Media Update – June 5, 2008 - National Coalition for Sexual Freedom

1. DSM controversy could overshadow opportunities
2. Single boomers enjoy sex and do not want to wed: poll
3. Porn Trial Is About More Than Just Smut: Tampa case to test 1970s obscenity standards in an online world
4. Jurors in Max Hardcore porn trial seek clarification
5. Confinement plea deal leaves man 50 days to serve
6. Nudist resort stirs up residents
7. Californians sweep IML 2008 National Coalition for Sexual Freedom — Media Update
June 6, 2008
www.ncsfreedom.org
media@ncsfreedom.org

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.

DSM controversy could overshadow opportunities
by Zak Szymanski
Bay Area Reporter
May 29, 2008

When Julia Serano first heard of psychologist Kenneth Zucker's appointment to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) revisions group, she saw it as an opportunity to strategize.

Zucker's work at Toronto's Clarke Institute for Psychiatry (now the Centre for Addiction and Recovery) has been hailed by ex-gay groups for his claims that too-tolerant parents enable gender disorders in children and that gender-conforming therapies – forbidding boys from playing with dolls, for instance – are effective treatments for young people.

After the American Psychiatric Association's May 1 announcement that Zucker would chair the workgroup for the DSM-V's Sexual and Gender Identity Disorders section, Serano was one of many transgender activists who began dialoguing with concerned therapists and LGBT advocates. The conversation focused on how to raise awareness about complex issues of concern, so that the new DSM – due in 2012 – accurately represented the community.

Then, the Internet firestorm hit.

Just about every well-connected LGBT message board saw a flurry of posts – some of them confusing, others transparently false – about Zucker's appointment to the APA group.

"Some of the language used … allowed the APA to simply respond to the extreme charges," said Serano. "They could say, 'Of course we're not putting homosexuality back into the DSM' and come across as very reasonable. But then, because of that, a lot of the actual concerns that people have get completely overlooked."

Arlene Istar Lev, a therapist from Albany, New York and member of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, agrees.

"I've spent much of my career criticizing Zucker's clinical strategies," said Lev, a lesbian whose 2004 book Transgender Emergence: Therapeutic Guidelines for Working with Gender-Variant People and their Families, took many of Zucker's claims to task. "The fact that I now find myself defending him against inaccurate portrayals is ironic."

"If the DSM committee stays exactly as it has been proposed, I don't actually think that anything will change for the worse. I think everything will stay the same," said Lev. "My concern is that nothing will change, and we will be left with a rigid, sexist, pathologizing document."

"There is disagreement within the community about the value of having GID in the DSM. But most of us working on the issue agree that there are some serious issues in the DSM-IV that need to be looked at," said Green. "For example, I worry that GID doesn't really separate the stress that a person feels about their gender versus the stress a person feels from the social problems that arise because they are gender-variant. It's all pushed into one big ball, so it makes people responsible for the way others react to them."

Although mental illness by definition must include suffering and distress, the diagnosis itself can create "a whole other level of stress," said Green. "It's easy to give the diagnosis and say, 'These people are socially impaired because they don't fit in.' But wait a minute. Whose fault is that? Didn't we make that up?"

Sarah Hoffman, a journalist who coined the term "Pink boys" in the 2007 San Francisco Chronicle article "Let Them Be," agrees.

"One of the people I interviewed for the article said we should change the name [of GID] to 'Persecuted Minority Syndrome,'" said Hoffman, a heterosexual mother of a gender-variant son.

It's Blanchard who championed the theories of "autogynephilia," the questionable science behind J. Michael Bailey's highly controversial 2003 book The Man Who Would Be Queen. According to Blanchard, autogynephilia describes a man's sexual arousal at the thought of himself as a woman. It is a label mostly applied to cross-dressing men who partner with women and who may seek sexual reassignment later in life.

Bailey used this information to promote his theory that there are two types of MTF transsexuals: the "gay man," who had a mostly effeminate childhood, partners with men, and changed his sex to female due to gender identity, and the "autogynepheliac," who is motivated to change sexes by erotic desire.

Diagnostic manuals have historically been racist, sexist, and homophobic, said Lev, whose book notes that crossdressing is only pathologized in "heterosexual males," because DSM authors think these patients are emulating the "the weaker and more despised sex."

Other listings in the Sexual and Gender Identity Disorders section of the DSM, a recent MSNBC piece noted, include sadomasochism and klismaphilia, or the erotic use of enemas.

"I would like to see that whole section really redone," said Lev, whose long-term goals are to see all trans identities removed from the DSM. Gender-related issues would still be dealt with in therapy, but trans people seeking medical intervention could rely on a medical diagnosis instead. (Transsexuality does already exist as a poorly-crafted medical diagnosis, she notes, and can be used for medical treatments.)

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To read this entire article, go to:
http://www.ebar.com/news/article.php?sec=news&article=3018
To respond, write to: the news@ebar.com and put "letters to the editor" in the subject line.

Single boomers enjoy sex and do not want to wed: poll
by Solarina Ho
Reuters
June 3, 2008

Single baby boomers are enjoying better sex, are open to threesomes and are not looking to get married, according to a new poll.

Forty-six percent of the 1,000 adults born between 1946 and 1964 who were questioned in the survey said they enjoyed sex more now than they did during their 20s and 30s.

"I think we're looking at a generation that really sees this time as a great period in life," said Marina Glogovac, of the online dating site Lavalife which conducted the poll.

There are an estimated 85 million baby boomers in North America, according to the American Association of Retired People (AARP), comprising nearly 28 percent of the adult population. About 30 percent of boomers are single.

The poll showed that 34 percent would have sex on a first date compared with 17 percent of singles in "generation X", or people born between 1965 and 1982.

Twenty-five percent of sexually active boomers were open to participating in a threesome.

"This is the generation that has grown up with feminism, swingers, and this whole liberation that came out of the 60s. This is when most of the people came of age," said Glogovac.

The survey of people in the United States and Canada by the company's site for older adults, prime.lavalife.com, also found that 47 percent of single boomers were primarily looking for friendship, while 19 percent were seeking a sexual companion.

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To read this entire article, go to:
http://www.reuters.com/article/lifestyleMolt/idUSN0225968720080603
To respond, comment at the bottom of the page.

Porn Trial Is About More Than Just Smut:
Tampa case to test 1970s obscenity standards in an online world
by Abbie VanSickle
St. Petersburg Times
June 2, 2008

Twelve local residents spent last week doing a dirty job for the rest of us. Jurors in the federal trial of Paul F. Little, a California man who known by the nom de porn Max Hardcore, watched hours of explicit, violent pornography to determine whether, among other things, Little violated community standards.

The case, which continues this week, has captured the attention of groups from New York City to California by raising larger questions about the legal standards for obscenity in an online world.

"It's one of first post-Internet obscenity cases. It could certainly be precedent-setting," said Lawrence Walters, an Altamonte Springs lawyer who has handled high-profile obscenity cases.

Since the early 1970s, the legal standard for obscenity has been a three-part test, including whether the average person thinks the work violates standards of the community.

Now, some legal experts wonder whether it's time for a change.

"The Internet is part of what makes the application of local community standards problematic," said Lyrissa Lidsky, a law professor at the University of Florida. "Once you put it up, it can go into all sorts of different communities."

The current standard stems from a Supreme Court decision in 1973 in the case of Miller vs. California. In that case, prosecutors accused Marvin Miller of mass mailing advertisements for adult books, including one called Sex Orgies Illustrated. The case eventually went to the Supreme Court, which developed the three-prong test to determine obscenity.

Internet distribution has also led to discussion about where prosecutors choose to try cases.

"That's the big question with respect to any obscenity case – why are they brought where they're brought," Walters said. "More and more we're seeing the government prosecuting in locations that have nothing to do with their case."

Other times, he said, a particular U.S. Attorney's Office chooses to focus on obscenity cases. So why Tampa? Prosecutors declined to say why they chose to try Max Hardcore here. The business and Little both are based in California.

This is hardly the first obscenity trial to puzzle legal experts. Such cases have a long, often politicized, history.

"It really kind of ebbs and flows with the presidential administrations," Walters said.

Few such trials took place under the Clinton administration. More have taken place during the current Bush administration.

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To read this entire article, go to:
http://www.theledger.com/article/20080602/NEWS/806020366
To respond, please write to voice@theledger.com and comment at the bottom of the article

Jurors in Max Hardcore porn trial seek clarification
by Kevin Graham
June 5, 2008
St. Petersburg Times

TAMPA — Jurors deliberating in the obscenity trial of a Hollywood pornographer sought Wednesday to clarify the meanings of words and phrases in their instructions, including "morbid and degraded," "unhealthy interest in sex," and "candid interest in sex."

U.S. District Judge Susan C. Bucklew declined their request to use a dictionary and told them to rely on their common sense. Soon after the judge's response, jurors decided to return today to continue deliberations after spending more than four hours Wednesday discussing the case.

They will decide whether the films produced by Paul F. Little and MaxWorld Entertainment Inc. — which include scenes of urinating and vomiting — violate local community standards.

In their questions to the judge, jurors also wanted further explanation on an instruction to consider whether Little's films were intended for the average person in the community or members of a deviant sexual group. The answer to that will affect how the jury considers whether the films violate community standards, one of the tests necessary to prove obscenity.

Defense attorneys had argued that the films were for a niche audience, not the average person, and therefore not obscene. They called on jurors to consider the nearly six dozen adult-oriented businesses across the Tampa Bay region and infer what that says about the community.

Edward McAndrew, a Justice Department attorney prosecuting the case, said the availability of something in a community doesn't mean it's accepted.

Prosecutors charged Little and MaxWorld with five counts of using a computer server to sell or distribute obscene matter and five counts of using the U.S. mail to deliver obscene matter.

Little performs in his films as Max Hardcore, whose Web site was housed near the federal courthouse in downtown Tampa for three years. McAndrew said that connection was why the case was tried in Tampa.

The defense says prosecutors charged the wrong people. It says Little never knew his site was hosted in Tampa and therefore could not have considered whether his work was violating community standards in Tampa.

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To read this entire article, go to:
http://www.tampabay.com/news/courts/criminal/article607836.ece
To respond, write to: the editors at http://www.sptimes.com/letters/ or comment at the bottom of the article

Confinement plea deal leaves man 50 days to serve
by Kate Braser
Evansville Courier & Press (Indiana)
June 4, 2008

Michael Thorn Anderson will serve a final 50 days in jail in what court officials describe as an unusual case in which he was accused of luring women he met on a sadomasochism Web site to his home, then confining them.

Anderson, 50, was first arrested in November 2006. The complaint stemmed from a woman's account of her condition. She said that based on Internet conversations spanning months she was persuaded to move here from Washington state woman to live in a commune called "Women Helping Women."

"He convinced her that all of her needs would be met and described a utopian-type atmosphere," Evansville Police Department officer John Cox wrote in his probable cause affidavit.

But shortly after she arrived, Anderson began demanding money, made her open five credit card accounts and surrender her debit card, the woman told police. The woman said if she resisted, she was beaten, confined in a room, denied meals or use of the bathroom.

Cox wrote that through his investigation, he became aware of other women either living there at the time or who had lived there in the past and described similar circumstances.

Anderson was released on bond until a second case was filed against him in August 2007.

In that case, Anderson was accused of befriending a woman from England on a sadomasochism Web site. After about a year, the woman agreed to fly to Evansville with her two children to live with Anderson, who had claimed to be a widower.

Vanderburgh Circuit Court Judge Carl Heldt sentenced Anderson Tuesday to a total of two years and six months in prison. But after receiving credit for time served, Anderson has only 50 days left of that sentence.

Defense attorney Glenn Grampp said the plea agreement was the product of negations with prosecutors and investigators.

"We took into account the complexity of the case, and I think everyone agreed it is a fair resolution," he said.

After the sentencing, Grampp said that because of the nature of the women's relationships with Anderson, he, prosecutors and police "had a hard time figuring out where the voluntary acts ended and the involuntary acts began."

Vanderburgh County Chief Trial Deputy Prosecutor Donita Farr agreed with Grampp.
"I can say it was a very unusual set of facts involving bondage, domination and sadomasochism," she said.

To read this entire article, go to:
http://www.courierpress.com/news/2008/jun/04/confinement-plea-deal-leaves-man-50-days-to/
To respond, comment at the bottom of the article

Nudist resort stirs up residents
by Jodie Tillman
June 5, 2008
St. Petersburg Times

LAND O'LAKES — In this gated community, the theme parties start late, and the invitations alone are enough to upset the neighbors.

"Ladies break out those naughty school girl outfits," one invitation said. "It's time to tease your way into those good grades."

"Party like a rock star," said another. "Dress like a porn star."

The neighbors are all nudists who live at Caliente Resort & Spa, Pasco's upscale, clothing-optional community that attracts thousands of tourists each year and is a full-time home to hundreds of people.

And the parties in question are monthly, sexually charged events put on by an outside "lifestyle," or swingers, group with Caliente's blessing — sparking a debate over the nature of nudism, which devotees defend as natural and nonsexualized.

"We don't want to be thrown in with the whole hedonism thing," said Doug Butler, president of the association that represents more than 350 single-family homes and condominiums.

Complaints about Caliente's connection with swingers groups reached the American Association for Nude Recreation, which late last month temporarily suspended the resort from its organization.

Caliente management said the resort "has very specific rules to provide a safe naturalist environment for our members and guests. We do not allow public displays of affection in our common areas and this policy is enforced by Caliente security."

Caliente has no reference to swingers on its Web site, though its marketing director, Angye Fox, is a featured speaker at Swingfest '08, the "world's largest swingers party and adult expo" next month in Hollywood, Fla. Her topic: "Swingers and Nudists Can Coexist!"

Caliente officials say most of the attention stems from its attempt to increase revenue by marketing toward a younger demographic through Web sites, mainstream media ads and monthly theme parties.

Aahz Party Lifestyle Group puts on the "lifestyle" parties. Peter Smith, who runs Aahz's Web site and has attended the events, said nothing untoward happens there.

Pasco officials recently got an anonymous complaint about swingers parties at private homes at Caliente, said County Commissioner Pat Mulieri. She questioned what the county could do if the parties aren't in a public place. Still, she said she hoped that Caliente tamped down the sexually themed parties, given that the county promotes its nudist resorts to tourists.

"I don't blame the people who live there," she said. "There are million-dollar homes out there. Why would they want to jeopardize that? I just think it puts kind of a black eye on the place. I've always said, 'Nude isn't lewd.' "

Smith, with the Aahz party group, said the parties aren't lewd, either.

"Ninety percent of the lifestyle people that go there are dressed," he said. "The nudists are the ones who go there naked."

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To read this entire article, go to:
http://www.tampabay.com/news/humaninterest/article607872.ece
To respond, comment at the bottom of the article

Californians sweep IML 2008
by Mister Marcus
Bay Area Reporter
May 29, 2008

It was 120 hours of non-stop leather/bdsm, leather gear shopping, parties galore, reunions, 3-day marriages, 1-night stands and it all culminated with the selection of Gary Iriza (Mr. Palm Springs Leather) as International Mr. Leather 2008 and "Boot Dog" of the Oakland area as International Mr. Boot Black.

It all took place in Chicago over the May 22-26 IML XXX weekend, the world's biggest leather contest. Cool weather prevailed, so everyone was either decked out in full leather and other materials or half-naked with buns galore, giant crotches, barking human dogs, fuzzy chests and buns, Masters dragging slaves around the hotel and women "connecting" with fervor.

There were over two dozen parties and God only knows how many one-on-one trysts. Whoever was in the room across the hall from mine made no effort to muffle their screams, moans, groans and sounds of leather hitting bare skin while handcuffs jangled, keys to them were lost and other "assordid" sounds and screams emanated from more rooms throughout the entire Hyatt Regency in Chicago. I think I'm safe in stating that a good time was had by all.

That's especially true for the owners of the Palm Springs Barracks Bar, who were the main sponsors of Mr. Palm Springs Leather, Gary Ibiza. He who walked away with the highest leather accolade that can be bestowed on a person of the leather persuasion.

The first runner-up was Bob Firth-Tessier of Montreal, Canada who caused more heads to turn in lusty stares as he traversed the various venues of the hotel.

The second runner-up, Scott Mellon of Fort Leatherdale, Florida was not lacking in masculine looks either. Scott had to have the most magical smile and twinkle in his eyes. They sure grow them hot in Florida!

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To read this entire article, go to:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24664654/
To respond, write to: the editors at letters@msnbc.com or comment at
the bottom of the article

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National Coalition for Sexual Freedom (NCSF) is a national organization committed to altering the political, legal, and social environment in the U.S. in order to guarantee equal rights for consenting adults who practice forms of alternative sexual expression. NCSF is primarily focused on the rights of consenting adults in the SM-leather-fetish, swing, and polyamory communities, who often face discrimination because of their sexual expression.

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