1. Swing club takes Coopersburg by surprise
2. Swingers' Club Invades Small Local Town
3. "Cyber-Sex" Prosecution Fall-Out
4. Tell Me Why
5. Hearing set on adult entertainment zones
6. Cheater Seeks Cheater
7. Brits Ban Possession of Violent Pornography
8. Carly Simon's greatest, er, hits
1. Swing club takes Coopersburg by surprise
2. Swingers' Club Invades Small Local Town
3. "Cyber-Sex" Prosecution Fall-Out
4. Tell Me Why
5. Hearing set on adult entertainment zones
6. Cheater Seeks Cheater
7. Brits Ban Possession of Violent Pornography
8. Carly Simon's greatest, er, hits
Swing club takes Coopersburg by surprise
by Matt Birkbeck
The Morning Call (Allentown, PA)
September 1, 2006
For five years, Club Kama Sutra held regular ''swing'' parties behind the blacked-out windows of an old restaurant on South Street in Philadelphia. With a 10,000-person mailing list, the club routinely attracted couples and swingers looking to enjoy, well, each others' company.
But in November the private sex club caught the attention of the state, which cited it for operating without a permit and forced it to close.
Ten months later, Club Kama Sutra has found a new home. Only this one is 50 miles north at the Silhouette Showbar, a strip club in Coopersburg.
With the first party scheduled for Saturday night, club members who pay $60 will get a party that ''includes DJ, dancing, light snack buffet and adjacent 12 hotel rooms,'' according to the club's Web site. Future parties advertised on the Web site include a Bi-Ladies Luau and Sexy Jeans & Raunchy Ts.
Borough officials say they were blindsided.
''We only learned about it this week,'' said Borough Manager Dan Stonehouse. He said the club has not applied for any permits, and borough officials are checking to see whether any are needed or if there are any ''zoning issues regarding the club, as well as with the Liquor Control Board.''
Club owner Alan Tizer did not return calls, but John Fox, who manages the Silhouette Showbar at 111 E. Station Ave., said he booked the parties because they would be ''good for business.''
''They're not going to be hurting anyone,'' Fox said. ''They're consenting adults.''
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To read this entire article, go to: http://www.mcall.com/news/local/all-a1_5swapsep01,0,6098342.story
To respond, write to: the author at matthew.birkbeck@mcall.com or the editors at letters@mcall.com
Swingers' Club Invades Small Local Town
by Stacy Weaver
NBC10 (WCAU-TV, Philadelphia PA)
September 1, 2006
A small Lehigh County town has a new resident: a club that caters to "swingers."
Coopersburg Borough officials met with attorneys all afternoon on Friday, trying to figure out just how they can stop an existing strip club from becoming a new home for swingers.
"That's disgusting," said one resident. "It's wrong, it's immoral," said another.
"It's just not something you want in this quaint town of Coopersburg," said Kathy Meinhart.
It's the strip club that's got everyone talking. The Silhouette Showbar will no longer just feature topless dancers. Starting Saturday it will be the new home of a swinger's club called Club Kama Sutra.
Club Kama Sutra used to hold regular swing parties in Philadelphia, but was shutdown last year.
Now according to its Web site, it will host parties at the Showbar every Saturday night, featuring themes like Short shorts and Little T's and Bi-Ladies Luau.
"Why do they need a club, why not go to their houses," said Glen Rowe. "We got a daycare across the street, I have a 16 year old daughter."
Rowe lives next door to the strip club which sits in the middle of a residential neighborhood.
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To read this entire article, go to: http://www.nbc10.com/news/9779704/detail.html
To respond, go to: http://www.nbc10.com/News/1433300/detail.html
"Cyber-Sex" Prosecution Fall-Out:
Defendant convicted, jailed, later freed in '96 S&M case can press lawsuit
by Arthur S. Leonard
August 31, 2006
Oliver Jovanovic's lawsuit against NYPD Detective Milton Bonilla, former Assistant District Attorney Linda Fairstein, and the City of New York, arising from his 1998 prosecution in what Fairstein at that time touted as the "first Internet-related sex prosecution", survived an important hurdle on August 17 when U.S. District Judge Paul A. Crotty rejected defense motions to dismiss the case.
Jovanovic was a 30-year-old Columbia University graduate student when he engaged in sexual conduct with Jamie Rzucek, a 20-year-old Barnard College undergraduate, that led to charges of rape, sodomy, and kidnapping against him. The New York media two years later provided sensationalized coverage of the so-called "cybersex torture" prosecution led by Fairstein, then head of the sex crimes bureau in the Robert Morgenthau's D.A. office.
Jovanovic claimed he was innocent, but the jury thought otherwise and he was sentenced to 15 years-to-life.
After he had served 20 months – during which he claims to have been harassed, abused, and assaulted by fellow inmates, suffering life-threatening injuries from which he nearly died – Jovanovic was freed when the Appellate Division found that his trial was fatally flawed by the exclusion of evidence that would have helped his defense.
The Appellate Division's decision in 1999 was notable for intimating, for perhaps the first time by an American appellate court, that consent might be a defense to criminal charges arising out of S&M sex that does not produce serious permanent injury. That position has been rejected by the European Court of Human Rights, the highest appeals court in England, and many other American courts.
In November 1996, Rzucek reported to Bonilla that she had been sexually and physically assaulted by Jovanovic four days earlier. Jovanovic claims that the two met after a lengthy e-mail correspondence during which Rzucek expressed interest in having an S&M sexual experience. The judge at Jovanovic's trial, however, applying the state's Rape Shield Law, refused to allow him to introduce most of the evidence regarding that claim.
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To read this entire article, go to: http://www.gaycitynews.com/gcn_535/cybersexprosecution.html
To respond, write to: editor@gaycitynews.com
Tell Me Why
by Mistress Matisse (opinion/advice, "Control Tower")
The Stranger (Seattle, WA)
August 31, 2006
I get a lot of letters from people who tell me they want to be a BDSM slave. Sometimes they want to be my slave – a position I'm not currently looking to fill – but more often than not they're asking for general advice on how to find a master or mistress. I always ask them the same question: Why do you want to be a slave?
I ask them because, in spite of what MySpace profiles would lead you to believe, the word "slave" is not just a generic term for any kinky person who likes to be the one wearing the handcuffs. But the answers I often get indicate to me that this is not well understood. Most of the time, people respond to my question by telling me about their desire for sex and intense stimulation. It's the erotic fantasy of the bondage, of beautiful, threatening people in sexy outfits wielding nipple clamps and dildos.
To BDSM people, being a slave means undertaking an ongoing relationship of voluntary servitude to another person – a master or a mistress. The key word here is "relationship." Saying you want to be a slave so you can do BDSM all the time is like saying you want to get married so you can have hot sex all the time. It's not that it never works that way, but just as marriage is about much more than just sex, being a slave is about more than just doing BDSM scenes. And just as not everyone who has sex wants to get married, not everyone who wants to get tied up and spanked really wants to be a slave – no matter how hot the idea seems right before an orgasm.
(I will note in passing that some BDSM people have slaves with whom they never have sex. But nonsexual BDSM is a whole other topic.)
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To read this entire article, go to: http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Content?oid=60288
To respond, write to: the author at matisse@thestranger.com or the editors at editor@thestranger.com
Hearing set on adult entertainment zones:
Schenectady looks to expand rules to include sex parties
by Mike Goodwin
The Albany Times-Union
August 31, 2006
SCHENECTADY — The city Planning Commission will hold a hearing next month on an amendment that could force a controversial bed and breakfast to stop holding sex parties or move to an industrial zone.
The public hearing, set for Sept. 13 at City Hall, will be the public's latest chance to speak about the city's regulation of adult entertainment — and specifically the swingers parties held at the Union Street Bed & Breakfast.
The hearing is on an amendment to the city's anti-smut law that would expand the number of adult businesses that can be regulated by the city.
The commission hearing comes in response to the City Council's plan to expand legislation that already relegates adult book stores and strip clubs to industrial zones.
The amendment would force motels that rent rooms short-term and offer closed-circuit pornographic films, escort services, nude modeling studios, and adult entertainment theaters to move to primarily industrial tracts on Lower Broadway, Erie Boulevard and Maxon Road Extension.
The amendment as a direct response to neighbors of the Union Street Bed & Breakfast who contend that the inn serves primarily as a pay-to-play destination for couples interested in swapping partners for sex.
But inn owner Bob Alexson says the party isn't over yet.
"I'm not going anywhere. They're private parties. I've said that from day one," said Alexson who insists that as long has he doesn't charge for his parties, a practice he claims stopped after concerns were raised, the city has no power to regulate him as a business.
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To read this entire article, go to: http://www.timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=512913&category=REGION&newsdate=8/31/2006
To respond, write to: the author at mgoodwin@timesunion.com or the editors at tuletters@timesunion.com
Cheater Seeks Cheater
by Tristan Taormino (opinion/advice)
The Village Voice (NY)
August 30, 2006
"The site seemed simple and straight-forward . . . I knew that most members would be married. I prefer [to cheat with other married people] because they have as much to lose as me typically, and it's easier to relate to someone who is married," says Paul (not his real name), a 35-year-old executive at a large corporation in midtown Manhattan. He has been married for seven years, and throughout the marriage he and his wife have had sex about twice a week, but he says she's sexually conservative. Four years ago, he went looking for "someone fun and exciting, more adventurous in bed and spontaneous." Paul cheated for the first time with another married woman he met through the Ashley Madison Agency (ashleymadison.com), a website that boasts such taglines as "When Monogamy Becomes Monotony" and "For Women Seeking Romantic Affairs – and the Men Who Want to Fulfill Them."
Sites like Ashley Madison tap into a very profitable niche within the online personals arena by bringing honesty to the dishonest practice of cheating. They allow people an alternative to a traditional personals site where they may have to lie and say they're single, thus giving potential mates the wrong impression – yet they facilitate lying to a spouse. While Morgenstern admits the company receives its fair share of hate mail, he says, predictably, "We don't promote infidelity."
People in open relationships don't have to deal with lying and sneaking around because they are open with their partners about their other partners. Subtract the thrill and naughtiness of doing something wrong without permission, and some people might not be into it. I'd rather hook up with a non-monogamous person than a married person, so that at least I know everyone is on the same page. Again, being open does not mean there can't be jealousy, hurt feelings, and other emotions to deal with, but the basis for the relationship structure is honesty and communication.
It baffles me that there is not a site as popular, active, and profitable as Ashley Madison that is designed for polyamorous people. There are well-used swinger sites, but swinging is just one type of non-monogamy, a specific community and culture that not everyone identifies with. Alt.com is marketed as a site for "alternative lifestyles," but in practice, not a lot of poly people use it; you can't search specifically for other poly people, and the site is very BDSM-oriented while not all poly people are kinky. There is really only one credible personals site specifically for polyamorous people, Poly Match Maker (polymatchmaker.com); compared to Ashley Madison's million, it has fewer than 7,000 members.
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To read this entire article, go to: http://www.villagevoice.com/people/0636,taormino,74336,24.html
To respond, write to: the author at tristan@puckerup.com or the editors at http://www.villagevoice.com/aboutus/index.php?page=contact
Brits Ban Possession of Violent Pornography
by Michael Hayes (credited courtesy of XBIZ.com)
via The Free Speech Coalition
August 30, 2006
London – Following a 30-month campaign by Liz Longhurst, the mother of a slain schoolteacher, the British government has announced plans to make possession of violent pornography punishable by up to three years in prison.
The new law criminalizes possession of pornographic material that features "violence that was, or appeared to be, life-threatening or likely to result in serious and disabling injury". According to Home Office minister Vernon Coaker, the rise of the Internet has made such material more widely available.
"The vast majority of people find these forms of violent and extreme pornography deeply abhorrent," Coaker said. "Such material has no place in our society but the advent of the Internet has meant that this material is more easily available and means existing controls are being by-passed – we must move to tackle this."
While many lawmakers welcomed the change in the law, a spokesman for a BDSM group called criminalization of possession troubling.
"The theory that people should be punished for viewing an image that simply involves the idea of sexuality with violence shows the proposal being made is to introduce a form of thought crime", the spokesman said.
Director of the Libertarian Alliance Shaun Gabb said that extending the ban on possession of such content gives the police "inquisitorial powers to come in your house and see what you've got".
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To read this entire article, go to: http://www.freespeechcoalition.com/FSCView.asp?coid=862
To respond, write to: ExecDir@freespeechcoalition.com
Carly Simon's greatest, er, hits
from The Front Page (gossip and opinion)
The New York Daily News
August 28, 2006
Looks like Carly Simon was fibbing with her hit "Haven't Got Time for the Pain."
The pop legend admits she gets spanked backstage before performances because only physical pain can overcome her stage fright.
"At a celebration for President Bill Clinton's 50th birthday, at Radio City Music Hall, in 1996, Simon, terrified of following Smokey Robinson, invited the entire horn section to let her have it," writes John Lahr in the New Yorker. "'They all took turns spanking me,'she says. 'During the spank the curtain went up.'"
It's not exactly "Happy Birthday, Mr. President," but I'll bet Clinton liked it.
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To read this entire article, go to: http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/447252p-376574c.html
To respond, write to: voicers@edit.nydailynews.com
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