1. Arousing debate
2. Suspended police officer testifies in harassment case
3. The softer side of S/M
4. Neighborhood Home Transforms Into Swingers' Club On Weekends
5. Holly hill neighbors upset with swingers
6. Wild sex 101
1. Arousing debate
2. Suspended police officer testifies in harassment case
3. The softer side of S/M
4. Neighborhood Home Transforms Into Swingers' Club On Weekends
5. Holly hill neighbors upset with swingers
6. Wild sex 101
Arousing debate:
Sex program appeals to some at UW; others see $90,000 bill as undesirable
by Megan
Twohey Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
December 2, 2006
Madison – "No matter how hard you hit someone with this flogger, it will not hurt," said Ann Slabosky, a senior at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, as she unleashed a black leather whip on the forearm of her partner.
The duo was leading a workshop on sexual pleasure for nearly 15 classmates in the lounge of a residence hall. They had started with a discussion of body parts and were now on the subject of sex toys. The toys were being removed from a large red toolbox and passed around with glee.
"Can I whip you?" one participant giggled to another after the flogger landed in her lap.
It was all part of Sex Out Loud, a student organization causing a lot of, um, excitement at UW-Madison. Begun a decade ago to provide information about HIV and other sexually transmitted infections, the group has expanded to include graphic workshops on how to give and receive sexual pleasure.
According to the federal government, nearly 80% of college students 18 to 24 years of age are having sex. As Sex Out Loud sees it, these students should be having sex that is safe and pleasurable. Its programming comes at a time when colleges are seeing an explosion of sex columnists at student newspapers and the introduction of campus sex magazines, such as Harvard's H Bomb and Boston University's Boink.
But while many students are grateful for the straightforward information, some say the organization has gone too far. The group receives nearly $90,000 in student fees. Critics say students shouldn't have to foot the bill for pleasure programming.
The Family Research Institute of Wisconsin is appalled that such programming exists at all.
"This whole thing with the sex toys is positively narcissistic," said Judith Brant, the organization's project coordinator. "Sex is a gift we've been given to express our love for a person of the opposite sex within the confines of marriage. Once you break out of that, you're setting yourself up for a whole lot of heartbreak and perversion".
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To read this entire article, go to: http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=537662 To respond, write to: the author at mtwohey@journalsentinel.com or the editors at jsmetro@journalsentinel.com
Suspended police officer testifies in harassment case
by Jonathan Bandler
The Journal News (Lower Hudson, NY)
December 1, 2006
GREENBURGH – A town police officer suspended after a dominatrix accused him of offering help with her marijuana charge in exchange for kinky sex play insisted yesterday that he never even got out of his car in the woods where she claimed the tryst occurred.
Erik Ward's testimony came at the continuation of his disciplinary hearing before members of the Town Board. He has denied Gina Pane's contention that he engaged in any sexual activity with her, saying that the only discussion of a sexual nature was when she offered descriptions of the fetishes of some of her clients.
But he acknowledged on questioning by prosecutor Vincent Toomey that he did ignore some department procedures and violated some regulations in his meeting with Pane.
"In retrospect, I feel going to meet Gina Pane was inappropriate," he said, adding that he knew allegations could be made if he met with her alone. "At the time, the potential good to me outweighed the potential negative that can arise."
Ward met with Pane near her Rye Brook home Jan. 22, the day after she was arrested when, police said, they saw her smoking marijuana in her car at the Greenburgh Multiplex. Pane contends Ward was summoned to the arrest scene because other officers knew he was a sexual fetishist. But he maintains it was standard operating procedure for a member of the Street Crime Unit to respond to the scene of a drug arrest in hopes of cultivating an informant.
Ward spoke to her by phone later that night after her release and then again the next day, before they met in person. He had her call a man she knew was a cocaine dealer to set him up for a drug buy. Ward said he began driving around so they wouldn't look suspicious sitting in the parking lot of the Arrowwood conference center. Moments later, they ended up in a Greenwich nature preserve. He said she told him it was a bird sanctuary and he mistakenly thought it was a county park where other people would be.
Pane said they walked into the woods and she squatted on a branch and defecated as he masturbated. Police seized feces, leaves and twigs from the location later that week, but forensic testing did not identify any semen and could not confirm the feces was human.
Ward insisted he turned the car around when he grew concerned about being alone with her in an isolated spot and that he never got out of the car.
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To read this entire article, go to: http://www.thejournalnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061201/NEWS02/612010428/1023/NEWS07 To respond, write to: jbandler@lohud.com or the editors at letters@lohud.com
The softer side of S/M:
In his new collection of stories, Stephen Elliott examines his experiences with torture and love through admirably clear eyes
by Donna Minkowitz
Salon.com
November 29, 2006
At the age of 20, Stephen Elliott writes, nearly penniless and staying at a scuzzy Amsterdam youth hostel, he meets a woman with "a bored expression on her face" who was "old compared to me, and not pretty. She had thick shoulders, a football player's body, and short spiky hair that had gone grey in patches … Her skin was the color of clay." Oh, and she's very pockmarked. Yet Elliott's interested in her because he's seen her torturing a "soft and shapeless" man at a local S/M bar.
He encounters the woman hanging out by the hostel's lockers, where two men are trying to force their way upstairs so they can beat up a guest who owes them money. Outside are lots of muggers and pickpockets, "gays in chaps and shirtless women cruising" and "junkies [who] sat on bags of garbage sticking their arms." Elliott tells the clay-colored woman where he saw her before (she asks, "What were you doing in that bar?") and, although he's terrified he will have to walk back to the hostel alone — because "there was no safe way back to the hostel at night" — he goes with her for a drink, then to her hotel room.
Without asking his consent, preferences or anything else ("take your clothes off and put them in the corner" is all she says) she cuts his legs with a knife (threatening his balls), burns him with a cigarette, and temporarily asphyxiates him. It's his first S/M scene after a childhood and adolescence full of experiences of rape and assault in youth homes, after being thrown out of the house by his abusive father at the age of 13. His reaction? "I was very comfortable," Elliott writes. "I don't think I had ever been comfortable before."
That passage is one of the reasons to love this book. "My Girlfriend Comes to the City and Beats Me Up" is a collection of linked stories that Elliott says amount to something "damn close" to a memoir. But Elliott, a Salon contributor and author of the critically acclaimed novel "Happy Baby," also says he "knowingly made up" some details and created a few composite characters, so "My Girlfriend " should more narrowly be considered fiction. Still, the author wishes to acknowledge "the general if not complete truth of this book" and, in particular, the fact that "every sexual act" depicted happened.
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To read this entire article, go to: http://www.salon.com/books/review/2006/11/29/elliott/index.html To respond, go to: http://letters.salon.com/books/review/2006/11/29/elliott/new/
Neighborhood Home Transforms Into Swingers' Club On Weekends
by staff writer
WKMG TV (Orlando, FL)
November 28, 2006
VOLUSIA COUNTY, Fla. — The occupants of a four-bedroom home near a park in a Holly Hill, Fla., have angered neighbors because they have transformed it into a popular adult swingers' club on the weekends, according to a Local 6 News report.
The Neverending Bliss Swinger's Club that is run out of the Holly Hill home accommodates 20 couples and features a dancing pole in the living room for visitors.
"We have a dancing pole, sure," the club owner, who was not identified in the report, said. "Turn on the music and dance to the pole. You want to feel sexy?"
Despite complaints from neighbors, the owners of the swingers' club have no intention of closing.
"You can't hear anything that is going on within in the house when we do have parties," a woman in the house said. "Parking is not a problem. It is not in their way. It is not infringing on any of their property."
"I don't understand how it can possibly be legal to have that sort of thing in a quiet residential neighborhood," homeowner Sheila Hancock said. "There are children here. It is two blocks from a park and three blocks from City Hall. I'm just absolutely appalled."
As long as the owners do not charge admission to get inside the house, community leaders cannot control what goes on inside.
"In spite of the concerns from neighbors, they are not breaking any laws as long as the people park in the right area and don't make excessive noise," Local 6's Jamie Guirola said.
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To read this entire article, go to: http://www.local6.com/news/10413455/detail.html To respond, go to: http://www.local6.com/contact/index.html
Holly hill neighbors upset with swingers
by Audrey Parente
Daytona Beach News-Journal
November 27, 2006
HOLLY HILL — A quaint house with slatted shutters and a sprawling front porch sits on a quiet street along the Halifax River. But what goes on behind the drawn shades is stirring up discontent throughout the neighborhood to City Hall.
One long-time neighbor, Jack Smith, said the place is destroying the quality of his life. Smith's friend, Steve Budik, who lives a mile away said he feel's "sorry for Mike if he ever tries to sell his house" and is "glad it's not right by" his own house.
The reason for all the unhappiness?
A couple renting the house on Riverside Drive are operating an adult-lifestyle club there — Never Ending Bliss, a swingers club.
Local police said the club is legal and the law protects what goes on in the house between consenting adults.
A code enforcement "cease-and-desist" order issued Nov. 1, for operating a business without a license, was met with an immediate visit to the city from Never Ending Bliss's organizer, said City Manager Joe Forte.
A Web page advertising the club "required a donation," which might have made the operation a zoning violation — operating a business in a residential area, Forte said.
"It was brought to my attention by an e-mail to my office," Forte said. "Code enforcement made a cease-and-desist order, and he (the organizer) came within an hour and said, 'How do I make it right?' "
"Within an hour they removed any requirement of paying money or paying dues, and the (Web) site has no advertising," Forte said. "The city did what it could to investigate, but we determined there were no criminal violations."
City Attorney Scott Simpson said the club has not been brought to his attention.
The Rev. Matt McKeown of United Brethren Church said he "disagrees with a swinger-type of lifestyle if it involves swapping partners and sex outside of marriage." He and a group of 40 parishioners met with District 1 City Commissioner John Penny on the issue.
"Basically, people had heard the rumors, and I was just there (at the church meeting) to give them the facts, that the city has investigated it, and there is no illegal activity going on," Penny said. "I had to tell them quite clearly that I don't represent the city as a whole, and they should share their concerns with the city manager."
Never Ending Bliss is described on a Web site as a "very, very clean" private, invitation-only alternative-lifestyle club that provides condoms and "clean sheets" for four private, themed rooms, such as The Locker Room, which has a shower stall and a "closet full of surprises," or The Cellar for bondage and domination.
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To read this article, go to: http://www.news-journalonline.com/NewsJournalOnline/News/Local/newEAST01112706.htm To respond, write to: the author at audrey.parente@news-jrnl.com or the editors at letters@news-jrnl.com
Wild sex 101: S&M clubs, nude parties, porn, X-rated romps rule at Columbia
by Douglas Feiden
New York Daily News
November 26, 2006
Famed as a hotbed of debate over academic freedom, New York's most elite school is also a playpen for sexual hijinks, sophomoric antics and the wacky indulgences of the children of the rich.
While their parents shell out $33,246 a year in tuition, Columbia University students doff their clothes at naked parties, flock to sex toys workshops, broadcast porn on campus TV, bake anatomically correct pies for the "Erotic Cake-Baking Contest" and heat up the steps of the Low Library in a mass makeout session called the "Big Kiss."
And of course, there's always the stimulating game, "Guess the Number of Condoms in the Jelly-Bean Jar."
Others volunteer for the bullwhip at Conversio Virium, the university-sanctioned S&M club that means "exchange of power" in Latin. It calls itself a "discussion group" that provides "education and peer support" and promotes "safe, sane and consensual play." But the club doesn't just talk.
Late on the night of Nov. 13, a Daily News reporter sat in room 303 of Hamilton Hall, a venerable classroom building where Columbia students have studied Poe, Plato and Plutarch for nearly 100 years.
As a female student volunteer stood facing the blackboard, and two dozen Columbians watched, a lecturer who identified himself only as Dov flogged her repeatedly with leather whips, rubber hoses – and a cat-o'-nine-tails.
"I'm Dov, and these are my toys," he said, and for the next 14 minutes he demonstrated lashing techniques. The activity was consensual, but the squeals of delight mingled with the occasional yelps of pain.
Columbia would make no specific comment on the club or the flogging incident. Ivy Leaguers were unaware the reporter was in attendance. Dov is not employed by the school, which doesn't police or censor club activities.
Referring only to student organizations generally, spokesman Robert Hornsby said the "university has a limited role in regulating student speech or private conduct."
Conversio Virium's officers declined to address questions. Columbia's student activities coordinator, a university employee who advises the club, didn't respond to an e-mail.
But the Baltimore-based National Coalition for Sexual Freedom, which advocates for S&M groups, contacted The News at the request of the students.
"Educating people about the safest flogging techniques so they don't accidentally strike the kidneys is responsible behavior," said spokeswoman Susan Wright. "Basically, what they're doing is S&M 101."
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To read this entire article, go to: http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/474805p-399293c.html To respond, write to: voicers@edit.nydailynews.com
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