1. Sexual exploration goes mainstream
2. Spanker's Delight
3. San Francisco Values
4. Swinging with the Cute Couple Next Door
5. Husbands And Wife
6. Fight for your right to be kinky
1. Sexual exploration goes mainstream
2. Spanker's Delight
3. San Francisco Values
4. Swinging with the Cute Couple Next Door
5. Husbands And Wife
6. Fight for your right to be kinky
Sexual exploration goes mainstream:
Seems everybody's engaging in once-fringe acts, but are we satisfied yet?
by Brian Alexander
MSNBC
November 16, 2006
When I set out more than six months ago to begin researching MSNBC.com's special series America Unzipped, I suspected that America's sexual landscape was more peaceful than Pat "9-11-is-God's-wrath" Robertson and other combatants in the wars over "values" (whatever that means) would have us believe.
In fact, Americans of all persuasions are experimenting on a grand scale.
Take, for instance, a young couple I met at a fetish convention in Florida, where they were attending a seminar aimed at teaching women how to tie up men. Neither of them knew much about bondage or the fetish world, but they had heard about the convention and thought it might be a fun way to spend a weekend afternoon. And so there they were, young newlyweds, raised in Tennessee and Texas, with strong religious backgrounds, learning how to get kinky the way other young, upscale couples might spend a Saturday learning how to tell the difference between 18th and 19th century sideboards.
While it's true that not everyone is experimenting, even those of us who aren't seem much more tolerant of the adventurous. As a woman in Missouri said, "Don't pressure me, I won't pressure you".
Most of the people I have spoken to so far (and keep in mind I have deliberately spoken to those people who seem to be on sexual quests of their own) have no problem with access to adult porn for adults, sex toys, group sex, gay sex, fetish, bondage, you name it, so long as they are not forced to be exposed to it or pressured to take part. Another woman I spoke to said she disapproved of many sexual options, but then quickly added, "That's just for me and my own standards. I don't want to tell anybody else what to do".
So why the sex wars?
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To read this entire article, go to: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14061675/ To respond, write to: the author at sexploration@feedback.msnbc.com or the editors at letters@msnbc.com
Spanker's Delight:
Booty whackers unleash their greatest hits
by Rachel Kramer Bussel
The Village Voice
(NYC) November 16, 2006
I don't remember the first time I got spanked (though it was definitely well into adulthood), but for the past few years I've craved it often. Nothing makes me wetter than bending over in preparation for a hard spanking. Well, nothing except the actual feeling of a hand forcefully swatting my ass cheeks, again and again. Most people associate spankings with either celebration or punishment, but you don't need to be a birthday boy or bad girl to enjoy being paddled. Some of us simply need it, and take my word, it's as pleasurable for the spanker as it is for the spankee. Just thinking about it turns me on, and I'm not the only one.
Butt-blistering enthusiasts abound. Groups such as Chicago's Crimson Moon, Dallas/Fort Worth's Bottoms Up, Vancouver's Cherrywood, and the Southern Spanking Society cater to a special kind of booty call. Right here in the city, we've got Paddles, the Eulenspiegel Society's (TES) spanking special-interest group, and the Spanking Club of New York.
Blogs such as All Things Spanking (allthingsspanking.com), Spankophille (spankophille33.blogspot.com) and Spanking Blog (spankingblog.com) pay tribute to reddened asses, offering first-person accounts and news from the land of upturned bums. Shadow Lane (shadowlane.com) holds annual spanking parties and sells videos like Suburban Brat, Sore Losers, and Bad Girls Get Spanked.
Self-appointed "Princess of Spanking" Katie Spades might be more of a spanking slut than I am. She's turned her reddened ass into her livelihood with a blog (spankingkatiespades.blogspot.com) where you can read about her boyfriend, Jake, punishing her and how she feels while getting hit. Spades got her first taste of spanking from a boyfriend at 19. "He grabbed me by the right arm and put me over his lap and spanked me really hard," she wrote in one entry. "I had no idea this hurt so much. I began to cry from the pain and thought that possibly crying would make him stop, but I was incorrect and the spanking continued." The experience left Katie with a "throbbing bottom" and teary eyes, but it also kick-started a true obsession. Even as she struggled through the spanking – half-wanting it to end – she realized "this was what I had been missing all this time."
To those not versed in the special joy of spanking, Katie's description may sound disturbing. But if you've been spanked before, it makes sense. That push-pull, pain-pleasure combo is part of why so many people love a good smackdown. I take pride in being able to absorb increasingly hard blows and am awed that the momentary pain gives way to the most intense arousal I can conjure.
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To read this entire article, go to: http://villagevoice.com/people/0647,bussel,75065,24.html To respond, write to: the author at mail@rachelkramerbussel.com or the editors at http://www.villagevoice.com/aboutus/index.php?page=contact
San Francisco Values
by Violet Blue
(from opinion column "Open Source Sex") The San Francisco Chronicle
November 16, 2006
I'm now absolutely certain that Bill O'Reilly is the reason ball gags were invented.
Two weeks ago, Fox commentator Bill O'Reilly and Newt Gingrich used the term "San Francisco values" as the three dirtiest words they could think of to label future Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (and her Democratic brethren). While politer pundits rally for and against what these words mean, citing liberal issues and pot clubs and immigration, we all know what "San Francisco values" posited as dirty words really mean. When someone says, "San Francisco values," they mean sex.
But while conservative pundits cite San Francisco's sexual values as the new evil — no doubt imagining all kinds of lurid details about assless chaps and sodomy, glory-hole fellatio and white shoes after Labor Day in the Castro — they are actually right. In truth, San Francisco's sexual values go further and run deeper than they can even imagine. Because if we're going to talk about San Francisco as a placeholder for a certain kind of sexual value, let's really talk about what's so different about San Francisco's collective sex life.
We are different.
We have sex shops aplenty from the Marina to the Mission, leather shops, fetish wear shops and free condom bowls at card stores in the Castro (alongside bowls of free biscuits for your pug). There are all-gender, all-orientation sex clubs (one is three levels), sex-positive hotels and B&Bs, and we have places where porn and hookups are made, from SOMA's Porn Palace to the Mission District's Kinky Salon. We have the ginormous, family-friendly and not really sexual (but highly sexualized by homophobes) San Francisco Gay Pride Parade and the overtly sexual (but every year, more like Six Flags does leather) BDSM-positive Folsom Street Fair, bringing in hundreds of thousands of sex-happy tourists to bask in our values, from all over the nation and the world.
What's different about sex in San Francisco is that we're honest about it. We understand that accepting — even celebrating — sexual diversity goes hand in hand with keeping people healthy. It's that simple. The first diagnosis of Kaposi's sarcoma occurred on April 9, 1981, in San Francisco; in 1984 the San Francisco AIDS Foundation debuted the first-ever safer-sex poster and campaign. Thousands were dying, but in 1984 people with AIDS were still unable to find services outside San Francisco. Only in 1987 did then-President Ronald Reagan first mention the word AIDS (death toll: over 20,000 Americans), while San Franciscans were living through the horror of an entire population nearly eradicated by AIDS. You better bet we have different values here.
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To read this entire article, go to: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2006/11/16/violetblue.DTL To respond, write to: the author at violetblue@sfgate.com or the editors at letters@sfchronicle.com
Swinging with the Cute Couple Next Door
by Leslie Ogden
The Stranger (Seattle, WA)
November 15, 2006
I glance around the living room of a particularly lovely condo. On the couch, a woman lounges while a man licks her pussy. Another woman stands behind the couch, stroking the woman's breasts. On the large ottoman, a woman is passionately engaged with two men. On a blanket in front of the fireplace, my husband's face is buried between the legs of a beautiful brunette.
I know he's hoping she'll pull his hair – hard – as she orgasms.
Moans, cries, and other sounds can be heard from nearby bedrooms. Myself? I'm snuggling with two dear friends, exhausted but enthralled.
The party actually started earlier tonight in the large VIP room at the back of an upscale downtown nightclub. (Don't worry, swingers, a reporter did not infiltrate our party. I'm a swinger, too, and my husband and I cherish our privacy and yours.) The room was reserved just for us, to protect the sensibilities and avoid the prying eyes of the nonswingers in the main areas of the bar. But by 10:00 p.m., with more than 100 couples packed into the back room, I didn't think it looked significantly different from a regular Friday night at any other club.
This party was only the foreplay. It's at these parties in bars or dance clubs that my husband and I go to meet people we find attractive. We talk and dance and perhaps negotiate what sorts of sexual activities we'd like to share, and then we head somewhere more private. It is often the female halves of couples who "seal the deal," arranging for all four members of two couples to get together later to have sex. In fact, we've noticed that it's increasingly common for the woman to have brought the couple into swinging in the first place.
Tonight, we left the club around midnight with a group of about 16 people and reconvened at the condo.
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To read this entire article, go to: http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Content?oid=105167 To respond, write to: editor@thestranger.com
Husbands And Wife
by Ileana Varela
CBS4 TV (Miama, FL)
November 15, 2006
CBS4 takes a look at a growing phenomenon that changes the traditional ways men and women interact with one another within the realm of "polyamory."
What is polyamory?"
One shouldn't feel bad if they don't know what it is. It's hasn't even been considered a term until the early 90's, but it is gaining popularity.
Sex Therapist, Erica Goodstone, says, "polyamory really means many loves."
It considered an alternative lifestyle, the practice of loving and living with more than one partner with everyone's consent. It is not illegal, like polygamy, which involves men marrying several wives. It's also not considered swinging which in many cases usually entails casual sexual encounters.
"Polys" as those who participate in the practice are often referred to as, say their relationships can be sexual or not.
"There are no rules or regulations, Goodstone told CBS4.
Sex therapists say some polyamorous relationships amount to no more than just an open marriage. Some can include married couples with outside partners or partners who simply live together. Other unions even include families with children.
CBS4's Ileana Varela took a deeper look into polyamory and found a little girl who lives in new jersey with her mom and two dads who she refers to as mom, dad and daddy.
Cat and George had been legally married several years when Cat met Luke. Cat fell in love with him and had a serious choice to make.
"I felt that I could make a choice different from the choice that is almost always taken, that I could love both of these people and have them both in my life and not have to ruin one relationship just because I love someone else," Cat said.
The threesome performed a hand-fasting ceremony to celebrate the relationship, but there are no "legal" ties between Cat and Luke.
Varela reports that while the threesome embraces their lifestyle and share the same bed, they know what they're doing is a big taboo.
"You can come out and people freak out," Cat told CBS4.
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To read this entire article, go to: http://cbs4.com/topstories/local_story_318192930.html To respond, go to: http://cbs4.com/contact
Fight for your right to be kinky
by Grace Low and Kirk Nathanson
Indiana Daily Student (Indiana University)
November 15, 2006
A column's introduction is designed to hook the reader, so we want to know what it would take to get you to turn away. Maybe big-breasted women licking whipped cream off each others chests? Or an interracial couple seducing their 18-year-old babysitter? What about the lead cheerleader "entertaining" the entire basketball team? Or a Cleveland Steamer? A Dirty Sanchez? A Rusty Trombone? An Eponymous Squeegee? (OK, we made that last one up.)
Clearly, the average person can tolerate much more than the government and a vocal "anti-smut" minority believe he or she can — because you're still reading. These people say porn marginalizes women's sexuality and leads to dangerous and anti-social behavior. What they neglect to explain is that pornography is used as an outlet for expression. There is a significant portion of the population that gets off to bondage, discipline, sado-masochism and mock violence, along with fetishes as common as feet, armpits and lingerie. Without a safe, private place to entertain one's own fantasies, these people might satiate their sexual appetites in improper, socially destructive ways.
Obviously, 6-year-olds should not be learning about four-inch diameter, double-sided dildos. Nor should anyone be forced to do anything against their will. However, pornography is, when legally regulated, a constitutionally protected form of speech. And if there is any appropriate place to experience alternate forms of expression, it should be a university setting, the quintessential open marketplace of ideas.
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To read this entire article, go to: http://www.idsnews.com/news/story.php?id=39303&adid=opinion To respond, write to: the editors at letters@indiana.edu
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