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Goodbye From Philadelphia
For those of you keeping score at home, Gloria asked me to come on board as a contributing blogger back in May, 2007, and while I had a good run of posts over the past eight months or so, in the past few weeks I haven't had a lot to say. The truth is that life had started to get in the way of blogging, and I found that I lost the passion that drove me to write about sexual issues, the passion that those issues deserve.
After discussing it with Gloria, I've decided it's time for me to leave as Gloria's contributor. I am very grateful for the opportunity that she gave me to write here, and I hope - and expect - that she'll find someone who can match her great talent and energy.
Thanks to everyone who commented on my posts, and take care.
January 15, 2008 in Mithras Invicti | Permalink | Comments (6)
Teenage Lesbian Gives Fundamentalist Teacher a First Amendment Lesson
Good job, Beth:
Bethany Laccone, a 17-year-old senior from Portsmouth, Virginia, takes a hotel management class every morning at I.C. Norcom High School before returning to her regular school for the rest of her classes. An out lesbian for over two years, Laccone sometimes wears a t-shirt which bears an image of two overlapping female gender symbols. On December 10, 2007, Laccone was pulled out of class at Norcom High by a teacher who said she shouldn't be wearing the shirt at school and then sent her to the assistant principal's office. The assistant principal and the teacher then told Laccone that the shirt violated a section of the school dress code that bans "bawdy, salacious or sexually suggestive messages." In a later meeting with Laccone's father, the assistant principal said that he was upholding the censorship, and added that the teacher is "very conservative" and claimed she was so upset by the t-shirt that it "interfered with her ability to teach."
In a demand letter sent [on December 20] to I.C. Norcom High School officials, the ACLU demanded that any mention of the censorship be removed from Laccone's student record, that the school guarantee it would not illegally censor Laccone or other students in the future, and that the school apologize to Laccone for its actions.
The ACLU of Virginia and the national ACLU Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Project are working together in handling Laccone's complaint.
She looks like she doesn't take a lot of shit from people, doesn't she?
And the ACLU gets results:
On Friday [December 21], Norcom Principal Lynn Briley said the school would comply.
"Yes, we did make a mistake," Briley told The Virginian-Pilot newspaper of Norfolk.
Briley agreed that Laccone had been censored, but said no note had been placed in her file. She said she would apologize to Laccone and try to meet the group's other demands.
Give to the ACLU.
December 22, 2007 in Mithras Invicti, Sex Laws and Crimes | Permalink | Comments (0)
Friendfinder Actually Sold This Time
Despite my extreme but well-justified skepticism, it appears that Various, Inc. - which runs Adult Friendfinder - has in fact been sold to Penthouse Media Group for $500 million. This is good news for Various's owner, but it remains to be seen whether it will be a benefit to adult personals customers. Again, I may be too skeptical, but I suspect Penthouse will be more interested in selling adult content than helping people hook up. For another thing, the price paid was very low - less than 1.5 times earnings - which reduces the incentive other investors have in funding competitive sites.
December 21, 2007 in Mithras Invicti, Sex On-Line | Permalink | Comments (0)
Slavercize!
By Mithras Invicti
This is very funny:
And the explanation: New York Dominatrix and Fitness Instructor Miss "Victoria" puts her overweight clients through an aerobic workout that she has devised named Slavercize. As her willing and submissive 'slaves' they must perform push-ups, sit-ups, jumping jacks and 'play fetch' dressed in latex and threatened with a whip.
A long time ago, Bally Fitness came out with their Pain in the Butt workout, which had a commercial with a dommy-looking woman and the sound of whipcracks.
(Via this girl.)
November 30, 2007 in Mithras Invicti, Sexual Health | Permalink | Comments (0)
Feminists Make Better Lovers
The results, appearing in the online edition of the peer-reviewed journal Sex Roles, show that for both women and men there was a benefit to having a feminist partner. Feminist women were also more likely than others to be in a romantic relationship.
"If you're a woman paired with a male feminist," said [Rutgers professor Laurie] Rudman, "you have a healthier relationship across the board"--better in terms of relationship quality, equality, stability and sexual satisfaction.
"And men paired with female feminists have greater sexual satisfaction and greater relationship stability," she said. "So, [there were] higher scores on two of the four dimensions, with no difference on the other two."
I would like to see this study controlled for IQ, because I wonder if what really is happening here is that high intelligence leads to both feminism and better relationships. For the moment, though, I accept the idea that embracing equality makes for a better love match:
If a relationship is based on authoritarian control, keeping one person on top and the other underneath, it gets old pretty fast--for both partners, really," said [Gina] Ogden, a Boston sex therapist who surveyed 3,810 people for her book "The Heart and Soul of Sex."
"In an egalitarian relationship, there is more flow of give and take," she said, "and that's the romantic tension. That tension--the sexual desire--is in that space between you where you're able to flow back and forth."
In her experience, said Ogden, "where there's caring, sharing, openness and honesty, sexual satisfaction increases. It not only feels good now, but it is likely to get better and better as you age."
That's clearly right.
Chicago psychotherapist Sue Scheffler, who treats couples, seconds that emotion.
"What's important is mutual respect," said Scheffler. "If you're married to someone with feminist values--someone with a sense that men and women have the same worth--that would be a key factor in terms of your health and satisfaction in the marriage, whether or not you call yourself a feminist."
That's also a good point. It would be valuable to measure attitudes which correlate to feminist beliefs instead of asking people if they classify themselves as feminists.
She added: "No woman wants to be a slave, and I don't think even a somewhat enlightened guy would want to be a meal ticket. There has to be some role satisfaction, whatever you've elected to do, and you have to feel like your partner respects your choice."
Well, okay, caveat: Some women want to be slaves sometimes, but are feminists the rest of the time.
Sadly, this is also unsurprising:
Since word of the study started leaking out, mostly online, Rudman said she has received a lot of attention. "There are a lot of angry bloggers out there," she said. "We're accused of being man-hating, radical lesbians. One blogger wrote, 'I Googled them--they're both dogs.' That put a dent in my graduate student's naivete.
(Via Aaron Krager at Faithfully Liberal.)
November 18, 2007 in Mithras Invicti, Sex and Culture, Sex and Relationships | Permalink | Comments (0)
FriendFinder Sold for $1 Billion - Maybe
By Mithras Invicti
Rumor has it that Penthouse Media Group has acquired Friendfinder:
The company, which was founded by Andrew Conru, is rumored to now have revenues in excess of $300 million annually. The acquisition price is said to be 3x revenue, or around $1 billion.
Friendfinder's main business is Adult Friendfinder, the largest adult dating site in the world. Back in August, there were rumors, which turned out to be false, that Friendfinder had sold for $400-500 million. Since this is twice that price, since Adult Friendfinder's traffic growth has been flat or negative since August, since we're clearly heading into a major recession, and since the entire dating industry is struggling to find growth in the face of free online personals and community sites like facebook, I am skeptical that this rumor is true.
(Via Online Dating Insider.)
Update 11/19/07: Maybe the price was closer to $500 million. Maybe the whole story is full of shit.
I pick the latter.
Update again: The CEO of Friendfinder says the story is false.
November 18, 2007 in Mithras Invicti, Sex and Technology, Sex On-Line | Permalink | Comments (0)
200 Lashes For Letting Yourself Be Raped
From the "What the Fuck?" file:
A court in the ultra-conservative kingdom of Saudi Arabia is punishing a female victim of gang rape with 200 lashes and six months in jail, a newspaper reported on Thursday.
The 19-year-old woman -- whose six armed attackers have been sentenced to jail terms -- was initially ordered to undergo 90 lashes for "being in the car of an unrelated male at the time of the rape," the Arab News reported.
But in a new verdict issued after Saudi Arabia's Higher Judicial Council ordered a retrial, the court in the eastern town of Al-Qatif more than doubled the number of lashes to 200.
A court source told the English-language Arab News that the judges had decided to punish the woman further for "her attempt to aggravate and influence the judiciary through the media."
Her attackers get one to five years, she gets six months and a whipping. America's friends, the Saudis.
(Via Jessica Valenti at feministing.)
November 16, 2007 in Mithras Invicti, Sex and Culture, Sex Laws and Crimes | Permalink | Comments (2)
Her First Spanking
Don Roper at Confessions of an English Gentleman has some valuable pointers on how to give a spanking to a woman who has never had one before. I like this one especially:
2. Listen to her. The feedback you get from listening is invaluable. It's not just the things she says. It's all those little noises, the gasps, the squeals, the yelps. It's not hard on the whole to tell if they are expressions of pain, or pleasure, or both together. Some girls are naturally noisy, some much more reserved, so you need to understand the context in which these noises are made.
November 16, 2007 in Mithras Invicti, Sex and Relationships, Sex and Sadomasochism | Permalink | Comments (0)
Crash Pad
The Crash Pad Series ... shows real women really fucking, and I don’t mean the often insipid girl-girl action you see in porn made primarily for men. I mean that The Crash Pad Series shows real women-loving women actually fucking each other with hands, fists (yummy), strap-ons and et cetera.
I loved it.
I checked out the trailers and it does look very hot. The series seems to be based on an unfortunate conceit that there is this actual apartment called the crash pad which has the power to make sex with whoever you take there incredible. I managed to ignore that and just enjoyed the great action. AAG is giving away a free one-month membership by randomly selecting one of the comments to her post.
November 10, 2007 in Mithras Invicti, Sex On-Line | Permalink | Comments (0)
"No, I Really Have Been Bad!"
There's a story going around the intertubes: A woman in Nottingham, England reportedly arranged for a performer in a gorilla costume to surprise her son at school for his 16th birthday, and she told the teacher there would be a surprise (without giving any details) and to take video.
Of course, the company made a mistake and sent a stripper to the classroom instead:
But it all went wrong when the unnamed company sent a stripper dressed as a policewoman instead of a "gorillagram" - in what it called a booking error.
One witness told reporters: "She asked the lad to stand up, which he did, and told him he had been a very naughty boy because he hadn't been doing his homework.
"Then she put on some Britney Spears music and got out a collar and lead from her bag and told him to put them on."
After walking the boy round the classroom and spanking him with a whip - the action turned even more blue.
"She took off some clothes until she was down to her bra and pants [British for panties - M], pulled out some cream, put it on her buttocks and told him to rub it in," the source said.
It was at that point the shocked teacher - who had not been told what the surprise was - called an end to the show.
While men all over the Western World will be divided into the I Wish I Had Been That Lucky and the At Least I Didn't Suffer That Trauma camps, I remain skeptical about the accuracy of this story. I suppose it's possible that the company could have sent a stripper instead of a gorilla, although I wonder how no one noticed they were sending her to a school. But what was the performer herself thinking when she arrived at the school, or at the classroom? "This will make a nice change of pace from bachelor parties" perhaps. Or maybe "They all look so young and innocent, I hope they enjoy the show so the superintendent will give me a nice tip." And what about the teacher? She allowed the kid to be collared and leashed and spanked, but drew the line at nudity and rubbing buttocks? Maybe I am just showing my American bias, and seeing people spanked in public is commonplace in Britain. Still, I think this one belongs in the Funny, If True file.
November 9, 2007 in Mithras Invicti, Sexual Humor | Permalink | Comments (0)
QOTD
Use every man after his desert, and who should 'scape whipping?
November 8, 2007 in Mithras Invicti, Sex and Sadomasochism | Permalink | Comments (0)
Ew, Red, Stop, Geddit Outta Me
How could I have missed this before now? Ladies, gentlemen and others, I give you the ultimate humiliation toy, the George W. Bush buttplug:
And the ad text is pretty funny, too:
This President will really f*** you up the butt. You’re already familiar with the sensation, so why not REALLY FEEL IT with our exclusive Presidential Pooper Plug. Invade an Iraqi, an Afghani, or at even an Iranian when you want. With this fat headed, huge stub of a plug no ass is safe anywhere.
Made of 100% silicone with 4” of usable length and a head 1-1/2” in diameter, this butt plug will issue a 110% American ass drubbing. A 2-3/4” base prevents the little prick from digging in without a timetable for withdrawal.
Great gag gift for Log Cabin Republicans. Use as a dashboard ornament, mantelpiece or uncomfortable conversation piece. Get one now before we get killed!
As always, remember to play safe, play clean and never ever go through airport security with this gag tucked away.
Send one to your favorite favorite enhanced interrogation technique practitioner today!
(Via local hero Phillybits.)
November 3, 2007 in Mithras Invicti, Sexual Humor | Permalink | Comments (0)
Supreme Court Challenge to Simulated Child Porn Law
The United States Supreme Court heard oral argument on Tuesday in the case of U.S. v. Williams:
Michael Williams ... was arrested in 2004 after he traded messages in an Internet chat room with an undercover federal agent posing as a woman.
Williams offered to trade photos of children with the agent and then posted seven images of minors in sexually explicit conduct. [Williams also offered to trade hard-core child porn pictures which, it turns out, did not exist.] At issue before the Supreme Court is his conviction for promoting child pornography.
Williams's attorney is arguing that the law is unconstitutional on the grounds that it violates the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment.
At issue is the “pandering” provision in the 2003 Prosecutorial Remedies and Other Tools to End the Exploitation of Children Today Act (“PROTECT Act”). The provision makes it illegal to solicit, distribute, present or offer “actual child pornography” — a sexually explicit visual representation of a real minor — or any visual representation of a minor engaging in obscene behavior.
The PROTECT Act’s pandering provision would garner almost no attention if it merely attempted to regulate real offers to transact in child pornography, cases where the material involved is indisputably illegal in nature. However, the pandering provision goes much further, criminalizing “purported offers”— offers that characterize otherwise lawful representations as illegal child pornography by emphasizing the material’s prurient appeal. The First Amendment question here is, if the pictures being “pandered” are lawful, can Congress criminalize speech drawing attention to the pictures’ sexual nature, or has Congress committed the ultimate First Amendment sin with its new pandering offense, prohibiting the mere expression of unpopular ideas?
Congress finds itself in this difficult position because, having achieved its goal of criminalizing activities associated with actual child pornography, it is now concerned with the distribution of “gateway” or marginal representations that it argues are part of the same market for pornographic representations of children.
In other words, Williams is appealing his conviction because the law doesn't require the determination that the material he posted is really child porn (even though it was). His argument is that the PROTECT Act would also sweep in such artistic works as "Lolita", "Traffic", "American Beauty" and "Titanic", each of which depict simulated child sex. He also argues that it violates his free speech rights to convict him for simply offering child porn (in this case, the hard-core child porn which did not exist), because he claims that offer is expressive conduct which deserves protection, although the porn itself can lawfully be banned. Finally, he claims the PROTECT Act violates the constitution because it focuses on what a person who gets an offer to receive child porn believes that offer means - Williams argues that someone making a perfectly innocent offer to send non-porn could be arrested if the recipient of the offer could reasonably misunderstand the offer to be one for child porn.
I think this is an important case not because child porn should be protected, but because Williams's lawyers raise good argument about how the law could be applied to non-child porn. Usually, that won't happen, but in the hands of corrupt or overzealous prosecutors - which we've seen a lot of lately - it can be harmful.
November 3, 2007 in Mithras Invicti, Sex Laws and Crimes | Permalink | Comments (0)
QOTD
I'm back from Key West and Fantasy Fest, where your intrepid reporter was mostly rained upon (but I'll have a fuller description of the somewhat-disappointing trip later). For now, Jessica Valenti at feministing:
[I]f my hymen was made of diamonds, I would have turned it into a hot pair of earrings. And if it was just one huge diamond like the one above, I doubt I'd be able to walk, let alone fuck.
My hymen's made of diamonds. Has a certain ring to it, doesn't it? Sort of like, "See my vest, see my vest, made from real gorilla chest." Before you click through and read Jessica's post, play a little game and try to guess what the hell's she's talking about. Surgical revirginization for super-wealthy girls? The bizarre and tragic consequences of too much heat and pressure on the female anatomy if you wait to have sex too long?
October 26, 2007 in Mithras Invicti, Sexual Humor | Permalink | Comments (0)
Internet Dating Horror
Situations like these are why I had to get a web-enabled cell phone.
(Via kinkerbelle.)
October 18, 2007 in Mithras Invicti, Sexual Humor | Permalink | Comments (0)
We Know You Weren't Raped, Because You're Drunk
By Mithras Invicti
Unbelievable:
The complaint stated that during an off-campus house party in December 2006 the plaintiff was given a date-rape drug that rendered her semiconscious. One of the hosts then took her to a room where he allegedly anally penetrated her at around 3 a.m.
Immediately after the alleged assault, she sought medical assistance at Howard University Hospital, accompanied by two witnesses, according to the complaint.
Court documents also add that she appeared intoxicated and was therefore denied a rape kit and sent home. It also states she was drifting in and out of consciousness and vomiting.
The plaintiff returned to Howard University Hospital the next morning and was again denied a rape kit - at which point the Metropolitan Police Department was notified, according to the complaint. They also said they felt a rape kit was unnecessary, according to court documents.
"A sexual assault kit is for police to recover evidence," said Sergeant Ronald Reid of the MPD Sex Assault Unit. "So if we don't have reason to believe a crime happened we wouldn't administer a rape kit."
The plaintiff then drove to GW Hospital, where Lang examined her according to court documents. The complaint states he also denied her a rape kit because both the police and Howard's hospital had already refused. [GW physician Christopher] Lang, who is listed as a defendant, did not return several calls ... [for comment].
Is it any wonder that most women don't even bother to report it (warning: pdf) when they're raped? The number one reason given for not reporting it is that it's a "personal matter". What's that mean? I think that women have internalized the implicit message that Sergeant Ronald Reid is sending: "If you're a whore who gets drunk and someone forces you to have sex when you don't want it, it's your fault. We're not going to bother looking into it." So, instead of putting a rapist in jail, rape victims blames themselves and sometime later the predator rapes them again or moves on to another victim, and the process starts all over again. Whatever the law says, cops and prosecutors only want to prosecute "real" rapes, those where the victim acts in a way that the typical law enforcement official finds acceptable. The rest of you sluts need to get raped and stay raped.
(Via Jessica at feministing.)
October 18, 2007 in Mithras Invicti, Sex Laws and Crimes | Permalink | Comments (0)
"I Don't Remember Why I Decided to Try It."
Hannah at down the rabbit hole, who says "I am all about my ass", has a short but very well-written post about her first time anally penetrating herself:
I was young, but I was not without a rudimentary knowledge of basic physiology - and physics - so I knew that whatever went in there was going to have to be easily retrievable. I had no idea at the time there were toys designed specifically for this purpose, and even if I did, it wouldn't have done me any good; I don't remember exactly how old I was, but I sure wasn't old enough to buy a butt plug. So I did what I always did - improvised.
As a guy, stories of women's sexual self-discovery are fascinating to me both for the potential prurient interest and because many women say it took them a long time to figure out their own bodies, so stories of success have a really sweet quality to them. And surprising. Bic pens bound in electrical tape - who knew?
October 16, 2007 in Mithras Invicti, Sexual Health | Permalink | Comments (0)
A BDSM Death
Adrian Exley was wrapped tightly in heavy plastic, then bound with duct tape. A leather hood was put over his head with a thin plastic straw inserted so that he could breathe, and he was shut up in a closet.
That, apparently, was the way Exley liked it. But the way it ended -- with Exley suffocating -- was not what he had in mind when he traveled from Britain for a bondage session with a man he had met through a sadomasochism Web site.
Exley's body was discovered in the woods last year, two months after he was bound up in the bondage ''playroom'' Gary LeBlanc had built in the basement of his suburban Boston home. LeBlanc, a 48-year-old Gulf Oil sales executive, detailed his responsibility in the fatal bondage session in a five-page suicide note, just before he put a gun to his head and killed himself.
There are a number of things to highlight about this story. First of all, LeBlanc was apparently not what you would call a practitioner of Safe, Sane and Consensual:
The lawsuit describes a three-day bondage and discipline session that ended when a third man, Scott Vincent, discovered Exley was not breathing. Exley had been put in a closet while bound in plastic up to his neck and left alone for several hours, according to the lawsuit.
Leaving anyone alone while bound is, at least in the community I swim in, an unforgivable act. Bound and unable to speak? You'd be blacklisted, forever.
But what I find amazing about the article is that the Associated Press seems to get it:
Several people who came forward after Exley's death told police that LeBlanc had restrained them and left them alone for long periods, or ignored their requests that he curtail a bondage session.
Both actions go against the bondage protocols, which say participants must stop if their partner uses a prearranged ''safe word'' or ''safe signal'' and must not leave anyone who is bound alone, said Susan Wright, a spokeswoman for the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom.
Maybe my expectations are too low, but I am thrilled beyond measure that a major news story simply has accurate BDSM info in it.
The article is prompted by the fact that Exley's family is bringing a wrongful death action against Scott Vincent and former-Gulf-Oil-sales-exec LeBlanc's estate. In my completely off-the-cuff legal opinion, I think they're going to win a very large sum of money.
First of all, though, the estate's lawyer argues an old tort doctrine called "assumption of the risk":
John Andrews, a lawyer for LeBlanc's estate, said Exley knew the risks going in. ''What occurred was an act or actions between two consenting adults, both of whom knew what they were doing, and it had a tragic end,'' he said.
Play a contact sport, go skydiving, traipse through the wilderness and bad things can happen that are no one else's legal fault, he's saying. The problem for Lawyer Andrews is twofold: First of all, in the course of exceptionally dangerous activities, the person who is in control of the situation usually has a heightened duty to take care of the other person. So, for example, if I am a skydiving instructor, I can't just say, "Stuff happens" when my student's 'chute fails to open. I would have to show that I did everything in my power to make sure that the equipment was working properly beforehand. Similarly, I would think, a court would frown upon the argument that once a bondage-and-breath-control scene had begun, that the sub had the responsibility to look out for himself. When someone puts their life in your hands, you better make sure you don't fumble it.
Second, even if we say that LeBlanc didn't have a heightened duty to take care of Exley, whether or not LeBlanc was negligent can be established by evidence that he violated the standards that a reasonable person in the community would think applied in the situation. And the quote from Susan Wright above about "bondage protocols" goes directly to that point - in fact I would not be surprised if she or someone like her were called to testify - and so does this:
''Just because you are agreeing that you will allow someone to tie you up temporarily as part of role-playing doesn't mean that you are consenting to be killed or to be left alone or to be abused,'' attorney Randy Chapman said. ...
Brian Plant, a bondage and sadomasochism practitioner from Kansas, said: ''Nobody goes into these things saying, `Oh, well, I'm going to die because of it.' You reach a point when the line is crossed, and it is no longer consensual.''
Let me just pause to mark the happy occasion of a quote in a mainstream news story from a man who gives his real name while being described as "a bondage and sadomasochism practitioner from Kansas". Insert your own Wizard of Oz reference here.
But back to the legal point: It's very much like medical malpractice. When there is a right way to do something and a wrong way to do it, and you do it the wrong way, and someone dies or is injured as a result, you're negligent. Period.
Now, the opportunity for controversy in the BDSM community should be apparent. There are quite a number of people who don't believe in the Safe, Sane and Consensual mantra. They feel it stifles the fun and prefer to take more risks. If SSC is in fact adopted by courts as the standard for negligence when things go wrong in BDSM scenes, then by definition anyone who doesn't subscribe to SSC will be held financially, and maybe even criminally, liable. Some people might find that unjust (and in fact it may be unjust in some cases, even though I practice SSC), but it may also appeal to those who enjoy rebelling against norms. If taking risk is your thing, then the knowledge that in case of an accident you stand a good chance of going to jail might turn you on.
October 13, 2007 in Mithras Invicti, Sex and Sadomasochism, Sex Laws and Crimes | Permalink | Comments (1)
Another Fundamentalist Kinkster
Rev. Gary M. Aldridge attended Liberty University and later worked for the founder of that venerable institution, the late Rev. Jerry Falwell, he of "Tinky Winky is a gay icon" and "the ACLU caused 9/11" infamy. Aldridge had been pastor of Thorington Road Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama for 15 years when he turned up dead in his home. How did he die? Accidental asphyxiation, and as for the circumstances I'll just quote the autopsy:
The decedent is clothed in a diving wet suit, a face mask which has a single vent for breathing, a rubberized head mask having an opening for the mouth and eyes, a second rubberized suit with suspenders, rubberized male underwear, hands and feet have diving gloves and slippers. There are numerous straps and cords restraining the decedent. There is a leather belt about the midriff. There is a series of ligatures extending from the hands to the feet. The hands are bound behind the back. The feet are tied to the hands. There are nylon ligatures holding these in place with leather straps about the wrists and ankles. There are plastic cords also tied about the hands and feet with a single plastic cord extending up to the head and surrounding the lower neck. There is a dildo in the anus covered with a condom.
Translation: After buttplugging himself, he got into all his rubber gear, hogtied himself, roped himself into some predicament bondage for autoerotic strangulation purposes, and died.
You know, if these poor conservative suckers were just open about their kinks, they wouldn't be offing themselves accidentally or getting caught visiting hookers while wearing diapers or cruising men in restrooms. Then again, it seems you can't be a conservative leader unless you're also a hypocrite, so you pays your money and you takes your choice.
October 10, 2007 in Mithras Invicti, Sex and Sadomasochism, Sexual Politics | Permalink | Comments (7)
Woodhull's Sexual Freedom Forum
Prompted by Gloria's post about it, I attended the Woodhull Freedom Foundation & Federation's Sexual Freedom Forum this past Saturday in Philadelphia. The Foundation is named for Victoria Woodhull:
Victoria Woodhull (1838-1927) was a progressive and outspoken nineteenth-century activist who introduced sex-positive values to America during the repressive Victorian era. Far ahead of her time, Woodhull spoke frankly on the topic of sexual freedom and advocated for women's equality in the home, workplace, and in the political arena.
Woodhull was the first woman to declare for the candidacy of President of the United States, the first woman to work as a Wall Street stock broker, and was a Suffragette leader and a newspaper editor (who, along with editorializing in favor of things like free love and short skirts, published the first English translation of the Communist Manifesto).
The Forum, chaired by Ricci Levy, the Executive Director of Woodhull, was titled "Sexual Freedom: A Fundamental Human Right". The premise was that the right to sexual freedom was as basic to all people as any of the commonly held human rights such as equality, civil rights, the right to liberty and the right to security. Human rights proceed from those things that are needed by all people, and sexuality is at the core of what it means to be a human, so how could sexual freedom not be a human right? Unfortunately, for a number of historical political reasons, the promotion of human rights in general has suffered in the United States.
The program focused on how we as activists could advance the cause of sexual freedom. We heard from a number of panelists from diverse backgrounds, including:
Among many other interesting folk both on the panels and in attendance, including Jodi Gross, coordinator of the Philadelphia Mindful Polyamory Meetup. Jim Rea and the Sexual Freedom Network especially caught my attention. The SFN is a Woodhull project that attempts to bring together on one page information about organizations, news and blogs that are part of the sexual freedom movement.
The whole event was a lot of fun, as we got chances throughout the day to really interact with each other and not just listen and ask questions of panelists. I hope Ricci and friends can do this again next year.
October 9, 2007 in Mithras Invicti, Sexual Politics | Permalink | Comments (3)
Catholic Archbishop Says Condoms, Anti-AIDS Drugs *Cause* HIV
Forward to the Dark Ages:
The head of the Catholic Church in Mozambique has told the BBC he believes some European-made condoms are infected with HIV deliberately.
Maputo Archbishop Francisco Chimoio claimed some anti-retroviral drugs were also infected "in order to finish quickly the African people". ...
"Condoms are not sure because I know that there are two countries in Europe, they are making condoms with the virus on purpose," he alleged, refusing to name the countries.
"They want to finish with the African people. This is the programme. They want to colonise until up to now. If we are not careful we will finish in one century's time." ...
The Archbishop is not stupid, or at least not merely stupid, because his idiotic opinion is part of a strategy:
Archbishop Chimoio, who made the remarks at celebrations to mark 33 years of independence, said that fighting the disease was a serious matter.
"If we are joking with this sickness we will be finished as soon as possible.
"If we want to change the situation to face HIV/Aids it's necessary to have a new mentality, if we don't change mentality we'll be finished quickly," he said.
"It means marriage, people being faithful to their wives... (and) young people must be abstaining from sexual relations."
The Catholic Church doesn't like condoms (or any other kind of birth control) and it likes (Catholic) marriages with lots of babies, so the Archbishop's ploy makes sense, if you're a self-aggrandizing sociopath: Join us or die! Of course, throwing yourself into monogamous marriage isn't a guarantee you still won't catch HIV, as many African women with unfaithful husbands have found to their cost. And economic conditions are such that women with unfaithful husbands can't leave them - not that the Church would condone that even if they could - and young women must often find "sugar daddies" to find the money to live. And of course, the sugar daddies don't use condoms - that would be immoral - so 75% of all people infected with AIDS in South Africa are young women between the ages of 15-24.
Of course, in southern Africa, it's apparently also common to think HIV/AIDS is a vast conspiracy of Europeans who want to (re)colonize your country. Witness South African President Thabo Mbeki, next door to Mozambique:
Mbeki's views on the causes and treatment of AIDS have also been criticised. Most notably in April 2000 he defended a small group of dissident scientists who claim that AIDS is not caused by HIV. His government was applauded by AIDS activists for its successful legal defence against action brought by transnational pharmaceutical companies in April 2001 of a law that would allow cheaper locally-produced medicines. But since then, he and his administration have been repeatedly accused of failing to respond adequately to the epidemic. Current estimates suggest that 5.3 million South Africans have HIV. ...
(Emphasis supplied.) That's over 11% of the country's population. Horrifying. But Mbeki has a strategy, too:
[A]fter he assumed the Presidency[, h]e described AIDS as a "disease of poverty", arguing that political attention should be directed to poverty generally rather than AIDS specifically. Some speculate that the suspicion engendered by a life in exile and by the colonial domination and control of Africa led Mbeki to react against the idea of AIDS as another Western characterisation of Africans as promiscuous and Africa as a continent of disease and hopelessness. For example, speaking to a group of university students in 2001, he struck out against what he viewed as the racism underlying how many in the West characterised AIDS in Africa:
Convinced that we are but natural-born, promiscuous carriers of germs, unique in the world, they proclaim that our continent is doomed to an inevitable mortal end because of our unconquerable devotion to the sin of lust.
Additionally, his views dovetailed with some broader themes in African politics. Many Africans find it suspicious that black Africans bear the largest share of the AIDS burden, and that the drugs to treat it are expensive and sold mainly by Western pharmaceutical companies. The history of malicious and manipulative health policies of the colonial and apartheid governments in Africa, including biological warfare programs set up by the apartheid state, also help to fuel views that the scientific discourse of AIDS might be a tool for European and American political, cultural or economic agendas.
(Citations omitted.) So the legacy of colonialism is still killing in southern Africa. People reject the efficacy of medicine and view science as a conspiracy of outsiders, leaving them prey to charlatans like Mbeki and Chimoio.
October 4, 2007 in Mithras Invicti, Sexual Politics | Permalink | Comments (0)
"People Are Funny About Their Kinks"
Bacchus at Eros Blog:
It has to be said: People are funny about their kinks. They want the kink, but sometimes they don’t want to own up to the sex part. They don’t like to admit that they do what they do because it makes them horny and leads to great sex.
In the realm of bondage, one way people sometimes display this curious hesitance is to treat bondage as if it were a sort of performance art. They wax lyrical about the aesthetics of the thing, do bondage displays in public venues with strict rules against any sort of sex play, and create highly stylized photography featuring beautiful bondage models. ... Which, in my view, is mostly bunk.
I see the point, and sometimes even have the same thought, especially about shibari. But now I think I may be projecting when I feel this way. If I tie someone up, then certainly I would be getting something sexual out of it, as would Bacchus, presumably. And when I see others doing bondage, especially with sexual touching involved, it's difficult not to think: That's sex. But you can't just conclude that if it looks sexual to you that the participants like it "because it makes them horny and leads to great sex." I can't read peoples' minds. Absent compelling evidence to the contrary, I have to assume they're telling the truth when they say it doesn't make them horny, but instead they like the artistry or the dominance aspect of it. I think Bacchus is right when he says, "People are funny about their kinks", but in this case, it's that I have a need to put other people's play into a context that I understand and accept, not the other way around.
October 3, 2007 in Mithras Invicti, Sex and Sadomasochism, Sexual Beauty | Permalink | Comments (0)
The Inevitable Erotic Energy Drink: Tantra
Unavoidably, the energy drink fad has produced a product that is supposed to be good for your sex life: Tantra Erotic Energy Drink. Produced in Bulgaria (?) by a subsidiary of a German company, so the English version of the advertising copy is humorously awkward, but you get the point:
TANTRA erotic is an innovative LIFE STYLE drink.
TANTRA erotic makes for your high spirits - it stimulates and excites you.
TANTRA erotic improves the physical condition and intellectual activity.
TANTRA erotic accelerates the recovery after stress, stimulates the metabolism, blood circulation and nervous system.
TANTRA erotic is suitable for every moment of your daily round. It is the perfect drink for every party, event or simply for you and your partner.
The attractive design and the message of TANTRA erotic are world known and accepted by a wide range of target groups.
TANTRA has been the symbol for sexual attraction for more than 2000 years.The secret is in the mixture of natural GINSENG and the Asian fruit SHIZANDRA, aphrodisiacs that lead the tantric sensation. The color of TANTRA erotic liquid is like gold and the taste ideal to mix cocktails and long drinks with.The ingredients of TANTRA make it unique giving it a mild taste and incredible sensation.
Which skirts the line of making unproven claims without crossing it. Congrats to their legal team!
I'd never heard of SHIZANDRA before, but apparently it's long been popular in China as an aphrodisiac and a cure for a couple dozen different ailments, including lung, liver and kidney function:
Modern research has provided substantial support for many of the above uses, while others remain to be investigated. Even though we do not yet fully understand the pharmacology of this plant, there are common threads underlying its mechanism of action.
A poorly-understood yet powerful agent? What could possibly go wrong?
kinkerbelle (from whom I got this) says:
i scoured their website to learn more about this revolutionary drink. All i learned was that women who look like strippers like to drink Tantra and men like to watch them drinking Tantra. i think it must be a drink especially for women since the men don’t actually ingest the product.
Ingredients include ginseng and shizandra to promote circulation. And for you health buffs, it’s made with real sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup. So guys, go out and buy a four pack for your personal stripper. You’ll get the Tantra feeling when you watch her drink it!
I wonder why drink makers don't just go the obvious route and market an energy drink called SEX? Sensual Energy eliXer. Goddamn, I am a genius ....
October 3, 2007 in Mithras Invicti, Sex and Culture | Permalink | Comments (1)
Food for Porn
An adult video store in Edison, NJ, has a great idea:
The promotion works simple [sic] enough: If someone over the age of 21 brings in a can of food into the store that is over 13 ounces that is not dented or expired, they get a pornographic DVD. While the donator cannot choose the exact title, they can choose between gay, lesbian or straight blind packaged porn. Donations will be taken from September to November.
"I've never seen anything like this before; it's great. I'm getting porn for a good deed," said one Rutgers-New Brunswick student that did not want to be named while dropping off his donation.
Drake said that quite a few Rutgers University students have supported the effort.
A can of corn or beans for porn? I bet the students are into it.
Food donated is received by Starfish Food Pantry, Inc. of Plainfield at Covenant United Methodist Church. Church Director Linda Stanbach could not be reached for a comment.
I predict that the Covenant United Methodist Church will not be accepting those donations for much longer. I'd be happy to be wrong about that, but I don't think I will be.
(Via Mikey Mongol.)
October 2, 2007 in Mithras Invicti, Sex and Culture | Permalink | Comments (1)
China Bans Sex-Related Programming
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.
September 30, 2007 in Mithras Invicti, Sex and Culture, Sex Laws and Crimes | Permalink | Comments (0)
Wingnuts Attack Folsom Street Fair
This is the poster advertising the Folsom Street Fair this year:
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.
And:
Life was so much better when these freaks were under-ground, under-rocks or in the closet. excuse me while I barf. sickos!
And just to bring it home:
Stick with Bud or an import
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.
September 29, 2007 in Mithras Invicti, Sex and Culture, Sexual Politics | Permalink | Comments (9)
Oh, The Places You'll Go!
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.
September 27, 2007 in Mithras Invicti, Sex and Culture | Permalink | Comments (0)
QOTD
She was infatuated with their male prostitutes, whose members were like those of donkeys and whose seed came in floods like that of stallions.
September 23, 2007 in Mithras Invicti, Sex and Spirituality | Permalink | Comments (1)
Language Slut
Wendy at Heart Full of Black has an amusing post up called "Tips and Suggestions on having sex with me". I especially like number 3:
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.
September 23, 2007 in Mithras Invicti, Sexual Humor | Permalink | Comments (1)
PETA's Nudes
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?
Think I'll go have a steak.
September 22, 2007 in Mithras Invicti, Sex and Culture, Sexual Politics | Permalink | Comments (2)
QOTD
My friend Sushi:
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.
September 22, 2007 in Mithras Invicti, Sexual Humor | Permalink | Comments (8)
Female Pubic Hair and "Alt" Porn
Lux Nightmare at Boinkology happens upon a copy of SuicideGirls Magazine and discovers none of the (all white) models have above the barest wisp of pubic hair, and wonders why. SuicideGirls claims that no models with pubes apply. Lux writes:
A far more likely scenario is that, upon surveying the porniverse, prospective models come to the conclusion that to really make it — to really be considered sexy, to be considered porn material — it’s important to fit a certain style, a certain look. Or to be more blunt, that to be in porn, you have to look porn: and that looking porn means no pubic hair.
And thus, we come full circle to this issue of SuicideGirls Magazine. For if no Suicide Girls have pubic hair, than clearly, to be a Suicide Girl, one must rid herself of pubic hair. And if Suicide Girls are our measure of sexy, than clearly, to be sexy, one must bare all, as it were.
And, quite frankly, we have a hard time seeing that as something with ideals about sexuality that don’t conform — or, more accurately, don’t expect women to conform to a single, restrictive idea of beauty.
There is a kind of pedophilia behind the demand for shaved-pussy porn. I think most guys don't actually want to fuck a barely pubescent girl as much as their sexual triggers are unconsciously tripped by models who look closer in age to the girls who the guy was attracted to when he hit puberty. The hairless look makes the model look more defenseless, soothing the lingering fear from his first sexual encounters. In other words, porn reflects all kinds of fantasies, including many (mostly?) adolescent ones.
But it's also interesting, as Lux points out, that a self-consciously alternative venue like SuicideGirls adopts such a mainstream porn convention like the shaved cunt. I think the answer, of course, is that SG is not so alternative as hipster. Hipsterism, like all forms of snobbery, is not about rejecting popular culture, but declaring oneself the master of popular culture. Tattoos, piercings, expensive clothing meant to resemble thrift-store wear, and whether you depilate rigorously are all ways of identifying with the in-group. SuicideGirls-type models may dress "punk", but hipsters love to look pretty and cool while pretending not to care about looking pretty or cool, the opposite of punk. Today's twenty-somethings buy into that pose because, as a group, they are a pretty cowed and cowardly lot of tame consumers looking to be told what the clever things to buy are. (Perhaps all twenty-somethings are; I don't remember.) For example, that SuicideGirls Magazine issue is $15, when you could see most of the same thing in any campus bar for the price of a PBR.
September 17, 2007 in Mithras Invicti, Sex and Culture | Permalink | Comments (10)
What a Submissive Is
Don Roper at Confessions of an English Gentleman:
Paradox, as I’ve remarked before, lies at the heart of the D/s experience, and I think that is nowhere more evident than in the female submissive’s response to being looked at. ...
Many (I won’t say all; I haven’t met them all) submissives are strongly exhibitionist. They have an urge to display themselves to the male gaze. They want to be looked at, they want someone to take an interest, and especially they want to be looked at with desire. They want the man to want to see them ....
Here’s the first paradox: their knowledge that he wants to see gives them power. ... She will derive pleasure from [a man wanting to see her naked], which is separate from and in addition to the pleasure she derives from being obedient.
The second paradox relates to her shame. In the submissive woman there is a force which at times may be almost, though never quite, as powerful as the urge to submit and to display herself. ... Every woman fears being labelled a tramp or slut, even if many of them know just how well the description is justified. All that I’ll add is that, as was pointed out to me recently by a very perceptive submissive, shame itself can be arousing to the woman.
One more paradox, and then I’m through. She wants to be objectified. She wants to be nothing but tits, or a cunt, for him. She wants to be treated not as a whole human being but as a sexual object. ... They accept that this is what they need, to be used for pleasure, reduced to the status of a toy, a pet, a hole. And at the same time they want, just as strongly as their vanilla sisters, to be valued as a human being, to be cherished and loved, kissed and made love to. They want to know they are special.
While I agree with some of this, mostly I think Don Roper is conflating a couple of issues. He's right that submissives want to be desired. In fact, I think the drive to be desired is at the core of BDSM, in both dominance and submission. Think of the archetypal kinky sex fantasy: The dominant roughly uses the submissive. The dominant's behavior is a display of hyperdesire: Grabbing and binding the submissive, pulling hair, slapping, beating, cutting, biting ... all of it an expression of want. But it goes both ways. The submissive, by consenting, is giving an equal display of hyperdesire through seeking the rough treatment by the dominant. Seeking control is wanting; seeking to give up control is wanting. Control is just the medium for desire.
Everything else flows from that. One of the ways a dominant expresses control is visually, by looking at the (naked) submissive and preventing the submissive from avoiding that gaze. And submissives give up control by being looked at. But the style of that looking at and being looked at varies a great deal. On one hand, some dominants like to look surreptitiously: voyeurism. (If you don't think voyeurism is dominance, ask yourself what turns the voyeur on? I think it's taking control, seeing without being seen.) Others will have their submissive do a strip tease for them. And still others will cut the submissive's clothes off with a knife. These are all different ways of looking.
On the flip side, I would sort submissives' desires to be looked at into those who like being exposed and those who like displaying themselves. The first kind are the ones who must be physically or mentally coerced into getting naked because they get no pleasure out of it. Stripping them is a form of sadism. The ones who like being displayed, on the other hand, find it inherently pleasurable to take their clothes off. The first kind of submissive gives up control by consenting to their sadistic unclothing, and the second kind by performing their pleasurable disrobing at their dominants' direction, so both are submitting. The second kind of submissive enjoys being admired as an attractive object while the first kind would be horrified or, at best, puzzled at being admired.
I don't think it's therefore accurate or helpful to say, as Don Roper's first "paradox" implies, that both kinds of submissives are exhibitionists. In my opinion, only the second kind is exhibitionistic. It is true that both have a strong reaction to being looked at, but that's not the same thing.
In fact, I think that this difference helps define two major types of submissives: those who want to be controlled and degraded, and those who want to be controlled and valued. The submissive who is not exhibitionistic may also be into things like humiliation, abuse and heavy pain. The submissive who is exhibitionistic may be into things like shibari, corsetry, latex or pvc clothing, and piercings. I know I am generalizing heavily now, but I think it's a valid distinction. Consider, for example, I once had a submissive who was also a sports fan and had just attended a Philadelphia Eagles game tell me that she had a fantasy of having a stadium of 75,000 people cheering and clapping as they watched us have sex on the field. By contrast, another submissive of mine who has the wonderful habit of blurting out scenarios that she would find especially humiliating told me one such idea would be to have her and another, male submissive perform sexually at a play party for the amusement of the audience. As another example, one friend of mine has a rape fantasy in which her rapist tells her that he's been watching her every day and can't stand it any longer, he has to have her because she's so desirable, and while she's being raped he tells her how good her pussy feels. Another friend's rape fantasy is to be caught by two rough men and brutally fucked in every hole while they hold a knife to her throat, degraded in every way, choked into unconsciousness and thrown naked onto the side of the road covered in blood, come, piss and spit.
So, the way a scene like public sex or play rape goes depends on the type of submissive. (And, it goes without saying, the type of dominant.) This leads me back to Don Roper's "paradoxes" about shame, and about objectification, which I will lump together for the moment. I don't think the average exhibitionistic submissive is turned on by shame at all, in fact, just the opposite. The exhibitionist desires admiration and not shame. The non-exhibitionistic submissive generally is turned on by shame, shame at what they are and what their bodies respond to. I think again it's not correct to say that in general a submissive "wants to be nothing but tits, or a cunt, for him. ... They accept that this is what they need, to be used for pleasure, reduced to the status of a toy, a pet, a hole." I think there are those who want to be a valuable plaything, a pretty pet, a delicious hole to delight in, which contradicts the idea of being reduced to nothing but an object to use. And I think there are those who want to be a hard-used toy, a service animal, a hole to be slammed and abused, that do fit the description. That's not a paradox, but just two different types.
In the end, though, I do think Don Roper is right that both types (or all types, if there are other categories) of submissive want "to be cherished and loved .... They want to know they are special." Again, however people do BDSM, I think it's about feeling desired. It's just that how people go about achieving that feeling through BDSM can take very different paths.
September 15, 2007 in Mithras Invicti, Sex and Sadomasochism | Permalink | Comments (2)
Sometimes a Gun Barrel is Just a Gun Barrel
This poster from Glock was spotted at a military weapons tradeshow:
In a passage from John le Carre's The Night Manager, two of the main characters, Strelski and Leonard Burr, are tensely waiting to see if their undercover agent has successfully infiltrated the arms- and drugs-trafficking operation of the novel's bad guy, Roper. Strelski is trying to cheer Burr up:
"Hey, Leonard," said Strelski, making a last gallant effort. "Let's go see where the Roper does his weekend shopping."
In a big hotel, in a conference room protected by men with padded shoulders, Burr and Strelski mingled with the buyers of all nations and listened to the sales talk of wholesome young men with name tags pinned to their lapels. Behind the men sat girls with order books. And behind the girls, in shrines cordoned off with blood-colored ropes, stood their wares, each polished like a loved possession, each guaranteed to make a man of whoever owned them: from the most cost-effective cluster bomb through the all-plastic undetectable Glock automatic pistol to the latest thing in hand-held rocket launchers, mortars and anti-personnel mines. And for your reading man, standard works on how to build yourself a rocket-propelled gun in your own backyard or make a one-time silencer out of a tubular can of tennis balls.
"About the only thing missing is a girl in a bikini poking her fanny at the barrel of a sixteen-inch fieldpiece," said Strelski as they drove back to the operations room.
The joke fell flat.
(Via David Axe at Danger Room.)
September 12, 2007 in Mithras Invicti, Sexual Humor | Permalink | Comments (0)
"What Happened to My Wonderful Porno?"
Shalom Auslander at Nerve:
Now listen: I have had bad days before. I have been fired from jobs, I have been dumped by girlfriends, I have totaled cars. I have had days where I have received three — count 'em, three — tickets for speeding or moving violations between 9 a.m. and 9 p.m. But I have never had a day as bad as a woman named "Cloey" had the day they shot the video that appeared on that page — that is to say, I have never had a day where someone wrote the word "Cockwhore" on my forehead with lipstick, tried to shove their entire fist down my throat and then "choke-fucked" me with their penis until I barfed on their testicles. Never, ever had a day like that. Nor have I ever had a day like the blonde woman in the movie that was pictured below it: I never had a day where someone hung a toilet seat around my neck, spit in my mouth and slapped my face as he tried to shove the head of his cock through the back of my skull.
Bad days I have had. But not that bad.
"Jesus. Fucking. Christ," said my wife.
We sat like that, side by side, proclaiming disbelief as I scrolled further down the page, the subject headings for the forum entries sounding like the police blotter from a place Snake Plisskin might have escaped:
GIRL SLAPPED!
CHICK STUFFING BASBEALL BATS INTO HER CUNT!
HARD ANAL, THROATFUCKING AND PUKING (A LOT!)
PERFECT SLUT EXTREMELY HARD TREATED — MUST SEE!
He's appalled. You know, I do stuff in real life that makes movies like that look boring by comparison. And I do it with partners who are extremely enthusiastic about it. So what's the problem?
I know I'm supposed to be okay with this. I know I shouldn't judge. I know that I'm showing my age or my prudishness or my conservatism or my narrow-mindedness. But I'm thinking about those porn protesters back on the corner of Forty-Sixth and Sixth, sometime in 1985, and I'm beginning to wonder if porno in 2007 isn't proving them right; it's difficult to present a credible defense against charges of hatred and misogyny when the star witness has the word "cunt" written on her forehead and a guy named Max Hardcore is urinating in her mouth. A moment with my client, Your Honor.
My wife sat back and pulled the covers over her legs.
"Do guys really want that?" she asked.
"Looks that way," I said.
It's sexism. Not on the part of the porn maker or the porn consumer, but Shalom Auslander and his wife. Because look at the way they frame this: "Do guys really want that?" Yes, Mrs. Auslander, many guys really want to watch porn like that. And some guys and the women they love both love to do that. But the Auslanders can't conceive of a world where that is true. Mrs. Auslander would never want to have her head grabbed and be throat-fucked until she spit up, so for her it cannot be true that any other woman would want it. For them, porn is all about what men want and what women have to endure.
Mr. Auslander waxes nostalgic for the shitty porn of his youth:
What happened to my wonderful porno?
What happened to that oasis of playful, heathenish fornication?
What happened to my cheesy pool boy?
I'm afraid he's "punch-fucking" some girl's ass while calling her a dirty whore cunt slut. And I think I'm right.
My wife pulled on her robe, and I blew out the candle she had lit on the nightstand.
Ginger Lynn had made feel free (sic).
The Devil in Miss Jones made me feel better about my own devils.
But Meatholes ("Nasty whores who love to be treated like worthless pieces of meat!") makes me feel exactly the way my rabbis wanted me to feel, makes me feel just as self-loathing and disgusted with sex as a community full of ultra-Orthodox lunatics were convinced I should be. So who's the worthless piece of meat now?
Who is fucking kidding who here? I bet he had to walk to the bathroom so his wife wouldn't see the hard-on he got from Meatholes. But he still felt dirty. He wanted the porn of his youth that would get him off but not rub his face in the raw animal quality of sex. He wants to have his fantasy but not confront his own sexuality. Remember, shame kills.
(Via Susannah Breslin, who pronounces it "excellent" because she's writing her own expose on how porn is BAD BAD BAD.)
September 11, 2007 in Mithras Invicti, Sex and Culture, Sex and Sadomasochism, Sexual Politics | Permalink | Comments (5)
Mockumentary: How to Get a Leg Up in Porn
Via Boinkology, a very funny, very NSFW public service announcement:
Creative use of a child's board game, too.
September 11, 2007 in Mithras Invicti, Sexual Humor | Permalink | Comments (0)
Lessons in Kink: How to Do Figging
The Countess has a tutorial if you want to try figging. She begins:
If you are interested in trying figging on your own, buy fresh ginger root at the grocery store. You can find it in the produce section. Make sure you get a root with long, thick fingers. Place the ginger root in the freezer for a few hours when you get home. Freezing the ginger intensifies the power of the ginger juice. Right before you want to use it, let it come to room temperature.
Figging is still on my to-do list. As a sadist, I like to inflict pain but also like to have the ability to make the pain stop, which this kind of play doesn't. Of course, other things I do enjoy, like caning, quickly get to the same point, so its not much of a distinction.
September 10, 2007 in Mithras Invicti, Sex and Sadomasochism | Permalink | Comments (2)
The Mystery Shopper
A subtle slavegirl posted something back in August I have been meaning to write about:
It was absolutely pitch black in that mask. I could hear everything, but couldn't see a thing- I couldn't even tell if it was light or dark in the room- and then the doorbell rang. I had this need to go to the toilet again, but by that time it was too late.
I'm always amused to listen to the conversation of people in this situation. Things like, "How are you?" sound so out of place when there's a man with a bag of toys and a naked masked girl in a cage just off to the side. If it was me, I'm sure I'd dissolve into fits of laughter or just die on the spot.
I've been on the other side of this situation, casually chatting with another dom next to some expectantly tense sub, and it's just as funny to us, too. In fact, I think there is the tendency to play up the casualness exactly in order to make the sub feel objectified and disoriented. "Don't they see me here??"
It turned out to be a new mystery shopper, I didn't know the voice. He wasted no time with chit-chat, it was right down to business with a short inspection and pegs and nipple clamps. For the next hour and a half, my two available holes got a thorough work out. I spent a lot of time with my fists curled into balls and biting my lip or arm. Most of what he did felt quite nice and even though I was forbidden to talk, there were lots of noises that I couldn't control and bucking, twitching and swaying that comes from playing heavily with my pink bits. He was very well prepared with toys and all the necessary safety and hygiene stuff.
I was so disassociated from the whole process. As I said to Master later, it wouldn't have mattered who was doing it, because at that point I was just in 'use mode' and I just would have done what was required. It could have been Master's hand on the end of that vibrator ploughing me roughly, or someone else, I didn't know and it didn't matter.
During our de-briefing after the mystery shopper had gone I told Master what I felt about it.
Nothing.
I felt absolutely nothing about the whole experience.
At this point in her story, I was a little confused, and a little concerned. She felt nothing? People feel nothing when they're bored or numb, but not usually when they've just been roughly used by a stranger for 90 minutes.
Master says that was a good thing and I'm inclined to agree. If I did, that would mean that the whole objectification process hadn't worked. There shouldn't be any feelings or any thoughts. Nice and simple. I barely have anything to write about in this blog other than the events that transpired.
I don't know subtle or her Master, and what I am about to say should not be taken as a criticism of them. The thing is, I totally disagree with the way she describes the goal of objectification. For me, objectification is just one subspecies of humiliation, and in my world all humiliation play is meant to achieve not a lack of feeling in the submissive, but a kind of double consciousness. On one level, she should feel reduced, made less, controlled to the point that, yes, her feelings and thoughts don't get expressed or maybe even experienced because they don't matter. On the other level, she should be looking at herself in that role and getting turned on by seeing herself being that way. On that second level she is still an autonomous person. It's similar to what the doms are thinking and feeling as they casually chat next to the bound, hooded, kneeling submissive: On one level the appearance is reality, but on the other level they're doing a scene by feigning casualness in order to have a certain effect on the sub and on themselves. This doubled consciousness is what divides BDSM play from abuse, or M/s from real slavery. In real abuse or slavery situations, there is only one reality.
Again, having stated my opinion here, I am not saying that what subtle and her Master experience is wrong or "bad BDSM", I just have a different take on it. I find the next thing she writes illuminating:
The only thing that I will say it that I felt a little bit like he was overly concerned about how I felt and how I was enjoying it. Most of the activities were geared towards me having enjoyment and so I thought that it detracted from the 'animal for use' aspect that we were aiming for.
The way I would read this is that she didn't get objectified enough to create that double consciousness. It's that tension between herself-as-object and herself-as-person that creates the erotic and mental satisfaction fr
