1. Judges refuses to dismiss prostitution charges against Salem woman
2. Hooking Up with the Joneses
3. Internet Pushes Polyamory to Its 'Tipping Point'
4. Contrada warns of trans apocalypse
5. Barely Protesting
6. Spanking Raises Chances of Risky, Deviant Sexual Behavior
7. Death shines light on dangers of sex play
8. S&M, more appear in sex show
9. For Sex Week at Yale, pullout method fails
1. Judges refuses to dismiss prostitution charges against Salem woman
2. Hooking Up with the Joneses
3. Internet Pushes Polyamory to Its 'Tipping Point'
4. Contrada warns of trans apocalypse
5. Barely Protesting
6. Spanking Raises Chances of Risky, Deviant Sexual Behavior
7. Death shines light on dangers of sex play
8. S&M, more appear in sex show
9. For Sex Week at Yale, pullout method fails
NCSF Media Updates represent a sampling of recent stories printed in US
newspapers, magazines, and selected websites containing significant
mention of SM-leather-fetish, polyamory, or swing issues and topics.
These stories may be positive, negative, accurate, inaccurate – or
anywhere in between.
NCSF publishes the Updates to provide readers a comprehensive look at what
media outlets are writing about these topics. NCSF permits and encourages
readers to forward these Updates where appropriate.
Judges refuses to dismiss prostitution charges against Salem woman
by Julie Manganis
The Salem News (Massachusetts)
March 1, 2008
A judge yesterday denied a motion to dismiss prostitution charges against
a Salem woman who allegedly offered her services to an undercover Salem
police detective.
Paula Webb and her lawyer, Jennifer Koiles, had argued that police
violated Webb's rights when they sent Detective Bill Jennings into her
Albion Street home wearing a wire that transmitted their conversation to
other officers in a nearby surveillance van.
Prosecutors argued that the wire transmitted the conversation but did not
record it and was simply for the officer's safety.
In a decision released yesterday, Salem District Court Judge Dunbar
Livingston agreed that police had the right to use the so-called "Kel"
wire to protect the officer and further found that Jennings did not need
to first obtain a warrant.
He did rule, however, that only Jennings would be able to testify about
the conversation between the two and not the officers who were listening
in the van parked outside.
Webb, 42, was arrested and charged last April, after an investigation
touched off by Webb's husband.
During a police visit to their home because of a domestic squabble, Webb's
husband showed officers a "dominatrix dungeon" in the basement, complete
with eyehooks and various whips and other devices.
It is not illegal to be a dominatrix in Massachusetts. But her husband
told police that when things got slow in that area, Webb would use the
Internet to solicit traditional sexual activity for a fee.
[continued]
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http://www.salemnews.com/punews/local_story_061083740.html
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http://www.salemnews.com/contactus/local_story_015132129.html
Hooking Up with the Joneses
by Pagan Kennedy
Boston Magazine
February 29, 2008
For me, this story began several months ago, when my editor called to tell
me she was hearing a slew of rumors about sex clubs in the suburbs,
private nights frequented by PTA moms and mall shoppers. One South Shore
couple, the story went, had been driven out of town after too much bed
hopping. In Cohasset, a local bar transformed one evening each month into
a "swinger den." Country clubs in Needham and Dedham were the subjects of
whispers and innuendos. Though no one would cop to it themselves (of
course), most people knew, or suspected they knew, someone who took part.
The way they were telling it, you couldn't walk down an aisle in Whole
Foods or Stop & Shop without spotting someone who'd had group sex the
night before.
And so I went spelunking on the Internet to see whether there was any
truth to the gossip. What I discovered was truly shocking: Hundreds of
thousands of users have flocked to spouse-swapping sites, suggesting that
more married people today are experimenting with group sex than at any
other time in historybmaybe even more than in its supposed 1970s heyday.
Spouses across the Bay State are offering themselves up as package deals
for no-strings romps with other couples. And scores of
have-your-wedding-cake-and-eat-it-too websites like SwingLifeStyle,
Swappernet.com, and Adult FriendFinder (whose parent company was acquired
in December by Penthouse Media for half a billion dollars) are launching
to overwhelming success.
For weeks, I approached local couples online, begging them to talk.
Although I received lots of propositions and photos of naked bodies, it
was harder to find anyone who would agree to simply chat. Most swingers
these days have something big to loseba job in a law firm, a kid on a
waiting list for prep schoolband go to great lengths to avoid being
caught. Consider this profile on Swappernet.com: The photo shows a lithe
housefrau and her buff husband sunning on a beach on Cape Cod; their heads
have been cropped out, giving them the look of sexy decapitees. On another
site, a North Shore couple advertise themselves with a picture of the wife
in bikini underwear, toasting the camera with a martini; her body is
perfect and her face has been blotted out. Everyone in swingerville is
headless and horny.
I managed to track down a half-dozen sex parties, and pleaded with the
organizers to let me attend as a reporter, but without luck. Late one
night as I was driving through a plush neighborhood in Wellesley, I
studied the prim houses, and all their windows seemed to wink at me.
Statistically speaking, group sex had probably taken place behind at least
some of them. On the other side of those Mohr & McPherson curtains, people
were swapping mates, but I couldn't seem to reach them.
Then, finally, pay dirt.
When I first met Ann and Paul in an Internet chat room for Boston-area
swingers, they were terrified to speak to a journalist about their secret
life. They fear the opprobrium of bosses, teachers, other parents, even
friends. Of course, the kids must never find out. And then one night,
after weeks of wheedling, my phone bleats, without warning. "We're ready,"
says a voice on the other end of the line. It was like getting a call from
the FBI.
Even more important than the tale of her midlife awakening, Ann wanted me
to know that these exploits with her husband have expanded her mind. An
accomplished academic, Ann tends to be shy, but their secret life has
forced her to develop a brave and bold persona. Ann and Paul consider
themselves "conservative"; their friends describe them as "strait-laced."
Their first time was a year ago.
Ann recalls how much guts it took for her to meet a pair of strangers from
the Internet, even with Paul by her side. She had to force herself to
march into the hubbub of the restaurant, toward a situation that might be
terribly, terribly awkward. What if they were horrible? Worse, what if Ann
and Paul knew them? But as soon as she saw the couple, she realized she'd
be okay: They were unfamiliar, and "looked like they'd just walked out of
a PTA meeting." Dinner slid into dessert and coffee, laughter and easy
conversation, and soon they were all stumbling into a hotel room together.
"I thought watching [my husband] having sex with another woman would make
my head explode," Ann says. Instead, it didn't bother herband she loved
frolicking with Mr. PTA.
Meanwhile, Paul couldn't believe his luck. "I hadn't been with another
woman since I met [Ann]," he says. "That was bizarre. I like to make out a
lot. It's passionate." And there he was, soul-kissing a new woman with his
wife's approval.
That night changed their lives: They had found a jolt of pure joy. "The
funniest thing about it was that afterward, we e-mailed the other couple
to tell them that we had a really good time," says Paul. "We didn't hear
from them for a while. And it was like the old days when you're dating,
and you're thinking, bDid they like us?' We were really insecure."
Finally, Mr. and Mrs. PTA did write backbwhat a wonderful evening! The two
couples remain good friends and occasional bedmates. Nowadays, Ann and
Paul swing pretty much whenever they can find a free evening. And a
babysitter.
[continued]
To read this entire article, go to:
http://www.bostonmagazine.com/articles/hooking_up_with_the_joneses/?most_popular=1&commented=1
To respond, write to: editor@bostonmagazine.com or comment at the bottom
of the article
Internet Pushes Polyamory to Its 'Tipping Point'
by Regina Lynn
Wired Magainze
February 29, 2008
The internet is famous for hooking people up for everything from blind
dates to political activism.
For people into polyamory — a way of life in which participants engage in
multiple intimate relationships simultaneously, with the knowledge and
consent of everyone involved — the internet provided a handy label for
their lifestyle and a launch pad for injecting the concept into mainstream
consciousness.
"Around 1990, we found this nifty name to call ourselves, instead of
'responsible, consensual nonmonogamy,'" says Dr. Kenneth Haslam, a retired
anesthesiologist and curator of the Kenneth R. Haslam Collection on
Polyamory at The Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and
Reproduction. "About that same time, the internet came along — and it was
at exactly the right time. The internet is a tipping point for polyamory."
From its somewhat murky etymological past to 1992's creation of the
alt.polyamory Usenet newsgroup, the term has swept to mainstream
acceptance: Polyamorist, polyamorous and polyamory made the Oxford English
Dictionary in 2006, and these days, polyamory (poly for short) is more
visible than ever.
The Washington Post ran a long feature on the subject for Valentine's Day,
while actress Tilda Swinton's relationship status — she's part of a poly
triad — seems to have garnered as much press as her Oscar win.
While having multiple committed partners is not a new concept, many
polyamorists have told me they felt lost, guilty, alone or freakish until
they came across the word polyamory on the internet and for the first time
had a context for the way they felt about love.
"You can argue that before the internet, the poly community didn't exist,"
says Franklin Veaux, author of What, Like, Two Girlfriends?, a respected
polyamory FAQ. "There's no question that the rise of the internet and the
rise of polyamory coincided, although poly does predate the net by 6,000
years or so."
Geeks have not traditionally been viewed as relationship experts, yet as a
subculture, we are open to alternative ways of life. We immerse ourselves
in science fiction and fantasy, imagining other cultures and experiencing
relationships not necessarily bound by puritanical traditions.
"I remember thinking that the fairy tale doesn't make any sense, because
if the princess lives in a castle, why should she have to choose one of
the two princes? Castles are big and there's room for all three of them,"
says Veaux, who was raised in a Nebraska town of 275 people, with not a
poly role model in sight.
"I grew up in middle-class suburbia unaware of any alternatives but one,
very negative: monogamy or slut," says Sharra Smith, one of Veaux's
partners. "I tried to be monogamous and failed miserably; after a very bad
relationship, I said, 'That's it, no more, I'd rather be a slut.' Then I
learned there's a middle ground."
Cunning Minx, creator and host of the Polyamory Weekly podcast, says she's
seen a significant change in how the mainstream media treats polyamory in
just the three years since her first episode.
"Poly used to be so alternative you had to adopt this entire different
culture [to participate]," she says. "While it's definitely still an
emotional and spiritual upheaval for many people to shake off the
paradigms of monogamy that are so ingrained in us, now you can meet poly
people in a group and talk about it in a safe place."
Polyamory is just the kind of thing you'd expect in an era of love without
borders, where time and distance no longer prevent us from finding true
mates, and when no one has to live alone with their kink, desire, fantasy
or love style — because someone, somewhere shares it.
"A lot of people are trying [polyamory], but we don't have any models for
this kind of relating," says Anita Wagner, author of the Practical
Polyamory blog. "There's a tremendous demand for resources, information,
guidance, help."
[continued]
To read this entire article, go to:
http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/commentary/sexdrive/2008/02/sexdrive_0229
To respond, go to:
http://www.wired.com/services/feedback/letterstoeditor
Contrada warns of trans apocalypse
by Ethan Jacobs
Edge Boston (Massachusetts) (originally published in "Bay Windows")
February 29, 2008
Given that members of the anti-gay group MassResistance have used public
forums to accuse gay people of recruiting children for sex and to claim
that the Nazis were gay, it's no surprise that the group's blogger, Amy
Contrada, has some colorful things to say about House Bill 1722, the
transgender rights bill. For the past week Contrada has been unveiling
chapters in what purports to be a 75-page report on the dangers of the
bill. What follows are some of the choice excerpts:
"There are unpredictable dangers lurking in the proposed terminology,
"gender expression". Just as it's up to the individual to define his or
her "gender identity", he or she will be able to claim that any behavior
is his/her "expression" of that self-determined "identity" and is
protected in the law. It could apply to anything, whether a private or
public "expression". Besides cross-dressing, this could logically open the
door to public sex acts on the street and public displays of BDSM
including whips and chains, sadomasochism — both of which recently took
place in San Francisco's Folsom Street Fair. Or polyamory (multiple
partners), and eventual demands for legalized polygamy. Or sex for pay
(legalized prostitution) and "sex slave" arrangements. Or public displays
of nudity or semi-nudity (as already seen in "gay pride" parades)."
"A hotel or convention site will not be allowed to turn down a
transgender/cross-dresser or BDSM (whips & chains, sadomasochism)
convention. A restaurant will not be able to turn away a special party for
she-male prostitutes and their clients, or cross-dressers. A museum or
library will not be allowed to turn away a GLBT activist seminar promoting
BDSM, public nudity, public sex, or legalized prostitution. A function
facility will not be allowed to refuse a seminar on breast removal and
hormone treatments for women "transitioning" to men. A Catholic church
could even be forced to hold a forum on homosexual or transsexual
"marriage" or polygamy. These behaviors and activities could all be
considered "gender expression" and these venues are could all be
considered 'public accommodations'."
[continued]
To read this entire article, go to:
http://www.edgeboston.com/index.php?ch=news&sc=glbt&sc2=news&sc3=&id=70966
To respond, go to:
http://www.edgeboston.com/index.php?sc=feedback or comment at bottom
of the article
Barely Protesting
by Thomas Sutherland
The Tufts Observers (Tufts University, MA)
February 29, 2008
One day, a few weeks ago, something miraculous occurred. A message arrived
for us in the mail. We had been sent for.
"Truth serum Presents: Sex Workers Cabaret – One Night Only!" the flyer
screamed.
Mike and I sat wide-eyed on the bed looking down at the orange slip of
paper. "What do you think it is?" I asked in sheer buffoonery.
"Well", Mike thoughtfully balanced the bong between us. "In my opinion
it's clearly an invitation to some pagan ritual".
"Naturally we'll have to go".
"Of course, I'll arrange tickets immediately".
Sex. Workers. Cabaret. The words sang out to me with a mystical rhythm
like the marching song of a long-forgotten laborers union. What would
happen there? I didn't have the foggiest clue. The only safe bet was that
there would be nudity and popcorn, a lethal combination for any
self-respecting college man.
And like so many other miscast soldiers from lost generations past, we
slunk off to go see The Sex Workers' Art Show, the modern day freak show.
Annie Oakley silently stood at the forefront of the stage like the head
female priestess of a Dionysian carnival. She was the show's host. Above
her, the Coolidge Corner Theater was lined with carvings of Roman gods,
and the crowd played its part in the ancient recreation. All of us in the
audience were part of the teeming masses, stiff with excitement for the
freak show to start and our realities to drift away.
This was our bread and circus, our Roman coliseum. We wanted to see the
modern American freak show. Porn stars are, after all, the only group
political correctness has passed over. Who better then to provide some
stoned laughs?
"We want a show goddamnit!" A hulking barbarian in a baseball cap bellowed
out from behind me. Others threw popcorn. I remained relatively silent.
"Give us a show", I muttered between sips of beer.
… Ms. Dirty Martini walked briskly to center stage. She was a stout
woman of perhaps thirty-five, wearing a red, white and blue sequined flag
dress. Ms. Dirty Martini stood center stage and waited for the attention
to come back to her. Unlike The World Famous Bob, it seemed Ms. Dirty
Martini had not come to talk.
Before I could even begin to wrap my brain around what this fireplug of a
woman might be doing wrapped up in our nation's flag, the dance began.
"God Bless America" rang out from the theater's speakers, and Ms. Dirty
Martini began to whirl around in circles. Moving along the stage, she
swooped and dipped as articles of clothing whipped through the air. I was
transfixed by her movements. She was like an elephantess ballerina,
stomping her way towards a not entirely ungraceful pirouette.
As the music reached its crescendo, Ms. Dirty Martini reached between her
curvaceous thighs and began to throw money all over the stage. Hundreds of
fake dollar bills poured out of Ms. Dirty Martini's ass as if it were a
malfunctioning ATM.
What were we seeing? This wasn't what we had paid for. We had wanted
escapism, "Come on in and see Dojo the Dog Faced Boy and his Mother,the
Lobster Woman, Blow One Another – Tonight Only" We wanted to forget,
damnit, to forget the whirlwind of garbage that swirls around most
educated Americans. But this – watching Ms. Dirty Martini pull wads of
cash from her butt – this was something different entirely. It was
shocking. It was violent. It was protest.
Like Spartans leading the front lines, more performers came springing from
the wings. Bridgette, a Helen Bonham Carter look alike smothered in
loosely applied Cruella Deville makeup, confessed that after being
rejected from Chuck-E-Cheese she had stolen her sister's Catholic
confirmation name and began stripping. She belted out her own, original,
musical theater composition. I sat in impressed silence as a stripper pole
appeared on stage. Bridgette twisted and contorted her naked body up to
the top of the pole, and never for a moment stopped singing. It occurred
to me the freak show was morphing into the first effective and moving
performance art show I'd ever seen.
We believed that we understood, and were cool with, the spectacle of
alternative culture we had just witnessed. They weren't that different; it
wasn't too much to stomach. Now we were good.
But we forgot about Dave. In retrospect, it was an easy enough slip to
have made. Caught between the crossfire of what we were seeing, and
actively working our way towards being down with it, none of us had
remembered the Asian guy from the crowd who had quietly volunteered to be
part of an upcoming act.
Dave was led on his hands and knees by a towering, ten-foot-tall
Vietnamese dominatrix wielding a leather chain.
"Take the microphone", the dominatrix commanded Dave. Collectively, the
entire crowd shifted to the front of our seats to hear him speak.
"Yes", Dave timidly sniffled.
"Yes what?"
Dave looked up at the Dominatrix questioningly. Dressed in a combination
of fishnets and leather, she lorded over him in a terrifying manner. The
whole thing looked like the cover art for some sideways graphic novel.
"WHAT'S MY NAME, DOG?" The Dominatrix screeched, yanking on the chain and
pulling Dave's head up to her.
I flinched. I knew I was back out of my league. Still, Dave just sat
there, incapable of preventing the mixture of stage fright and pleasure
from spreading stupidly across his face. The Dominatrix readied her arm
for another yank. It was too much for me to take.
"Jesus Christ man, do something! She'll rip your head off". People looked
at me.
"Mistress Keva." Dave whispered. It was hardly audible, even with the
microphone, but there was our answer.
"That's right, Mistress Keva", she scolded back at him. For the next 20
minutes Mistress Keva had the entire audience in stunned rapture. I'd be
lying if I said I remembered everything she said, or even everything she
did to Dave. The whole performance occurred in a blacked-out nether
region, which only exists behind doors most of us will never see, let
alone open.
One thing was for certain, though: Dave loved it. Every command Mistress
Keva gave Dave followed unquestioningly and with fervent concentration. He
never spoke above a whisper, but that must have been because there was no
need to. When Mistress Keva jumped on his back and rode him like a
Ferrari, he made vrooming sounds. When she called him a dog, he whimpered.
He even sat by patiently and listened as she discoursed on Orientalism in
modern sadomasochistic society. And when she drove home her point on this
topic by having Dave moan an orgasm in Cantonese, he did that too.
Staring at Dave on his back, moaning in a foreign language, I flashed back
to an experience I had had a few months earlier. Travelling in Spain, a
few friends and I had decided to hike up a mountain. Once there, I had
taken up the quest to balance myself atop a small antenna pole that jutted
out to within a few feet of the plateau's overhang. Balancing on that
tenuous pole I had looked out towards the Mediterranean Sea, which lay,
uninterrupted save the pole, 13,000 feet below me. What I learned doing
this was that you can find out about yourself by pushing yourself to
extremes.
Coming back to Dave, I was certain that he had stood on the top of his
antenna pole for long enough. Yet, it seemed Mistress Keva disagreed.
Laughing, she reached back into a bag and took out a ten-inch, strap on
dildo and attached it to herself. "Wherever this is going", I thought,
"it's probably going to be intense".
"Come here, Dave". She cooed, extending one finger out to him. I then
proceeded to watch Dave, a grown man presumably engaging in his first
sadomasochistic behavior, fellate Mistress Keva in front of a theater full
of people he most assuredly did not know.
I looked at Mike. He winced in his chair, gnashing his teeth and pleading
with Dave not to do it. But he couldn't look away. At this point, the aura
and shock had worn off for him. He was forced to confront the sober
reality of watching a timid, tiny Asian boy go down on dominatrix's dildo
while she moaned in Cantonese.
[continued]
To read this entire article, go to:
http://www.tuftsobserver.org/arts/20080229/barely_protesting.html
To respond, write to: observer@tufts.edu or post comment at bottom
of the article
Spanking Raises Chances of Risky, Deviant Sexual Behavior
by HealthDay News writers
Atlanta Journal Constitution (GA)
February 28, 2008
Researchers have uncovered another damaging consequence of spanking: risky
sexual behaviors, or even sexual deviancy, when the child grows up.
"This adds one more harmful side effect to spanking," said Murray Straus,
a spanking expert who was expected to present the findings of four studies
at the American Psychological Association's Summit on Violence and Abuse
in Relationships in Bethesda, Md., on Thursday.
"I think that it's pretty powerful," said Elizabeth Gershoff, an assistant
professor at the University of Michigan's School of Social Work. "It's
across several studies and across different forms of either risky or
deviant sexual behavior."
A meta-analysis of spanking studies conducted by Gershoff found 93 percent
agreement among studies that spanking can lead to such problems as
delinquent and anti-social behavior in childhood along with aggression,
criminal and anti-social behavior and spousal or child abuse as an adult.
"There's probably nothing else in child development that has 93 percent
agreement in results," Straus said.
Five percent of people who have never been spanked hit their partners,
versus 25 percent of those who were spanked frequently.
However, some 90 percent of U.S. parents spank toddlers, according to
Straus.
The review being presented at the meeting are the first to look at the
relationship of spanking to sexual behavior.
They found that spanking and other corporal punishment is associated with
an increased probability of verbally and physically coercing a dating
partner to have sex; risky sex such as premarital sex without using a
condom; and masochistic sex such as spanking during sex.
… Straus said[,] "If a person says, 'I was spanked, and I don't have any
interest in bondage and discipline sex, that's correct, but it's not
because spanking is OK, it's because they're one of the lucky ones."
[continued]
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http://www.ajc.com/health/content/shared-auto/healthnews/cdev/613047.html
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http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/letters/sendletter.html
Death shines light on dangers of sex play
by Carly Weeks
The Globe and Mail
February 28, 2008
They tie each other up, dabble in role-playing and experiment with whips,
handcuffs and nipple clamps to experience the kind of turn-on most people
achieve through kissing and racy lingerie.
Sadomasochists use a variety of activities, props and even torture-like
devices to inflict consensual physical or psychological pain on each other
to experience pleasure that is usually sexual in nature.
Although S&M has long been considered a deviant or underground form of
sexual behaviour, statistics have shown that up to 10 per cent of the
North American population has experimented with some form of it.
But the death in Quebec last Saturday of a 39-year-old woman who suffered
cardiac arrest during a reported S&M session has shaken the sadomasochist
community and raised questions over when bondage, discipline, dominance
and submission cross the line to become criminal behaviour.
"If the thrill is the risk, if that's part of what's exciting to you, then
you're taking a risk. Whenever you take a risk, it doesn't always work
out," said Sandra Byers, a sex therapist and chairwoman of the department
of psychology at the University of New Brunswick.
Many sadomasochists say their sexual behaviour has nothing to do with
violence, anger or the will to cause harm to others. Rather, it's a way
for people who experience pleasure through pain to "stimulate" each other
in a safe environment that is governed by strict codes and rules.
"What you might interpret as pain, another person in the right context
interprets that as heightened pleasure," said Susan Wright, spokeswoman
for the U.S.-based National Coalition for Sexual Freedom, who also engages
in S&M. "It's different from violence or abuse in that those are cycles of
control in terms of non-consensual control."
Ms. Wright said sadomasochists often set specific ground rules before a
session to establish limits and code words that tell their partner to
stop. Even those who haven't done extensive research on the subject should
know their partner's limits, she said.
"It's common sense. It's not like we're doing brain surgery here. We're
tying people up and having sex."
[continued]
To read this entire article, go to:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20080228.LSADO28/TPStory/National
To respond, write to: letters@globeandmail.com
S&M, more appear in sex show
by Russell Perkins
The Wesleyan Argus (Wesleyan University, CT)
February 22, 2008
An excited audience filled Beckham Hall last Monday in anticipation of the
Sex Workers' Art Show, which came to Wesleyan for a single performance as
part of its national 2008 tour. Among those who hadn't seen the
performance last year, there was a good deal of uncertainty as to what
exactly to expect: Was this going to be a strip show? A lesson in identity
politics? An exposC) of the American sex industry? As it turned out, the
performance was all of these things.
The Sex Workers' Art Show was co-sponsored by the Zombie Art Collective,
WesPREP, The Cunt Club and Spectrum (with additional support from Fem Net,
Womanist House, Unlocked Magazine and The Hermes), and was brought to the
University primarily due to the efforts of Jean Pockrus '08. It featured
an eclectic mix of burlesque, multimedia performance art, a dominatrix
demonstration, and autobiographical spoken-word performances. By pulling
together a diverse array of voices within the sex industry, the
performance sought to attack the assumptions that people graft onto the
naked bodies they view and consume.
As Annie Oakley, founder, emcee and primary creative force behind the Sex
Workers' Art Show explained after the show: "I started this 11 years ago
because people who respected my work [as a feminist] were telling me that
I was degrading myself as a sex worker. I wanted to make them deal with
the stereotypes that they were slinging at me."
For all its strength, with a different lineup of performers for every
venue, at Wesleyan the Sex Workers' Art Show did not showcase quite as
diverse a range of perspectives as it purported to. With the exception of
"drag-subverter" Krylon Superstar, whose performance featured a lit anal
sparkler, all of the performers were female, and, among these, all but one
was Caucasian.
Yet although a Wesleyan audience might fault the performance for not going
quite far enough, it has certainly raised considerable controversy on a
national scale. Only recently, the president of the College of William and
Mary resigned, after many opposed his decision to permit the Sex Worker's
Art Show to perform on his campus.
[continued]
To read this entire article, go to:
http://www.wesleyanargus.com/article/6042
To respond, write to: argus@wesleyan.edu
For Sex Week at Yale, pullout method fails
by Presca Ahn
Yale Daily News (Yale University, CT)
February 19, 2008
On Saturday night, as part of a pornography-themed day, Sex Week at Yale
held a porn screening in the Law School auditorium. The featured
pornography was a series of trailer-type clips, chosen by director Paul
Thomas from among his own films. The Sex Week team, however, didn't
preview all the footage Thomas chose. This is why, partway through the
showing, graphic rape fantasies began to play onscreen.
Rape fantasies, bondage, the piercing of a woman's nipples and the
labeling of a woman as a "slut" who "deserved" violent sexual degradation
– this was some of the footage played at one of Sex Week's final events.
Its inclusion, from the Sex Week organizers' point of view, was an
embarrassing mistake, and a potential public relationns disaster.
So damage control came quickly. After a panicked powwow out in the hall,
the Sex Week organizers stopped the screening and moved directly into the
scheduled Q & A session. The next day, one Sex Week organizer asked to
meet with the Women's Center board to explain how it could be that rape
pornography was shown as part of the program. He said there would be a
panel discussion on Monday night led by the Sex Week team, which would
address those shocked by the screening. He apologized, saying the Sex Week
team had had a tiring week – if the organizers had vetted the film, they
would never have allowed the rape scenes to be played.
I could only think that this Sex Week organizer had completely missed the
point.
The lesson of the Sex Week pornography screening is not that the Sex Week
organizers should have edited out the rape footage. The lesson is that
editing jobs are necessary to make pornography – even the "high quality",
"mainstream" pornography touted by Vivid Entertainment – look inoffensive.
Better minds (read: Dworkin, MacKinnon) have addressed the far-reaching
harm caused by the porn industry and the dubious empowerment that porn
stars are claimed to, or claim to, attain. The conversation that we should
be having at Yale is one that Sex Week failed to frame for us: how
pornography and pornographic cultural products affect the way we have sex.
Sex Week glamorized pornography. Advertised via e-mail to all Yale
students (subject line: "Day O' Porn"), Saturday's screening was followed
by the Sex Week at Yale dance party, where (said the e-mail) you'd
"[d]ress as a pornstar, party like a pornstar, with the porn stars". The
e-mail promised free Vivid DVDs and the chance (for "40 Lucky Yalies") to
pre-game with the "Vivid Girls". Suddenly, you were invited into a context
sexier than your own – the glamorous world of porn stars, who definitely
have better sex than you do.
Pornography decontextualizes sex. Drawing the line between pornography and
"racy" films with "sexy" content involves this realization: that in porn,
the act of sex – including, but not limited to, intercourse – is
translated into an alternate reality, or a distorted one. In porn, sex is
not a normal, healthy part of normal, healthy lives; it's fetishized,
exaggerated or embellished. Porn isn't honest. We need to talk honestly
about it: It hurts women.
[continued]
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