creepy. Leave the poor woman alone already. There should be a statue of limitations on how long any one actress is supposed to fuel male masturbatory fantasies: she's been dead 50 years. This is some kind of a crazy necrophiliac obsession I simply do not get. Vanilla people can be sooo sick. Thank God I'm a wholesome sadomasochist. Consent and the right to privacy matter to me.

April 16, 2008 in Sex and Culture | Permalink | Comments (0)

Interesting review of what, at first, sounded like a great indie film.

Minnesota filmmakers at the festival

Ropes, cuffs, nipple clamps, and all the miscellaneous tackle of America's most persistent sexual taboos (custard pies included) are the underdog protagonists of Mondo Bondo, Cane-Honeysett's immensely entertaining documentary about American bondage and its participants. Though bondage may not be the fearsome menace it was in the xenophobic days of American sexual antiquity, it is still a hush-hush underworld that is grievously misrepresented in popular culture as a subversive and often violent perversion.

....Mondo Bondo is an odyssey of breezy, winking confrontation, one that uses its humor and wit to knock the wind out of the prejudicial bluster of an American sexual mainstream and bring into restorative sunlight an artful practice that is as much about aesthetic as it is about sex.

So far so good....but then came this quote from the director:

"My film is about the B and D, not the S and M," he points out, referring to the acronym BDSM, which stands for bondage, domination, sadism, and masochism. "They are extraordinarily different. The B and D that I saw is an art form. When you see the rope work involved, it's exquisite. It's absolutely beautiful. But I also saw a guy get strung up and have his back slashed up with razorblades. Covered in blood. To me, that wasn't artful. It was blatant exhibitionism. I couldn't grasp it psychologically."

First, a correction: BDSM stands for Bondage and Discipline, Dominance and Submission, and Sadomasochism. BD+DS+SM=BDSM.

Next, I wish people would learn to distinguish between their own personal takes on BDSM and reality. Just because he saw something he considered art doesn't make it art, any more than his inability to identify with an extreme masochist makes the masochist "a blatant exhibitionist." Huh? Is that a fancy-schmancy way of saying the hardcore masochist is fucked up? What if the bondage fans were role-playing for the camera while the slasher was experiencing a private ecstasy and bliss few can imagine? I think if you're making a documentary, that's the question you want answered -- what's real here? -- unless, of course, the whole film is a vanity enterprise about the things that personally turn you on. (coughing politely)

B&D and S&M are NOT "extraordinarily different." They are not, in fact, different at all. Research the history of the terms and you will find that, not so terribly long ago, they were completely interchangeable. D&S, B&D, S&M -- those of us doing this stuff in the 80s and earlier never considered that someone who was doing B&D was different from those doing S&M. It was just a matter of what term you used to describe the same things. Most people picked up B&D, in fact, from the magazines and other publications of the (pre-Internet) day. Back then, S&M had such nasty connotations (serial killers, violent criminals) that lots of perverts favored a "softer" term to distinguish consensual kink from criminal behaviors.

If you look back at the SM rags of the 70s and 80s you'll see most magazines referred to B&D on their covers while, inside, their pages depicted hardcore sadomasochism. All this "light domination" and "sensual domination" stuff has been a post-modern (post 90s) scene. In the 60s, 70s, and 80s, you were either serious about kink or you were not taken seriously. That may seem harsh today but that's just the way it was back then, when the "discipline" part of B&D meant a helluva lot more than a light spanking.

In the 80s, some SM activists - most notably, Pat (now Patrick) Califia in Coming to Power - came along and said, HEY, instead of wimping out and using "softer" words to describe what we do, how about reclaiming the term for ourselves and not allowing other people to define what sadomasochism is or should be? Califia's discussion of reclaiming and liberating sadomasochism from the linguistic death grip of prudes and psychiatrists inspired me to forever after call myself a sadomasochist, and do so with pride. I am what I am, I am not afraid of it, and I don't care what other people who don't get it think that being a sadomasochist means. As the great Reggae song says, "who feels it knows it."

And then...and then...something happened on the Internet, when UseNet's alt.sex.bondage appeared, creating a safe space for a small serious group of people to network about SM. This founding group first came up with BDSM as a way to unite kinksters under one basic, community-loving kinky umbrella. Before too long, this community outgrew its own capability to keep the BS down. It soon became the repository for every clueless yet highly opinionated self-styled kink-expert to opine and, more often than not, bully other people. It was not a bad place if you had much too much time on your hands, and not enough real-life friends to occupy you, giving you the leisure and Asperger-like obsessiveness to analyze, parse, redefine, and essentially recreate reality according to your own narrow neurotic view (the same view that gave you all that leisure time in the first place). Ah Usenet, home to alt.sex.bondage and alt.torture and alt.too.much.time.on.my.lonely.hands.

Oh, it had its moments. WIITWD was ok. WTF. Like BDSM, it was another umbrella term for everyone from latex nun fetishists to adults in diapers to the sadists who beat their slaves (*taking a small bow at this juncture*). Yeah. What it is that we do was all good.

But then things took a terrible detour when the term BDSM, designed to bring us together, was torn asunder. Broken up into its components, it was now redefined into three unique kinky camps. The very thing activists were trying to eradicate (the notion that one type of kink play is somehow superior to another) became the holy grail, implying that one type of relationship was somehow better or (even worse) more authentic than another. Instead of a big community of people who used to use the terms interchangeably, we now saw people draw lines between camps. It's opened the door to all kinds of self-hating behaviors within the scene, including people on one end of the spectrum sneering at "the slap and tickle set" and those on the other end feeling appalled and embarrassed by "the master/slave set."

As I see it, every time we break BDSM up and try to look at kink as separate -- and not necessarily equal -- behaviors all we've done is to assimilate and promulgate the same prejudices the straight world has against us. Is it really better to bind than to cane? When you go into a straight courtroom filled with straight people do you think they will give you a break because you claim you do B&D and not S&M?

BDSM is a political term. It's rhetorical, not specific: it's a way of unifying a diverse population. It's a way for all kinky people to accept that whatever our differences in types and expression of kinky sex, we can and should work towards common goals because we face common struggles.

This director's uninformed assertion makes him look like a poseur, and makes me wonder how honest the film can be. I'll definitely see it if I get the chance. But now mainly to find out if the film itself is filled with similarly erroneous assumptions about BDSM.

April 16, 2008 in Sex and Culture | Permalink | Comments (4)

Well, this is pretty darn ugly. If he's apt to say things like this in front of a group of colleagues and reporters, one wonders what a fight at their house sounds like. Is Cindy McCain abused? Are their children hearing this crap? Do his daughters get to hear mom described as a cunt by dad on a regular basis?

Ah, yes: the candidate with the strong moral agenda. Tough on abortion -- but not on mental cruelty!

Author: McCain Called Wife Cunt, Trollop

In his book, The Real McCain, author Cliff Schecter claims that John McCain made extremely ugly remarks about his wife Cindy McCain during a tirade witnessed by three reporters and two aides. "At one point, Cindy playfully twirled McCain's hair and said, 'You're getting a little thin up there,'" Schechter writes. "McCain's face reddened, and he responded, 'At least I don't plaster on the makeup like a trollop, you cunt.' McCain's excuse was that it had been a long day.

But hopefully not as long as the day he loses the election.

April 16, 2008 in Sexual Politics | Permalink | Comments (1)

Great little article by my friend, the wondrously intelligent and super-sadistic Cleo DuBois, on a question that many SMers often struggle with:

How Do You Punish A Masochi