1. Swinger parties dealt a setback
2. Alternative sexual practices abound among college students
3. Coopersburg to fight swingers club
4. Teacher's Dirty Looks
5. Concerns Raised Over Web Sex Ad Replies
6. Swingers issue airs private lifestyle
7. Sex film "Shortbus" finds distributors world-wide
1. Swinger parties dealt a setback
2. Alternative sexual practices abound among college students
3. Coopersburg to fight swingers club
4. Teacher's Dirty Looks
5. Concerns Raised Over Web Sex Ad Replies
6. Swingers issue airs private lifestyle
7. Sex film "Shortbus" finds distributors world-wide
Swinger parties dealt a setback:
Schenectady plan to limit adult businesses advances, could end controversial gatherings
by Mike Goodwin
The Albany Times Union
September 15, 2006
SCHENECTADY — The Planning Commission on Wednesday approved the City Council's plan to dramatically expand the types of adult businesses the city regulates — potentially putting out of business a Union Street inn that holds sex parties for swingers.
After listening to impassioned pleas from critics and backers of the Union Street Bed & Breakfast, the city commission unanimously voted to support an amendment the council is expected to pass next month that would increase the number of adult businesses the city regulates.
"I would have no problem recommending the legislation to the City Council," Commission Chairwoman Sharran Coppola said, before polling her colleagues on whether to take a vote or wait until their meeting next week. All in attendance backed an immediate vote after the public hearing.
Lawmakers want to expand the rules that forbid adult bookstores and strip clubs from existing anywhere but industrial zones. The amendment would apply to several other kinds of adult businesses, including pornographic movie theaters, escort services, nude modeling studios and motels that offer part-day room rentals and closed-circuit pornographic movies.
The legislation follows months of debate over the adult parties hosted by B&B owner Bob Alexson, who lives at the inn. He maintains the parties are private and off-limits to regulation.
But the inn's neighbors said the parties are intertwined with the inn and get advertised on its Web site — which features photographs of sex props such as the "Dungeon Cross" that party guests can use.
"I'm not kidding folks. I can show you everything," said Joseph Seelaus III of Morris Avenue, as he held up a wireless laptop at the meeting.
[continued]
To read this entire article, go to: http://timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=516835&category=SCHENECTADY&BCCode=&newsdate=9/15/2006
To respond, write to: the author at mgoodwin@timesunion.com or the editors at tuletters@timesunion.com
Alternative sexual practices abound among college students
by Ally Melling
Daily Kent Stater (Kent State University, Ohio)
September 13, 2006
Were you aware there is a difference between sadism and masochism?
Laurie Wagner, a part-time instructor with the Adult, Counseling, Health and Vocational Education program at Kent State, explains it all.
"People usually group sadism and masochism together with sadomasochism, but they're two different things," Wagner said.
According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, a sadist is someone who, for more than six months, experiences sexual urges that involve physical or psychological abuse. A dominatrix, a woman who takes a dominant role during sexual activity, is an example of sexual sadism, as are activities like flogging or the use of candle wax.
"Masochists are the ones who enjoy receiving acts of physical/psychological pain (cutting, spanking or piercing). In fact, some psychologists would argue that the modern popularity of piercing is a form of masochism."
Wagner stressed the difference between sadism, masochism, domination and submission.
"Individuals who practice dominance and submission usually have a 'safe-word' if they want their partner to stop inflicting pain; therefore, it is labeled consensual," Wagner said. "Individuals who practice masochism desire to give total control of themselves to someone else and feel sincere pain. This is nonconsensual, or 'real acts.'"
[continued]
To read this entire article, go to: Here
To respond, write to: the editors at stater@kent.edu or comment at the end of the article
Coopersburg to fight swingers club:
Kama Sutra could face penalties for violating zoning, solicitor says
by Randy Kraft
The Morning Call (Allentown, PA)
September 13, 2006
Coopersburg Borough Council on Tuesday unanimously directed its solicitor ''to pursue all legal remedies'' against Club Kama Sutra, a private sex club for swingers that has begun occasionally operating in Silhouette Showbar, a strip club at 111 E. Station Ave.
The specific nature of possible legal action was not explained and council President Dennis Balascak would not elaborate after the meeting. The vote was taken after council held an 18-minute closed door executive session about the club. No council members discussed the directive in open session before their vote.
Before the executive session, solicitor Charles Fonzone said the club's operators can be penalized for illegal activity, but the extent of the penalty has yet to be determined.
Council's position is the private club violates Coopersburg's zoning ordinance. And the vote shows council doesn't intend to just sit back and wait for a zoning appeal.
Balascak briefed residents on the status of the borough's case and took questions from the audience.
Timothy Gill, a parent and school teacher who lives in Upper Saucon Township, ''only four doors from Coopersburg,'' asked if council has authority to regulate health matters regarding ''the exchange of bodily fluids'' at the club.
Gill also asked what permits people need to picket for permanent closing of the bar.
Balascak stressed that the complaint is over zoning, not sex between consenting adults. He said council is not making a judgment on private lifestyles or attempting to regulate private activities.
''The bottom line is they are violating the zoning law as it stands,'' Balascak said. ''They are changing the use of the business from a strip bar to a members-only club. That is not permitted in the light industrial zoning district.''
[continued]
To read this entire article, go to: Here
To respond, write to: the editors at letters@mcall.com or comment at bottom of article
Teacher's Dirty Looks
by staff writer (from "The It List" column)
Wellamette Week (Willamette, Oregon)
September 13, 2006
For a dominatrix, Darklady is pretty wordy. The sex-positive pundit's website, darklady.com, is full of self-important bluster about "Becoming Darklady" and touching her hoo-ha. She sounds like an ex-theater geek who wears latex and talks dirty to prove how far she's come since high school. And, like all nerds trying to make good, Darklady really wants you to come to her party. At her "Back to Reform School" fete, guests are invited to dress up like "Rudy the Janitor" or "Heather the Slutty Cheerleader" and get their freak on. There'll be "casting couch exhibitionism," a massage table and an "SM play space." Sure to attract aging perverts, veiny Goth chicks and plenty of a-holes. Proceeds benefit Dandelion Animal Rescue, whatever that is.
[continued]
To read this entire article, go to: http://www.wweek.com/calendar/3245/itlist/
To respond, write to: the editors at mzusman@wweek.com
Concerns Raised Over Web Sex Ad Replies
by Anick Jesdanun
Associated Press (news wire service)
(via the Houston Chronicle)
September 11, 2006
NEW YORK – At first glance, the posting looked like any number of Internet classified ads explicitly seeking sex. But instead of the 27-year-old woman with long brown hair advertised, a male, Seattle-area graphic designer collected the replies and posted them online – with photos, names and contact information. Privacy experts say the case treads the line legally but crosses it morally.
"It's a sad commentary overall," said Lauren Weinstein, a veteran computer scientist and privacy advocate. "It's one of those situations where both sides look bad. … From an ethical standpoint, this isn't brain surgery."
It all began with Jason Fortuny's posting on the online community Craigslist. According to his Web journal, Fortuny took a real ad and reposted it so that responses went straight to him. Among the 178 responses were 145 photos of men "in various states of undress." The replies included e-mail addresses, names and in some cases, instant-messaging accounts and phone numbers.
Fortuny then posted all the replies on a Web site devoted to parodies and satires online.
It's by no means the first time information thought private gets posted online.
Internet vigilantes have engaged spammers and scam artists and posted results of their conversations online. Others expose sexual predators they purposely seek out in chat rooms.
In this case, however, the men who replied to Fortuny's posting did not appear to be doing anything illegal, so the outing has no social value other than to prove that someone could ruin lives online, said Jonathan Zittrain, a law professor at Oxford and Harvard universities.
Whether Fortuny violated any laws is less clear, he said.
"It's one of those questions that could find its way onto a law school exam because it is comparatively new territory," Zittrain said.
Fortuny did not immediately respond to e-mails from The Associated Press, and calls Monday to his telephone number generated a message saying the subscriber "is not in service."
Craigslist Chief Executive Jim Buckmaster told the AP in an e-mail that Fortuny's actions violated the site's policies. He noted that the ad in question was removed several times, only to be reposted.
"Publishing private e-mails is something that decent people don't generally do without very good reason," Buckmaster said.
[continued]
To read this entire article, go to: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/fn/4179361.html
To respond, write to: the editors at viewpoints@chron.com
Swingers issue airs private lifestyle
by Daniel Patrick Sheehan
The Morning Call (Allentown, PA)
September 10, 2006
When it comes to matters of the bedroom, Americans can be a touchy bunch – especially when the bedroom is in a semi-public place, the spouse in the bed is someone else's spouse, and the someone else is there, too, along with any number of other people putting their energetic twist on the phrase ''strange bedfellows.''
Swingers. Who knew? The phrase summons quasi-comic images of Seinfeldian orgy guys cavorting under disco balls and strobe lights, but the truth is something else. The swinger subculture may have been born of the free-love flowerings of the 1960s and 1970s, but it flourishes across the nation today with the enthusiastic participation of Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice and perhaps 3 million other people – some of whom may live next door or occupy the adjoining office cubicle.
It's no big-city phenomenon, either. Club Kama Sutra held its first $60-a-couple party at Silhouette Showbar in Coopersburg last week and had scheduled another for Saturday night, appalling residents and setting officials scrambling for a legal remedy.
The club joined at least three others in the Lehigh Valley and Poconos. And many more swingers – typically white, married, middle-aged and middle class – indulge the lifestyle at private house parties. Such gatherings are touted through word-of-mouth, alternative newspaper advertising and massive Internet databases.
''It's a very organized thing,'' says ''Joe,'' an Allentown resident who, with his wife, attended a swing party at the defunct Club Kama Sutra in Philadelphia and another that briefly operated in Fountain Hill. In keeping with the swinger's watchword, discretion, he did not wish to be identified.
People who equate swing clubs with brothels are surprised to learn that they operate openly and freely in many places. They avoid liquor control oversight through bring-your-own-bottle policies; they avoid strip-club regulations because no one strips, in the cabaret sense of that term. Supporters say they are merely private clubs offering space for consensual sex, the way other clubs might offer space for reunions or anniversary parties.
Elsewhere, though, club owners have had to fight court battles to do business, typically appealing to the constitutional guarantees of privacy and free assembly and to the American sentiment of live and let live.
Coopersburg used zoning laws in ordering the shutdown of the fledgling operation, saying the private parties constituted an unapproved change of use in the mostly residential district.
[continued]
To read this entire article, go to: http://www.mcall.com/news/local/all-a1_5swingerssep10,0,850969.story
To respond, write to: the editors at letters@mcall.com
Sex film "Shortbus" finds distributors world-wide
by Rachelle Younglai
Reuters (news wire service)
September 9, 2006
Hard core sex in a mainstream movie? No problem.
Three months after John Cameron Mitchell showed his sexually explicit film "Shortbus" out of competition at the Cannes Film Festival, he said it had attracted distributors in dozens of countries, including the United States, Canada, Japan, France and Singapore.
"People are ready for change. There is a thirst for something different," Mitchell told reporters on Friday at the Toronto International Film Festival, where "Shortbus" was set for its North American premiere before an October opening in the United States.
Mitchell aims to use sex as a metaphor to tell a story about people looking for solace and searching for something more in their lives in a post-September 11 world.
"What pissed me off was that it was … generically identified of as porn," Mitchell said of his film. "We are not trying to do anything salacious here. That is just the language which we speak."
The film is graphic: Scenes include a man being whipped by a dominatrix as he masturbates and a straight couple having sex in a variety of positions.
But pornographic? Mitchell argues not.
[continued]
To read this entire article, go to: Here
To respond, go to: http://today.reuters.com/HelpAndInfo/ContactUs.aspx
HOW TO WRITE A LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Feedback letters are an effective way to convey a positive image of alternate sexual practices such as SM, swinging, or polyamory. You can help to correct negative social myths and misconceptions about these types of practices. These letters help achieve the advocacy goals of the NCSF.
Generally, for a letter to be published, it's important to include your name (or first initial, last name), city and daytime phone (for verification only). For more information, see: https://ncsfreedom.org/media/writelettertoeditor.htm
Please alert us to positive, negative or neutral stories about SM, swinging and polyamory at media@ncsfreedom.org